Or me playing the Arcaen stink
I've found playing Galciv2: ToA really really hard with the Arcaen race. I've been able to win with most of the other races, or at least play a competetive game.
With the Arcaens, I lag behind in research, expansion, economics, and as a result, military.
I've tried giving them a speed +1 bonus, and taken economics +30%, but this doesn't completely solve their issues (although, I at least had a marginally better game, before getting crushed by the Thalans).
I find this really annoying that I either 1) Can't figure it out, or 2) Isn't balanced quite right
The Arcaens were my favorite race in GCII vanilla, with their awesome background description and neat looking graphics.
In ToA, they are becoming annoying.
Is there some profound strategy I'm missing? Or are others having this problem (does their tree require some lovin', or perhaps their starting bonuses?)
One thing I do like is being able to use the space normally taken up by engines to put more weapons on ships, but it doesn't make their ships strong enough when my research falls behind so drastically.