I have no issues admitting I'm a new and inexperienced GalCiv player. I started playing again recently, worked myself farther through the campaign than I ever did before (and without using cheat codes), as well as doing more regular galaxy games.

I started on cakewalk, and worked myself up every time I won a game...larger universe, more opponents, etc. However, I always played a Neutral terran.

This weekend, I decided I wanted to try something different, and decided on the Yor. An Evil Yor, and on Normal which is the highest I've played so far. I was suprised by how much the game changed--I didn't just get a 'new skin' and some different bonuses, playing the Yor really seemed different even as I tried to execute the same strategy. It seemed that my economy was always poor, or near the bottom of the food chain, which made it hard to research stuff and build any significant military force. I tend to be a late-game dominator, doing as much as possible to avoid early wars and dominating in the end with better tech than the other guys.

Well, that wasn't going to happen. The other civs were outmatching me in every category, I was lucky if I was a close second, and often I was a distant 3rd or worse. I had a decent number of colonies, and I killed of some minor races just for thier planets, but it didn't do me much good. I had better military tech in some areas, but my economy sucked so bad that it didn't make much of a difference. The Altarians got a bug in their butt and declared war on me out of the blue (said with an innocent look--I mean, how could they feel threatened by a few frigates pre-positioned at some of thier larger planets? And those troop transports? Nooo, those aren't troop transports, those are for having...uh...tea parties! Yes, that's right. It's a Tea Party Transport. Care for some crumpets?). The first round of the war I captured a few of their better planets but it didn't make much difference, it was only a matter of time until they wore me down and marginalized me. Even tho I switched several planets to pure economy planets, it was too little too late. My population wasn't high enough to provide a huge high-tax boost on short notice.

So that ended that game. Seeing as I only play on the weekend, I decided to try a new game this morning with the Terrans again, on Normal, same galaxy specs and opponents as my Evil Yor attempt. Except this time, I persued my normal course of Neutrality. And it worked, as it should--or I should say, as it has in the past games I've played. I study for high trade and diplomacy, trade for techs, and build a massive economy with which I can simply buy some super ships and build lesser ships realatively quickly. Once and awhile I'll end up with a couple massive production planets, but not always and I don't worry about it much. I use influence and cultural conquest a bit to get certain planet, especially away from allies. Right now I'm in first, or a tight race for first with the Altarians who have been last for most of the game but somehow got a huge population explosion. I'm guessing thier taking those low PQ planets that I spurned had something to do with it (most of them are in my territory, and the Altarians have enough influence that thier citizens aren't revolting easily).

I haven't had any civs decide to attack me, even tho I went from a first place power to a 3rd (I don't have a military to speak of--just alot of constructors and freighters), and I've been able to trade quite a bit with the other civs. The only war right now is between the Altarians and the Drenigan, and that seems to be going nowhere.

So it seems that a neutral civ with a focus on a huge economy seems to be the way to go for me. I'm still suprised at how different the game plays on a different civ w/ a different alignment however.