Without seeing the replay, I can't comment on what happened.  My guess would be that the AI accumulated a substantial advantage early on, but it deployed this very poorly and it took it over an hour to get its momentum together to make a kill against you.

This is another thread of someone who had a similar problem as you: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/378913

Eventually, I got a replay and was able to reverse engineer the entire scenario.  It turned out to be very simple economics; the AI won a massive early-game victory and invested a lot of money into economy while the human player had to invest all his money in units to survive.  In the long-run, the AI's economic advantage just kept building until finally the inertia was too great and the player got beaten.  If anything, the AI was doing a good job of being "easy" and giving its human opponent a fair chance to regroup and recover, and he might have even pulled it off if he'd expanded his economy better or kept his fleet together rather than letting half of it get cut off and killed.

You can't see his units on phase lanes, but you can see them in gravity wells.  As I said, use some proactive scouting and you'll be able to see them coming LONG before they arrive.

Were you scouting the intervening planets in the interim?  If you weren't scouting, don't be surprised if you don't know what's going on. 

http://www.filefront.com/17562525/Comp Stomp 03-30-10.record

That replay is still good for the most recent version of Sins (no expansions).

Thanks for all the replies. This game was producing too many anomalies, so I made a fresh install, patched up, and began some new games. It seems to be working fine. I have played a lot of games, heeding all the advice on this site, without success on the small map. The computer is cheating, of course, as it has to in order to produce a competitive game and the required levels of frustration, even on easy level. The thing about this game, compared to other RTS games, is that it is totally unforgiving. It produces AI forces out of all proportion to the time spent on the game, in order to overwhelm the player at any time and times-out the players forces quickly, even on easy aggressor, because the game has decided to terminate. I went back over some previously saved games, changing and experimenting with various tactics and strategies, and the same terminating Armageddon was produced that was shown in my last save, two or three saves ahead, which is to say half an hour forward. In two games I also checked the statistics before the Armageddon arrived, which showed 2 of everything for each player's development and also the statistics at the end, which produced the same standard chart showing the AI had suddenly developed ahead. Some players have claimed to have defeated the AI on their first attempt. I would be interested in watching this, if they could tell me how to download it. Thanks.

Agreed. None of this makes sense and still no replay.

 

Okay, Here is my last save: http://www.filefront.com/17587988/autorecord-11302328.record

When I came to play this save (the 7th), which was half an hour into a battle, no phase lines were showing, nor were objects clearly shown on the planets and I had to micromanage from the sidebar. It continued for another half hour until I terminated the game after two and three quarters hours.

What you're describing seems to be an interface bug, or as InfiniteVoid points out you may mistakenly be playing in cinematic mode, which is pretty well only useful for screen capture; it's pretty well impossible to actually play.

I'd also like to point out that you are using both expansions.

I took a look at the replay; it begins over an hour into the game, and the AI had already accumulated a substantial advantage by this point.  A veteran could still pull this off, but this is pretty much unwinnable for a beginner.  The AI has a much larger empire, a much better economy, and some very high-level capital ships (that level 6 Marza in particular is a major threat).  I'd be much more interested in looking at what got you into to this situation.  I highly suspect your pace of colonization is much too slow, which means I'm most interested in the first half-hour of the game.

This is a screenshot of the map I took while I watched your replay, for others to see:

It was taken at about 1:40, and at this point it looks like the AI is on the verge of making a killing blow, since your failed rush at a starbase got your fleet killed.

Your assets: 
4 planets (~25% developed)
202 /690 fleet supply
3 capital ships (levels 3,3,1)
0 starbases
Savings:  13000 credits, 1200 metal, 1400 crystal
Income:  19 credits, 2.2 metal, 3.3 crystal

Enemy assets:
7 Planets (~75% developed)
476/500 fleet supply
4 capital ships (levels 6,4,3,1)
3 starbases
Savings:  2700 credits, 1600 metal, 600 crystal
Income: 40 credits, 5.6 metal, 4.8 crystal

This really reaffirms my theory of slow colonization; the AI colonizes faster, giving it more income, which it then uses to develop its existing planets faster.  Basically you get an effect like compound-interest, and a small initial advantage for the AI turns into an overwhelming economic advantage over the course of an hour.  By the point at which the replay starts, it's much too late to reverse this advantage.

Dude!  StarCraft AI was so evil, they auto-knew where your base was before the game freak'n even started.  LAN play was developed so you didn't have to die over and over and over again.  WarCraft III was such a big hit because StarCraft AI was crap.  Windows 7 nukes the memory flags, so AI on WarCraft III is not possible anymore.  Blizzard probably doesn't care, so I'm not gonna bother saying anything, same=same.

Trinity does give both you and the AI more options now...

At the forefront would the be the usage of Starbases. At this point, the AI is not intelligent enough to devise a way to take down an SB except for throwing its entire attacking fleet at it (possibly minus siege frigates) in the hopes of overwhelming the SB. That being said, provided you can set one up and upgrade its HP to the max and support it with repair bays, it can stonewall many AI offensives. Alternatively, if you can get to Safety Override Protocol research (Tier 5 Defense, I think), you can set up what's known as a "boombase" - simply put, build a starbase with (at least one) upgrades in SOP and self-destruct it to instantly destroy all but the heaviest ships in range (IIRC, the damage is 8000 for both levels - second level just increases blast radius). If you do choose to use one, don't have any of your own ships in its area of effect - it will destroy those too. You'll probably also want some HP upgrades to ensure the SB lives long enough to allow for as much of the enemy fleet as possible to get in range.

Don't forget, however, that SBs are not cheap to build and upgrade, so trying to set one up too early can break you economically, and afterwards, militarily.

Man, unless you're playing Unfair or higher(and even on unfair to some degree) there isn't one single strategy that works because as long as you expand quickly early on you can do pretty much anything you want. Just don't cripple yourself economically in the early game by expanding your fleet supply or having a bunch of planets with no population upgrades.

Post the whole replay this time so its possible to see how you started. One obvious thing you may be unaware of is that you can buy/sell resources on the black market. Use the 13000 extra credits you have to buy metal/crystal instead of just sitting in the bank. Of course, considering you also had 1000+ of each of those, I'd recommend just getting better at spending your money.

Well the Armageddon arrived as expected and, of course, I lost. The game had decided to terminate and so, no matter what happens, it will terminate. I watched it closely. The AI forces were hardly affected, production of forces and resources were slowed down, as were phase jumps. The computer cheats and cheats and cheats. It has become a bit of a bore, at least on the small map.

The replay will be something similar to before. The AI always produces a dominating strategy. If you would like to post your winning games here, then I would be interested in viewing them for my own instruction.

Darvin: Can you post some of your winning games here? The best instruction is by your own example. If you do, let me know how to play them. I am not clear if the Trinity edition of Sins is different from the original Sins, or is just simply a patched up version. Losses in this game can always be justified by the complexity of the system, but that would be irrelevant, as the AI always wins, no matter what cunning or fiendish strategy is used. In this last game I had five planets under my control after half an hour to the enemy players three, but when I came to occupy the sixth only a short time later, the enemy players occupation had suddenly jumped to six. I have played many RTS games and can usually start winning after the third game. This is my 10th attempt without even a whiff of victory.

Darvin3 : I appreciate that and will look at it when it is ready. I really need to see a winning game. I have looked hard on the Web with no results and my requests here are met with silence.

Ran into technical issues; will try again tomorrow.