considering that most others have joined the Entrenchment fun plus Entrenchment adds so much more to the game so I highly recommend bying it. Plus it helps you work on your skills because Starbases are a good plug for stopping or slowing the enemy while you learn some of the tricks

Here are the general tips I go by (I don't have entrenchment either):

1. Take a colonizing capital ship to start (Akkan, Progenitor, Evacuator).

2. Expand to as many neutral planets as possible as fast as you can. Don't forget to invest in planetary infrastructure to keep your planets from costing you money instead of making you money.

3. Work on your fleet after getting the early economic upper hand from expanding- Long-range Frigates should probably make up the majority of your fleet (don't make ONLY LRFs) with anti-strike craft frigates and carriers to support them. When you feel you have an advantage take the fight to the enemy.

Also- scouting is critical: you must know what your opponents are doing to avoid making mistakes and to counter.

 Thank you for the advice.

Depends on what you're defending it against.  A few roaming frigates can be dealt with quite nicely just by leaving a frigate factory nearby.  If something comes up, just build some units on the spot.  Against the AI, hangers are good at keeping their siege frigate harass at bay, but against a player static defense is usually worthless.  If it's a fleet you're dealing with, you'll probably need to recall your forces and any defenses you do have are simply buying time.  In the long run, there's virtually no defense (at least on a reasonable budget) that will stop a determined attacker indefinitely.  You're going to need to get a proper force of units in there to drive him out.

Starbases are a great solution when you need to provide a buffer or breathing space.  You need the right support, but once you have a good defensive array setup starbases can be virtually impregnable.  The problem is there are several counter-moves available to the enemy.  The most brazen is just to move on and skip the planet, and there's nothing you can do about that.  The moral is that a starbase can be a great speedbump, and you can probably keep your homeworld safe from a decapitation strike, but a dedicated enemy will ravage your empire if you don't have a fleet to defend it.

 Nevermind, I figured it out.

In SP you can get some really fun games going, I would reccomend downloading the Distant Suns mod and then going to town.

If you love the big battles late game you can start it off and build up your defenses then save exit and reload with harder AI.

Gets a little laggy but is loads of fun =P

i'm returning to the game.  there's a lot of great stuff about this game.

I was playing dawn of war 2 for a while finally got sick of all the bugs and just stupid asinine stuff.

like clicking and moving units was just inconsistently buggy.

my 2 cents on entrenchment, It takes long time to start (similar to a mean old bug that forced the pc to move gigs of ram) and also the games last way too long.  I miss winning a game in 10 minutes and losing a game in 20 minutes.  But I suppose that is really not sins is it?