I'll give the same advice I give everyone that is struggling with getting out paced by the AI:

1. 2-1 ratio on Manufacturing Plants or Research Centers vs Farms on every single on of your Manufacturing and Research worlds. If you do not have enough tiles for this, a minimum of 2 farms with a Food hub and the rest of the tiles as Manufacturing Plants or Research Centers. Do not worry about approval, see next tip.
2. Build Economy Starbases, these are your biggest boosters to planetary production. You can fit 7 around a system, one in the middle(if a system has 2 planets place it in between them if not as close to you Planet as possible) and the rest at each hex point 5 tiles from the center one. Some you will not be able to place until you get the first range extender if there is only one planet. But the four that you will be able to place should do fine until you research the first extender tech. You want to get the approval modules up asap.
3. Wise choice of Ideology traits. There are several ways to do this, my favorite is Pragmatic first for the 3 free constructors, 1 I use to make a Eco starbase in my starter system the other 2 I upgrade to colonizers. Benevolent next for the free colony ship. Malevolent 3rd for the Intimidation center, I then beeline this tree all the way to 20% RP at the end. I am sure others will show you other choices that can be equally beneficial.
4. I usually spend my starting credits building up my first 3 worlds, Homeworld as a hybrid Manu/Research world and next two as a manufacturing worlds. Once all 3 are filled up any remaining credits I will build/rush colonizers with one constructor thrown in to build a second shipyard. I then switch the 3 built up worlds to Military Subsidies and start cranking out colonizers/constructors.
5. I usually have a ratio of 2 Research worlds to every Manufacturing world and 1 Wealth world for every 3 Research worlds.
6. Use a custom Race. One you have min/maxed to suite your style of play, I Max out traits:- Farmers, Dense, Content, Fertile, Militant, Tough, Likeable, Fast, Organized, Accurate, Agile and min the rest, I leave Adventuresome and Resilient alone, I end up with one point spare which I usually put in Observant or Resilient.

I play up to Genius on vanilla with this build. Needs tweaking for the difficulties higher than Genius.

That's my thread, lol

I also had trouble with Elemental.... the trick is you need to build your own maps, then its fun!

Yea, so Galciv2 is very money economy sensitive - dare to build a factory and immediately go broke! but Galciv3 is not like that, you can pump out a few factories on pretty much every world and your economy is fine, Galciv3 you should avoid relying on money, you could almost play and completely ignore it, rush buying is very inefficient. that is the main big difference from Galciv2

What you need to know for a good start in galciv3....

First tech to go for is interstellar survey.

First planet colonized, you need to go for pragmatic ideology and get the three free constructors.

You need to find Thalium resource, if possible also Promethium and put one or two of those starting constructors on them. (use the third one for range extention)

with interstellar survey researched, and with at least 1 thalium and 1 promethium, you can build a very nice survey ship with prototype engine and survey module on a cargo hull with heaps of range extention. This is a brilliant early survey ship that will boost your early game allot.

Another tip - the yellow triangle anomalies that sometimes give you a free tech.... whenever you find one, change your research to the most expensive research you can find before claiming it.... this gives brilliant boosting to keep up with or even exceed AI technology.

The rest is easy!

So far as early military build up is concerned..... i have a couple of nice tricks for that;

When you set up your game, put minor races on 'abundant'. Then put tech brokering on.

During the game you can sell techs to the minor races, and when they don't have much money, you can buy some of their combat ships each time with your techs. The combat ships are very expensive but since they don't have enough cash for your techs, you really have nothing to lose, and i find all these ships add up allot over time and push my power rating way up.

The other thing that helps my power rating allot is to get a few more ships that can explore pirate anomalies. I usually look at whatever resource is excess and apply 1 of those prototype weapon on a medium hull along with prototype survey module and engines and i shield module and whatever range extension and sensors will fit. Also if i get free survey ships i like to upgrade these to this ship that can take down pirate protected anomalies. Once you have a few of these going, your defender type ships start pouring in from all directions.

None of this is much good for actual combat, but its all about your power rating to deter attackers.

Adjacency.... yes!

And sometimes you get a map where all the planet tiles are just blahhh and cannot even get a group of 4.... you need to watch out for this kind of crap map because its just not worth the effort trying to make this shit work until you get to the higher terrifying techs to fix it.

Quoting psychoak,

reply 9

Auto-correct FTW.  He meant terraforming.

Auto correct options for terraforming 1) transforming 2) terminating

I wonder what i typed to get terrifying? Teraforming? No, terrafforming? no, terriforming? Bingo! we have a winner..... hahahahaha

I think the advice in this thread is hitting the nail on the head on why I don't find myself wanting to play anymore.  You "have to" rush constructors using ideology, build a ton of planetary star bases, stack sensors (which still feels like cheese to me, sorry), etc.  

