Getting my owned by the other races on NORMAL.

You should be able to win consistently on normal if:

1. Stay equal to or ahead of the AI by watching the graph and adjusting production accordingly.

2. Build constructors early and get all the resource star bases you can.

3. Stay as close to 100% moral as possible

4. Build franchise trade goods and keep them away from the majors.

5. Research speed and get at least your share of the colonies.

6. Research trade and get as many trade routes as possible.

7. Try to stay out of wars until you have capital ships.

8. Adjust the economic and resource sliders frequently according to your needs. It is hard for me to stay at 100% spending just do the best you can and don't get into a deficit later in the game.

On your questions,

1. Don't worry about it set it as high as possible without going in the red.
2. Thats okay if that's what you need at the time. I go for long periods with 33% each but adjust if you need to do something special.
3. It ends when there are no systems left on large maps there may be a second rush when ranges are extended. It is okay to slack off if you are comfortable with what you have.
4. I don't and I doubt many do.
5. Based on what I have read here and what I do, the order is BC to jack economy Soil and Habitat for PQ, Ent center for moral, then the MC, FP, zero maintenance projects like econ center. Build sy only where you are building fleets.
6. They stack, I have never destroyed a project but if you think the maintenance is not worth it maybe so. Being more of a culture player I never build some of the high maint stuff like foundries etc.

Remember all this is from someone who has never won often at high difficulty but I always win at normal.

~SDC~

Did you ever play Civilization 3, by any chance? A huge part of the game is selling technology to the others. At Normal settings, the AI will actually pay you more for a tech than it costs to just research it. Minor races will pay even more. Make sure to spread your payments over 20 turns--that will net you more cash. That's how you get the money go to 100% spending through the mid-game.

Another huge mistake I was making in the beginning was not paying attention to my Colony Ships. I'd just launch and go, not paying attention to the population I loaded in them. I was sending half of Earth's population in the sky every time, just roaming around looking for yellows. Unless you know exactly where you're going, don't load more than, say, 100m population in a Colony ship at the beginning. Auto-launch should absolutely be turned off. Your population should be on planets, multiplying, producing stuff. Not roaming around in a ship doing nothing. Once I did that and learned about the 100-morale pop growth bonus, I was beating Crippling.

When I was on Normal I was racing to Constructors, too, but I realized that isn't necessary, unless you're pacifist. The early Trade Goods/Wonders are the priority. When you get Frigates you can pick a war and take over all his resources pretty easily. Or you can get Star Fighters/Corvettes and take preventative measures. If you delay Constructors till after Grav Accelerators you're really not missing much.

I usually shift my colonization phase from expanding to filling in as soon as I start encountering other civs. As soon as I've got all the systems with a 15 or better planet colonized, I pop out constructors to grab resources, but keep enough colonies on colony ships to finish filling in any systems with more than one inhabitable planet.

My build order is radically different. Soil Enhancement first and formost, always (except for one or two planets where I go Manufacturing Center first for trade good production). The reason for this is that it will raise morale, which will increase taxes and population growth, and the increased population will further boost taxes. Increased PQ helps all over the place, including production.

Then I usually go with the banking center, because there's not much point in boosting my production with the Fusion Power Center and Manufacturing Center if I can't afford to pay for the production. Then I go for the Entertainment Net, as it has a similar effect as the Soil Enhancement. Only then do I worry about my production capacity on all my worlds. I never build shipyards and the other ship-improving projects on more than 6 of my planets, as they cost money and I can usually keep up in any war by having my 5-8 best planets cranking out warships, and having those planets have all the production and ship boosting projects built. Then again, until I get to dreadnoughts, I usually only fight defensive wars, so your experience my differ radically.

Oops, forgot to mention, if I have habitat improvement, it's usually right behind soil enhancement.

1. I set my spending to 100% but that does not last long.
It generally doesn't.

2. Military spending is set to 75% while research is set to 25% so I can do some research.
I prefer to to 100% military and let the tech just wither until I've hit other civs. Then I rush for phasers and build a star-fighter army to scare them out of demanding tribute or starting a war.

I try to settle as many planets as I can. In a large galaxy game when does the colonization phase end?
When you run out of planets. Seriously, you HAVE to grab as many planets as you can, as fast as you can. If you can end up with more planets than everyone else, and enough of a military to keep them off your back, you can catch up on tech and win out in the end. Speed picks help a LOT more than you'd expect in doing this. For a gigangic galaxy it might be smart to rush for Impulse drive at 100% research at some point as well.

4. How in the hell do you guys keep your overall spending at 100% and still keep morale high enough so your planets stay in line?
Don't try and make money at 100% spending at first. Keep taxes low enough that most of your colonies are at 100% morale (this effectively doubles population growth), and take the loss/turn until you burn through your starting treasury. Don't lease a colony ship unless you absolutely HAVE to grab that class-26 planet at the edge of your territory after you just used the only ship in the area to colonize a lesser system. I usually go like that until I'm in debt by ~300 bc, then lower my spending until I'm making a few bc/turn.

5. My build order consists of: Ent,MFC, FUS, Banking Cntr,Hab,Soil and then Shipyard. Is this good enough?
Bad, bad, bad! IMHO: Don't buld manufacturing centers until/unless you're making more money than you can spend! What manufacturing bonuses do is essentially increase your spending cap...if you can't/don't need to spend more, then building an MFC is throwing 2bc/turn down the drain for nothing. Just focus on PQ buildings, and then economy buildings, and just enough morale buildings (don't ever build the more maint-expensive ones like the VR center...just not worth it). Also, don't build shipyards unless you're actually going to war...they're not worth the maintenance unless you're churning out ships. For manufacturing power, grab the Fusion Power Plant tech early and build those instead of the MFC...the econ boost helps make up for the maintenance and additional spending capacity. Try and get Anti-matter PP's next, and only build MFC's on high-powered planets where you want to make wonders/trade goods.

6. Do the buldings ablilties stack or should I delete a old building as soon as a new one is built?
Yes, they all stack. The game adds all the percentage bonuses for each category up and applies the final sum. Also keep in mind that bonuses for production don't net you anything unless you can increase spending to use the additional capacity. When you do use the bonus capacity though, you only have to pay for 2/3's of it out of your treasury...the rest is free. Research bonuses are similar, except when you raise spending into bonus ranges, you only pay 1/3 - every extra bc is worth 3 IU's of research.

HTH,

-EtherMage

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I have done pretty well with the smaller maps, but now that I am playing my first 'Huge' map, I'm winning but I'm finding the management more difficult.

Perhaps it might be helpful to practice your management skills on a smaller map where there is less going on.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that replied. I started a new game last night and now my skills have greatly improved. I have all but the Alterians(sp?) in my pocket and my military force is just about unmatched. My morale is a average rating of 89% within my empire.
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