I'm new to Galactic Civilizations but have played a couple games at lower levels to get some victories under my belt. I have moved up to challenging. On two occassions, I've had dream universes laid out in front of me. I make factories on 700 Manufacturing squares and start going to town, churning out colony ships and expanding like crazy.

Then I pull the mini-map back and see every civilization in the game, ALL 9, have done nothing. They all colonize the second planet in the home system, then, do nothing. I'm colonizing planets right next to them and they do nothing. I did this in one game and finished it off. So, I start a new game on the same level, and the same thing happens.

It's another great start -- two 300 manufacturing squares on the home world and some choice planets in reach. I build like crazy and again, they're doing nothing. It's like they just give up if the start is too good. I then bumped the game to tough and the AI seemed to kick in again, allowing me to play a very close fought game at the moment.

But, I was wondering if anyone has experienced this in their game play where the computer seems to do absolutely nothing but use the initial colony ship to get a dog planet then watch you take everything else.