Beating Unfair?

Step 1. build starbases on chokepoints as fast as you can, you will see the benefits.

Step 2. profit from the stupidity of the AI and laugh as he sacrifices whole fleets on your defenses.

Step 3: defend starbase from anti-structure cruisers, after some time the AI realises those are good against starbases and starts to build them in big numbers.

Step 4: build your own fleet and go hunting, preferably after the last major defeat of you opponent at the hands of your starbase so he cannot have a full fleet to stop you.

Optional: you might want to expand as fast as you can in the beginning of your game, it really helps to get those extra resources fast, and the AI is slow to expand so basically you decrease his economical bonus. Colony capital ship, colony frigate, and two colonizer fleets the best way to achieve this.

Optional: you may want to fleet up quickly, to defend your freshly built or under construction starbase, and of course speeding up your expansion. Light frigate and corvette fleets are pretty good against AI I think, and you might want to introduce long range frigates if the AI abuses light frigates. BUT you don't really want to focus on reaching 2000 used fleet supply as fast as you can, filling the first or second fleet research is enough for defending 1 or 2 starbases (although you will see how many ships are needed, varies from game to game), instead invest money in strengthening the bases, some repairs next to it, and get some economy going (upgrade planets, research extraction bonuses, build trade ports). And one capital ship is enough, better to get your titan faster than building swarms of weak capital ships. After your titan is leveled well, around lvl5 you may start building more capital ships as you see fit.

Optional: if you have a decent income, you may want to save money for a titan, those things can really exterminate AI fleets if they have area weapons. Once I destroyed around 2000 fleet supply of Vasari ships (involving several capital ships and maybe a weaker Vorastra as well) using only my lvl10 Eradica.

If his titan was already under construction then it is no surprise he built it soon after losing his home, and Unfair gets quite a lot extra resources he can hardly use all so he has huge amounts in stock, so he can easily queue hundreds of ships or a titan. Of course depending on map size.

They get cheats, harder AI more cheats. They can build things they only queued to research even without finished research stations (thats why they can have heavy cruisers in some minutes after starting the game), I think they get random researches as well for free. Above normal every AI gets income bonus, I don't remember the current numbers as this was changed somewhat recently and I am not a regular player nowadays, but around 150-200% extra goes for the Unfair. BUT AI cannot utilize trade ports so you can easily decrease his advantage if you can build some gtrade ports early on (ofc not risking being overwhelmed by his forces).

Hey, thanks for the response. I've found starbases to be pretty effective, but often the AI doesn't cooperate by suiciding their fleet into my defenses. In a few games I've played recently they just hang back on their planets. I control far more territory, but it's very difficult to launch an attack because they've amassed a huge force in their own gravity wells. I'm finding it very tough to break through in these situations.

Just bring your titan, that will take care of things. Just keep it alive long enough, with a much smaller fleet you can easily win if you have previously leveled up your titan at the pirate base as in your case the AI is not a threat and is passive, so you can survive without your titan at your front world. But be warned, this strategy is a bit dangerous, you need to be very careful not to lose capital ships or even your titan, but with some practice you will start to feel when to attack and when to retreat.

BTW if you control more territory than him, you can easily get a strong eco with tons of trade ports, and build a big fleet and crush that Unfair AI.

If AI doesnt want to attack move your defensive fleet 1 PJ out of gravity well you want to defend That will change its mind. Once he is in trap your fleet + phase jump inhibitors will crush it,,,,,,

As for AI bonuses, the AI will instantly research some technologies on the higher difficulties, even if it doesn't have the labs...also, the AI can purchase additional levels for capital ships...on unfair, they can purchase +1 more, or up to level 5...obviously the biggest advantage they get is resources....

When you combine all this, the AI is able to field large fleets and replenish losses even with very few planets...because resources aren't really an issue for them, they don't need trade ports or refineries to be successful...this is in part why the AI can (and does) get away with building mostly labs and lots of culture centers...so, the AI can get out more advanced units faster and will have insane culture -- all without the opportunity cost of less resources...

The resource and research cheats mean you can't win by economic attrition -- the only way to really stop the AI from quickly replenishing losses is to destroy their factories, and that may not always be viable...

You can play the XP game...as they suicide on your defenses, you level up your titan and caps and then eventually use that super powerful fleet to crush them...be careful though, because if you are playing FFA or large teams, the enemy AI can still level all their caps and titans off each other, which means that any sort of attrition probably isn't going to work...

Expand fast, be bold, and push as hard as you can to wipe a player out, even if it means severely losing on another front...confuse the AI by attacking a frontline planet with a fleet while a cap bombs out a deeper world...don't be afraid to try and keep the AI busy at a planet by kiting your fleet while you build a starbase somewhere else...

Best fleet compositions against AI usually revolve around spamming 2 ships that compliment each other...for example, corvettes (which can counter bombers) and HCs (which counter most nearly everything but are susceptible to bombers)...different periods of the game and different factions will make for different combos, but when facing the AI you don't need to get complicated...

Another big thing is cap choice...as TEC, abuse lvl 6 marzas and akkans like none other....as Advent, abuse malice on the progenitor...as Vasari, abuse kortul spam to null any abilities and SC they may have...

