In my current game(Crippling, Medium, everything abundant, 9 races, medium tech rate)I found a precursor mine on my second planet which got me off to a good start.

I was quite near 3 other races and was panicked into buying too many constructors and so I misjudged my colony rush and couldn't buy enough factories to kick my empire into high gear.

I used my precursor mine to churn out ships to keep my military rating high. In retrospect I used the mine too early because it forced my economy into the toilet. As a result my first 30-40 turns were spent researching economy buildings in an effort to break even.

At this stage i was the most powerful civilisation, mainly because I started building warships first and the mine was keeping me in the lead. All of a sudden I found myself at the back of the field. The AI had used its research advantage and tech trading to build up a huge tech lead. All the races except the yor were using nano rippers whilst I was stuck on laser V. My military lead disappeared in no time at all and my neighbours were getting very, very twitchy.

Because of my economic difficulties my planets were underdeveloped too. I was in serious trouble. I switched to 100% research got to NRCs went to a 60% research 30% social 10% military and raced to phasers 7. By now everyone else had adamantium and hyperwarp. I gave up several trade goods for the adamantium and strapped it onto my newly designed ships, pumped up the military production and waited.

Seeing as i was so far in I was amazed at how evenly the teams were matched. (This might be because I turned the AI settings to gifted then back up to genius at the start to prevent the braindead AI problem)

The Korx were the most powerful enemy controlling 20% of the galaxy. Then I got the Korx leader assassinated thing and was plunged into war with them. They destroyed most of my outdated ships damaging my military rating further. I got master trade from the arceans and bought the galactic bazaar on a long term payment plan (very expensive but I was in a desperate rush) and traded more trade goods for peace.

Although my military rating was low I had an advantage. I had adamantium and almost all the opponents were using mass drivers. No one had bothered developing shields so my military effectiveness was much higher than the military stats showed. I desparation I built some fast transports and swooped onto a nearby alterian system full of pq 15-20 planets. The Kork joined the fun and soon the alterians surrendered to the torians.

This meant the Torians and Korx were now evenly matched super powers. The Drengins sprang a surprise attack on the drath and the jessuins. Suddenly my empire was looking tiny.

The Korx and the Torians had both changed alignment, the korx became good and the torians evil. A torian attack on the korx sparked a war between these two powers.

The arceans had lots of ships and were on friendly terms with me. I wasted a lot of money and tech trying to form an alliance but they just get to close relations. I didn't want to mess up relations with them, plus they had a lot of ships. This meant I could only attack the Humans or the Yor. The Yor had some impressive looking ships fitted with missiles. Seeing as my defences would be useless against them I build a range extending starbase in the middle of the map and began my attack on the humans.

They only had 8 planets but they were amazing. earth was class 15, they had 5 planets above pq 20 and 2 pq 4s. The battle was very short. The human fleet was hanging around at the wrong side of the galaxy and it was a race against time to finish them off before the fleet got back. I had plenty of ships but only a few that were fast enough to reach the human planets, If these were destroyed I the invasion would fail. I took the first planet just in time because my range extending starbase was destroyed the same turn. My fleet could have been stranded. I captured every planet except mars in 3 turns, I offered peace for hyperwarp III, zero point armour and industrial sectors. They accepted. I also destroyed the human military and research starbases and grabbed them myself. Within the next 5 turns my military and research rating jumped 44% as I upgraded the bases. Excellent.

Meanwile the korx had turned the tide in the torian war, the torian military was smashed. I quick purchased some transports and grabbed as many worlds as I could. The torians surrendered to the Yor.

The Yor then sent me a message saying that they were joining their evil brothers the Drengin in an all out attack on the Korx, at this stage they were by far the most powerful race. They invited me to join the fun but I had other plans.

A closer look at the yor fleet showed they had about 12 small ships per fleet compared to my 9 mediums. (bless those arceans and their willingness to share logistics technology. This meant that despite their impressive looking 75 missile power it was only 6 per shot. My defenses were roughly 40 per ship. game on. They had several fleets stacked on one square. I sent their military rating from 170 to 40 in one turn and grabbed 3 planets.

I spoke to N-1 but he was sulking, "looks like you're more interested in fighting than talking" I made peace with him, He was willing to give me everything except weapons. Fair enough I suppose. I'd also grabbed his economic resource. Ever since the first 10 turns my economy had been struggling, not any more!

So this is how things stand now, The korx and the drengin are at war, the korx have more planets, the drengins have more ships. My money's on the green fellas. The arceans are pursuing an influence victory but most likely have too few planets to make it work. They are also the best researchers going so a tech victory for them is a distinct possibility. The Yor still exist but are not much better than a minor race.

I'm researching subspace annihalators and will soon place them on the lovely huge hulls the yor gave me. Nobody has much in the way of shields and I have plenty of defense from mass drivers.

Things are finally looking good after I nearly abandoned the game several times. It's this ability to turn things around despite terrible odds that makes me keep coming back. (For the record the best decision and the only thing that kept me in the game was going to 100% research and getting powerful lasers early.)

I can't wait to finish the game later tonight.