Boarding parties are faster to research, cheaper to build, and faster to reuse than intelligence projects. If all you want is to capture ships, intelligence is a vastly inferior method. Its sole advantage is that you don't need to know where the ship you're stealing is. The downside is that you often get a lone ship deep in enemy territory surrounded by more powerful, hostile forces. If you can't get to your enemy, or your enemy has a big lead on you, then Intelligence is the way to go. Also, both methods complement each other very well.
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