The number of the initial invading force was 200 fleets of 100 Minotaur, 100 Eldritch, 100 Warphant, 100 infantry. The numbers are mostly arbitrary, but I needed a small enough fleet to be difficult to detect, large enough to take out so many planets, and effective enough to get past some of the light defenses that were on world.
The idea came to me about 6 months ago, but I hadn't really quite figured out how to implement it fully in a battle scenario. But there you go. That is how you do it. Also, I believe that is what the Citadel's and some of the planetary forces are supposed to protect against. However, as I suspected from Imperium's comment, the fleets were so small they are quite difficult to detect and somewhat impossible to shoot down from what I saw of Wayward's attempts to stop at least some of them. He did manage to get like... 5 of them I think though. Good Try.
It was a not easy to implement though, it took about 45 min of constant deployment to do that. It also became taxing trying to keep up with so many. Each landing had to be ordered to attack and kept track of to ensure they didn't all get stuck on a planet to get killed. A key to the strategy was persistent movement. Each fleet lands, takes a planet, moves to the next world that you designate. The other key, was overwhelming numbers. There were simply too many fleets to react to with how concentrated Wayward's forces were.
The overwhelming advantage to this strategy is the lack of forces I used. That entire fleet was 2000 Minotaur, Eldritch, Warphant, and Infantry.
After scouting the empire, I found an unguarded jumpbeacon, this became my target. After dividing the empire in half, creating a screen of messages, I attacked the jumpbeacon to which degree I then advanced my main fleets into the area to take the worlds, capitals, and anything I could lay my hands on that had been evacuated by the Hegemony.
Although the goal of turning an angry Hegemony on to destroy the Imperium failed, the goal of the Imperium and Myself to break the Hegemony succeeded. So, well done. But I am somewhat happy for the turn of events. As long as neither has not abdicated, there remains someone to challenge for later players or to make an attempt at obtaining all 5000 worlds.... It's worth a shot

I think next time I will not abdicate. Just to see what becomes of it all, just to see if I can be great and truly defeat one of you.
Another purpose to my abdicating after the wars, is that it frees up a lot of space for other players, it also cuts down on the amount of consolidation needed!
Fences are no match for bugz, gates will not hold back the storm, and even rocks will shatter!
