If you look at the initial colony tile you'll notice that it provides research output and that it costs maintenance.  All research output is funded in a proportion according to the percentage you set on your taxes screen.

So as you add colonies yo your empire, you will be funding more research and paying more maintenance.  To start off with, each colony's tax income will not cover its expense so you may have to run at a loss until the population (and hence tax income) increases.

Factories increase your manufacturing capability on a planet.  You'll be able to build ships and buildings faster, again according to what funding has been set.  If you're not planning on building anything (even just scout ships would do for finding more planets to colonise) then the factory is just costing maintenance, but if you're not producing anything then your funding for that planet is not used.

You're likely going to need to produce more colony ships there so you can argue that it's worth it.  However, the quicker you build colony ships and settle colonies, the quicker you will find yourself going into the red.

Bear in mind that if you're playing on a larger galaxy, sending all your colony ships from Earth may take a number of turns.  You'll want to to start building and sending them from some of the planets which are starting to grow in population.

Asteroid mines send raw materials to a nearby colony, increasing its manufacturing capability.  The mines can be upgraded later on for greater output.  The output can be redirected, but the further away the target colony is, the less materials will get through and the lower the bonus to the colony.

Your survey ship can occasionally yield money from anomalies.  other than that, you want to let your population grow, and keeping the approval rate on a colony in the green (or if not green, then at least yellow).  There are also buildings which increase Economy on a planet, these will improve your tax income, but bear in mind that these are only worth building once the population is a bit higher (let's say over 2 million) due to the maintenance costs.  So make sure you have a couple of those on Earth - it already has a high population.

An economy starbase, with the right modules, could improve your production and research on Earth.  Unfortunately, starbases cost money to maintain - 5bc per turn.  So it may not be worth it at the moment.

A mining starbase on a green resource improves the economy of your entire empire so it may be worth the cost.  A yellow resource similarly improves morale empire-wide, which means population will grow faster or you can raise taxes a bit more.

If you actually go into the red (have negative bc) then it will reduce your approval.  If you're just making a loss, keep an eye on how quickly you're losing money and what you have left.

When you start making money, aim to spend it (on ships, ship upgrades, buildings that need to be done as soon as possible, and so on) to under 10000bc.  When you over 10000bc you see, your trade income is halved, and over 20000bc you take a slight hit to your tax income as well.

It's worth noting as well that as the galactic population grows (the total of all races), so does tourism income.  The amount that you get depends on your Influence ability and having planets with reasonably high populations, or with high influence ratings - this is denoted on the planet screen as, for example, 20ip.  Homeworlds (of minor or major races) have espeically high influence ratings or ip.  These ratings can be further boosted by building Embassies and later upgrading to Cultural Exchange Centres.

Minor races are immune to culture flipping. Building influence starbases near them is, therefore, pointless.

The effectiveness of influence starbases depends on the installed modules, and your overall influence. The more modules, and the more powerful they are, the better. For most races, the Xeno Business line of techs provide the best modules. Try to build the starbases so, that a lot of enemy planets are within the sphere of influence, to maximise their effectiveness.

If you have reached an Espionage level of low with the target race, you can see how big an effect your influence starbases have on their worlds. Click on one of their planets. You can then see how much influence this world produces, and behind in parentheses behind it, the factor of foreign influence. Your target is to increase this factor to at least 4.0. Once that is done, there is a chance each turn, that this world will flip to you.

No, it's enough if the trade route goes through the starbase's sphere of influence. However, try to incorporate as much of the trade route within the sphere as possible. Also, don't forget to install the trade modules. The starbase alone won't do anything. You will also only see an effect as long as your mini-freighter is moving through the sphere of influence. You can try to maximise this effect even further, by building as many economy starbases along the trade route as possible. The effect of multiple starbases stack.

That's the ultimate missile weapon! You either wasted a lot of time with other things, or they rushed through the missile tree. Either way, go Yor! (sorry, but they are my favourites    )

If your ships get destroyed, they will still have the ability for a last shot back. The only exception is, if they are destroyed in the first combat round against a race with the Super Warrior ability (like the Arceans), and only if that race initiated the battle.

Generally yes. However, there are some exceptions. For example, a fleet of tiny or small all-weapons ships can be quite useful against enemy capital ships, because they will be able to tear down the defenses in no time. Just make sure, that you attack first.

