Ok...

[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?

[AgentZero]

Personally I always set Victory Conditions like Player has X% of 2nd place empire and has researched X% of the tech tree. I usually set both fairly high (1st on 150-200% and second 80-100%) which means the game still is challenging, but you have goals to work towards other than the annihilation of all other life in the galaxy.

[bearclaw]

Are you playing against the standard AI's? Or do you have something like TDM AI's installed? I've got to the point where AI's are completely simple unless they are TDM AI's.

[Atrocities]

I say mod your own AI. There was one AI that was very hard to beat. An AI Challenge was issued and as far as I can recall, it was never beaten. Do any of you recall who made that AI?

[kerensky]

Form one new player to the next... the only game I ever beat was the demo, and that was because I ran out of turns. A good tip is to start a game with everything researched to see what weapons and ship sizes you like best. Then, when you start a new game, focus on the research areas that fit your tactics best and don't worry about teh rest till later in the game.

Personally, I have never beat a full Version game, and I've been playing for slightly more than a year. The closest I ever came was a game against the Kaelons when tehy ruled two thirds of the galaxy and I had the rest. By all rights I was the winner but they would enver surrender. To actually win the game would have taken months of real playing time of just capturing worlds...

[Col. Mustard]

I have played dozens of games. And I was only first 1 time, and it only Lasted a few turns, and was because I used cheat codes. What I do is, give myself +20% research, +5% all the resorces, +10% shipyard rate, and organics and temporal techs. All I do for the first 20 turns is research, and colonize. I am always the most advanced race there is, but I'm usually around 8th place. I never have any units, and always have very little resources compared to the AI, thats where most the score difference is. (I don't have an AI mod, its standard. Only mod I have is STM)

[Captain Kwok]

Ships and stations provide the bulk of any score so that may be why your score is lower than you expect if you're not building many of them.