My friends and I recently bought trinity, and we have been playing a number of matches against each other. One of these friends and I buddy up frequently, and have developed a strategy that seems to be fairly effective against the rest of our friends. I wish to know how effective it is against the wider world of players.

This strategy starts after both of us have decent fleets, economies, and territory. One of us will focus on researching whatever tech they deem necessary at the moment. The other player focuses on fleet building, and assists with the defense of the player doing the research, so that they can devote more money to research. Once the player doing the research has finished with said research, than the roles reverse and the fleet builder now does research. This eventually leads to us having overall better economies, stronger fleets, and more defended planets as opposed to our friends who have generally focused on only researching basic tech (i.e. lvl 2 max) and conquering as many planets as possible.

So. Is this strategy generally workable? Does it only work against players who scout spam or rush? Have my friend and I simply been lucky so far?