[raynor]

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that I didn't believe that you have been beat by the AI. At high bonus on a small map, the game is very difficult to beat. With a 5x production bonus and a computer opponent one system away, you are in for a pretty miserable time if not impossible time.

What I meant by coincidence is that you aren't losing because the AI is trying to beat you. Instead, you are losing because you got in the way of its random movement of ships. If the AI is going to send ships to attack two or three nearby systems every so often, then the AI isn't really going to present much of a challenge on a map with hundreds of systems. But on a map with only a few dozen systems, the 2x, 3x or 5x production is going to wipe you out long before you can acquire enough planets to bring your superior strategy to play.