Welcome to our forums Kevin

Lag in Armada 2 is like the sun rising in the east. It's always present more or less intense depending on how far the players live from each other (Germany<->Australia for example), how many players are in game and how strong everyone's system is. If there is just one dude playing with a weaker system and additionally have a slow connection (56k) it will pull down the whole thing. Even when everyone is playing on dsl speed and an appropriate system it lags.
The net code of Armada 2 is one of the biggest flaws Armada 2 has to offer and was one of the heaviest negative points the press released when the game came out in 2001/2002.
Yet it is not fixable and one has to live with it. However, with Fleet Operations the lag decreased quite a bit (I could really feel it). But still there will always be a small delay left... I asked DOCa several times if he could do something about it but I guess it's very comlicated to code a new net code or fix the old one. Lets hope there will be a solution in future and also for those who play stock A2.
Edit: If the lag is very intense like in your case it could also be a result of your current graphics card driver. I once had such a problem when installing the newest cataclyst driver for my radeon9800. Playing Species8472 was nearly impossible. Maybe if you could send the bug report to DOCa somehow by using the tool that is included in 1.25 he could have a look into it.