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Hard to give specific advice without knowing what you were doing, but here are some very general tips:
1. Be aggressive in 1v1 vs. AI. The AI is pretty lousy at defending against multiple fronts. Sometimes they'll jump their main fleet from one edge of their empire to the other, then back and forth. You can abuse this pretty easily by attacking both sides at once, and then withdrawing your fleet from whichever side the AI sent its main fleet to. The AI's main fleet will then start jumping to the other side of their empire, and you can send your withdrawn fleet back into their system to attack again.
2. Ultimately, this is a game about production. Your goal is to maximize your ability to produce ships. So prioritize econ as much as possible early game, including by expanding, getting extractors, researching the resource mining boosts, etc. Also, prioritize planets with the resources you need. For Advent and Vesari, you want to first target the planets/tech that give you crystal. For TEC, it's more of an even balance (with a focus on credits in the early game.)
You shouldn't be banking resources until you've capped supply. And you shouldn't be sitting at capped supply without doing something productive with your fleets (namely, raiding the AI's economic infrastructure).
3. Based on the above two points, your goal should be to cripple the AI early. You want to avoid a long stalemate because the AI can tech up and max their supply faster than you due to their economy bonuses. After you cripple the AI's economy, feel free to draw the game out if you want to experiment with all the late game stuff.
4. In terms of combat, the missile boats seem to be the way to go for all of the races, until you reach carriers. Then carriers. Everything else is just to support them. This changes in the very late game when you can mass high-level cap ships, but 1v1s shouldn't be going that long (per the above points). For advent, you want more carriers than missile boats because their tempsts have 0 penetration. The tempest missile spam is great at tying up enemy PDs, though.
Relatedly, kiting with missile boats / carriers is also very effective. You can really punch above your weight with that strategy because the AI doesn't move their fleet in formation.
5. Phase jump inhibitors are insanely strong. Pick a system neighboring the AI, put an upgraded starbase in it along with a phase jump inhibitor. Then remove your fleet from the system so it appears undefended. When the AI sends its main fleet to attack the system, you bring your main fleet in to win the fight (which you should, b/c you have your main fleet + upgraded starbase). The AI can't withdraw because of the jump inhibitor. They wind up losing their entire fleet, and that basically wins you the game. This tactic works because the AI doesn't seem to care about inhibitors at all, so they'll consistently walk into the trap.
The inhibitor trap is usually my go-to "win condition" for mid-game. Once you've wiped out the AI's main fleet, you can move in and conquer their next major planet, then set up the same starbase + inhibitor death trap there. Then the game is basically over, b/c the AI will need to spend its resources constantly remaxing its fleet, while you can spend those resources maxing out your tech tree.
To make it short, I took the random 1vs1 map and started colonizing all planets/asteroids around me. Then continued to the centre. When I reached it I saw the first ai planet and the fleet their was already stronger than mine (no surprise here, wouldn't be "unfair" ai if they would have had less). But when I went further they just went for my planets. They didn't withdraw any ships. So I had to go back, and they did run (they didn't attack in full force).
So whenever I moved the fleet, they did attack immediately. I couldn't gain more resources and they steamrolled me at one point.
Therefor I have to ask... by crippling the ai early on, do you mean not colonizing any planets around me but directly going to the ai? I just imagine going there and taking some asteroids to directly produce there and fight them. Seems a bit sluggish due to the long way and the time I wouldn't gain anything...?
Once my orbital defenses are maxed out on any planet or a fortress is in orbit, they'll never enter that gravity well again.
The most they do is sit back and build their interplanetary weapons and lob shots at me, but even those are incredibly easy to ignore (Except when I forgot to pause and walked away for a bit and came back to a destroyed home world.)
Do I need to force them to Hard/Aggressive instead of Hard/Random?
Unfair is 3x the eco bonus. most of its early resrouces it will use to build infrastructure and research.
Not actually building ships. so it will expand slowly at the start. much slower than a player that went bonkers on ships that also micros to have capital ships end fights near the next jump to not waste timing traveling. + not losing the tiny ships we make.
Ive mainly used Advent Wrath. and finding a lot of success by basically rushing down the military tree, only taking the colonizing tech when needed. and trying to also push for influnce, for the early advantage those level 1 bonus gives.
