I'll suggest you lower difficulty first
this game AI is quite good, it knows how to play & is not scripted
it has no advantage over the player until "Intelligent / Rough"

one good idea is to cheat your way through one game with Intelligent AIs or better
(if you cheat you won't be destroyed)
try not to influence AIs too much by your actions and watch it and take notes

Colonisation is one of the AI's weakest areas, (it has more affect on smaller maps/planet numbers in my opinion) they frequently build movement two ships and often take ages to get impulse drive and overload on range modules which means there ships are even slower.

It's not the AI's which are colonising fast (unless u have a freak game) it that your slow piekillerman 5-8 planets in a year seems like a shockingly low number, how many colonisable planets are there within 5 sectors of your homeworld.

Quick colonisation tips:

Sensors bonuses are great!!!!
Pop growth and homeworld morale are important. You dont want to be settling planets with 30 colonists like the AI does.
5000 creds should buy u 3/4 colony ships with speed of 4 do this while your building industry up.
Get your homworld industry so that you are building top of the range fast colony ships every 2 turns
Colonise outside in - leave crappy planets that aliens cant get too easily to last.
Dont colonise planets until u have to - keeping morale high eg 100 on homeworld (low taxes) means early planets will cost u money ie 12pt only colonise if u need range or an AI can get to that planet that turn, also means that AI will waste time moving colonys ships to planets that you will get (sensors can spot danger). Once you have enough colony ships in range of planets colonise everything left and whack up taxes.
Use 100% spending on military.

Lenius.

As I have found out the Ai plays like a human sometimes. If you and a race are friends and you are weak they will crush you as you are easy pickens and will increase their domain.

Like civ4 multiplayer, without the tyrades of hysterical abuse at your "cheating"

that all makes sence i just lost the disk and didn't know you didn't need it until last night so i didn't play for like a month so im a restarter not a beginner. oh and i was playing with nomarl as the difficulty seting witch i used to be good on. and the 5-8 planets in one year was due to the fact that everycolonizable planet i found after the 5-8 was already taken by the korx (i checked the save it was the korx)

Think your strat is very flawed h13coplus. Many of your planets will be low population planets which will mean your economy will take ages to get going. If you use sensor bonuses you wont need scouts at all saving a lot of time. Buying all those factories is waste you could build them while buying colony ships. Using non homeworld to build colony ships is prob not a good idea unless you are on a second colony phase and they have at least 1000 colonists.

What i do usually...

Pick max sensor bonus and 20% pop growth (assume 5000 creds)

Buy 3/4 speed 4+ colony ships over 3/4 first turns while 100% social on factories build enough factorys so can build colonys in 2 turns. Keep homeworld morale at 100 (max growth, low taxes). Spam out colony ships every 2 turns with 500 colonists on board. Research impulse at appropriate time upgrade colony ship design to about movement 7ish. Only colonise planets at this time if you need range or opp will take that turn (you will run out of money otherwise 'cos of maintenance). Once you have enough colonys in space to prevent opp's from getting to planets colonise all those in range max out taxes. Congratulations 1st(poss last) colony phase is over.

That strat should net u 16-20 planets very quickly. If homeworld gets to below 2600 i believe it will repopulate at slower rate thats why i max growth (100 morale). With 20% pop growth should grow 360 every 2 turns while yout taking out 500 every two turns.


Lenius.

I usually buy the first factory on homeworld and the first two coloniy ships...I'll go ahead and buy a third if I find a third empty planet nearby with hi PQ to colonize. I ignore the second planet in home system for quite a while, it's not worth it if you have other choices. Build a couple markets early on your planets if you can, it won't take long before they start paying off as they get upgraded. Embassies, while very important later, are not so important at first and you can wait until you have a market/lab/entertainment built. Where your empire meets another, build multiple embassies on each planet and use influence starbase. You can also get a lot of help from economy starbases, though it takes a little while to get to the point where you can start turning out lots of constructors to send to them. If you build 3-4 warships, even low level ones, the other civilizations will generally not pick on you. And remember: what looks like a huge military advantage on paper could really amount to only a few ships--in other words, if you've properly built up your economy early you can often catch up quickly by just spitting out a half dozen ships or less.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned: The AI's will send colony ships with 50, instead of 500, on them. This allows them to keep most of their population for tax purposes and since you need population to have good population growth, maxes out the pop growth too.

The only time this hurts them is if they find a planet near one you've had established for a while...you'll probably end up having it flip to you because there'll be enough of a population difference for your culture to subvert it.

it has no advantage over the player until "Intelligent / Rough"

Actually, it's Gifted/Painful where the AI first gains an advantage. Intelligent/Tough is the best, fair game the AI has.

New colony ships should nearly always take up half a planets pop or 500 colonists which ever is more in my opinion to prevent the previous mentioned flaw from happening or at least being so long term crippling.

First, I went back and found your first post...you did mention AI's sending 30 out on a colony ship.

I didn't notice this until the population growth was tweaked in one of the earlier 1.1 betas. If your suggestion was followed...having to max out a colony ship... it would severly limit colonization across the board.

I play on larger maps where it makes sense to send out low population colony ships because it's going to be a long time before anyone shows up...let alone able to invade. I can understand how the practice could backfire on a smaller map.

Hmmm... since the human player knows what the game settings are, are the AI players given the info so they can evaluate an opening strategy?

I think although it may be less that a planet with 2600 on it will produce the max amount of colonists it can each turn. If you have no pop growth bonus then you will add 75 people to that planet every turn assuming 41-75 morale. If a colony ship takes 2 turns you can keep the planet at 2600 (max growth and ship colony out with 150 pop every two turns).

100 morale would be 2 turn colony ship with 300 pop and staying at 2600 (max growth population)

Colonising 20 planets at 500 pop per colony ship should be fine esp with pop growth rate bonus, if your homeworld gets to 2600 you can just start shipping out 300 pop ships.

While typing this just realised that buying an entertaiment center on homeworld would mean that you wouldn't have to have v. low taxes to keep morale up!!!!! Gonna try this next game colony phase should be ridiculously fast now.


Lenius.