Its not that easy, but whatever...  And I really would love to know why you hate the Advent so much...

I'm biased. They just seem WAY too elitist, and I HATE that. There's also the fact that from what I understand, they are a female-dominated society (FEMINISM BAD!!). Not saying a society with women in government is bad, but that a female-ruled society where men are the homemakers is wrong. I like some of their stuff, but not enough to make me enjoy playing them extensively.

Additionally, there's the purpose behind each race waging its war. The Vasari are fighting for resources, and trying to get away from whatever's hunting them, so that's self-preservation. The TEC are trying to protect their homes. The Advent though, they only came for revenge. That's it.

It could also be because I get more satisfaction playing TEC, and more so Vasari now (PHASE SPACE DOMINANCE!!). The TEC could be because I had the demo before the real thing and the demo only has TEC.

well, I have an ICO account, but I'm not much of an online MP guy. I enjoy playing by myself, and if I have a chance a LAN game with friends is also enjoyable.

The lack of respect for the Advent is anything to do with their CAPABILITIES, which I think are quite excellent. The Advent have a large number of combat and civilian advantages, I admit this freely. The reason I don't like the Advent is their SOCIETY. It's more a 'I don't like the Advent's reason for fighting the war and their society' than 'I think the Advent sucks in combat'. I've lost a bit to an Advent AI, while playing as the other races, and even the one time I completed a game as the Advent.

There is also the fact that I just LIKE the other races more. Humans defending their homes and Xenos Aliens trying to save their race is cooler than Psychic Religious Nuts out for revenge.

WRONG!! Not about wanting to return to their homeworld, that makes sense. But that isn't ALL the Advent want to do. They wish to exact a VIOLENT revenge against the Traders. And it isn't genocide to expel a people into space. That's just sending them to find some other place.

The Traders' reason was that they were under the impression that the Advent's homeworld was going to join the Trade Order. The things that the Advent were doing were AGAINST the legislation of the Trader Order, ergo, the Advent is expelled.

With the Vasari, they are fighting because they initially just wanted resources. That's their at-1st shtick. They travel for long periods, they stop to replenish resources, they leave. With the TEC, the Vasari hadn't expected them to be there. it was a surprise. The Vasari rolled through to get resources, and as much as possible. The TEC fought back, so now their stuck fighting a war that they initially at least didn't want to be in.

While REVENGE may be defined as exacting justice, the Advent see themselves as RIGHTEOUSLY doing this. Essentially, the Advent think that by destroying the Trade Order and the TEC, they are doing a service to the universe. There's also the problem that the Advent only decided to go back when their resources were RUNNING OUT. They only came back because they were out of gas, and the Trade Order's worlds were the gas station. And that's IT.

Okay...  I may as well put in my two cents...  The following is as close to what would happen given common sense and the social structures involved.

The Unity (didn't call themselves the advent until later) was on a remote desert planet.  When this colony was about to join the TO, ambassadors and diplomats went there to fill in the legal blanks.  What they found was an entire race of people who had used implants, genetic manipulation, mental trawling, among other taboo techniques to make themselves better.  Self improvement is a good thing, but according to the TO, illegal.  More than likely, the TO debated for a long while what to do with these people.  Some wanted their planet leveled, while others didn't see any laws broken, so they said to leave them there.  Eventually, it was decided to exile them into space.  The Unity did not hear the reports of those who wanted them to stay, only of those who wanted them dead.

Without a planet, 2-3 billion people (about the max pop of a desert planet) would have great difficulty surviving.  Over the next few centuries, they suffered from the possibility of starvation.  Eventually, a system with terran planets was found and colonized.  At this point, the Unity began to expand.  Without traditional moral guidelines to hold them back, they began designing new and more powerful weapons.  Soon, they began to experiment with the crews of TEC scouts as they came into the Unity Space.

As far as the TO was concerned, these ships were encountering some sort of a threat, so travel to that sector was barred.  Without more subjects, the Unity was forced to ensure that they had a steady supply of test subjects, so they began to use yet more taboo methods.  They let these subjects "live" on a planet until one day the Revelation Battlecruiser was scheduled for testing.  Researchers believed that the powerful PsiTech of the crew would be enough to carry influence over entire planets.  They were right.  When the ship's collective mind tried, it was able to provoke hysteria.  They were soon forced to stop, else all their subjects would be destroyed, ending their fun.

