Help Winning Single Player Games

What expansion are you playing diplomacy or entrenchment?

Hard to say what you are doing wrong without solid reply or description of the game.

Advent are especially weak against vasari since they excel in shielding and vasari have phase missiles that negate shields. Also you might want to read some threads about fast colonization and ecoing and about counters to ship types.

General advice would be that AI doesn't know how to deal with Star bases and strike craft =>bombers spam. He is also very weak if attacked on multiple planets at the same time 3+ planets. AI also likes to chase ships around gravity well. 

Destras when upgraded can eat up star bases although overseers are very good at healing them......

When colonizing at start you might want to skip some planets and get to planets that are choke points and fortify them. AI doesn't know how to bypass a colonized planet....

With advent u must have more units than he has early on. Priorities in building or researching have to be met. Vasari ai's buff up there units so fast by the time they clonize the third planet and 1 or 2 asteroids u r facing light frigates with 4-5 armor. You must work your way to having 2 hostility temples, 1 harmony temple at home or combined with an asteroid. Go on to 4 hostility, then add another 1 harmony temple. Research armor/hull, illuminators and defence vessels and trade.

Keep going with armor/hull from there on until u reach the domina at 6 hostility temples and research it and perseverance ability so it can regenerate the hulls of ships and strucutures..  Role out domina cruiser but do not issue it attack orders, thus turn auto attack off.  it must also not be in a fleet but accompany a fleet. repair ability requires it to be stationary or not moving. So make it hold position during engage ments of your selected fleet. Its a complicated matter but thats the advent for u. Big guns that need more brains. Research the crusader at this point cos by now expect heavy cruisers knocking on your door step from the vasari..

Next go for the shield upgrades up until u get the iconus guardian. there on supple-ment your fleet.. scouts, desciples, defence vessels domina, crusaders----- against starbases go with iconus guardians but there should be more domina in any of your fleet against the vasari..

During all this time u need to role out as many units as u can and make sure u have atleast 1 trade port on the major asteroids and planets. pump out as many scouts and desciple complemented fleets with defence vessels. then add illums. Its brain busting work.

Your first Capital ship is always the mother ship for cost reductions from 15% on the first planet. Try get to level three before the next major planet for the 30% cost reduction. With the mother ship i tend to disable shield regen and just use malice.. don't ask me why: im just too offensive so wanna spare some anti matter. 

End result is advent ships with some serious hull regen and shields and available in great numbers cos of low cost tier 0 units.

Fully upgraded star base, AI will kill themselves on it every time, for any race.

Forgot , that starfish( Solanus Adjudicator) Cruiser packs a punch... take 2 or more with u to kill starbases with your fleet

Meh, bombers are better. If he was TEC I would agree with the Orgovs but the starfish aren't that good against single structures. Though they are helpful for removing the support structures.

Thanks a lot, all of you. I wish I'd saved the game replay from just before I posted this but I forgot. I'll go check out the posts suggested, and this info will probably help a lot, seeing as my biggest problem always seems to be battle. I love the Advent but their special abilities and support ships take a lot of management...

Also, I play Diplomacy.

Orgov is not correct. It's OGROV TORPEDO CRUISER... That kinda bothers me.

Since no one has addressed this adequately as well, with the new updates I personally rarely waste funds on Illuminators which you mentioned having large numbers of in your fleet. As advent, you thrive on synergies therefore against Vasari you need to leverage dominas with disciples to fuel their AM, this will best keep your fleet alive along with Halcyon TK Push for defense against Vas Bomber spam. For offense, use crusaders+SC to take out enemy heavies and LRM. If you are facing frigate fleets, use the Mothership Malice ability to take out larger swaths of those deadly phase missile frigates in a shorter time.

1. Scout quickly

2. Find choke points

3. Build starbases at choke points as soon as humanly possible

4. Have repair platforms, and maybe repair cruisers later

5. Upgrade starbases as needed

6. Fill every spare logistics slot with trade ports

I've found that if I follow this strategy, I rarely have to upgrade my initial fleet supply capacity until I have more money and research than I know how to deal with. I've never needed to go past the first 100 -> 250 supply upgrade. This has worked for me against every combination of AIs, up to cruel 3-on-1. It enables you to have the strongest economy possible (while having virtually no fleet) but the starbases insulate you from nearly any attack, so you can research and fortify and save up to your heart's content, until you feel like building a fleet, at which point you will have virtually unlimited funds. 10+ capital carriers can allow you to take down nearly any AI fleet with ease, and if you have a decent sense of tactics, you'll take no casualties. (Of course, they'll take a LONG time to level up, but that's all right.)

All you really have to worry about is if the AI is TEC and creates masses of more than 5 Ogrovs to attack your starbase with, which'll do lots of damage unless you take them down quickly. (Use fighters!)

or as soon as alienly possibly if playing as vasari