Ok...

[Colonel]

Col. Mustard said:
This is getting rediculous. I can't freaking beat the game! I've had it for almost a year, and every single time I play I loose miserably. I even crank all the settings to easy, and give myself all the boosts I can. I simply can't win. Just a min ago I lost while the attacking player (AI) had 2.0M while I had not even 300K score. what on earth is going on here?

One thing you should notice is that the objective of this game shouldnt be to win it should be to play and have fun, If you honestly try to beat this game you will never win... The only way to win is by annilating every thing in sight-standard win. I honestly have only finished a total of one game against the AI and that was where I started blowing up every system not occupied by myself-star destroyer.

[Col. Mustard]

Hmm. So your saying the game isn't meant to be won...? I don't get it. then why play if you just end up dieing halfway through? It gets very annoying... (Nothing, I didn't do anything stupid. they just tore me apart with their drednaughts and such. Seing as I only had destroyers, it wasn't much of a challnge for them.)

[PvK]

Col. Mustard said:
Hmm. So your saying the game isn't meant to be won...? I don't get it. then why play if you just end up dieing halfway through? It gets very annoying... (Nothing, I didn't do anything stupid. they just tore me apart with their drednaughts and such. Seing as I only had destroyers, it wasn't much of a challnge for them.)

No, he was saying that once he thinks he knows he has won, he stops playing, or starts destroying suns rather than conquering everything, because it takes a long time after the "climax", and without much expected challenge, to consolidate the whole quadrant.

If you keep losing, you haven't learned enough of the tricks that will guarantee a win. My suggestion would be to just employ a couple of good suggestions, since it's more interesting to play a challenging game than a cake walk, and once you learn enough of the tricks, you have to make yourself stop using them, or the AI won't be much challenge.

PvK

[Col. Mustard]

Yeah, I'll post a savegame tomarrow.

[David E. Gervais]

Gee, you mean I'm not the only one who hasn't beat this game yet? LOL Well, that is good the hear. Thanks for cheering me up.

Cheers!

[Col. Mustard]

Haha, Noooo problem.

[Slynky]

There is a lot to learn. I remember one of my first mistakes..thinking I only needed one shipyard in each system.

A lot of 4X games are the same (kind of) in that research is the key to the win. That and a strong economy. If you have that, a fleet to be reckoned with will come.

I agree with Atrocities...another choice would have been nice on the poll. Just because you are having a hard time beating the game doesn't mean you're an idiot. It probably means you haven't understood the importance of some things you need to do (yet).

How many games have you played?

[douglas]

Combat sensors and ECM are CRITICALLY IMPORTANT techs. NEVER neglect them (unless you have the talisman; then you can ignore sensors, but ECM is still a must-have). Training facilities aren't as important, but they're still very powerful.

[douglas]

Very bad strategy. You should always keep colonizing new systems until there are no unclaimed systems left, and you should do it quickly so as many of them are yours as possible. I think you may also be researching the other colony techs too soon. They are very expensive at 500000 research points each, and should not be researched until you can either do it quickly (I'd say 3-4 turns each max) or you have no important techs left to research that aren't also rather expensive (depends on the situation and the specific tech, but I'd say typically around 200000, though sensors and combat support 3 at 225000 are an exception).

[Col. Mustard]

Thats another thing. These neural networks or whatever, and those ship training and fleet training things, I never use them. I rarely waste points on sensors either.