The first thing to do, as any race (what I do) is buy 200 Crystal off the Black Market. At the same time, build a Crystal Extractor and a Cap Ship factory. Build 4 (or 3, depending on which race) Light Frigs and station them near your phase-lanes. Get two Scout frigs and put on auto-explore to get the entire map down.

Build a Colony Cap Ship

TEC: Akkan Battlecruiser

Advent: Progenitor Mothership

Vasari: Jarrasul Evacuator

Upgrade the Colonize ability and make a fighter squadron from it. Form the Light Frigs and the Colny Cap. Find a ripe planet and take it over.

I suggest taking out the Krosov Siege Frig first. Once that's done, take over the planet while the rest of your frigs deal with the last Cobalt. It saves an extra two or so minutes.

Once you have three-four planets, scuttle some un-important buildings on your cap planet you don't need anymore (Cap/Frig Factories, for example) and build them on your border planets for max protection. On your border planets, build 3-7 Defense Turrets with 2-3 Hangars and 1-2 Repair Structures. Remember that every planet is a prime target for the enemy, and keep a constant alert on your planets.

I forgot. ALWAYS KEEP ON THE OFFENSIVE. Don't let up, keep raiding and assaulting their planets. Otherwise, if you say, "I'm just gonna build more ships" WRONG! YOU FAIL!

If you give them enough time (10, maybe 15 minutes) THey will bolster a fleet to rival the Imperial Navy Fleet at Endor! Seriously, keep the pressure on them and they'll run out of ideas. Even experienced players get smashed by Easy AI's if they defend when they could just smash the enemy's remaining defenses.

But, it you defend, just to get a feel for what it's like, stack up on three key ships.

1) LRF (Long-Range Frigates) Have about 20-60 at each planet for an easy win

2) Light Frigates (Cobalts, Disciples and Skirmishers) Have at least 65-80 of these at a planet. If you lose some, quickly rebuild them. THey're like Kamikaze units, but are actually quite effective. If you send a large amount, say, 40 at a Cap Carrier, some actually might survive, which adds experience, because the more that attack, the more will prevail. The Cap will most likely get destroyed, coupled with the LRF's firepower.

3) Anti-Fighter Frigates (Garda Flak Frig, Defense Vessel, Jasurak Sentinel) Have 25-50 of these prepared at all times. They can prevent Carrier Spam (It depends if you're spamming LRF's).

These three classes, while working together, are surprisingly effective at most times and can deal with almost any enemy. But remember, they're just a small defense force to hold the planet long enough until a bigger, better fleet arrives.

Rule No. 1) NEVER MOVE A DEFENSIVE FLEET. I call them "Build and Attack" fleets for their suicidal-type defenses. This includes the defense fleets above.

If you move them, a planet can have drastically reduced defense. If a scout comes along, sees this, and retreats, chances are they're gonna come in. Hard.

Defensive Fleets don't include a normal fleet, such as Caps, Carriers, Cruisers, etc:.

Rule No. 2) Research As Fast As You Can. Researching is your best friend. Use it. But don't use your entire economy on trying to buy Super Weapons. 90% of the time, people (or AI) I play win because of the things and subjects they researched. Combat Researches can be good, but Empire ones are better. Long Range Jumps are your best friend in Multi-Games, cause sitting in the star system you control by yourself isn't very fun either.

Rule No. 3) Never Use Super Weapons UNLESS NEEDED! 95% of the time Super Weapons (Novalith Cannon, Deliverance Engine, Kostura Cannon) are unusful, a waste of your economy, and most of the time get built on border planets.

Really, I see those structures as last resorts. The Kostura can destroy nearby Structures on planets, while the Novalith can tear a planet (or asteroid) apart from across the star system. The Deliverance Engine I think works the best. It automatically spreads your culture deep within the enemy's planets, which could cause rebellions and a chance to rebirth.

Wow. That was a mouthfull. Hope it helps.

Once you have 4-6 planets you should be able to have a stable economy. Once you get a planet, get a Metal and Crystal extractor. Later, get the others (most of the time Metal).

