Winning is different in the scenarios, when you play them limits will be set and you will know the winning conditions. During the game many advances can be made with technology and diplomacy. You can acquire technology by diplomacy, research, discovery, or sometimes just by recovering a supply pod that got broken off from the initial landing on to the planet. You can set each one of your bases to specialize in what ever agenda you want. You can set the bases to conquer exploration, discovery or build.
Game play is very fun and very hard at the same time.
One word of advice makes sure your technology is better than all the other factions. Do not sell your information to any one, as other will not give you any thing in return that is very up to date. They might want your nuclear technology in which you might have 5 advances and in return they will give you farm technology that is only advance by 2. If you want some technology from some other faction give energy credits. The audio is the same during the whole game there is no change in audio during the game play.