Hello - I do indeed like this game, but omg - how imbalanced is it.

It takes me like 20 mins (have the default game speed) to get a few points in research, 1 captical ship and a few frigates - but within like 25 mins my opponent (only playing 1v1 maps) sends like 2 capital ships and 10 frigates at me..  lol, I have hardly got anything, no research - how in the hell can he do that with the same number of planets.

I mean, by the time I have my research up, my oppponent had x2 captical shits, and about 40 other frigates.  You call this balance? 

Is there some magic button I'm missing that allows you to get more Ore/Crystal than 2/3+ ever sec??  Half the time I just sitting here watching it, cannot do anything until I have another 100 ore, then I get to hit a buttong, and wait again... And this is with all the research to make it faster, its a joke.  I don't mind spending hours playing a map, I like to take things leisurely, but when the CPU sends a force that is x4 as big as mine - that's not fair or balanced.

Any tips would be great, thanks.