That's a nasty scenario; took me a few tries to do it, too.  Basically you gotta take out its construction frigates asap so it can't build anything, then take out its frigate factory.  If you can do that, all its money is worthless because it can't spend any. 

I've also won this scenario with an orky rush, but I didn't colonize my asteroid, instead saving the money for a faster starbase.

You are to be commended Phoenix. I have trouble with this map on cruel, I can't even imagine vicious.

I have to agree with Greg30007, in that I too think Advent is worse than Vasari, especially for the opening rush to kill the AI's constructors and frigate factory. The Advent Halcyon will counter with 3 or 4 fighters and get a level of TK push. This counters much of your scramble bombers since you are getting pounded by 12+ disciples as well. Even if I kill the frigate factory, he has a swarm of disciples, a ticked off Halcyon, and a Mothership on the way. I actually find I do better in the opening rush with a Kortul vs Advent but then usually the AI slips a factory onto his pocket asteroid (i.e. I lose containment) and I am slowly squeezed out by drone hosts.

On the other hand with Vasari AI (admittedly cruel not vicious), I can kite better and pick off the factory while soon after plopping an Orkulus in his backyard, so that even if he gets his 2nd cap out, his cap factory follows soon after and he has max one mil lab.

Btw any tips from anyone on the best sequence for this map as a Vasari player? I can barely beat a Vasari cruel AI and have yet to even come close vs Advent AI.

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Edit: Well what do you know, no sooner do I write the above about not being able to beat Advent cruel AI on point blank ... but I guess after being inspired by Phoenix with his victory on vicious I managed to eke out a win 60 minutes after my original reply. The secret for me seemed to be in splitting my fleet, i.e. baiting him with his caps + illum / disciples into fighting my Kortul in my grav well, while my assailants and sentinels continued to kill constructors and his cap ship factory. This was of course after initially blowing up his frigate factory and destroying 12+ disciples. Managed to do it without Orky of any kind.

Note: Now I am even more in awe of those of you have won on vicious on this map.

To be able to beat vicious ai on point blank at least for me depends on what ai will be building. If he goes for carriers and repair platforms from start i have big problems and so far have never beaten him this way. If he goes for lrms i have better luck but ifhe goes with civic labs i have no problems at all....

@Greg30007:

Yeah in my cruel match vs Advent it was all temples of hostility and oodles of beam platforms w/ a sprinkle of repair platforms. At one point he had 12 beam platforms in his home grav well. This is despite me doing everything I could to kill the construction drones. He got to the asteroid and stuffed three military labs there by the end with five hangars and a mess of more beam platforms. Fortunately while he tried to rebuild frigate factories (and once got his cap ship factory back up on my error) in his home grav well, he never did so on his asteroid. Still I was able to make darn sure he didn't get any ice worlds. In the end though he only ever made a total of 4 illuminators and two drone hosts. But the initial disciple spam + two caps was pretty rough.