Thanks everyone for the tips about starting out and keeping myself safe, I finally won a game on beginner and owned at least 94% of the galaxy, now on to normal where I should get my but kicked
Take you time and have fun. Make sure you work on the economy. Getting the economy going is important at ALL levels of play and is the main impediment you need to master before reaching maso level. Let us know if you need more tips because this is where we learned too.