Difficulty levels affecting gameplay?

If you are losing on the very lowest setting then, to be honest, I think that you don't yet understand how to play.

You mentioned however that you are working on "tough", if that is the case, then you should probably start off on a lower setting until you really get the hang of things.

But, here are a couple things that might help. First, the AI isn't as good at managing small empires as humans. So, if you put your settings for stars, planets, and quality to "rare", then it is much easier to win. This way you can get your feet wet with out getting swamped.

Second, one of the most important skills to learn is how to manage your economy early game. Learn to balance between buying things and letting them build (buying gives you instant bonuses, but can tank your economy by adding upkeep when you don't have the tax base to support it).

Also, during the early game NEVER, EVER, EVER buy on credit. The intrest will kill your economy, and over the length of the game adds up to quite a bit. Interest buying is best end game when you want to make massive fleet upgrades, and don't intend to be around long enough to pay the piper.

What, specifically, are you having problems with?

Where are you falling behind? When are you falling behind? What type of galaxies are you playing on?

I only can only be number one in tech. And those are mostly soft techs. So the enemies just come in and pound me with their superior military.

But when I try to build more factories in the beginning and compete with military I fall way behind in tech and becomes a caveman soon so everyone can easily "colonize" my planets.

I usually don't have a fixed setting for the galaxies, because I kept losing so I had to switch to see if I can do beter. I'm trying to get by (win) on medium galaxy with abundant everything. But that's just impossible. The initial colonizing leaves me bankrupt. When I do that and build all econ/tech my defence is almost non-existant. So I got the most superior deplomacy by far, terriforming techs, research techs, economy techs etc... but I have no defence. But when I try to build a military early on with so many planets all having negative income due to the tiny populations I run into serious faniancial problems, then my research gets hurt and become obsclete quickly and there was no hope of recovery.

That's why I don't find the game fun, it's too hard no matter how I try.

My advice would be, first off, to reduce your settings to Common everything. That should provide enough planets for you to get off to a reasonable start, without there being enough planets for the AI to be able to take off. Also, your best bet is probably to keep reducing the Difficulty Level until you can find one you can beat. Then you can figure out what you are doing before trying to play against AI levels that can challenge experienced players.

On the military side of things, there is a structure called the Spin Control Centre that becomes available with the tech Total Majesty. Ships in orbit of the planet it is on are counted as having five times their actual strength. I generally find that I can build ships with plasma weapons and PD defences and, with the Spin Control Centre, still look tough to the AIs with considerably more advanced combat techs.

On the economic side, the general recommendation is that you set your taxes really low until your available money is nearly gone, and only then raise your taxes. Your population will expand faster with the lower taxes, and then you have a large tax base when you raise taxes.

I think it is worth repeating, it is the difficulty level that you probably need to keep lowering until you can beat it. There are also strategy guides here, and at galciv.wikia.com (I found some of them quite informative) and probably other places around the net.

Oh, and one other thing: how many races are you playing against? If you play a Good race and you include only good and neutral races as opponents, you should probably have an easier time getting established.

Oh and no matter which way you choose to win the game by, having an adequate military is key. Even peaceful means, most time AI won't pick on you and go for softer targets.. which is why minors bite the dust so easy.

I'll try those tips and see how I do.

So how did people manage large galaxies with lots of planets? I just get overwhelmed despite it being a turn based game.

I just thought I'd toss some general thoughts your way, some of this may help you out.

- If you aren't going to focus on any military at all early on, consider making diplomacy a strong suit through your racial choices and techs.
- Keep in mind factories affect not only military production, but social production as well.
- Switch around your economy priorities often. Perhaps you don't need any military production for a brief time and you can spend nothing on it while you focus on research and social. Never set taxes so high that your overall approval rating is under 70%. Try to keep approval above 70% for every planet you have, when possible.
- Use your free colony ship on a larger planet, not the close by 4 or so quality planet you're likely to have. When you do colonize new planets, set their priority to social for that planet and get factories up first, since more factories mean you can build other structures faster.
- Consider building at least a couple of fighters, because a few ships is definitely better than no ships when it comes to keep up with the AI.
- Never underestimate the value of engine techs and speed bonuses, because whether it's a land grab, resource grab, or just getting trade going quickly, speed helps a lot.
- Starbases are critical. Grab those resources before the AI does, as much as possible, especially the green (economy) ones and red (military) ones.
- You may find it helpful to put all your eggs in one basket briefly. For instance, if you have mostly planets with no buildings on them yet, you might want to not only put factories down first (you should ALWAYS build factories first on a new planet!), but also put most or all of your spending on social so that you get those factories done asap.
- Long term, you should have mostly balanced spending. You need some in military to produce either military ships or constructors for starbases (you will really never lack for need of starbases probably until you can't build any more), social to keep your building construction and upgrade going, and research is obvious.
- Don't wreck your economy. You'll notice the AI often grabs up planets, and that's useful, but you can kill your economy if you grab too many planets too quickly, because they have maintenance costs before you even build anything on them. As you build those factories, your maintenance costs will climb a lot.
- Always build farms before your population on a planet caps out, unless you think that particular planet has enough population already.

To give an example of a good game, the one I'm about to finish has been strong the whole way. I am not the most powerful, militarily. But, I dominate most of the galaxy because I made it a priority to build colony ships early and starbases later on, combined with strong tech spending, so I have most of the map covered due to tons of cultural flips. I have a tax rate of over 50% which is normally bad juju, but I am keeping my overall approval over 70% at all times. I have a population that is essentially at the top of the graph and everyone else is almost entirely flat on the graph. But, my spending almost exceeds my taxes and tourism/trade income anyway because I have so many factories on so many planets. It's important to learn to ride that line where you're always just a step ahead of disaster.

I always get bankrupt with early expansions. Too many planets, but if you let the AI take them all it's also bad.

And I have a problem with getting planets and starbases, can't pump out colony ships and constructors together at the same time.

Those military techs take a lot of time to research, if you go for them what about the social/econ/research improvement techs?

And I have approval rate problems, it's usually around 50 percent.

So should I go for starbases or planets?

dsjdsj. Try playing as the YOR.
They get a small economy bonus which will help with cash.
They also get ION drive and +25 miniturization which will help with colony ship speed, and +20 military production which will help with..err..military production.

Research speed improvements and sensors.
Sensors will alow you to build survey ships to find cash in space. A real life saver.
When setting up, choose +30 economy and moral boosting picks.
These will help with cash flow.

When setting up, choose +30 economy and moral boosting picks.

I agree with Vulcan here, if you are indeed having these problems. I would also suggest looking into maybe adding some to your technology rate as well. Either by starting abilities or by choosing the Technologists listing for your governments party.

This was how I started until I got a good grasp of the game play mechanics. Once you understand them and can balance them fairly well, you can experiment with the other racial abilities and government parties.

I have problems setting up the initial advantages. I don't really know what is good.

economy, morale, population growth.

economy, morale, population growth.

Amen

What about Trade, Diplomacy, Tech and PQ? They all sound very important.

And what does Creativity do?

Trade. I find that taking pics in economy will generate far greater income. Plus you get the bonus from the begining and don't have to wait.

Diplo. Very important. But you have two brances of the Tech tree, 1 TG, and 1 Wonder dedicated to it. You can pick up plently in game once you have a good feel for the game itself.

Tech. Utilize Tech trading and you will never be that far behind.

PQ. never used it. And as my good friend Purge showed me, it is not always necessary to build something on every tile and still get the victory.

Creativity. Never used it but I think I read somewhere that it leads to technological break throughs.