Aasch

it can be a way to force an enemy who you have pushed back to 3 or so worlds in a big map to lose but it doesn't always work. If you get enough broadcast centers you can push through cap ships and start influencing population forcing them to deconstruct things like research centers to build media hubs. used it once in a game against a friend who used RA to hold out forever and it worked OK. Took a while but I had been beating my head against his fleet for 40 min already so I was ready to try

A good defense against fleets that are on their way to your home world or deeper systems is to keep a secondary fleet of light carriers as defense and a few random defensive hangers around to augment them in each system. Make sure to include repair bays and they will fix your fighter squadrons also as they tool around your system. Now the enemy has to commit a good chunk of flak to counter. Make sure the carriers target cap ships and keep them on the far side of a system from where the enemy

There are some strats but nothing really complex in most cases. As you play around more and more with units you get a better idea of what you want to micro manage and what you want to leave up to the AI. And what you build and put in your fleet will determine how your fleet behaves in combat. A good example is if you make a lot of Illuminators they will tend to target capital ships first since they do 100% damage there and light frigs last since they have a penalty... if that is not w