<<I read MOST of these posts.....First, are you guys playing on the same map?  And is he the one choosing it?   There are some small maps where really the other guy is playing the map, not playing you.  This is one of the reasons why I usually only play random maps.>>

He chose the maps every time and hosted.  In doing some post-mortem analysis, digging through replays and what not, I discovered that at least 1 time he used a home-made map.  He no doubt optimized that map for his playing style.  Also, at least once we played a small random map, and in the replay I saw that his home planet was surrounded by 'roids, where as mine was surrounded by 3 volcano worlds.

Having said that, I found one replay which had a verifiably fair map, and he totally out-expanded me, and then crushed me.  I was using an essentially "standard" build as described before, and got stomped because he owned the whole map in no time.

But it must be stated that builds and opens aren't everything.  If he isn't some pro smurfing, you'd mop the floor with him, even using a slow build, even playing on a map which favored his style of play.  At least, I'm guessing that's true.
 
<<There is one map, I can't remember what it is called, which is just a ring of asteroids around some other types of worlds in the center.>>

We played that one.

<<It just means this is a rush oriented map and they aren't getting around to building anything else....I'm guessing this is a 9-10 planet map or something.>>

Bingo.

Thanks for the analysis - quite helpful.  Haven't seen the guy online recently, but I bet he will be playing this weekend.  I'm going to try to apply some of the things I've learned in some of these posts, and see if I can do any better.

Or see if you can get him to play a different map.  Or if you want to play the same map that you guys always play, do a practice run against the AI where you work on your rapid expansion.  Attempt to outright outplay the AI and crush it without building any defenses.  Start with a normal AI, which should be easy, then move up to a hard AI, then move up to an Unfair, if you can.  Do this by out expanding and out building the enemy fleet, not with defensive structures.  Consider it a homework drill. 

Actually, that's sort of what I've been doing!

I've always been able to beat an unfair, even without defenses.  Now I'm trying to work on my expansion speed.  I've definately up'ed it a few notches.

Keep up the suggestions!

Glad to know that you're doing better, but will you post some replays so we can see how both of you are doing?

Also, I suggest that you don't play anymore custom made maps with him, expecially the one with a ring of roids around his planet and volcanoes around yours, because I consider people who make and play maps like that (not all custom maps) pure noobs beacuse they're intentionally playing a map that gives them an unfair advantage.

Now, I'm all up for me being surrounded by roids or good planets in a random map and the enemy's spot sucking, but that's only because it's completely random, none of us intentionally gave ourselves an exteme unfair advantage.

so whats the name of this person?

The person's name is "JohnJames."

Ha - joke.

Hmm, I like this expanding-in-2-directions strategy, used it to good effect against my friend last night. Vasari does best with it, I think, because lvl 1 nano-disassembler can take out siege frigates and LRMs in 1 shot.

Build sounds familiar. I can tell you as an advent player, that within the first minute or two, pending build time, I can have my three HW resource extractors up, 10 disciples, and a cap of my choice on their way to my next world, with a hostility temple and the basic attack upgrades on the way. The HW infrastructure is for later, as it's expensive and takes a long while to show results.

Basically, just saying advent has a pretty good opportunity for rushing, as their early game ships are cheap, take little supply and are quite effective, for the price.

Don't you early colonise Volcanoes or Ice... or are they just ignored for the time being in favor of asteroids?

Okay I only read the opening post due too lack of time.

You can expand fast by building your colonizing cap and sending it too one of the non roids (as he's best at it from the two things i'm gonna say)

You also build 4 scouts and a colonizer and maybe another 4 and a colonizer later (don't know if the double works)

Scouts attack the siege frig colonizer colonizes, mabye build a point defense if there's still a siege left) and move on. (scouts quite easily manage a siege frig)

Meanwhile you cap is expanding too. Problem with this tactic is that you don't have the resources too upgrade your planets fast enough.

In a descent map setup this gives you 3 too 4 planets quite quickly.

Grtz,
[_]-Flipkik