After playing a few games, I've run into some frustrations. To me, the game's overall difficulty takes wild swings in either direction. You see, I play GalCiv2 because I'm so bad at RTS, but playing a complicated game like this makes me feel good about myself.
But, it looks like I would make a pretty bad ruler of a race. Mind you, all of this is based on NORMAL difficulty.
To name a few things that have me grinding my teeth...
The game's balance seems to swing wildly between races. I've yet to play a game where the Arceans ever became an impressive, driving force in the galaxy. The Torians have wasted me several times now. The Altarians could steamroll me. But the Terrans and Drengin break like twigs before my fleets.
I can never seem to get the jump-start I hope for. I rush to buy factories and trade centers, buy colony ships immediately, and rush to establish new colonies, but for some absolutely inexplicable reason, this actually results in huge debts even though my military upkeep is next to nothing. Do new colonies actually cost more than they give you? This just doesn't seem right. I even took care to research Xeno Economics, but that didn't do anything to balance the national budget.
All of you were newbies at one time, right? Well, what mistakes did you make in the beginning, and what mistakes do you feel I'm making? Even better, what can I do to get a feel for what will win a game?