This is a hard game so expect to lose more than you win when first starting out... you will make silly mistakes until you have the game rules down but this post is for basic tips:

see image,

1. Team play... even when playing solo against the computer, having one or two ai races set to be on your team can take the stress out of your first few games.

EDIT: Fixed image link.

Your pic isn't working. Says it has errors.

I found out what you were talking about. My 1st game was 1k systems and about 8 AI controlled teams. They all seems to com after me lol.