I really don't know what happened to me. I played hundreds and hundred of hours of GalCiv2 and it became one of my favorite games ever. Then Elemental came out, and I never figured it out. Oh well - not every game works for everyone. Now this game has been out more than a year, and I've successfully won one game.
One.
I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Even on the easiest level, no matter what I do, every other civ gangs up on me, declares war and somehow already has HUGE standing armies of powerful ships. Even if I go to an extreme and put everything I've got into building an army, I can't ever build might as fast as them. If I try to bend over and give them everything from the beginning, they attack because I'm weak.
One the EASIEST LEVEL.
A level like that is generally for just learning the ropes. A toddler should be able to win on that, and I can't get anything done past the initial expansion.
I've been playing 4x games since the early days of Sid Meier's Civilization 1. It's not like I'm new to this. There has got to be something major and obvious that I've missed in Stardock's last two releases. It's ether that, or I have to accept that strategy games have passed me by...
Not sure what I expect out of this post. I think I'm just bummed and venting.