At the same planet? That depends on the cost of the individual weapon and defense modules. Defenses are cheaper than weapons. So, if you have the same amount of weapons on your medium ships as you have on your small ones, and add a few defenses, then those medium ships will only be slightly more expensive.

There are several possibilities. For one, they could have a large fleet of weak ships. You can check this in the Foreign Policy screen. Another one is, that they have large bonuses to their Weapons and Defense abilities (either through military resources or their tech tree). You can also check that in the Foreign Policy screen, once you reached espionage level 2 (I always forget what it's called, but it is the second one, once you start spying on a race). Then they could use the bonuses from military starbases to increase the power of their ships. Lastly, there is the Spin Control Center. However, that is extremely unlikely, because the AI doesn't know how to use it properly.

Nope, they really are weak in general. However, if used properly, they can be quite helpful. Especially the mining starbases are a must. Just don't bother with the starbase defense modules. You're better off to defend them with fleets.

Make a "People Mover" colony ship. You only need 1 or 2. These have as many colony modules as you can place. Do not use these to settle colonies. They should just move back and forth spreading out your population between planets. Later on these will have the transport modules. This helps your pop grow fast as well as push colonist to your big econ planets. 

Ok it's been a while since I played GalCiv but I believe this is how it works. 

You need at least 1 defense verses the attackers weapons to have any benefit whatsoever. If they were attacking you with cannons you need armor.

In the scenario you outlined neither of you only had shields and they attacked with cannons. 

I believe each attack is checked verses each defense. 

You get the full benefit of defense if your defenses matches the attackers weapon type. 

Mismatched defenses will grant the square root of the value as long as you have at least 1 point of defense verses the attackers weapon type

If you find yourself in a lot of wars you are might not be building enough units. AIs will attack a weakly defended player. The quarterly reports will display your military power. 

For colonizing make sure you use early funds to buy colony ships. Also refit your colony ships as soon as you get faster engines. Generally my first colony I will make 4 factories and then kick up military spending (click the focus on the colony management screen) You can get out colony ships fast this way. 

Thank you Gaunathor. Yeah I havent played it for a while. 

The "Luck" trait affects combat die rolls.  One can add "Luck" as a racial trait, and also as Universal political type.  They are additive in effect.  IIRC, they work by reducing the band of possible die rolls.  Thus, if the possible values of a weapon roll were 0, 1, 2, 3, then one Luck level would take away the lowest one-fourth of the possible outcomes, so in my example, there would be no "0" roll.  Two levels of Luck would prevent either 0 or 1 as outcomes.

Also, you mentioned that the enemy had about the same number of cannons as you had lasers.  Was that based on the hardware on the ships, or was it the actual Attack Value?  That is, some races begin with a better Combat modifier as a racial trait.  Additionally, having the "Starship Defense" tech adds defensive value even if there is no defensive item on the ship.  Also, any red mining bases can add value to both the Attack and Defense values of a ship.

There is still another possibility, and that is that the combat took place within the circle of space affected by one or more military starbases.  Those bases can have modules that boost the attack and defense values of ships within that circle, and the effects are additive.

My answers did not include things from TA, as I do not own/play it.  For that matter, I think there might be some fleet bonus module in TA.  I seem to recall some mentions of something like that, anyway.

As for the Defense +10% effect in DA, I have never tested to see if there is any effect.  That is, how the math is precisely applied.  It could be applied to the hitpoints, for example, or to the die rolls themselves, or like racial traits.

What you said sounds reasonable and you are probably correct, but I have never done a test of it and have not seen any posts that another did such tests.

I could do tests, but the effect would be small in any case.

I still really must be missing something. I started a new game and this time I really tried my hardest to rush colony ships while keeping up a fair research budget.

Yet once again every AI player seems to be colonising at what seems like a rate of 3 to my 1, even in the very early game when I managed to have 4 planets much quicker than last game, most of the other seemed to have around 10!?!. AND they seem to be ahead of me in tech and ship production.

I feel like Im improving with each game but it seems like the AI in this game is still massively outpacing me.

Any suggestions?

TerranEmperor -

Getting the hang of this beast does take time.

What race do you use, what racial picks, and what political choice?  I ask because you will likely do better if the race and picks match what you see as your game strategy.  For example, colony rush in crowded galaxies goes better when you start with extra planet types you can colonize right at the start and have production and cash bonuses.

Oh, and don't forget that you can always hit Control-N and get a new set-up.  I add this because you can try several galaxy-position-homeworld layouts before investing the time in a game.