So I'm in a war with the automatons, I get to this system and see a metric ♥♥♥♥ton of fleets. I think "Alright, I can deal with these guys. I have better fleets anyway."



I send in seven fleets, thinking I can knock out more than they can put up.



Good god was I wrong.



Here's a screencap of their fleets ONE round after I knocked seven of them down. The round before, they had 52 fleets.







No words.



What's even worse, is that they've blockaded the system. All of my fleets are perpetually trapped there until I either send in enough fleets to outdo their production, or I disband all of my ships. Which is a pretty big no-go.

You could split your fleets into smaller ones and thereby kill them off much quicker.

I know your Problem, but don't know an real solution... only to Play with an easier difficult



But, I think the devs know this Problem and I hope they will fix it with en Expansion, DLC, patch or whatever after EL is finished

I personally use the AI fleet stacking behavior to my advantage.



I'll find a stack like the one pictured above (I've never seen a cap as low as 3 though) and I'll move one strong fleet to hold them. Setting my fleet to intercept enemy ships prevents them from leaving. I can then send other fleets around the stack to blockade the other planets. This severely limits the enemy's ability to create new fleets.



I can then easily take the star systems at will, prioritizing luxury fids and aiming for the enemy home system as soon as possible.



I don't attack the stacked fleets until I've taken enough star systems to prevent the enemy from upgrading their fleets. Meanwhile, my original fleet will be outdated, but a fresh one can step in with a hero and whittle the stack down. The original fleet can then be upgraded without waste.

Yeah I'll give the autos one thing: They really helped me rank up my fleets, lol.



And I'll try splitting up my fleets. I guess I was so tired at that point that I didn't even think to, lol.

Just sing something epic as you completely destroy them over the next few rounds.

So the Automatons finally wised up and got some more CP, along with ships to counter my own(I was using heavy beams. I completely decimated their ships for a good 75% of our, albeit short, war). I brought my own fleets back together to deal with their stronger ships. That's when they hit me with a Cease Fire. Being the merciful overlord of the galaxy that I am, I agreed. Now we're at peace with each other, along with the Horatio and Pilgrims, and we've all pulled our respective fleets out of each other's systems.



This is what I like about the Endless Space AI, and Endless Space in general. You really feel like you're in control of a huge galactic community, and are interacting with all of these other races. Well, when the AI isn't asspulling ten fleets per round and ignoring their Endless Debt, at least! XD

At a supply-cap of 3 CP the cost per CP is only 1.2 dust.

So 70 fleets of that are just about 230 dust per turn.

I meant in general with fleets far exceeding reasonable MP. I've had several games where the AI seemingly materializes several high-end fleets, FULL fleets may I add, and continue to do so for many many turns. It was reasonable for the Autos in my game to have so many fleets, since their CP was only 3 for the longest time.