If you ever need money, remember, there's a Black Market. Sell some Metal and Crystal for some cash.

I recommend rolling over every icon and clicking on them to see what they do. Play on easy 1v1 gigantic map no pirates and just get a feel for what everything does. Thats what I did and after 2-3 games I had a pretty firm handle on how the game plays.

If you're having money problems, upgrade your starting planets infrastructure first into the game. It helps making money in the long run.

Also don't forget to upgrade captured planets infrastructure, or they'll lose you money.

Finally if you're playing against the AI, it can be a good idea to only use your starting capital ship (the a battleship for that) to attack neutral planets, so you won't lose any ships early on and thus don't have to spend credits for them.

Also upgrading fleet capacity lowers your overall economy, so don't do it until you've a steady cashflow (against the AI only of course).

Remember to sell your resources on the blackmarket. 200-400 is good.

3,000? Either you're not doing something right, or you're spending too much. Don't research too much, research something every minute or so (maybe more depending how far you are in that game).

Two? You obviously did something wrong. . . usually I get to be abel to buy 4 Frigs, maybe 3 for Vasari . ..

Do you have fast Income Rates on?

Okay, just played through half a match, following your instructions completely and it was amazing. This game beats any match I've played in any Command and Conquer game. Credits, crystal, and metal were no problem. I had about 23000 credits, last I checked. The only thing holding me back was the amount of ships I could have. That damn capital ship uses 50 slots, but it's well worth it.

I have one question though. I defeated a fleet of ships on a Desert planet, and it wouldn't let me colonize it, I wasn't sure why. What do I have to do to colonize an enemy planet? Or at least somehow get it to be 'not theirs'?

You need your own culture reaching to that planet, probably a fe capital ships pushing enemy culture away from the planet, and you may need to kill the next couple of planets beyond it to stop them sending out culture.

I'd suggest moving on to the next one thats sending culture its way. Leave enough ships behind to fight off a sneak attack, or ships jumptiong behind your strike force, and leave a colony frigate close to the planet, so that when culture drops low enough, it will be automatically colonised.

I play maps with few lanes, so often I have 3 uncolonisable planets behind me as I advance, and I just make sure no-one else can claim them, and that they get claimed asap. But my strike fleet keeps moving regardless. Occasionally I cant hold the gravity wells behind me, so I'll keep moving out a arm until I reach the end, wipe out an enemy home system, and then start back again, only this time no-one can get behind me, so they get claimed as the culture disipates.

It does take time for culture to disipate after you take a planet, particularly if it had 3 or more culture centers. So sometimes claiming them is a waiting game, and sometimes a defensive game. Take it, hold it, and eventually colonise it.

That's just the Vasari equivalent of planet bombing: they use laser-like weapons to burn the planet.

Are you increasing fleet capacity? I notice you keep saying you're short on ship slots.

Because you need to turn Pirates Inactive. If so, you can't use bounties, and thereby, no fleets will retreat to the base after the attack. Therefore, less Pirates to deal with

thats the pirate base, it will still be on the map even if the pirates are off, it just wont launch raids.  Upgrade your fleet capacity on the 3rd research screen, above artifacts tab. Thers two types on this screen, one for overall fleet capacity (this one eats a set % of economy) and one to allow more capital ships.  Plus look at the top of the main screen where you see gold/metal/crystal income, just to the left you'll see two numbers, one is capital ship slots left amd one is remaining fleet points, so if there at 0, you've maxed your fleet unless you research more.

Is researching fleet points expensive? I already have trouble with credits, but I'm sure if I get far enough I'll be able to upgrade.

I also don't quite understand the 'culture' thing. I mean, I know how it applies to planets, but how do I use the 'propaganda' that I've heard about?

Also, to defend a planet that I leave behind, is a few missile platforms enough? Or should I leave some of my already tiny fleet at each planet?

Read what I wrote in my original post. Make a small amount of those ships and keep building more whenever you get the chance.