Help!

My suggestion would be to join an empire Matt, there are a lot of tips floating around out there in the forums on how to play better and this and that. The best way to get it all in a centralized place though is to join up with an empire and most of the big ones have strategy forums and are more than willing to help you out. Please come check us at the MWC out....we have some great threads with beginner early game strategy. Click here to check us out. http://idle.thehueys.com/midwest

Senator plephart
Come realize your 'Manifest Destiny' in The People's Empire
Join the Mid-Western Confederation at http://idle.thehueys.com/midwest

Most players pick speed bonuses
+1 is good for smaller maps +2 is good for larger maps

Make sure you utilize scouts effectively. Scouting is an excellent way to find all those good planets. Also colonists embarking on settlement should number more than 100 for the PQ 15-17, and 300 for 18+. Your focus should be on developing Earth, which is your early economic center.

Be familiar with the tech tree, too. Look around the strategy forum and check out what people research early on. Some key techs: Diplomacy, Impulse Drive, Basic Environment, and Interstellar Tactics

Trade tech with the AI, you'll find it really helpful. The minor races give a lot of money for good techs.

Well, there's plenty of good info floating around here on the public forums as well.

One ironic thing I discovered is that I found the game easier as I made the AIs tougher, and that's because they had more money to give to me in return for techs that I had researched! Seriously, I found pursuing early trading with the AIs an essential part of the game. Trade your techs for their techs, sell them techs they don't have, and just keep the cycle going.

Oh yeah, one thing you may not have realized: At the beginning of the game, crank the spending slider to 100%. You will have deficit spending, but it can make that early game push much easier. Besides, you start with 1000bc in the bank, so a little deficit spending won't hurt.

Then if you can make some money through tributes for tech, you may be able to keep the spending at 100% for a while, and even make a small profit. Also, start setting up trade routes as soon as you get the "Trade" technology.

Finally, keep your tax rate in the 30% to 50% range. Cranking it up too high hurts your morale, as well as actually decreasing your tax income.

plephart: I fail to see how joining the MWC will help this player do better. Smoking won't make you cooler and hipper either. Just say no, its the right thing to do.

He could read the updated manual and strategy guide (manual first, guide later), or browse some of the threads discussing newbie tactics. BTW i agree with all the advice given here, with the exception of joining the MWC. The manual is posted in the news part of the home page. The strategy guide is posted here:
http://www.orionsector.com/pages/galciv/downloads/The_Unofficial_GalCiv_Strategy_Guide_v1_0.pdf

If anyone has a link to the manual, please post.

No need to go empire bashing here Gibbie....seems maybe Pontius and I have something in common now, that being our dislike in your choice of words.

I was just pointing out to Matt that there are excellent writeups, in a centralized environment, regarding early game strategies in many empires and then of course had to give a plug for my own empire the MWC. To ask in the general forum for help and/or try to wade through all the posts here would result in getting many mixed answers and probably a big headache.

Sorry to have to submit you to this is your thread Matt but as you can probably tell, some people are more interested in their own agendas than helping people out.