I'm fairly new at the game, and I've been going through all the pre-made maps in order in single player.  I'm at a complete halt with Pandemonium played as a 4-player free-for-all with 3 Normal AI's.  This is the map where all four players start adjacent to a central hub asteriod, and the starts come in pairs where you can reach one of the other positions through an asteroid.  All the other neutral planets attached to the star, and only reachable through the central hub asteroid.

The central hub is dead, so I've been wary of trying to take it.  Among other things, it means all 3 other players are going to send their entire fleets through there.  What I've done instead is take my adjacent asteroid - 2 metal and 2 crystal - and then wipe out the attached neighbor.  That's easy enough to do.  But then the other two players start relentlessly attacking me, and eventually they wear me down.

So what do you do on this map as free-for-all, rather than 2 vs. 2?

 - Gus