Eventually, they decided to leave their subjects alone for a century before coming back.  When they returned to "check up" on their lab-rats, they found a "fleet" ready for them.  Unfortunately, the rebels were crushed quickly by the new experimental axial gun of the Radiance Battleship.

There was one odd occurrence in the battle though...  There was a crew of members more than two hundred years old.  All of them had mastered their PsiTech, but the rebels had managed to focus all their fire on the single Halcyon Carrier they were within.  In the brief moments before the death of the ship, the crew of a Progenitor Mothership managed to transfer the collective consciousness of the Halcyon to another, inexperienced one.  Even with the death of their original bodies, the master crew was able to survive.

-----  Two Hundred Years Later -----

After developing countless weapons that would surely spell disaster for the TO, the Unity, or Advent as they would come to be called, launched their entire force towards the central worlds.  Upon arrival, they found their target, the TO, to have become the TEC and to be fighting a war elsewhere.

Without any ships to defend against it, many central worlds were exterminated.  Even the capital, Naeve, was destroyed.  The Advent had done more than their predecessors had received, but a thousand years of dwelling on their hatred caused them to believe that the death of a dozen planets and 50 billion was not enough.  These sinners had tortured an entire race.  Now, they would pay for it with their lives.

And that is how I see it happening...

Oh, and for the record, it does not say that the Unity excludes men from their equivalent of politics, they only say that women are more common.  Now, for a race that is dominated by PsiTech, this would mean that men would traditionally be looked down upon.  However, there would be some who are determined enough to train themselves and rise through the ranks and more than likely, the Coalescence, the Council, whatever you want to call their governing body, is run by men.  So, the rankings would likely be:

Coalescence: man

Council: men/women (mostly women)

Capital Ship Crews: women

Cruiser Crews: women with the occasional man

Frigate Crews: women with a handful of men on board

Scout Crews: about 1/3 men

Physical Laborers: men (for obvious reasons)

The unity is all about efficiency, and women (as psychologists and employers already know) are more efficient than their male counter-parts.  Women tend to work more and goof off less.  For the Unity, this would only be magnified.  In history, races run by women (what few there are) tend to be more advanced than those around them and also peaceful (although they tend to get wiped out due to the lack of an army).  For this reason, the Unity was peaceful until their expulsion.  Any guy with an ex-girlfriend can tell you that it is not wise to get on a girl's/woman's bad side.  Guys get mad and then forgive each other the next day.  Girls tend to hold grudges... For a long long time...  Once again, for the Unity, this would be amplified as all members carry the memories of the previous generations.  For this reason, when the Advent return, they are ruthless.  They still feel the pain of the expulsion as if it was yesterday.

I never told the story. That was Volt. And CenturionJixra, you have a dirty, dirty mind.

Actually, scouts will beat spammed assailants quite easily.  If the enemy goes crazy with LRF, Advent carriers can also work nicely because they come out so early.  On small maps like quickstrike or point blank, you'll want to get Radiance against Vasari.  This will enable you to disable nano disassemblers by using detonate antimatter.  This is one of the only situations where Advent should not start with the progenitor.

Keep in mind that in many of those tiny premade maps, there are little to no neutrals.  This is a huge disadvantage to Vasari.

As far as castes go, my interpretation is that females dominate the social castes, such as leadership and command, whereas males dominate the functional castes, such as researchers and telekinetics.  There is a line somewhere in the manual that implies that the highest castes (coalesence) are not capable of the kind (or potency) of telekinesis that the anima employ, which demonstrates that their primary skills are very different.  The anima may well be male dominated, even if their commanding officers are females of another caste.

Also, I'd imagine human labour is utterly obsolete, so there wouldn't be a labour caste.  This is the kind of things robots can do.  Although the person who maintains and operates the robots may well be considered a "labourer", this is more of a technician by modern standards.

Not necessarily; shield restoration is still a powerful combat ability.  Against TEC, I might still go progenitor even on those tiny maps (since there isn't a super powerful ability to negate until missile barrage).  However, against Advent and Vasari the ability to negate their capital ship abilities is a substantial advantage on such a small map, which is why I'd go with radiance in these cases.