how to get a 'balanced' game?

Play on Challangeing with Torians, Altrians, Icodions, Drengin, Yor and Knox on a huge or gigantic map and be good for more of a challange or be evil and backstab your allies and somewhere in the middle I have'nt tryed so . . enjoy.

Yea, same here. They either totally overpower me or I do it to them. I think balancing that is a fine edge that's pretty hard to find. Personally, I've been playing with each race intelligence individually to find it. However, it's all good either way. I still enjoy the game whether I get smoked or I do the smoking.

The game i usually play when i want serious battle, is the old Total Anihilation.

The genious of this game is the 2 levels of technology.

The AI starts off building everything on level one which limits their capacity to overwheal you. Then as you attack them they start building level two units which allows the AI to really fight on hard and give you a damb fun game. especially on the all metal maps! oh my GOD total war slugfest, hitting them with everything i can muster for hours.... most satisfying!

ongoing, reasonably balanced, slugfest Combat in galactic civilisations seems to be very elusive. The AI always keels over and dies once you decimate their standing fleet. There is little capacity for an AI on the ropes to ever pose a threat again, even if you leave it alone.

Play large galaxy, everything abondant, 9 races,NO TECH TRADING maso level.
If you find it easy, try same setting on the beta with obsene difficulty. I guarantee you will have fun

Nah I like to push them into the giant shredder of defeat.

playing on 'masa' level, is just pointless. You would be better to play on level 'tough' and just give them half your planets!!

Giving the AI such generous help kind of spoils the percieved 'reality' of the game and well for me, it also spoils the fun.

However if only one AI opponent was on 'masa' level, then at least i can pretend they have a precursor device behind their strength.... that works for me

Is there something inbetween getting squashed like a bug or being so powerful that i loose interest?

This is a good question, and I don't have a good answer for it. I'd recommend playing defensively as much as possible. Do everything you can to stay alive, even if it hurts your long term growth. The best strategy for this is to build up your diplomacy ability and raise your military rating to deter enemies from attacking you. But if someone does declare war on you, you're pretty much screwed because there really aren't any effective defensive military strategies other than having more ships or stronger ships than your enemy. If there were better strategic defense options, survival would be easier and dominance would be harder.

You can defend against a much stronger opponent... the trick is to pick the right map to start with. Don't accept a map where your stuck right in the middle!! Try to pick a map where you are isolated in a corner. That way, all you need is a few well placed military starbases and you can hold out with pretty pathetic ships.

This is what i'm doing in my current game, although the AI hasn't attacked me yet. They keep chickening out! Luckily i am not so stupid as to use espionage and kill any chances of a random event war. Therefore i can force the AI to attack me when my stupid ambassador insults them hehehe