my personal tactics generally.

i am heavy on economy, but this tactic can be a little risky if i dont spend enough on military and leaves me vulnerable, but so far this has paid of so well later on in the game.
basically my aim is thinking long term. so get as high an income as i can asap, THEN start researching for your army. 

get 2-4 scouts to, well, scout, asap!

rush to get a cap ship and 2 colonizers, then max out frigates. fast expand getting my cap ship on its own, and frigates attacking other planets (so two groups of ships taking planets). build 2 civic research buildings. at each planet max out population.

i usually get all the extractor upgrades, planet upgrades (depending on what planets i have), trade ports on ALL planets i have, and broadcast tower. i do all that with 4 or 5 civics before i even get one military research tower!

i find i don't need to increase my fleet supply above one research until i have finished my civic researching as i start to gather my army.

don't leave your broadcast communication tower until the end, advent have an advantage in culture, USE IT! it increases your income at planets and extractor income, and helps your units fight better which DOES HELP.

in so many of my games i never need to buy tactical structures, only the occasional hanger bay to stop those singular krosov frigates. but dont underestimate starbases, if there is a choke point in which beyond is the enemies land, it can help to put one there until you have built up a huge army to stomp your enemy(s).

i find having variety in my army can be good. but when it comes to advent, GET DRONE HOSTS! they do cost allot, and take up 20 fleet supply! but they are so so so so worth it. BUT some capital ships have abilities which target strike craft, such as flak burst and telekinetic push, so again, don't rely on the strike craft, don't learn the hard way as i have.

i hope this helps, i could write more but then it will start to get tedious. besides, you can only remember so much. i hope there are people who disagree with me, its good to hear variety of opinions.

Yesterday I lost a game as advent vs tec. My enemy made a marza and started flooding cobalts too me. I was halfway taking a backward volcano planet with my prognitor but I managed to hold him off with my prognitor and some desciples. All was going well, I had colonized more planets so my economy was better than his. I managed to squeeze a halcyon out increasing my overall damage output and giving me access some bombers.

He however followed up by making covettes, A LOT of corvettes. And there was NOTHING I could do about it. Defense vessels are an ineffective counter, cost wise, build time wise AND population wise.

Build a Rapture and Malice/Vengeance the Corvettes?

I have no idea how effective that would be but I do know they're made of papermache and cardboard so I wouldn't have been surprised if it had worked.

Edit - Okay, USER, it harms your economy because it reduces the length of the longest trade chain, mostly due to trade chains not working in triangles. Longer trade chain = more trade income for every port in that chain.

If you had an entire solar system you could have an insanely long trade chain giving you tons of money, or a moderate chain and a bunch of smaller ones giving you less.

You can also choose to build multiple trade ports on planets in a long chain to reap the benefits of the increased trade income from the chain.

I feel that Rebellion has thrown certain roles to the respective factions, which will result in 90% of times that faction being played to that role.  I mean, LoyTec will always entrench, and RebTec will always go for at least TAR...  To not do so, will be missing out on advantages given to you.  (And the most fun plays will be those 10% of times when you go against the planned role...

 

Anyway, with the TEC this division and new role-assignment is very clear.  But the Advent, both factions, are quite muddy in what the intended strategies are.   And even though they feel very similar to vanilla Advent, I believe that much more planning is needed to fully utilize the new toys and thus compete with the other factions.

 

One thing I've noticed which has not been discussed is the Lvl2 +20% (and + another 20% for its upgrade?  I can't remember) Culture upgrade for LoyA. This is an absolutely huge, early boost.  Depending on the map, this can either put some early culture pressure on your opponent, or as is most likely, allow for early Advent cultural benefits throughout your empire, such as increased allegiance earlier, as well as shield mitigation bonusses and other goodies.  I am currently playing an extremely fun game where I've decided to race culture very early.

 

The end result is that I relied (at least during the beginning stages) more on planet Pop for income than trade.  I could afford a huge empire and colonized quickly, because of high allegiance.  I also researched some of the pop techs, something I never really bother to do.  Anyway, great fun!  

 

As to the RebA, I honestly believe they are not working yet.  At least not as intended.  If we go on their design philosophy, however, I have to say that I am quite excited about them.  I really want to try running past a heavily fortified world and trying to quickly take down a less-defended planet, throw a bunch of Culture centres, a shield-bestowal + other defenses, and infrastructure.  The fortified world in-between is now under severe cultural pressure, I can easily defend because of new RebA techs, the infrastructure goes quickly b.o. Progenitor and the Culture goes up quickly b.o. RebA cheap towers and communal labour.  Finally, hit-and-run attacks (including the initial rush past defenses) should be quite viable with the RebA because of doubled shield regen, and running back to Temple of renewal, with Wail of the Sacrificed to back it up and the reanimation techs to keep losses low.