You have all these wonderful races, different ideologies, and potential for role-playing and re-playability, but to compete there is a pretty linear path.

The main thing that I'm seeing that I'm also slow to incorporate into my game is unlike GalCiv II where cap was at 22 mil (ruffly) per planet even w/ many farms and entertainment buildings although different things may allow to get a little more there is no hard cap that I've run into in GalCiv III.  So playing GalCivIII similar to GalCiv II puts you behind mid game because of this.  I was stuck only using 2 or so farms per planet and you need more in GalCiv III.

Also one note about morale maybe:

Don't be too concerned, if your morale isn't 100%. 100% is nice for its population growth boost early on and for influence, but in terms of production (and consquently research/manufacturing/wealth) the difference isn't all that big staying somewhere around 40-60% is fine, too.

@psychoak, well if you wanna play vs. your +300% production AI you gotta do what you gotta do. But if you appreciate playing without it, who gives a shit if you play at a lower difficulty?

Different story would be multiplayer. Though I am not convinced would be the ultimate start there either.

Well, to be clear, I'm hardly a new player, hence my frustration.

(So, the AI cheats in this version?  What ever happened to Stardock's pride in having AI that was smart and didn't need to cheat?  I thought their whole reason for going 64 bit this time was to make it even smarter.)

I think that the bottom line from what I'm reading above is that instead of an open game where you can play the leader you want to play, it's become a spreadsheet game where you can only play conqueror and have to set things up in one linear, specific way in order to win on even the easiest difficulty.

That's unfortunate.  Thank you to everyone who took the time to try and help me, though.  It was honestly a sour grapes post that I wasn't really expecting any helpful responses to.  Score one for this awesome community on this one.

Not sure what difficulty you are playing on but I've been playing on Gifted and winning pretty frequently, and I wouldn't consider myself a great strategy gamer.  Try watching some of Macsen LP's Let's Plays on YouTube. . . they are extremely helpful.  Here's my main recommendations:

1) You MUST do well during the colonization stage in the beginning and totally focus on getting as many good planets as you can.  If you don't do this part well, you have no chance.  You should be 100% focused on the beginning in just getting a colony ship to planets and claiming them.

2) You must pick the right ideology items early on so that you can reap the benefits later in the game.

3) Negotiate open borders and research diplomacy early on to keep you out of war

4) Set your "govern" triangle at 40/40/20 (20 being money) and just leave it there.  Honestly the economy system in the game is pretty much broken in my opinion. . . you just leave it there, try to not "rush" buy too many things, and "re-up" at the "minor race bank" when you run out.

5) Trade with minor races for cold, hard cash to keep your economy going

6) Later, cause mayhem by trading with various factions to go to war with each other, particularly if there's one that is going to declare war on you

7) You need to trade technologies, but be very careful about giving the major AI's a lot of money or good techs. 

8) I personally play with "Tech Brokering" turned off.  Otherwise it's just too much micromanaging with the technology.

9) Turn off "Auto Upgrade" of your planets. . . the AI is retarded and will totally mismanage your planet.

10) Build a ton of constructors (make a short range one that's cheap) to build economy starbases around your planets once the colonization phase is finished, and to build shipyards on your frontiers.

This is where the random map generator plays its hand.

A new player will not know if the random map generator has decided to shaft him big time, and this 'shafting' ability should not be underestimated.... its perfectly capable of deciding if you win or lose before you even start playing...... remember this, and don't be afraid to restart if the shafting is out and about.

Honestly, i have frequently started games where the first 20 star systems i found around my starting point were all barren, and that is with habitable planets set to 'abundant'.... so again i say you really have to watch what the random map generator is giving you and keep your finger on the start new game menu options!

The fine art of appreciating a "crap start" is something that partially eludes me.  I like my maps kind of open, where we all have a little room before we start smashing empires together.  The RNG occasionally puts me right next to an AI player as its version of a whimsical joke.  I restart immediately.  It doesn't happen all that often, so I resist the temptation to pre-check maps by removing FOW.  So , while I sometimes play for the challenge, I support those who do map-based restarts for the fun aspect.

I have been trying some MP, which is out of character for me, but interesting.  The other player creates crowded maps, which completely bollixes my play style.    I am learning lots with every session and loving it, but I would never play that way as an SP game.

To relate this to the OP, it is possible to shape the game with the initial choices.  It might take a little trial and error, because there are a lot of settings, they have different effects on the game, and player preferences vary wildly.  Once you find a sweet spot that creates the kind of Galactic History you are looking for, it can get addicting, and then you have to really think hard about what parameters you might change going forward.  And then, there are mods.  And then there are updates.  And DLC.  And then, who knows what?  Do whatever you want.