I had tons of problems with galciv1, I could only beat it at sub-human. The AI was simply too good at colonizing planets and expanding influence. After my first game at sub-human in galciv2 I discovered a few strategies that have made my second game at Hard (All races are intelligent) an easy affair.
Here are some of my personal strategies....
- Colonize as many planets early (obviously). I set the production meter to 100% and buy colony ships early on. By the time I'm done colonizing all possible planets I'm usually almost bankrupt.
- Make about 4-5 scouts early on to find those resources. This is what the AI always does so it must be important.
- Constantly adjust the social/military/research meters to reflect what you're currently trying to accomplish. Early on military should be a priority to get those scouts and colony ships built.
- I always make sure I'm way ahead of every race technologically after a couple years into the game.
- Get as much money as possible from the minor races. If you attack them and destroy their military many minor races (not the evil ones) will pay you HUGE sums of money for peace. Creat peace and attack several times until that strategy stops working then just take the planets. This can reward you tremendously allowing you to keep taxes low and spending high.
- Don't build up military early in the game, pay tributes if required.
- Concentrate on getting trade routes going early on, but don't create trade routes with races that would be good candidates to conquer. Before attacking a race, be sure to check their relations with other civs to avoid getting into a conflict with several races at once.
- Concentrate on building several factories for every planet and starports. This will allow you to keep your military lean, but when you get into a conflict you can produce a formidable military is as few as 5 turns. Make sure your economy is strong during conflicts, seek peace if you are in financial trouble.
- During peace, churn out constructors almost exclusively. Build a vast network of powerful starbases. They will help tremendously.
- Constantly upgrade your ship designs to include new technology. If you have enough money you can easily upgrade your ships.
- Your ship stats improve when you kill enemies. One great strategy is to leave a fleet of ships outside of a planet your at war with and destry every ship they build one at a time. Your ship's stats will improve and they'll never be able to build a fleet on that planet to attack you. If you can do this to every one of their planets you will annilhilate them quickly.
- If the race your at war with surrenders to another race, if possible attack that race and try to take control of those planets that they just acquired. Those planets will be undefended for a few turns. In addition, get constructors out immediately and capture the resource that just became available- buy the constructors if you have to. The AI will never buy constructors so you'll have a few turns to claim the resources.
- When you attack a planet look at how many soldiers are defending, if it's below 10,000 then information warfare and about 2,000 of your soldiers should do the job. Anything higher and you may want to use mass drivers if you don't have alot of transports available.
- I build starports on every planet for defence & constructors.
- AI usually will only attack one planet at a time so fortify that planet well. When the AI stops attacking it usually means their military is depleted. Good time for counter offensive.
- If you're breaking down a civ, don't go after the fortified starbases, you will loose too many chips. Destroy the civ first and snag the unclaimed reasources left over quickly.
- I usually keep planetary projects well balanced, unless the planet is a 4 or lower then they specialize in manufacturing or research. Always check on the population levels on the better planets, make sure you are doing enough farming as your pop grows.
- If I have a ton of money at any point, I start spending it. I usually set my espinage(sp) levels way up, production all the way up, etc. Also, building up a big military can be profitable. If you push around the little guys you can get huge payoffs to finance excessive spending.
- Also, Whenever you do a trade with the AI, make sure you ALWAYS request money and adjust the slider to what the AI is willing to give. I frequently give tech to the minor civs for money, never to the major ones.
That's all I can think of for now. Like I said I'm completely dominating at the hard levels now, I may up the difficulty to the max for my next game to see how well I do.
