Normal level is insanely difficult...

"At Normal the Ai is running at 75% of economic capability. Ai evaluate Common human tactics."
Right from the manual. If you are insinuating the ai has advantages below the Intelligent level, this just ain't so. After intelligent, it does get cheats. Right in the manual again.

This is not an easy game to learn. However you can adjust each race's intelligence level to suit you. Just keep trying different combinations until you find the right one.

You make it sound like the Ai is building things and colonizing in just a few turns on a huge map - yet you say you have ships with only 2 movemnts each. That is one heck of a lot of turns more than a few to see that much.. . You should build your own colony ships with greater speed - you don't have to use the default one.

Maybe you should begin on a small map to get the hang of things and play against only a few Ai. Read the strategy stuff on the forums here. It is a facscinating game with a very good AI - but the learning curve can be steep. Don't give up before you have started.

The beginning can be difficult, although I've never seen something quite as extreme as what you describe. A couple things that might help:
1. Ctrl-N until you get an starting place you like. If you want an easier beginning game, wait until you get a home planet with good production bonus tiles.
2. Buy a factory on your home planet on your first turn. Maybe one on the second, too.
3. Go to the Domestic Policy tab and set your spending allocation to 100%. Think about what to set your military, social, and research sliders to, as well. There are many theories about the best settings for the beginning. But spending allocation to 100% on the first turn is an absolute must (it should start here by default, imho).
3. Some races start with better engine technology or with a miniaturization bonus, which can make a difference. Try playing one of these to get better colony ships.
4. You must design your own ships to play GalCiv2; the alternative is not practicable. On your first turn, design a cargo-hull ship with the colony module and as much engine power as possible; just double (or right?) click the components to add them, it doesn't have to be pretty. This colony ship will be faster than the default model and will help you in the land-grab race.
5. Auto-survey is ok, but it isn't ideal. During the colonization period, your flagship's primary mission is to scout for good planets, and grabbing anomalies is secondary (but still important).
6. Start the game in cheat mode and hit Ctrl-U (I think?) to reveal the map. This might show you what the AI is doing to get ahead.

Good luck!

Veblen, is practicable when you practically predict something or when you predict somehting practically? Maybe its when something is able to be practical. Good word, fun to say.

To the OP, definately start on a smaller map, big maps can be difficult to manage even if when you do have the basics such as colony ship building down. Personally I recomend the dread lords campaign as it will give you a really good intro to most aspects of the game. Keep playing, in about a week you'll look back at this post and chuckle at it as you just completely stomped 5 races on challenging.

And just because the AI grabs a fwe more planets than you doesn't mean that the game is over and impossibly difficult. Build some offensive ships, research planetary invasion, you know. . . .

Although I really find it hard to believe that the AI got 14 colonies before you got one, got a saved game or pictures of that? I am guessing you got a really, really bad starting position. In that case, just remake the game.

Also, who are you playing as? As Terrans, I almost always have the same problem you have. Just makes the game much more challenging. However if you try a different race, say the Torians, you should dominate fairly easily. I started out playing the Terrans only and kept cursing my luck that I was getting whiped every time. Aside from the fact that I'm not awfully good yet, it just goes to show that the different races have different abilities, so play around with others and see how you fare (if you haven't already).

Terrans have high skill points but weak starting techs.

In game terms, crap early, better later.

I found a huge jump in game difficulty from playing at the beginner level to then going to the normal one.
What has made a difference was using the latest 1.1 beta 3 patch. I do believe that there have been efforts made to address the difficulty levels, making it easier at the lower ones. Whether that affects the normal level of gameplay, to the extent that I'm finding, or I'm just getting better I don't know. But I do know that playing a large map at the normal level isn't as much of a problem as it was before.

Don't know what is more difficult. Trying to understand the mechanics of gameplay or getting these forums to 'behave' long enough to place a post

I think its a beginners mistake to try and buy those colony ships.

To do so on large/huge galaxies is quite silly. After all, you start with 5000 and at most you can buy 4 or 5 ships and then it's finished.

What you should do instead, especially on those larger galaxies, is to first built a research lab, and tech-rush speed upgrades, possibly up to impulse drive. If you have Ion's you can make ships that go 4 units, if you research impulse, you can make your colony ships go a whopping 6 moves a turn.

Simultaneously, buy a couple of factories, maximize your industrial capacity and tax revenue, and spent it all on millitary. Just buy only factories! No ships.

If you do this, and buy a couple of factories on 2 or 3 worlds, by game turn 6 or 7 you are churning out 1 colony ship per turn average

But its very important not to get your hopes down! On my first games I found the AI overwhelming too, but after you get the hang of it and follow a few common sense guidelines, you'll find yourself smiling at beating down those AI's

I've found it very useful to specialize home planet for factories and a manufacturing capital. Just fill it with them, buying one each turn, and you'll be able to produce one colony ship per turn. I stop researching after I get impulse drive and focus on expanding and improving planets mainly with factories and labs.

After I have all the planets I can get, I turn to research, and the rate will be 10 times faster than any other race. This seems to work easily on large maps on Tough, and I'd expect it to work even better on bigger maps.

It is true that the "normal" level seems very hard at the beginning. On the other hand, it can be quite easy, once you start designing your own ships. Here is a strategy I found useful at with small maps at "normal" level:

- Specialize your homeworld to trade and built some Trade Centers. This allows to buy a lot of useful things each turn
.
- Design your own fast explorers and colony ships. Remember that you can build in multiple life supports to enhance the range and several drives to enhance speed. Use Transport hulls, for you don't need armor with that kind of ships. So you have plenty of space for enhancements. Ships with great range allow you to colonize systems that yout opponents cannot even reach - a effective strategy at this level.

- Colonize sone additional planets and specialize them for manufacturing and research. Always add a entertainment center and set your tax rate to an amount that provides your citicens with 100% content. That gives an immense growth bonus - so your colonies will grow rapidly.

- Use constructors to build influence bases that will help you create an united cultural sphere. Research gives them great influence later in the game.

- Build some strong ships very soon to protect each of your planets. That should prevent evil races from trying to eradicate you early in the game.

- With that strategy should soon have a much greater population and research than your opponents. Just use all your influence ressources, research the corresponding technologies - and a cultural victory is easily archieved (a little too easy, maybe).

Try setting the Stars to "loose clusters". It makes things a lot fairer. When they're on "tight clusters" someone (ie, you, or, in my games, the Yor) usually gets hosed by being placed far away from everything else, while a good bulk of the other players get placed within 5 parsecs of just about every inhabitable system out there.

I've had games on Tight Clusters where I haven't been able to settle a single colony aside from my initial two planets. On Loose Clusters, I can generally get at least one or a few (depending on Galaxy size) and have a fighting chance.