Newb questions

     Hey all, first of all hello, my friend and I recently started playing, we've about got the advent and basics all memorized or figured out, but I notice that they already  build a huge army earlier than I do and cripple their economy, but with 3-4 capitol ships so fast....
     They think I'm better at the game after our grand total of 5 games, because I end up with a better army/empire by the end and read/research/control troops better, but I'm pretty sure she'd cream me at any point in the game if we weren't allies lol
     Any thoughts on the current meta and what isn't current?  Is there a good place I can go to read the current patch info/meta in a guide? I've found some things we've been looking into, "Grimm's guide on multiplayer 5s games!" and RespawnedTitanL10's "The Orky Guide" and GoaFan's guide "Getting started with Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion", since his posts in the forums have answered some of our earliest questions, like that inexplicable speed-up/slow down in multiplayer. This is pretty overwhelming for us, those huge games look so impossible, but we hope to get there!