Well, you can always use the cloning cheat, and the teleporting one. You easily out colonize them with that.

Well I play on "Intelligent" and can usually win even when drinking beer. I usually play the Thalans (Industrialist) and trade off a bit of social & military to get PQ and Lucky.

First thing I would say is that for the first couple of dozen turns, you have to meticulously optimise eveything for maximum efficiency, Make sure you're not wasting any production.

On my first turn, I obselete all core designs, make the fastest colony ship that can reach nearby stars and buy a research building. First tech to research is Xeno Labs. Set military and research @ 50%, social to 0%. Spending at 100%. You should get the new tech in 1 turn; upgrade your lab and buy a colony ship (noticeably cheaper for having had 1 turns worth of production). Then, as I usually play gigantic maps, I follow the engine tree to Impulse drive to get the bonus movement, then planetary improvements (those yummy 10% bonuses), then keep pumping out colony ships and hope to get to Interstellar Republic before the money runs out. There's usually a lean period until I can get some trade set up. Economy, Economy, Economy: Most planets I put on this build queue: Factory, starport, market, research, entertainment ctr (depending on any specific planetary bonuses).

I don't bother building militay ships until I've met at least 2 civilisations and one of them starts getting lippy. Then just the bare minimum to stop them declaring war on you. It doesn't even matter if they do and snaffle the odd outlying PQ8 world. Just keep building that economy. Wherever possible, incite wars or ill-feeling between the computer players.

Once your core worlds are running smoothly, add a farm to just about every planet of PQ8 or above. Population = money and also makes you very difficult to invade. Convert your military production into a massive constructor building program; put economy bases wherever they will cover more than one good world (the best I ever had was 6). Obviously, grab any resources you can, but only develop economic or morale ones for now. Pay off nearby civs to keep them minimally sweet. Don't worry too much about them declaring war; there's usually a 6-12 turn lag between declaration and any serious actual threat, enough to start building ships and do a crash program of military research (this can be good, because you can wait until you see what weapons and defenses he uses, and customise your military to defeat his). Remember that you can switch military production from one design to another without loss - a 90% built constructor easily turns into a half-built heavy fighter. Do NOT erse - this is EASILY neglect to get Eyes Of The Universe - this is EASILY the most powerful wonder in the game, and gives you a huge defensive advantage. Concentrate half your ships on picking off transports, fleet the other half and use the fleet to destroy individial opponents, Carefully rotate damaged but experienced ships to safe areas to rest. Experience is precious, because you have more powerful ships that do not drain your economy to maintain. Stop building military ships as soon as it is evident that the tide is turning in your favour, but don't neglect the opportunity to grab a few resources. Resume your constructor program until your economy is basically maxed out, then switch resources to technology. At this stage you can start getting military techs, It's often worth changing "direction": the other computer players will have noted what weapons you have built, and will adapt their fleets accordingly. Take the opportunity to research a completely different tree against which they will be defenceless; your massive economy will easily allow you to overtake them.
When you have consolidated, switch to military production, not forgetting to build some ultra-fast transports (40 moves isn't too many, 3 billion tropps is usually enough) and crush those filthy aliens like the scum they are!

Make sure to upgrade your experienced ships....

Suicidal is tough. Strategy depends on map size.

One thing to keep in mind though is that you want to put up a fleet to discourage attacks as soon as everybody starts getting ships built.

You cannot outproduce the AI is everyone grows up in their initial colonized space. You must conquer one neighbor or multiple minor races with super planets right as soon as you can. You need twice the geographic terrain under your control to equal the AI's production.

The AI will waste production on defending worlds and slower speed fleets, and you can offset the production advantage by multiplying the effectiveness of your fleets by using better sensors and speed on your fleets.

Be aggressive and concentrate your forces.

Thank you V1m. That will give me a bit of direction on something new to try. I guess I haven't been paying as much attention to economy off the bat that I should... I usually concentrate on production levels first... just getting all the building techs as fast as possible. Though I guess in some ways that hurts as it starts getting harder to upgrade new planets. Hmmm...

Also I've never bothered going above the first sensor tech... haven't thought about the bonus of that eyes of the universe. Me thinks I missed something important there. I'll have to try that in my next game.

Anyway, I guess to answer P0rcup1ne, I mainly have trouble on any map where there are lots of planets... so say large - gigantic with common or better stars and habitable worlds. I'm usually left with about 1/5th of the planets compared to the computer adding to the fact that they have massive bonuses on the higher difficulty levels means I get left in the dust fast in tech and military. I can win when I limit the universe to where everyone pretty much only gets their respective home worlds even on suicidal... but I really want to play with lots of planets because it's much more fun to take over an opponent when they have more than 3 planets... I want to fight opponents when they have you know... 50 planets. Something that will give me a long war. But on the really high difficulty levels, if there are tons of planets... I get left in the dust and end up having to scrape for a diplomacy win by hoping the Arceans win (I play neutral). ;;

the learning curve for this game is a bitch, that's for certain. just make sure you don't push yourself past the point that your enjoying yourself while you learn

ok, a few points

few planets-trade dominates, lots of planets-taxes dominate. at least if you build you economy properly. stock exchanges are your friends.

keeping them off your back is paramount. check out this thread for some tips on this https://forums.galciv2.com/?AID=122425

colony rush with rush buying of ships is suicidal on the largest maps, at least with lots of planets like you want to play on. perhaps buying one or 2 factories, but much more than that can prevent you from sustaining your rush. be prepared to let your tech fall behind a bit at first for the sake of getting more/better colonies. there are a few exceptions, impulse drive can do wonders for your rush. getting universal translator is a must of course, and diplomatic relations for dimlomatic translator tradegood tends to pay off in the long run. trade you can pass on if you don't intend to do much trading, but remember that money is not the only reason to trade. there are a few others, but i think their merits are covered in other posts or attatched threads. one point ppl often miss in their colony rush is population growth. not only does it allow you to spit out lots of full colony ships, it means you have enough population to begin taxing. that tax money allows you to continue your colony rush when you have spent your initial money, and turn over to develop your infrastructure properly when it ends. choosing a racial bonus is the best way to make sure you have a healthy pop at the end of your rush. it also makes it more practical to turn your taxes down to boost your initial growth that way.

my main concern in choosing my racial bonuses is the beginning of the game. later issues i deal with as they come easily enough if i get a good start, even on a bad map. to that end here is roughly what i take, give this a try then modify to suit your tastes.

+30 population growth
+10 morale(not for race with morale bonus like drengin, it overwrites rather than stacks)
+30 economy
lucky
+10 social or military production

i think that is 10 pts worth anyhow. that should serve you well during colony rush, and is not too bad later on. if you build minimal ships social production will probably pay off better than military. military will help you crank out those colony ships tho.