Normal-AI-how long?

The choke point is good against the AI. It will allow you to build your forces for an attack. The normal AI never builds more than 2 caps but does spam other types. Two fleets consisting of two caps plus balanced support will reduce your game time - even quicker if you can get three fleets going.

How are you at building trade ports and refineries? They will help you build enough resources to increase your fleet size. But don't increase too early, the % will reduce your income rate.

Most likely not. Everyone has their own strategy for playing the game.  I play maps with two AI opponents and 80-90 planets, those take 7-10 hours.

I play defensively. I add a lot of defenses to my planets, build starbases, and work hard at completing research fast, usually at the expense of a large fleet.  I rely heavily on diplomacy and cease fires to keep the AI off my back until after I am 50% with all reasearch, and have a strong economy.  Because of this I take much longer in games.

I seen people do the excate opposite, where they try to launch an all-out offensive against their opponents as early as possible, with the intent to catch them before they have any defensive capabilities.  Do what feels right for your empire.

As far as taking out the pirates.  I play as the Vasari, with the Kostura canon at my disposal.  The Kostura damages and temporarally disables all ships and orbital structures.  With multiple shots (6-8) arriving in close succession at a single target, enemy ships/structures will even be destroyed.  This is my perferred method of pirate removal; just appear at the now-empty pirate base, siege it, and colonize it!  The downside is that this method takes a lot of researching, and a lot of investment (Kosturas, or seven of them, aren't cheap to build).

There is a similar strategy for the TEC using Novalith Canons (which destroy the coloney, but leave everything in the sky around it) and the Akkan Battlecruiser.  Still requires a lot of research and investment.

There is also the time-proven, but less efficient method, of sending a perverbial butt-load of ships to the pirate base and having them just get it done.  It will be messy, but you will have a pirate base as part of your empire.  Since, in your case, the pirate is a choke point, be sure that you have a way to defend your empire if your fleet is forced to kamikaze itself to take the pirate base.  A second fleet, a nicely upgraded starbase (if you have the entrenchment expansion), or a few frigate factories coupled with a strong economy would be recommended.

I would leave the pirate base as a choke, get another choke on the other side of the star, and then invade the AIs homeworld. If they can't get to you on that side except through a pirate base, they will leave it alone and attack from the other way, so you want your fleet to be where there's is. If the pirate base is the ONLY way to get to your opponent, then you obviously need to eliminate it. Build a starbase on the planet leading into the pirate base to be safe, and just send in your highest level cap ships (3 lvl 6 anythings should be able to handle it).

As far as your play time, it depends on what strategy you are using. If you are very methodical, building starbases and defending choke points heavily and slowly expanding towards the opponent, you're doing just fine. In fact, if you're doing this in 2 hours, I might take some notes from you . However, if you're trying to take them out as quickly as possible, you've got a ways to go.

With Normal AI, you should be able to colonize a planet 2 jumps away from the enemy homeworld, defend it, and use it as a launch pad against their terran mainstay. The AI is particularly bad at dealing with rushes, so with an average small map setup, you should be able to do this in 45 minutes or so. There are lots of good resources here for opening game strategies and whatnot, and I'd be happy to answer any specific questions or discuss specific situations if you have them.

That map was sucessful in 3 hours 4 minutes thats the one with the pirate choke point.  I then played a medium-random map with 4 opponents, I chose one to became my ally we conqured it in 3 hours 19 minutes, made the most tactical choice of choosing the opponent on the opposite end of the map.  I was using vasari ally was also vasari, Normal opponents still. (maybe I should move up?)

I ended up leaving the pirate base as a pirate choke point, built enough of the migrators to get at least one to the other side, then started building all of my stuff from there.

I don't have entrenchment yet.  So what I do is a mix of a lot of the strategy(s) I have read.  get my free cap ship going, 2 weapons labs 2 civilian labs. scuttling the cap factory, rebuilding it later... after taking my first planet I build enough weapons labs to unlock the enforcers while I start building my fleet which I consider balanced, I adjusted it adding seige frigates, as I noticed that it was taking me longer to raze planets. Balanced being prefered as 10 of the enforcers, 20 of the assulters, 20 of the basic frigates(forgot what they were called.)

