No no, far from it. While I'm still noob, i have roughly 30 hours of AI War in. I realize the concepts of destroying command stations only when i really need a system, trying to keep AI Progress low and stuff.
So far i didn't fire a single missile.
The 350 progress were made through a couple of station cleanings. Then i got 2 golems, cursed and armored. Then i accidently killed one co-processor. Found may 5 ressources caches and i believe 2 zenith ship holdings. When saying a few system, i think i have maybe 8 to 10 systems, with another 5 or 6 mostly neutered (i.e. everything including warp gate killed, command station left). I may have been forced to kill 1 or 2 BHGs, too. And i think i lost zenith power plant.
EDIT: Just checked. I own 10 system, AI would be 406 but is reduced by 60, probably server farms i got. I got 18k unused knowledge though.