the toughest battle for me was the Battle for the Vasri Homeworld, the advent where my allies and they where about normal agreesors, visari where hard fortifiers and the final battle took forever (like 1 hour) long until i said "FRACK THIS! FIRE THE NOVALITH CANNON" it was funny cuz it looked like he visari where beating the crap out of my allies and me until boom they just died

One very important thing when playing against more than 1 ai, give them what they want. My previous normal game against 3 ais, I did not do that and became the most hated person in the system, after an 1 hour of constant firefighting and pinprick the first breakthrough by the enemy was death for my empire. By appeasing some of the ais, you actually divide them.

Try this:

Make a custom map, 2 Star Systems, You start in 1, opponet in other. 2 Pirate Bases (One in each System)

Pirates ON.

Opponet: Hard (Or normal)

First off, Spend a LOT of cash on bounty for your opponet. Get the threat rating to Critical.

Next, Try to KILL THE PIRATES!! (Take their base for an achievement)

If you can manage to do that, Replenish your forces and by now you can crush the opponet.

I tried 3 opponents on easy, got a feel for the game and restarted. I'm currently playing Random Multi (HUGE) map with everyone on Hard. Each side is allied with each of their own race except for the last 3 players which I call the unholy alliance (Tec, Vasari, Advent). I have to say, it nearly made me crap myself with how it all went down. I captured 2 choke points and I've got each one fortified to the max (all hangars), the worst part was when the Advent and Vasari both decided to lay siege to that choke point, scared me so much because their forces were attacking only me, managed to hold them off (the pirates helped) and right now I'm trying to finish this entire map I'm about 15% done.

I agree with CenturionJixra. If you read through some of the strategies on these forums, you'll have an easier time for sure.

And... Good luck.