I'm playing as the TEC Rebels. I start off, and tech up as fast as I can to get the 'Neutral and pirate forces are your allies' tech, while getting about five planets. Then I get that tech and my empire EXPLODES. I go from rank 5 colonization (the lowest) to rank 1 (meaning I have the most planets) in minutes. And all of my planets come with ready made defense forces. I build up refinery and trade structures around all my planets, then encounter the first enemy civilization.
Vasari Loyalists. I send my four capital ships, and trounce them, in battle after battle, pushing them back a planet, taking the planet, pushing them back again (Akkan battlecruisers: Why would you EVER use a Protev?!) Finally, I'm one step away from their Capital world.
I make a 'phone call' to my friends the pirates, and dump 6600 credits on them for assistance in the coming battle. My fleet jumps in, and finds no enemy ships, but a nearly-completed Titan in a ring of defensive structures. We rush in, and try to destroy the foundry before it can spit out the nastiest unit in the game, but we are too late. We're fighting the titan, and it's mostly winning, when about 80+ pirate ships jump in and support us. Victory.
We mop up the remainder of the enemy planets, except for one with a big, badass starbase and some normal defenses. As I gather my fleet, I build my own titan, a massive railgun-with-ship-bits-attached and give it the Sniper Shot upgrade and Scattershot upgrade. I now have a 50km long sniper rifle/shotgun. We jump in to find... A huge fleet of ANOTHER enemy civilization STOMPING the defenders with HUNDREDS of strike craft. Their fleet moves to engage me, which is a huge mistake, because they have CARRIERS and I have battleships, battlecruisers, and dreadnoughts. Oh and the giant railgunship. Anyways, we destroy three of their 6 big ships, and the remaining three are about to be destroyed. The one farthest in the rear turns to flee, with almost no health.
I select my titan, and use the sniper shot. Just as the enemy ship goes to enter phase space, the shell hits them and utterly destroys them. Best feeling ever.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion w/ Entrenchment, Trinity, and that other expansion.
Huge Edit: Same game, same 'scenario', immediately following these events.
Right, so that enemy civilization proved to be very fond of their light carrier cruisers. They also waited until far too late to launch their own attacks on me. I swept up the 'southern' half of my star system. I would fight off their defenses, bombard their planet, colonize it, wait long enough to build basic defenses and a broadcast beacon, then move on to the next. As I neared their capital, I swept north to the north end of the system, cutting the corner off, leaving them trapped between a wall of my defenses and my fleet, and the inky blackness of deep space.
Oh, I did all this with one fleet: One Marza Dreadnought, one Kol Flagship, one Sova Carrier, one (Supremely awesome) Akkan Battlecruiser, and the Ragnarov Titan. Plus some various attending ships that died off rather frequently. Never more than a couple cruisers or about five frigates.
So, I have them trapped, condensed, and basically at my mercy. I have a gargantuan fleet massing over my fortress world of Aurelia, way back in my home-worlds. When I say gargantuan, I meant it. Three Kol Battleships, four Sova Carriers, four Marza Dreadnoughts, two Akkan and one Dunov Battlecruisers, 50 Javelis long range missile frigates, 40 Kodiak Heavy Cruisers, 20 Percheron light carriers, 10 Hoshiko and Cielo cruisers, plus a motley assortment of Krosov, Cobalt, Garda frigates, various pirate ships, and about 10 Stiltat Corvettes.
Then, they counterattack. Away from my deathfleet of five capital ships, into the heart of their former territory. Apparently they had both a massive defense fleet at home, and a huge aggressive fleet out in another system (I never leave MY system until I OWN ALL THE PLANETS) so my relatively weak planet Eos got jumped from two sides by angry fleets of light carriers and battleships. So, I did the only reasonable thing. I put a 6000 credit bounty on the enemy's head. I went to the two broadcast centers at that planet and ordered two pirate fleets of mercenaries, I went to the three nearest systems and ordered pirate fleets there, and I sent my giant flotilla through the wormholes to defend my planet.
From the time they arrived and started attacking, they destroyed no defenses. They killed some fighters. But within 2 minutes, pirate ships were arriving or being rerouted from nearby planets. By about 5 minutes, the vanguard elements of my fleet were entering the system. The whole fleet didn't finish arriving until another five minutes had passed, by which time the enemy was in full retreat, what was left of them.
Oh, I also set a 18000 credit mission for the pirates to attack their homeworld, and I sent my fleet into the now unprotected flank of their few remaining worlds. My main fleet (the small one with five capital ships) jumped into their homeworld, which was... A HUUUUGE clusterfuck. A massive fleet of pirates was there, along with a massive fleet of the enemy ships. I popped in, and ordered my fleet to attack their flagship. Within 3 minutes of this order:
The Hand of Ilus has been defeated.
You transhumanist, sickly, strategically inept, tactically deficient, blisteringly foolish cowards have seen the might of the True Human race. No cybernetic enhancement is necessary, no fancy Eusocial psychic community, no deceptive cultural tricks.
I have conquered my star system, and in doing so, gained all but five artifacts, I own almost 25 or 30 planets, I have defeated TWO enemy civilizations, and I have a buttoned-down, nigh-impenetrable star system defended to the gills on every world, with hardly half my Logistics slots filled on any of my worlds.
The pirate factions are mine to command, my fleet can and has defeated numerically superior foes of diverse natures on repeated occasions, and now I am the one with numerical superiority. The rest of this game is just mopping up four other star systems, killing the remaining two civilizations, and getting that sweet, sweet victory screen.
Sins of a Solar Empire, in case you forgot.