Guess I must be an idjit but...

[pathfinder]

I have only won one game out of maybe 40 I have played against the AI. So I am advidly reading the forum here to try and figure out what I am doing "wrong".

I can assure you I will not d/l any of those mods that make the AI tougher/smarter!!

[Daynarr]

Man, I wish I was you.

[Jubala]

pathfinder, try building about 5 base space yards on emergency the first thing you do and as soon as they are build have them build colony ships on emergency and start colonize everything in sight while you research bigger hulls and guns. Don't bother building warships until you meet some AI's. And as soon as your 5 base space yards (or more if you wish) are ready either start building colonyships on your homeworld or take it off emergency and build satellites or weapon platforms. As soon as the base space yards have been in emergency for 1.0 years mothball them then instantly unmothball them. Won't work in the next patch but it does for now. The first you build on the first planet you colonize is a mineral storage or two to store the excess minerals you are hopefully generating. I sometimes build a colonyship first thing so I can build that mineral storage (or several) at once. Depends on wether I started with high resources or not.

[Psitticine]

And never forget: research early and research often!

I go for the techs which increase production (including research production!) as well as the larger hulls and better weapons. I also tend to jump up to the second level engines quickly as the extra speed can be a very nice thing.

[Seawolf]

ALso make friends and build storage facilities so that you can stock pile materails but build when you have too.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[thecyclemania]

Jubala---
I can't believe you suggest a newbie to use the mothball trick. If you really need that one to get a good start...

Seawolf---
The idea is to expand your empire as fast as you can. After all this is a 4X. eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and then at some point, eXterminate. So it's quite simple, you must build colony ship in order to expand your empire. You must also increase your production capability. This means building base shipyard around planet and shipyard on planet. You also have to move your population all over your empire. So when you colonize a good planet, and you plan to have a shipyard there, move some population over there. This way, this planet can now produce colonization ship to support your expansion.
Never let your home world to its maximum population. Leave it in the 90% full range. This way, your empire is always growing in population globally. And you want that.
So you start with one world that produces colonization ships, then 2, then 4, then 8...you get the idea. It's exponential. Since the AI is such a wuss, don't build too much defense force initially. Phase 1 of the game is always eXplore and eXpand. Then in order to defend your borders, build some ships and space station. Hope this helps.

thecyclemania