As Sel pointed out, choosing Capital Ships wisely is the key. You can win by building anything but you can win alot easier by building powerful ones (Marza and Kortul spring to mind). Getting a Capital Ship to lvl 6 against the Unfair AI shouldn't be an issue nor should keeping it alive once it's there.

Once you have sufficient Capital Ships at a high lvl you can roam the stars at will, assuming you're playing with 1 or 2 AI and have a small number (no more than 3) well fortified chokepoints.

Not to offend anyone but marza does not work against anyone except maybe vasari. Reason being most of the time ai has akkan or radiance included in fleet and 80% of time he will disrupt your MB And if succesfull AI has enough cheat that all but corvettes and lf will survive lvl 1 MB. 

Start with vasari loyal. They are easiest to win with. Best titan in game (Make sure you lvl hull desperation and better weapons firs), credit income from caps so you don't need trade disable regeneration on turrets. Against AI i dont research phase missiles from start. Best thing is to max weapon research above phase missiles first then hull armour and am regen. 

I find the AI rarely has more than two ion shots worth of antimatter so I wait it out and then barrage away.

I also personally find the Vasari Rebel titan to be a beast against the AI and their frigate heavy fleets. It doesn't do as much damage as other titans but it simply will not die. I generally lead it into gravity wells so the AI will focus fire on it then bring my fleet in a second later to assist.

Either way there are plenty of strategies at your disposal, hopefully you can find one that brings you success.

I find MB works great against AI...they aren't too smart about using disables properly, and so usually you can get away firing MB at will...only real problem is the kortul, since the AI doesn't have to "use" that interrupt...

It won't work too well against HCs, at least not until you get your marza to lvl 8, but it is better than pretty much any other TEC ship for fighting the AI...

I do agree that VL is the easiest race to fight the AI with....you usually can get away with minelayer + Orky rushing (AI does occasionally spam scouts though) and of course the VL titan is excellent for dealing with any fleet...only weakness of Vasari is their inability to deal with mass corvettes (unless you count mines?), but fighter spam, kortul spam, and a VL titan will make you nearly untouchable....

How to beat unfair and above:

Step 1: build marza and starbase

Step 2: Watch as stupid ai suicides into base, leveling marza to 6

Step 3: ???

Step 4: Profit

I have completely different experience from you guys.

When trying to use MB 80% of the time it gets interrupted and if not marza usually dies afterwards unless I have lvl 6 akan to save it as 1 marza does not deal enough damage to kill ai fleets.

I rarely see Ai attacking me with mass corvette fleets.

VR titan is very dependant on his ability and before it is levelled up to 5 it is useless. Also his normal damage is just meh.

Maybe all that difference comes from fact that I play hard or cruel ais, Vicious is too lame as it gets super weapons 10 min in the game.

I don't know what to tell you there....only time I find it to consistently be an issue is late game when the AI has lots of caps, but by that point you can 1) use mass SC to quickly FF a problematic cap or 2 and 2) can probably have multiple lvl 6 marzas...

They don't, but they could have a fleet of say 1500 supply of ships, and 300 of that (so 100 or 75 ships) is corvettes...the rest is either frigates, caps, or carriers...the frigates can be dealt with via your titan, and even the carriers can as well though the kortul more directly nullifies the SC...the only issue now is quickly dealing with those 100 corvettes, and while not super problematic (it's an AI after all) you can only bank on raw firewpower...TEC have MB and advent have their own array of AoEs to deal with corvettes, Vasari just have raw firepower...

I agree...the AI may still attack with frigates so you can get away with using the ship alright, but I think an eradica, vorastra, and ragnarov are going to kill fleets faster and still live to tell the tale...

Hard AIs, it's no issue at all since you can probably get away with anything unless seriously outnumbered...unfair AIs, I've had no problem with using MB until late game...vicious AIs get too many ships too quickly and also will have large amounts of SC -- I've actually MBed and killed entire fleets only to still lose the marza to all the hostless SC floating around...I can't speak for cruel as I never play on that level...

I tried 2 Marzas with 2 MB I did not have a lot of success.

Currently I am playing 5 hard AIs allied against me to even the odds a tad.

I cannot see wining a game with anything but vasari purely because of vasari mobility to deploy titan instantly where needed. 

Unless you set custom map and handicap AIs

Well if you play ridiculously stacked games like a 5v1, odds are someone is going to have a disabler ship or two or three...if you fight less enemies (1v1 or 2v1) it's not nearly as likely that your MB will seriously be countered...

I just played a game on a tiny random, me as TR vs. an AR unfair AI...I led with marza, got it up to lvl 6, and then just rolled the AI...even before lvl 6 though, I was holding my own and held half the planets -- most importantly, I had enough fleet that I could snipe their caps, preventing anything from disabling my marza...once I got lvl 6 the AI basically could do nothing to stop me, they even had a revelation once that did focus on my marza, but the AI was so inept at timing the ability that I still got half a lvl 2 MB in, which destroyed all their frigates (HCs and carriers of course still lived)....not that it mattered, I quickly killed the revelation and could have just waited to use MB after that was done, so either way MB would have been successful...