Having a blast playing this after a long time away. I played a few games with the AI set to gifted, and found that pretty comfortable, so I figured I'd step it up to Genius. Well, holy moly, Immense Galaxy with 9 opponents, I'm just barely keeping my nose above water, and only doing that by being a real kiss-a$$ to my vastly more powerful galactic neighbours. I'm the Iridium, and the Krynn are causing me all sorts of grief, taking planets and destroying starbases, and even though I've bribed other races to go to war against them they show no signs of weakening or slowing down.
I'm just about at turn 300, and my power is about 1500 - (dead last) while the top two, Altarians and Torians, are both 6000+, and the gap between us is growing, not closing. I have the most planets, and influence is OK(second), and my economy is second or third thanks to trade, but my military/research & production are really lagging.
Should I be concerned about the power rankings and numbers, or are they a bit meaningless? I suspect that I don't have enough population on my planets, which are typically 3 farms - but when I build more, approval becomes an issue. Any general tips to improve my situation, or, having gone this far and being stuck in this bad a position am I doomed to defeat?
I'd be OK with being doomed, actually, I enjoy playing rogue-likes and hardcore modes in other games, and I'd grind this out to the last ship and last planet. But, at the same time, I'd prefer to win (if possible!).
My guess is that the power rankings give a big boost to military rating, so if the AI races build lots of small ships, they look like giants. I prefer to wait and build M, L and Huge ships that can take out fleets of smaller ones. But if they are in your face at the start, then waiting isn't an option.
My advice is to focus on Research as highest priority, and then Social Production, maxing out both the industrial tree and the political tree. With "Military Subsidies", all your investment in Social Production gets translated into Military Production at your shipyards. But that is a longer term strategy that doesn't stop early game invasions.
And if you can find Morale artifacts, which you harvest through Xeno Archeology starbases, that should help your Morale problem without wasting tiles on morale improvements. But the Ideology buildings are best for that, and give you consistent points.
Speaking of Ideology, does everyone else mix them up? I start Benevolent, so I can fill the Research tree there, then shift to Malevolent for the Production and Wealth trees, then to Pragmatic for the tree that gives you more constructors. Is there a downside to that?
