1)
No, comp stomping is nothing like playing online.  Like all cheating AI's, the key is just to survive the early game until you get your footing.  Once a cheating AI loses its momentum, it's finished and your victory is just a matter of time.  The AI is unfortunately very stupid, falling into obvious pitfalls. A human player will fight in a proactive manner and if he falls into an obvious trap, he's unlikely to make the same mistake twice.


2)
Nope; trade ports are overrated. Even as TEC you often go completely without them.  Besides, you wouldn't build a "single" trade port.  You either build a complete network (at least 4 ports on 4 different planets all in a row) or you don't bother at all.

The key, money-wise, is to be more frugal in your spending. Heavies probably weren't the right unit choice in your situation, but carriers and hoshikos would be very useful. Although expensive, hoshikos will keep your units alive longer, meaning you have to replace them less often, and in the long-run this can actually save you more money than trade ports all while giving you a distinct in-battle advantage.


3)
All you need to do to keep flaks being effective is to keep them in position.  They will often chase strike craft away from your fleet, and you will need to keep your fleet together to some extent.

In terms of beating strike craft, it's typically said that you want one flak per squad of fighters.  My bet is that you were trying to get away with one flak per carrier, which is really half the amount you need to properly suppress strike craft.  Bombers are another story; flaks can beat them, but you need 2 or 3 per squad, which starts getting excessive.  If there are large numbers of bombers, you need fighters.

If you only need a couple carriers, like two or three, it's actually more cost-effective to get a carrier-class capital ship rather than researching carrier cruisers and then building those. 


4)
Totally depends on the map layout.  If you can, then yes, you should expand in two directions.  Other times you want to bee-line to the opponent and then go all-out military.


5)
Culture is a nasty little thing to decide when to use it.  It does boost loyalty in friendly systems, which means more income from those systems.  It's also a threat to your enemy that can really only be countered (in the long-term) with culture of their own.  I wouldn't say it's late game, but culture is something that isn't a must-have unless your opponent decides to get it.


6)
Six fleet upgrades?  How could you possibly have that and not heavies?  Six fleet upgrades requires six military or civic labs.  If you built six civic labs, that's your problem right there.  If you built six military labs, you had the prerequisites for heavies.

I rarely go as high as six fleet upgrades.  More common is that I will take casualties in my successive battles and have to spend money replacing those units.  Typically people who fleet up too much will be unable to replace their numbers and ultimately will lose, either because they have to sacrifice tech level (as you did) or because they cannot sustain those high numbers.

That said, I have played low-tech games before.  Not too long ago I stuck with 2-lab as Vasari for well over an hour before finally adding a third and fourth lab for overseers, carriers, and minelayers. Instead of high-tech units I compensated by getting some nice capital ships and constantly pressuring my opponent.


7)
I usually don't take on large teams of unfair AI's.  Too much time.  Instead, I speed-run against smaller teams.  I had a nice relaxing game last night against one unfair (random small map) which took exactly one hour to complete.

Actually, I never knew it worked like that.  I confirmed it just now, so you're right.  Anyways, the fact that I always have more military labs than my fleet research level should probably answer your question.

I'd have pushed for 3 military labs if only for hoshikos in your case, but I doubt I'd have gone further.  As I said, I don't think heavies were the right unit in your situation.  From the sounds of it, your enemy's fleet was more carrier and siege frigate (typical of the AI), and it makes more sense to make a balance of flaks, cobalts, and LRM's supported by hoshikos and capital ships. 

Flak is one of the toughest units in the game.  It's only countered by light frigates, which get slaughtered by your LRM's.  If flaks alone aren't doing the job, a good alternative is to go for the carriers.  Your LRM's or cobalts both make excellent unit choices for doing so.

It's called a "starbase".  The problem isn't that it's overpowering, it's that the AI just doesn't know how to deal with it. 

Oh, c'mon.  Most people do build somewhat balanced armies.  Illum spammers, which will be dealt with next patch, are the only real exception.  I see lots of variation in fleet and strategy.

