Well, it is defined as a so-called 4X game. 4X means: Expand, Explore, Exploit, Exterminate - that's basically what you do
Since I don't have it yet, I can't say too much about GalCiv 2, but in part one expanding early was very important. Send your colony vessels to attractive planets (those with high levels, no need to bother with chunks of rock floating in space) and take as many of them as quickly as possible. It is okay to turn up taxes and concentrate your budget on the building of colony ships in that phase. Also make sure you stay up-to-date research-wise. One technology (especially if it's logistics) can make a MAJOR difference in GalCiv 2 afaik.

Hi there

My strategy involves colonising as many planets within scanner range starting with the best to the worst and on each planet my first build is a factory which speeds up the build times on both ships and planetery structures.

As far as research the best path I have found is to decide what is most important at the time for example if you haven't met any other races concentrate on infrastructure and improving the range of your ships which will reveal more areas to colonise and allow you to expand your empire.

Once you meet the other races it is time to concentrate on communication techs and influence techs which help you become popular with the other races which will hopefully prevent early conflict while you expand.

At about this stage of the game it may be an idea to develop some military techs and there are two ways of doing this and I haven't played enough to know the best path. The first way involves researching one defensive and offensive path on the tech tree this is the fastest way to powerful ships that I have found. But on higher AI levels they will be developing defenses to anything you can throw at them so it's a constant struggle to keep ahead of the game!!!

The second method is to research all 3 offensive and defensive areas and develop ships which should be able to deal with anything that comes there way. I haven't tried this method yet so I can't comment on how effective it is.

One thing to do early in the game is get some starbases up and running on any local resources and also I find putting influence starbases next to the other races planets can be useful.

So far I have completed one game and won by an influence victory I am still learning the combat side of the game and keep coming up with new ideas constantly.

The best thing to do is experiment and enjoy yourself all the info is there and it's TBS so you have plenty of time each turn to examine your empire and make descisions. This game is very deep and discussing strategys with other players is the only way to learn.

Hope this helps and if you have any other questions let me know.

Sorry for the double post it said my connection timed out!!!!!