Need help starting out

I've only played a little of Galactic Civilizations 2, and I'm getting my ass handed to me in 3. I've tried a few different things, military focus, money focus, tech focus, and even a mix of all; however, I keep running into problems. When I finally get a few planets claimed and star-bases around important resources, almost all the AI start war with me and they have the same tactics. If I keep my ships together and try and fight them, they split them up with troop transports and come from every angle possible. If I split my ships up they come in one force and go straight for my production. If I defend my planets they send all their forces to one and I have no time or warning of which place is attacked.

 

I also find that the AI ships are impossibly better than mine, even when I focus on ship, weapons, and defense research they can 1 vs 1 any of my ships with a small ship. Any advice would help as I have no idea what I'm doing wrong here.

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Reply #1 Top

If the AI is declaring war on you it likely means you have a weak military and you are easy pickings. You can get a very good idea by looking at the negative modifiers on the diplo screen. If they say something like they could crush you easily then you need more military.

Tech trading helps. I know people hate this in other games but the AI ia decent idea on how to value it's techs

Ship roles in combat are critical. This is how you "control" combat. I would focus on figuring this system out if you want to improve your odds.

Don't have the YOR in your game. They are kinda OP if you are new. Their AI couldn't play their mechanics until near launch. Now it plays the Yor like it should and it's way too powerful. This will get fixed. 

Use the graphs.Use this to balance your empire. If you have triple the military production of the other AIs but your research is terrible drop some of your military production (or ramp it up and crush them) 

Reply #2 Top

Just a quick question, how many colonies do you have relative to the AI ? You might have done poorly during the colony rush and are now paying for it...

Second, choose a friend and open border treaty it, and send freighters, this will give you a huge relationship boost. Also try spending a few turns researching diplomacy techs. Also, at the very start, go to governor and move the indicator away from money. You need research and production and not money. This should give you a boost.