Crusade: Falling way behind the AI, not sure why

Two planets and 2 ships to 14 planets and 41 ships by turn 43...

from GalCiv3 Forums

My first game of Crusade started, and I thought I was doing reasonably well despite not being sure what to focus on anymore with the new construction and build options (and losing my Iconian tech tree :( ). However, I quickly noticed that on an Immense galaxy with 16 players, I was stuck in last place. Finally with universal translator researched, I got a trade offer from the Terran Alliance and realized that I was not just falling behind, I was completely uncompetitive.

They had 14 planets, 41 ships, and 3 starbases, plus 24 techs I hadn't researched. Meanwhile, I only had 2 planets, 2 ships, and 3 starbases, plus a smattering of techs the Terrans had already researched. Tech trading was on, but at this point the Terrans were the only civ I had encountered yet (and tech brokering was off).

The only thing I had bought out yet was a shipyard, and honestly I didn't think I was doing badly. Moreover, I was under the impression that expansion was supposed to be a lot slower (and this was just on normal). Prior to crusade, the AI was usually hopelessly-far behind me technologically, so being outpaced by that much that fast was hard to really understand.

29,915 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The AI got a lot smarter.  Are you building asteroid mines? Building the data core and training citizens as scientists and placing them on the data core world?  Building space elevators on every planet and surrounding them with factories? Training citizens as workers and placing them on your production worlds?

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Workers only increase social production.  If you're placing them on production worlds, you're wasting them on the planets that already upgrade structures fast.  Engineers are the ones that boost ship production.

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Reply #3 from Stardock.net Forums Top

I found that some of my custom races that had +2 to fast were just too good in a large map. +2 fast gives them +4 to moves and I just couldn't get to many planets in time.