United with its gauss turrets. not super useful by itself but it can eat some shots that the capital ship would otherwise take and it doesnt cost credits, can eventually force retreat on its capital ship which unfortuanly is not what we want. since we want to destroy its frigates so that the ai replaces them with frigates. keeping them too poor to tech
if you won a major fight on the 2nd engament. and have way more ships. continue to focuse on its frigates. since your eco problably has not reach parity with thier income yet. :- so you wont be trading efficiently if their capital ship is working your frigates.
Jiskun for those colonizing free upgrade perks. lest you colonize on demand so long as your capital ship is there. and no more credits for a coloinzer.
fabricator is probably the best for rushing since it strait up allows you build items quickly. AOE consumable and shield recharge is awesome. in those first 2 fights. which can result in a early enemy fleet wipe.
The advantage in the first encounter should be with the player. so long as you cap out your 100 fleet capacity. wherever you think the fist fight will happen have upgrade for 250 fleet supply reasearch. otherwise your ships wont be there in numbers sufficent numbers :- that first fight, if its not flat out running away, micro it to
destroy its frigates, it will replace them with frigates... instead of Tech-ing to better ships with those resources.
2nd engagement will likely consist of 250-500 fleet supply.
Use scouts and park them next to their home-world planets. to figure out when their clearing the grav well. to then jump in and take the planet. {tempo} if you prioritize military tec tree you should be able to build frigate building for its repair function or the shielding+antimatter defensive building. Thier asteroid one is not worth taking. donest give a lot of logistics or credit income, but it can be raided fairly cheaply with a few ships for planet bombing.
For advent
Radiance Battleship can use animosity ability to force fights on group of noncapital ships.
to keep it alive, some defensive buildings are almost required? for the 2nd fight to keep it topped off with antimatter and shields. or fighting near a repair thing. Because the ai is busy spamming ships it will take a while to tech into carriers and big weapons. sooo, if you stay on top of them raiding and chunking out the fleet where possible. its resources will just keep being drained into its fleet with useless frigates ships that you will outech with armor upgrades or items.simply having a Progenitor or Rapture as 2nd capital synergizes well.
Rapture for its Vengence ability, to use on Radiance who can aggro a so well.
Also what you prefer to build. as as for missile? maybe? I get why people like them since you can use them outside range of capitals ships and dont have strict firing banks like corvettes and other frigates. BUT. frankly. it cost more resources better used for eco parity, laser upgrades, or laser turrets. they shred thier frigates super quickly. and are technically cheaper than building ships. you could always have thier fleet fight in them with radiance battleship. :- in fact your own frigates only real threat early on is their capital ship firing at them.
Definitely expand and keep expanding. By being aggressive, I meant that you shouldn't be sitting on your fleet at max supply doing nothing. Go send it to the AI's worlds and blow up their extractors. If they don't send in a fleet to defend, then go ahead and wipe the planet out and move forward.
If they do send a fleet to defend, then wipe it out if you're in a stronger position, or retreat if not. Doing this forces the AI to devote more resources to rebuilding / defense, rather than spending those resources attacking you.
Another important reason to expand is buffering. Take some crappy asteroid near the AI and use it as a roadblock for when the AI attacks you. While they spend time destroying your asteroid, you can have your fleet decimating their core worlds. This goes to the next point.
I haven't seen the AI skip over one of your edge colonies to conquer a center colony, so if you've expanded well, then you should have a decent buffer before the AI starts attacking anything critical. In the meantime, you can just start killing the AI's core worlds, which will prompt them to send their main fleet to defend.
As for dealing with the AI's small raiding parties, that goes back to the point I made earlier about massing LRM boats (then carriers when you get there). Those guys can punch way above their weight by just kiting away. You often don't need to win the whole fight, either - the AI will retreat after you take out a few of their ships.
The easiest faction is Tec with mass LRMS... just rush to tech LRMS, using resources for anything else is a fail as youll lose anyway to their fleet.
Get eco up and hopefully you get a minor faction crystal discount to purchase your crystal.
LRMS just nuke their capitals and they are soo far range its crazy!
But yes the ai gets huge fleets sometimes you think youre winning and that was their scout fleet and boom their core fleet shows up to mop up... you gotta rush a decent fleet size fast and i think doing this also tricks the AI to play more defensive as they see you as a threat, if you have a poop fleet they will just push.
