spiceants litle galciv kwide

I have played galciv2 non-stop for 4 days now, i did not play beta.
I have developed a way of how i play the game.
In this guide i will try to teach you how i think the early game is best played.
I believe i have the validality to write a guide to be red and learned from because i manage to beat ais consistently on their intelligent settings, look me up under my 'spiceant' alias in the metaverse.
I assume you have a general idea about how to play, you are playing on a random map of small to huge size with numbers of stars/planets etc. set to occasional with atleast 3 opponents.

In (a somewhat) chronological order:

• Put your spending to 100%, tax to 55-60% (keep aproval above 40%). Send out your flagship to explore anomalys. 50% military spending 50% social or 100% social
• Que up 4 factorys, purchase the first 3 and let the planet build the 4th.
• Start pumping colony ships under 100% military.
• The starting colony ship can be upgraded to a speed 3 or 4 with life support (depending on wether you start with ion drive) send it out to a star with planets that is far away as possible from alien civs
• Once a colony ship arrives check the star to see how many habitable planets it has, if it has more then 1 check to see which has the highest quality and colonize that one.
• Buy 1-2 speed 3-4 colony ships on your homeworld and send them out, build the next amount of colony ships required to colonize all other planets without buying them.
• If the planets are very far away and you have ion drive starting tech, research impulse drive on 100% spending while building research labs. switch back to 100% military after finishing research.
• otherwise: buy a couple (1-3) scouts (cargo hull, 6 sensors 1 hyperdrive 5 sensors 1 life support + hyperdrive) and explore for resources. Decomission when they have nothing left to explore.

Once your last colonizers arrive on their planets designate each colony for a task and name them accordingly.
designations include but are not limited to;

1. Research outpost -> Converts revenue to technology points (build with lots of labs) 1, 2 or 3 factorys + labs


2. Production outpost -> Converts revenue to social and military points (lots of factorys) Lots of factorys Starbase the occasinal farm or entertainment center for added population.


3. Economy outpost -> Substracts the recenue from people to be redirected to production (put a lot of people on this planet) 1 farm to begin with and more as time passes and population grows Enough entertainment to keep aproval above 50% Trade centers
4. Influence outpost -> generates influence (put a lot of people on this one) Similar to ecomy outpost, but with comparatively more farms and entertainment centers. this kind of planet is optional, usefull nearby planets under another civs control might give you a reason to designate your colony an influence outpost. Influence outposts can be very profitable altough it may not show so in their revenue screen, controlling a large percentage of the galactic population combined with having your borders over lots of this galaxy generates very much tourism revenue.

• In all cases quality 9+ planets should have atleast 2 factorys (or a factory bonus tile), low quality outposts may be best left without a starport.
• Turn spending from 100% military to 100% social.
• Designate your planets strategically, research aplications are fragile and better off in the back of your empire, production outposts up in front to suply the war effort and economy somewhere in the middle.
• Once your production and research outposts finish their labs and factorys begin to balance your sliders to a more balanced version like 33% research/social/military. You will have to run on this kind of spending anyway (on average)
• Designate your best planets as headquarters, for example your homeworld the economy headquarters, the outpost with the 700% manufacturing bonus tile the production headquarters, another the research HQ and your influence HQ your political headquarters
• You will probably not find situations which are ideal for my advise, you may not be capable of putting your ideal research outpost in the back or your production in the front!
• What you should build on designated planets is not absolute, if you cant run your empire on 100% spending considder using that aproval or food bonus tile on your research/production planet.
• If you manage to fail your revenue income you might want to put the trading tech as a priority, the extra money is always nice.

also:

• Economy planets are best left on quality planets (usually large or with lots of bonus tiles). where production and research outposts can easily live with a lowly quality of 5-6. Economy (revenue) -> quality ; Production -> quantity.
• Designations can be changed, when in the dire need of military convert your research outposts.
• I considder it best to have your economy produce some more revenue then you can spend so you have something to bargain with in negotiations (optional)
• Dont shy away from building economy starbases, they can expand your production at the litle cost of some constructors. Think future, investments like these return with a passion.
• Take or trade for mining starbases, as you research techs up from xeno industrial theory these will become very important and are certainly become 'not best left in drengin, yor or spiceants hands'.
• Whenever you earn to much revenue quickly build more and better spending structures, conquer an empire, build up influence or research techs to do the previous or raise diplomacy.
• I realize i havent said very much about techs, what you research is heavily subject of what you want.

My litle notebook and kwide to my mindset to the galciv II galaxy is subject to future achange and will probably be altered as spiceants superiority is subject to pagan criticism.'
(you may post your opinion and notes so that i can make change as i see fit)

Galciv2 Devs, please make your ai more efficient, it does not use its own potential expansion and growth as well as it can.

i also have a few gripes about the 100% enabled ai:

1. The ai does not win the war before it declares one. It compares military strength rather then potential military succes and overall profit
2. Uses crappy ship designs that can be improved at litle cost. For example it uses the speed 2 colony ships instead of the speed 3 which are often much better.
3. The ai does not use sensor ships AT ALL, it counters what defeats its own ships (point 1)
4. The ai does not exploit gross mistakes: i put a fleet of transports next to the drengi homeworld and it preferred to just wait while it could wipe them out
5. The ai sometimes puts super projects and galactic achievements on bonus tiles even while there are normal tiles available.
6. The ai in general doesnt appear to use bonus tiles very well
7. The ai also in general doesnt appear to run his empire very well, i can easily zoom ahead in tech
8. i in general am very adaptable compared to the ai because my economy is many times more powerfull
9. the ai does not recognize a threat when there is one: when i take over a few ais the remaining 3 ais just sit to wait and die, even if i am wary with all 3 of them. They dont unite to form a front like the good guys do against the drengin in the campaign

Stardock, please make a "sentient" level ai that fixes above issues but includes all features of the intelligent ai

regards and good night everything