Wow, so around 365 turns into my "ludicrous" size galaxy on EASY the leading AI civ that I have so far encountered has the following stats vs. me:

Me               AI

ships            13                1181 (!)

bases           19                18

colonies      19                 15

Notice that we have around the same number colonies and bases. But what a difference in navy size.

- Where does the AI get the money and ADMINISTRATORS from to have this number of ships? It must have been cranking out more than 3 ships per turn (how is that possible?) from those small number of colonies. Presumably it only has a few more shipyards than I do (4).

This is on EASY, remember. I like challenges but this is going to be an uphill struggle to make any headway at all against the top AI.