Then I start blitzing the AI. Building hangers with 1:1 fighter bomber ratio usually end up with 8 fighters 8 bombers (they really wreak some havoc on approching enemy). However, I do not do this with all of the planets just the ones I plan on keeping at the borders. for my last game I used the 2 jumps from the enemy build up forces tip. Built frigate factory and hangers at these planets. Other then that I build hangers in my buffer zones and choke points. buffer zones being the planets around the home world, in hopes that if I have an attack the hangers will hurt the opposing fleet.

Research; I don't invest much into research.  I usually forget to research, I get the basic stuff.. arctic colonization, volcanic colonization, the shield and hit point buffs. and the ships I use (the enforcer, and all of the frigates) but after that I am usually involved in combat (I still am in newbie faze where I switch to cinematic view and watch the battle take place. that type of stuff) if the lack of materials are killing me I throw a couple of points in harvesting.

Battles;  I like to destroy the cap ships, so I do that first then I usually let the AI take over.  I hate loosing cap ships destroys my moral, makes me depressed.  so I figure the AI it should do the same with the AI.  I then take out the factorys (no need for them to keep building as I am razing the planet.) I then select all of the forces and have them attack the planet the ones that can't attack usually find something else to do (taking down extractors ect.) Then I move on to the next tactical target.

I was playing TEC for a while, but started trying vasari.. Vasari seems to fit better with what I am trying to do, Destroy the enemy as fast as possible to get more games in, resulting in more practice with the result of becoming a more experienced player. (I Hope) I at least feel more experienced everytime I play a new game. I also find myself thinking more about what should I have done better, then what should I do. for some reason when I record it only lasts 36 seconds otherwise I would be posting the video's so you guys can see the progress and offer more specific tips. I thank those who posted already, I think it would be cool to now turn this post into a challange "small random map 1v1 - Medium AI Post your time"  maybe even give a synopsis of the battle. oh and post what race you played, and if you can the race of your opponent.

Vasari are by far the best faction at destroying enemy capital ships.  If this is your preferred approach to battles, you've picked the right race.  Remember to use the Evacuator as your first capital ship, and nano-disassemblers as your primarily ability.  It lowers the armour of the target enemy ship, making it take additional damage from all attacks.  I needn't point out how useful that is for taking down capital ships.

Last night I played a 1v1 on Quickstrike against an unfair AI.  It took me a little over an hour to win.  All game settings set to fast, pirates off, both player factions left to random.  I ended up as Advent, he ended up as TEC.

I started with a pretty standard anti-AI opener; a few disciples and a mothership, capture my asteroid, then put up three labs and go straight for illuminators (note that I almost never do that against a human player, since it's expensive, risky and easily countered.  It works well against the AI however).  While my illuminators were being constructed, I headed over to the volcanic planet because it had three Krosovs defending it and almost nothing else (honestly, SF experience needs to be toned down; it's a jackpot to have lots of neutral SF's near your start location).  Just as I was finishing up the last flak frigate, my asteroid comes under attack by a Marza and a huge swarm of cobalts.

The Marza has raze planet, and they destroy my asteroid before I can get back (but fortunately my lab is still intact).  We duke it out, and he retreats his Marza just before I manage to kill it.  I pursue him into the next gravity well (an ice planet) and manage to destroy the Marza.  His remaining fleet flees.  I continue my pursuit and put up two civic labs while I'm at it, enabling me to research both culture and arctic evangelism.

I attack his asteroid, but reinforcements a new capital ship (this time an Akkan) show up and I fall back.  I colonize the ice planet upon retreating to it, and he pursues me into the well.  I retreat to the far side of the gravity well and start building repair bays there.  A repair bay finishes just as the fighting starts, and the battle is a decisive victory for me.  I research culture and put up a broadcast center on the ice planet, then start researching to bring out my Halcyon carrier.

We push back and forth over the asteroid for the next few minutes, but my Halcyon shows up and I manage to soundly defeat him.  I fortify the asteroid and then make my final push into his homeworld.  With a Halcyon to deal with his hanger bay strike craft and a numerical advantage with illuminators against cobalts, as well as maxed out shield regeneration, the battle is a complete slaughter and the AI surrenders at this point.