And yes, people will try to attack as early as possible.  The best defense is a good offense, it's that simple.  Even if your homeworld isn't a viable target, it's very likely that players will be eying up strategic choke points and rushing to take them as early as possible.  Early battle is just a reality in every RTS game.

I agree with Darvin on this one, Im seeing more balanced fleets than before. And as far as rushing goes. I define "rushing" differently than Agent does. Where as I believe he defines it as any attack in the first 15 minutes, I take rushing as a player skipping over several planets to attack an opponents HW, which is common in cramped maps but isnt entirely the norm. However In MP the rate at which people expand is much faster than in SP, so early game battles over planets and choke points happen frequently, but thats inevitable due to the fact that multi-star games are rare in MP which is why I don't consider it "rushing".

Taking a neutral planet is A LOT easier than taking an enemy-controlled one.  It doesn't make sense to expand towards neutral territory; these planets will remain neutral for a long time and I can always come back to them later.  The planets between me and my enemy?  If I don't take them, he will, and then I have to fight quite seriously to take them.  Of course it makes sense to take the contested resources first, and then go for the stuff that's out of your enemy's reach later.

I disagree with you regarding that tactics are null.  You can easily fight the enemy to a standstill and start using more subtle approaches like culture push, but honestly if you're seriously outgunned or you simply let your opponent claim all the good strategic points uncontested, what do you expect will happen?

You're missing my point.

The planets in the back will always be neutral, the enemy has no realistic capability of taking them.  They will be easy to acquire whether you take them now or later.  However, the planets in the middle of the map can be taken by the enemy.  Taking them early, before your enemy can do so, is the only way to get them while they are still easy to acquire. 

This is why, even if you do not intend to attack your opponent's planets, it is a good idea to expand towards your enemy.  If you do not, he will expand towards you and the planets that you might have been able to take as easy neutrals are now owned by an enemy player.

Not really, for two reasons.  First, he lost a planet while you gained one, so it's effectively a two-planet swing.  Secondly, that planet likely had strategic value (why else would you have attacked it?) which will put your opponent in a difficult position.  Finally, he loses any investments he made on that planet (infrastructure, structures).

As for your story about Tyr... frankly, once you were defeated he was free to eco up, so chances are he was playing as a pocket player while pursuing you there.  I don't know the layout of your map, but from the sounds of it you were a suicide (or pseudo-suicide) and there wasn't another player immediately exposed by your defeat, which means Tyr probably didn't have any immediate targets to hit after you.  I've seen (and been victim of) Tyr's relentless rushes.  He executes them with perfect precision, and pretty much knows he can get away with acting overly aggressive. 

I personally tend to be more passive-aggressive... Tyr just slaughters you with a single quick and decisive attack...

I wasn't defeated.

No offense meant to Tyr in the slightest, but I wasn't impressed.  It was just standard fare as far as I'm concerned.  It wasn't any more or less impressive or relentless than the bazzillion other rushes I've seen.  I knew it was coming, because for one reason I was playing MP online, LOL.  For another reason, my scout uncovered his hw before his uncovered mine, and I saw that it was Tyr, which means "rush" all the more.  Finally, when his scout hit my homeworld, it went straight for my contructor and started shooting it.  That didn't bother me whatsoever, because I didn't intend on building anything with it, but point being, that was 3rd indicator "rush" was coming.  I simply built 1 civ lab on the asteroid I conquered, researched scrapping technology (vasari), then demolished all structures when he rolled into my planet, plus I demolished the civ lab at the roid.

The first thing he did when he rolled in was starbase (vasari).  I thought that was funny because he didn't need to - I wasn't going to oppose him in the slightest degree.  So that was a waste of funds on his part.  The poor starbase never even had a chance to shoot at anything since I scrapped everything the second he rolled in.  Looked pretty though, I guess.

