For readabilty reasons, I'm going to post the whole thing in this reply, here's hoping that it works.
I've discovered that I have the most fun playing Sins when I'm either outwitting my opponent, or being outwitted myself. There's something neat about playing with or against intelligence and not just brute force. Especially since Sins is the perfect game to do so. So, I thought it would be nice to have a thread in which people have outwitted or outmaneuvered their opponents. The point of this thread wouldn't primarily be to brag, but rather inspire, so please remember that when you post.
So, to start things off:
1: The setting was a large single system unlocked FFA, and me and my most trusted ally had decided to finish off the most dominant Vasari player before he went RA, so we wouldn't have to face it late in game. Our original plan was to surround his fleet in a neutral corner system and give him a fatal blow (we each had similar fleets at this point), unfortunately I had to dispatch an AI fleet on my way there, which coupled with the fact that I had to break my cease fire with him, alerted him and made him petition my ally for an alliance against me. My ally agreed, and both their fleets embarked to defeat my fleet, which at this point were attacking one of the Vasari player's fringe planets. As soon as the fleets arrived, I made a run for a nearby asteroid I had colonized in the meantime, closely followed by the enemy fleets. The asteroid was a dead end save for a phase lane towards a strong pirate base, providing them with an obvious opportunity to deal me a fatal blow. Or, at least the Vasari player thought so. In secret, my ally had remained allied with me, and had persuaded the Vasari player to pursue my fleet to the asteroid, which I had designated as the target for the setup. Needless to say, after having held back and seen that the Vasari had jumped to my asteroid, he broke his cease fire and jumped. The asteroid was at this point maxed out with hangar defenses, repair platforms, and inhibitors (game version was 1.03). And, I had moved my secondary fleet to the plasma storm that provided the only viable exit from the asteroid. The Vasari fleet never got that far. I'm pretty sure the battle resulted in the biggest kill/loss ratio I've yet to see in Sins.
2. This one is a bit more simple. The game was a locked 6-player FFA on a large single system map. This meant that each player had to watch his back, and that the initial scramble for systems is of the utmost importance. After this initial stage of the game, I had done pretty well and was ready to contest the 2 central desert planets, unfortunately, the one I had direct access to had been taken by the player directly opposite me (leaving one marginalized player in between us), and he was about to take the second. Until this point, I had focused strongly on my economy and only had a small defense force accompanied by an Akkan. This force was sub par compared to his, and I didn't have the time to build a stronger fleet. My solution was to feign an attack on the first (and poorly defended) desert planet, targeting the key buildings closest to the phase lane leading to the second planet. He took the bait and jumped to defend his planet, at which point I immediately jumped to the second planet and colonized it, while sending a continuous stream of ships to the first planet to keep his fleet engaged while I built up my new planet.