In a nutshell: Economic victory conditions take far too long. The cost of each share increases too rapidly and as I found out another race can easily finish a scientific victory well before a player can achieve an economic one.


I am not 100% sure how to achieve economic victory, but I assume it is investing in 51+ shares of the galaxy stock exchange, but I only made it to about 48 before the Bulrathi achieved a scientific victory. When I had 38 shares of the stock exchange I began building the scientific victory buildings and I was able to build them all (I cut the last turn out of the third building so I could continue with the economic victory path) and even at 3500 credits a turn I only made it 5 more shares by the time I would have finished the scientific victory.

OK I made a game with the specific intent of getting an economic victory, but it didn't work.

I saved up enough BC to buy 60 shares at once so that the cost would not inflate on me so I could achieve an economic victory in the quickest manner. Well 60 doesn't trigger an economic victory. I then went through the painful process of clicking though turns to get enough BC to buy 100 shares. Well a couple of the races attacked me so I had to buy some ships, but I saved up to buy 30 more at once putting me to 90 shares. 90 shares doesn't trigger victory. Then I bought 10 more and I found out that 100 shares doesn't not trigger victory and neither does 101. I went ahead and triggered my scientific victory that I could have achieved about 175 turns earlier.

Either Economic victory is broken, is set to an absurd number of stock shares (51 is harder to get than a scientific victory). Am I doing something wrong?