Also the TEC enclave gets free defence ships per factory and they scale.. it spams LRMS and heavy cruisers, it then also sends the heavies with your traders so you get a load of free fire power as this faction, along with dual starbases and a near immortal titan they are by far the strongest faction in the game.
You really can't dawdle against unfair. You need to know what you are going to do ahead of time, do it as quickly as possible, and then break their kneecaps before they break yours. If you try to snowball, the AI is going to do it much faster than you will and will completely engulf you before you can get more than halfway prepared. Big emphasis on what was said before about multiple fronts -- don't give them a situation where it's your deathball versus their deathball unless it's very early.
I am mostly dead before even thinking of building a phasejumpinhibitor. -.- I have still some room to improve since I had some minutes on ship cap due to late research. But honestly? When I watch PotatoMcWhiskey and see how he basicly chills for 30 minutes without being attacked, I wonder if 1vs1 such ais in a small system (standard 1vs1 random thing) even is possible if nothing else is there to distract them.
First off, don't get frustrated! Remember that you're playing against an opponent that's getting a massive resource cheat advantage over you. The game isn't fair at that point, so you are not "bad" for struggling!
That said, my suggestions were all from the perspective of 1v1 on the 1v1 maps (I've just been going down the list in order).
I think the issue boils down to refining your early game build order so that you're building a strong economic foundation quickly and then transitioning that into a large fleet. Even on Nightmare, you should be able to keep pace with (or outpace) the AI up to around 500 or 1000 fleet supply (depending on your luck with getting early planets that give the types of resources you need). So just focus on trying different build orders until you're able to do that.
The AI is just a set of very basic scripts. You'll eventually get a good sense of when the AI attacks, where they'll attack, etc. This seems to vary by map as well. Once you get a sense of the timing down, you can focus 100% on econ up until the point the AI gets aggressive.
One other piece of advice is to not worry about teching up too quickly. I generally ignore all the +weapon damage, + armor, culture, etc. techs until mid-game. My priority is getting econ (with one influence research to win those precious crystal bids), then getting LRM frigates + second cruiser (ideally via surveying and derelicts so I don't have to waste time w/ refining exotics), then star base, then phase inhibitor. After that, I'll branch out.
But your win condition is basically to survive until you can wipe the AI's main fleet out via starbase + inhibitor + your main fleet. (Per my original post.)
Also, I'm not sure whether this is optimal, but I'm a fan of the carrier start. At least for Advent, their Halycon w/ all bombers can clear out neutrals very quickly. I don't even need supporting ships. So my start right now w/ Advent Wrath is to have 9 light frigates conquering one side of the map and my Halycon conquering the other, using the unique advent building (or the nanites you can buy from the Tier 1 Vasari neutrals) to expand.
I'll keep trying! I could 1vs1 any ai on Sins 1 and don't want to feel old for not being able to do so in Sins 2. xD
Just to compare: I take the AKAN battle cruiser (I love TEC, I am a fan of old school high velocitiy lead) and go for the first asteroid as soon as the scouts do see it. Building up to ten standard small ships and going for the raised military cap. After that some Shriken and some flak because ai seems to like to swarm with 200+ fighters and lots of small ships in the late game (?). Upgrading mining and eco first on every planet. Maps are always of a layout of around three asteroids and two either vulcan or ice planets until I reach the centre of the ma with a primordeal or iron planet. On every planet I do build one research station of each and planetary buildings to get at least 8 points for each, building up fleet all the time.
And then it is the end. By the point I reach the centre, ai mostly has around 800 supply worth of fleet while I am at around 500. Getting the inhibitor needs 15 points for military research which needs to build up the planets so far with more planetary items (or being lucky with the trades offered and get a sweet +4 planetary item ^^). By the time I can research the inhibitor, Ai has almost 1500 supply worth of fleet and got the remeining planets I can't get, because as soon as I set my fleet out to get one, they just attack that the first planet on the line to my homeworld.
I will try different builds with trade ports and such, but I have a feeling I miss something crucial in building up my eco for being behind that much. xD
I would like to add that, regardless of the set enemy AI's difficulty,
one should permanently attack and shred enemy stuff.
The longer the AI is left alone, the harder the game becomes.