Crazy CPA

[Bognor]

Another tactic I find useful is cloaker starships and some other starship (Leech works nicely due to my playstyle) to fire up an alert on that planet and all surrounding ones.  Seems to keep them nice and busy.  Just never want to go into that area again.

A single spirecraft scout is all you need.  It's an incredibly powerful tactic for diverting AI reinforcements into a part of the galaxy you don't care about.

[Brise Bonbons]

I was surmising that CPA timing could be related to number of human controlled planets, but it sounds like no. Ah well, so much for my hunch.

I did a bit of research on the spirecraft scout, since I would not have expected a scout to put a world on alert, but I see now how that could be a very powerful tool. Would have been a great tactic to use in the game described in the OP. We certainly had some mark I and II planets on the other side of the galaxy we could have put on alert, and knowing what we know now that would have been a key strategy for dealing with all our mark IV neighbors.

Anyway, thanks again for the discussion, it's been great!