I'm a traveling consultant, so I don't get to play a lot. Usually, it's a couple hours once or twice a night during the week. I do take the occasional weekend to play a big map. With my limited playing skill, I'm hoping that I'm getting better at the game so I tried my first game on Tough last night. I was doing fine, got pretty lucky that the Drengins and Torians got into a war while I milked up all the influence in the galaxy (as Terran). I tend to build my military a little late. I had done a lot of research and was upgrading my basic military units with my latest technology and, in an oversight, failed to notice the cost of upgrading all of those units. My military strength skyrocketed to above and beyond what both other races could stand to put against me, however I had just hurt myself economically. Wanting to see if I could turn things around, I focused on economy buildings. I had gotten myself into a position where I was sure I could stop my economy from destroying itself right when the galaxy experienced an economic depression. Unable to believe the timing, I hit the turn button a few times in a row just to see how thoroughly screwed I was. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, another Mega-Event (something about people taking over some of everyone's planets) happened. I had maybe I had maybe 15 planets, the Torians 6, and the Drengins 10. I lost 7 of my planets to find out that my technology (the highest) was inherited by these races, and they had even taken my home system!

Does anyone else have any great stories about the entire game turning upside down in the span of literally just a few turns?