I usually have 4 fleets, one mainly carriers (light variety) and two heavy hitters, made up of capital ships. 1 mainly the battleships and planet killers and one mainly the capital carriers. I rarely go with anything less than all 16, with 4 battle ships, 4 planet killers, 6 capital ships and then some of the support ones. and rarely less than 40 of the light carriers, I use these to take out capital ships and to clear the buildings while the capital ships take out fleets and the planet. My fourth fleet is a stand by fleet, guarding the other half of my empire and is whatever frigates I can get, so anywhere from 40 - 60 mixture of light and heavy frigates and anti fighters. 1 map I played the other day finished as advent with all 16 capital ships on level 10. Just depends how long I want to play and have them hanging round fighting off the bad guys. Largest empire is a bit odd, depends on map. the biggest map I have is the babylon 5 map and when I played it and wen through to victory I had all 197 planets. though the big blue is much larger (250+) it just slows too much to play to the end.

use a single crushing blow.  it works no matter what.  the thing aboout a good puch, however, is that it uses all four fingers. hint hint.

and if you don't get is still, here's something a little more obvious:  take each of your four armadas, and strikae at one of the enemies, destroy their ships and some structures, and then move on to the next. don't bother taking the planets until you have damaged their economy sufficiently.  each of the four fleets should hit 4 different places, or move in 4 different directions.

Which would win: A massively powerful military or an unfaltering economy? It looks like both of us can summon an armada at will so a stalemate could ensue. However, the rebels would be fighting for me (so long as I don't jump into their battles) and you could never achieve the economic might I wield since I'm playing as the TEC.