Ok I usually play on the challenging difficulty setting ,while the computer seems to have a grasp on its micromanagment of colony improvments, it does not have the slightest clue how to manage its economic growth,often i notice that the computer uses leases(never have I found that to be cost effective)to buy factories,colony and other ships in its mad dash to colonize planets. This literally cripples it 2/3 times for almost a whole year.

Why does the A.I only judge me on my alignment/military might? My real strength is my potential. What I mean by this is that if i have 45 colonies all with starports, all bristling with factories and only few ships then the computer should realize the threat more and not always declare war on me based on just the amount of ships I have .

When the difficulty gets set to tough or harder settings what would I need to do to compete with the A.I 's inherent advantges given to them from the start. it seems they have an economic advantage given to them. Could someone perhaps give me an example of what they do on the real hard dificulty settings.

I do buy ships but only the first 2 or so . What i buy is factories. I see no bother leasing a ship when i can produce it with bought factories in 6 turns or so .While I make my own mad dash for planetary invasion,other military techs and diplomacy skills .all the while spending my spare cash to pay any race that is hostile to me to attack any other races that have A bad relation with me.(there is nothing I have found more effective than seeing two hostile races and paying one to attack the other)with some work you can actually pay the whole galaxy to be at war with each other .once i have teched up enough to have decent soldiering I begin my conquest.

How does your typical game go? I would be real interested in how you strategize ,your research order,whether you buy lease or build things?