I'm fairly new at the game and no matter how aggressively I play, I lose on turn 150 because I don't have a high enough "score". How do I enhance my "score" throughout the game? Conquering & colonizing planets doesn't seem to affect the score all that much.

Firstly I would advice you to deselect Score Victory.

When you create a new game go to Settings (top right)

Scroll down till you see Score Victory and deselect the tick-box



NB Don NOT deselect all other victory conditions. If no victory condition is selected the program will default to Score Victory even though it show as deselected.



It is my understanding that everything counts towards your score (Systems you own, improvements build on systems, population, ships build, modules on the ships, research completed)



If you have Events on, you should try to get to most of the flags as +40% food or science can help a lot.

thx, i needed to know this.