This is an example of an attempt at a "strategic counter" to a rush.  Let him take what he wants, and just go about your game somewhere else.  The problem I'm pointing out is, the game provides for few, if any, such strategic counters.  Pretty much the only thing you can do is fight fire with fire.

EDIT:

LOL.  People generally attack planets for the same reason mountain climbers climb mountains - "because they're there."

The reasons I attacked the planets I attacked in the game I just mentioned had nothing to do with their strategic value.  One simply needs planets for resources, logistics/tactical slots, etc.  When leaving my homeworld and colonizing up the middle, I simply asked myself which planets could I colonize that 1) weren't ice/volc/dead roids, 2) were fastest to get to, 3) had the least resistance, and 4) were in the path or near other planets which met the same criteria.  Later when Tyr decided to follow my trail of breadcrumbs, I changed 3 above to 3) had the MOST resistance, so that I could leave that resistance for him to fight, i.e. this meant the planet should have had lesser value to him.  It made no difference.

Neither Tyr nor I attacked planets because of any strategic value, but with Tyr this was even less so because HE WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO NOT ATTACK PLANETS WITH STRATEGIC VALUE (i.e. he went out of his way to ONLY attack my planets, even after I had purposefully switched to attacking less desirable over more desirable planets, LOL).

The bottom line is, a rusher doesn't attack your planets because they have "strategic value."  A rusher attacks your planets because that's what a rusher does.  A rusher will attack your planets over other planets even if other nearby planets are easier to take, offer higher strategic value, etc.

You lost your homeworld.  I'm aware you weren't knocked out of the game, but you had still been defeated by your opponent.  Your "breadcrumb" trail of planets wasn't a recovery so much as a distraction for Tyr.

Quite frankly I think it was a fair presumption on his part to assume his opponent wouldn't roll over for him.  Once he realized you weren't putting up a fight, every penny he has can go towards colonization and eco.  I've been victim of Tyr's starbase/skirantra rush before.  He executes it quite well and you've gotta be ready for it before he gets to your homeworld.

As far as Tyr goes, I repeat: he knows he can get away with being overly aggressive.  He sees an opportunity for a quick-kill and he goes for it.  One of these days, I hope to make that blow up in his face (in which case he'll suddenly be very vulnerable) but until then he knows how to make a kill stick.

Hey guys I thought of another question. I asked earlier if the diplomacy screen helps any. I don't think I explained it well enough.

Does the ingame screen that ranks players based on Econ - Culture - Miltary help much?
Does culture show who has the most?
Does military show who has used the most ship slots?
Do people consider it as they attack/defend?

That kinda stuff...

Those indicators consider entire empires anyway, not just an isolated section. Things like defenses are not normally distributed evenly across one's empire.

Say you had only one planet to defend. Even if you completely maxed out the possible defenses on that gravity well, you probably would not end up as number 1 in defense as quantity is the dominating, if not sole factor in the calculation of those indicators (I've had games where the AI spammed 12+ capitals and took number 1 for capital ships even though I had 6 capitals all level 10).

I think you can add to this list the fact that the hw is overly-significant relative to everything else in the game.  There has to be a way to play the game besides "rush hw/defend hw," otherwise we aren't talking about very much strategy in this "strategy game."

I had severe problems with the game when it first released.  There were NO CHOKEPOINTS.  In and of itself, I wouldn't have cared, except the game also had 1) phase lanes, and 2) a phase jump inhibitor that didn't work because the devs nerfed it into oblivion coming out of beta!  So I put the game down for close to a year, and came back only when I found out the PJI had been buffed (still not to my satisfaction, but it was all I was going to get).

With PJIs only, there was the ability to create an extremely soft "choke" (cough).   With starbases and mines backing up the PJI (which is gonna cost you), there is the ability to create a medium choke I guess.  Actually, even that isn't true in most cases, and would require several layers of starbases and PJIs.

I have always preferred hard chokes, as you allude to.  I think they started removing strategy from the game the moment it shipped, starting with map strategy (PJI debacle).