Well I've searched through the forum to see if I could find something on this, but came up empty.  If there is such a thread or post, I apologize for the duplicity.

In any event, I'm beginning to think either I'm not any good at this game at all, or the game cheats.  Three times now I've started a 12-races scenario, set the turn-limit at 1,000 or above, (so I wouldn't run out of time) and the difficulty on Easy.  All three times I start slow... expand to the nearby planets & acquire perhaps a dozen colonies or so before running out of room.  I've concentrated on a defensive stance... building up my colonies, keeping the economy going, (from a lesson learned when I kept running out of money) and acquiring new tech.  In every game, about the time I've finally built up a (what I think) is respectable force, say 25 or 30 ships, consisting of Dreadnaughts (or Battlecruisers), Cruiser II or III's, Destroyer II or III's, etc, plus a Roid-Roller, Mother Ark, a smattering of Fleet Carriers, and down to Falcon's or Merlins plus some Armored Transports for Stormtroopers and Hover Tanks... then I go hunting.  By then I'm usually being picked on by one of the more aggressive races, like the Kurgu (sp?) so its easy to find a target planet.  In each and every case, my fleet is totally eclipsed by what I find coming out of warp at the target... well over 100 ships, and something on the order of 50 Heavy Missiles, Jammers, multiple-Guardian space stations, and multiple-Orbital Laser Turrets.  Streuth!  

What am I doing wrong?  NONE of my colonies has a defense as I've seen in each and every game when I finally attack, and I'm playing a defensive strategy!  At best, by this point in the game (around Turn 250 or so) I've got between 5-10 Interceptor Missiles, maybe 4-5 Orbital Laser Turrets, and 1 Guardian per colony. 

Any help for a frustrated player?

Might want to try the Matrix forums. Not much action there, but maybe you can stir things up.

Or the Ntronium forums http://ntronium.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php

Hey Blakjack!  Sorry you're having difficulties.  I'm only an average player myself (even with Armada, which I've played a lot of), which means I find the AI a pretty tough customer as well, so I fully sympathize. 

I can't say for sure what the problem might be, but I'm wondering if perhaps the AI-controlled factions have engaged in a fair bit of tech-trading (which would at least partially explain why their fleets & defenses are so advanced).  It's pretty common for them to do that in my experience, including with the human player(s). 

Have you done much in the way of tech-trading yourself?  If not, it's definitely something you might want to try!  In most of my games, the other races are often eager to buy/sell technologies, especially when you have good relations with them. 

Hello there,

Very much like my friend Martok, i am an average player. That said, i actually think that the 12 race scenarios is not easy. The biggest problem is that the map is small for so many races and it's difficult to expand. One main aspect people don't notice with Armada 2526 is that you can build more than one shipyard per planet. So you should make sure that your homeworld and some of your main planets have at least 2 shipyards so you can produce colony ships as well as warships. Another aspect is research. It's not the way i usually do it but the best is to create one lab and to upgrade it to the max (instead of building first 4 labs per planet). Then it's important to focus on about 2 fields of research and make a lot of tech exchanges with 1-2 key allies (they will want to have the latest gadgets you have in the 2 fields you will be focussing on).

Cheers 

PS: what i said about shipyards is also valid for colony workshops...i don't do this much but on a small map it can be nice to have more that one colony workshop on some planets.

Good point about the 12 races scenario, Anguille; it is rather difficult.  I somehow missed that salient fact (in Blakjack's post) earlier.  

I have a question.  I bought Armada and its expansion through D2D and it disappeared in the transition to Gamefly.  Is there any way I can get my copy replaced?

Thanks guys... I admit I hadn't thought of having more than one shipyard or colony workshop on a planet.  I'll have to give that a try.

Yes I was tech-trading quite a bit with a couple of other races.  I don't think technology level in and of itself was the issue.  Rather it was more along the lines of sheer numbers.  Hrumph... maybe I'm turteling too much and not expanding fast enough.