 

Sorry for the long post... am really waiting for a fix for the RebA, very excited!

The importance of proper trade chains is sometimes exaggerated or oversimplified. I think even in Mr. Haze's example, filling all planets with trade ports would of given him more credits per second, even though the max trade route would be a few planets shorter. In fairness, though, he points out it wasn't really an ideal picture, just something he had handy.

So, if spamming them everywhere gives you more credits per second, why shouldn't you do it? Two reasons.

One, long term planning. A extra planet length here and there isn't a big deal, but if you have an empire with 40+ planets like you mentioned, the increase in trade length would likely be substantial, and entirely worth it.

Second, and probably most important, is efficiency. If you can get nearly the same profit by having a couple less planets stacked full of trade ports, that's freed up credits/resources you still have to spend elsewhere. Be it defenses for your trade route, fleet for expansion, research, or whatever you pick, that money will have a more significant impact spent elsewhere. Trade ports -are- expensive.

As a subpoint, this is why you should always build a trade route spanning your planets first, instead of filling your planets one at a time. You're getting higher return on your resources, and pennies make dollars. Once the route is maxed, assuming you have spare resources, you can start stacking more ports.

Build the Radiance class battleship as your first capital ship as it has a powerful armament and armour upgrades.

Don't build the biggest empire you can, just go for as many planets as it takes to build all 16 research stations. Then build a starbase at all the outer planets. As others have said, do not go for extractor upgrades until later, they are not worth the resources wasted on them until you are ready to expand. Upgrade the starbases first, especially the Mass Disorientation ability as this will buy you time to get you forces to the aid of the starbase when it is attacked.

If you want to establish both money and a fleet fast, my advice would not be to head for tradeports right away. Especially as the loyalists. with only 2 civil labs, you can research culture and 2 techs that make it spread very fast. I would throw that down close to the homeworld and then focus on building your fleet. Be methodical by building a big fleet of cheap ships, and replacing losses with specific ships that counter the opponent's spam.

The other piece of advice is to expand quickly. Learn what systems you can send lone colony ships to and which will need a fleet. keep them moving. Once your scouts have a good handle on the enemies location and you're starting to get close to their fleet, start locking down the planets you acquire a little rougher so that you dont have to worry about militias and underdevelopment taxes when you get into fleet engagements.

The time to go for tradeports, in my opinion, is when you need the funds to establish starbases, build a titan, or build a large number of the more expensive ships/captials. By then, you have a critical mass of planets with which to establish trade ports, and your main income is already pretty good due to culture. Meanwhile, your opponent will be getting less due to your culture or will have to throw alot of money into his own culture tech. Loyalist culture with only 2 labs is very powerful. It's equivelent to getting the 6-lab culture tech.

Hmm this whole "don't go for extractor upgrades" thing is nonsense...these are precisely what you should go for as advent in the majority of pressure situations.

Extractor upgrades are a quick, no risk addition to your economy that will always turn a profit (unless all your extractors are destroyed...rarely happens).  You can lose early tradeports if you get into a fight too early and aren't prepared for this...and those losses are HUGE in the early game.

There usually is only 1 economy player, maybe 2, at the max 3.  So, your chances of being on the front lines are much higher then being in one of these spots.

Being on the front lines usually gives you very little flexability in getting a strong economy, you have to tech up your economy in small increments and you need to keep logistics slots free to be able to ensure that you won't build yourself into a corner.  High pressure games can be really hard for the advent to have enough logistics slots...gotta keep your options open to adapt.

Also, the earlier you get extractor upgrades, the larger your income relative to your opponents becomes.  This will become quite noticable after 20 min of gameplay, and you have just created yourself a long term advantage.

The extractor upgrades also assist in allowing you to tech up your trade ports very quickly, and as advent I would say culture + extractor upgrades is the most efficient way to economy up.

There's some rather good advice here, hope it keeps coming. Sins, Civ, really any game with an economy, I've have a very weak early game play style. Part of the reason I avoid online. If anyone gets terribly bored and wants to share any TEC specific, I'd be be grateful. I'm sure I could use it. Also, about how far along are most of you by the point you even consider sinking the resources into getting a titan?

I was recently proven to be incorrect on this very topic. I still feel that culture early is great for advent, but no longer feel the 2 techs are worth the cost.

Yeah from what many people have said culture kind of sucks right now.

It's very disheartening, imo. I like the ships and lore of the Advent better, but I will play TEC because Advent is garbage in comparison.

It shouldn't be like this >.<