Before you give up, could you answer a few questions?
1) Keep track of the number of turns so that you can tell us here how long it is before you get to this point.
2) What are your start settings, in terms of race picks and political.
3) What are the positions of your sliders for spending, etc?
4) What are your first several moves?
5) What are the first 5 or 10 things you research?
6) What are the first 5 things you build?
7) What are the values for your research, production, and shipbuilding outputs during a few turns?
8) Do you ever use "focus"?