Unfortunately, That is one of the perks computer players have on higher difficulties. Hopefully someday the only perk will be better AI.

I would rather they have triple the cash and production than faster ships.

An option to turn off super fast Computer Player ships would be well received.

To me this essentially makes Incredible and Godlike unplayable in typical crowded galaxies. The devs need to take a LONG look at this huge speed buff that wasn't around a year+ ago and also do significant balance work for the these top two difficulties.

While yes I agree with you leiavoia, it should be noted that there are more restrictions now on the player (notably population) and the AI is generally a fair bit better than how it was a year ago. Godlike AI is still beatable, but if you somehow find you are behind just due a bad a starting spot, they become pretty much insurmountable. I am not saying that it is a bad thing, but I totally understand how frustrating it can be trying to close the gap. Things don't necessarily need to change yet but the devs need to be wary how these AI improvements can snowball on the higher difficulties.

Back to the OP, personally I have had stellar folding, mounted 3 drives and still been barely able to keep up with a single hyper drive. The AI has a hull cap boost and is saving on drives on top of that. Factor in they have huge manufacturing boost and ship cost reduction (another double edged boost) and very quickly you have a lot of beefy little ships that can zoom up to your doorstep before you have chance to mount a proper defense. That said, the AI still loses the colonising rush when you have fairly equal starts which, if we are all honest, pretty much determines the ultimate outcome in the end

Thanks for the helpful replies. I'm not great with modding the .xml files. Is it possible to edit them to slow down the speed on higher difficulty levels, while leaving the other AI bonuses intact?

Most other 4X games don't give the AI these sorts of movement bonuses on maximum or near maximum difficulty. 

Giving the AI bonuses to production, credits and research ... yes absolutely, no problem.

For me it's an immersion breaker when you see these crazy speeds.  Playing on higher difficulties is essential to get a challenge and avoid getting bored, but I'd at least like to have the illusion the AI is playing the same game.  When the AI gets bonuses that are common it's easy to stay immersed, but not with these "specials".

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 10

When someone asks that the AI play like a god, we assume they want it to play like a god.

While I understand your point, particularly given you call it Godlike, isn't immersion for those that actually play on these difficulties a factor as well?  And arguably much more important?  That said, I understand we're an almost negligible fraction of your player base, so who really cares.  So fair enough time to Mod.

Anyway, looking forward to Intrigue.

Challenge accepted!  Godlike is clearly a totally different story to what it was a year ago, so appreciate that, it actually feels scary now.

That said, I'll give it a few weeks before buying Intrigue, since Crusade was not polished at release, I can only assume it's the same for Intrigue until proven otherwise.

Thought I'd add my 2c on this...

I really like the fact that the hardest difficulty should be nearly impossible to beat.  However if it leads to the game not being fun that's an issue.  How many people are now playing Godlike and how many like this change?

I just played 20 turns on godlike (first real attempt since move changes) Intrigue all DLC/expansions with Iconians Huge Map, 8 empires, max minors, tight clusters ,rare stars, max habitable, max planets, max extreme worlds max anomalies rest default no mods.  Specifically took options I thought would increase my chances vs the movement bonus.

All colonies and resources were taken by about turn 20 (apart from not all extreme colonies) and my tight cluster was distant from others.  From memory I think I made 5 colony ships colonized two worlds.  Made 2 constructors but lost out on resources.  Average AI colonies was 8-9 from the 4 I'd met.

I actually don't think the game was over I planned to rush planetary invasion invade minors (2 nearby) and extreme worlds (3 left nearby) tech, no resources obviously an issue.  (AI doesn't like relics still some left).

I just think the AI having 20 movement for all their ships basically immediately!!! is too much...

I'm actually not against the AI having movement bonuses at this difficulty I think they should!  I've felt this way since Gal Civ 2.  The AI has until recently never been able to compete with colonizing or in war because it hasn't valued movement enough.  2-4 move colony ships and 1-4 move transport fleets or near enough were a thing for a long time.

I think the movement bonus on Genius is about 3 extra tiles.  It's very very hard to out colonize the AI on that level now and out colonizing has always been a key way to beating the Gal Civ AI on harder difficulties.

I think a movement bonus of 3-5 extra tiles per turn would be about right.  This would still give them a significant advantage (especially on top of Godlike bonuses).  Also the AI should be encouraged to pursue movement techs and on certain ship types should have more engines although with bonuses it's less important compared to the player.

I'm probably going to give the current Godlike another go perhaps build two colony ships then start on constructors.  Same settings but yeah I think it needs altering, I like a challenge but it doesn't feel right.  I'd be very inclined to mod my games in regards of this in future.  I find Genius too easy and incredible has the same movement bonuses as Godlike...  

Yesterday's "sliders across tons of different catogories" simply transitioned to tweaking the xml files, right?!

I still wonder why people don't just tweak their own xml files and BECOME HAPPY.   

Is there any way to make ai slower by editing the data files?

EDIT

So I changed my settings as shown here

      <Stats>
        <EffectType>MovesCap</EffectType>
        <Scope>Global</Scope>
        <Target>
          <TargetType>Ship</TargetType>
        </Target>
        <BonusType>Flat</BonusType>
        <Value>10</Value>
      </Stats>

      <Stats>
        <EffectType>MovesCap</EffectType>
        <Scope>Global</Scope>
        <Target>
          <TargetType>Ship</TargetType>
        </Target>
        <BonusType>Multiplier</BonusType>
    <Value>5</Value>
      </Stats>

So based on this my opponents should have like 50 moves at the beginning, yet they didn't. I changed those values back and forth from -3 to 1, 3, 0.5 and so on but it had no effect on enemy ship speed. It seems that changing these values does nothing.