ORIGINAL: dragoongfa
I located myself at the far regions of a spiral galaxy and as such I should have had numerous sectors with only a handful of systems each, thus limiting my resources, colonies while spreading my fleets thin, the empires that would be based in the galactic arms would have hundreds of systems in the span of a couple of sectors thus they would have the advantage of better location, numerous colonies and resources.
I gave myself an advantage with an excellent home system, young age and enhanced tech level, the age means a higher population at my capital and one colony (the population would be gained easily with low taxes and a colony costs only as much as the colony ship), the enhanced level only gave me a handful of technologies extra than the basic start.
I fully expected that my home system would be the only safe haven in my empire for quite some time, with the rampaging pirates and number of space creatures.
I think that my main mistake is the number of empires that I chose for this galaxy, 14 empires (including my own) are not enough to fully populate a 1400 system galaxy, 18 to 20 should be sufficient to provide a live diplomatic and military arena.
Yes, that's definitely a somewhat "easy" setup, apart from your choice of "Chaos" for aggression. You could use the editor to give the AI races a boost if you want to continue with this map, or start again with fewer advantages and more potential enemies. You may also still encounter an AI that's stronger than you expect if you keep playing and exploring.
