Is it me.....

what level? if your playing above "inteligent" level, they do get a bonus(not sure what), under that they start just like you...

what the AI does, and what you need to learn to do, is play with the sliders, research, social, and military, along with taxes and spending...

i usually get my taxes to around 79% in the begginning, with maxed spending, and around 60% military for colony ship rush, then 60% tech.

Here's the deal on the AI, AFAIK:

All AI know where yellow stars are at the start of the game.
They may know where resources are (last I heard, even Brad wasn't sure about this).
At all levels below Intelligent, the AI gets LESS money from taxes than you do.
At levels above Intelligent, the AI gets MORE money from taxes.
On Intelligent, they get the same amount.

Other than that, the AI plays by the same rules you do, excepting bugs.

Also, the AI is a whole lot more efficient than you and can easily optimize spending. This is just because it is a computer, you are human, its much better at math.

It also knows it's strategy and tech paths. Don't forget that. You can watch the Drengin go after battleship and dreadnaughts from the start, for instance.

You need to figure out what your early game strategy will be, and what flavors to run. Remember, the AI has theirs preset. It goes Yellow Star rush, then resource rush, then it settles down to its normal strategy. This forces most players to do the same.

Good luck! Have fun!

In my personal experience, the AI does not know where resources are. In a medium galaxy, I've discovered free resources where the Drengins controlled a resource just one sector away. Also, when the Drengins felled the Yor, about four resources lighted up on my map, whereupon I built a batch of constructors and grabbed them all. So.. because of Drengin warfare, I now control 70% of the galaxy's resources.

And to top it off, according to my spies, the Drengins are using 700 bc per month on espionage, which has completely grinded all their war efforts to a halt and I've caught up with them technologically-wise. I have battle ships, the Drengins do not. Life is good. But I'm rather puzzled why the Drengins kill their production and technological capacity by cranking up espionage. And since I don't feel especially destabilised, it seems to me they're using it on the Altarians or the Arceans who by now have one star system left each. Funny thing though, the Drengins made peace with the Altarians, after they threw a whole batch of battle cruisers at their home world. Are the Drengins supposed to do this?

~SDC~

Oh, and every opponent is sub-normal.

~SDC~

The computer is not neccessarily better at math (although this is usually the case), the computer can process information millions of times faster than you. It can afford to take the time to check every planet for maximum efficiency (Currently I have got 52 colonies and to be quite honest I couldnt be arsed to check them unless something happens on a world that turn). Also the computer won't make mistakes (discounting bugs), it is also aware of the designers optium settings to win the game (usually not the case for the human player). All in all these factors give our little silcon friend a huge advantage when you start playing, of course the computer can't possible win in the long run, billons of years of evolution give the human an unassailable advantage because you can learn from mistakes and adapt