[Paul1980au]

Capturing the enemy homeworlds is a quick way to ensure their surrender - the fact they defend that planet most means if you strike their fleet there they find it hard to regroup. Capture it will 300+ troops. Once you have the homeworld if they wont surrender - capture the bigger planets first esp those with no domes - native population atomosphere build enormous amounts of facilities. Small planets are hard to defend ie lack of space for WPs etc.

Use boarding ships to capture enemy pop transports they usually have up to 300+ populations and can be used to colonize youre domed planets to exchange with the captured pop and remove the dome and expand back system planet facilities.