>decide to play exterminators for the first time (PvE)
>everyone pissy as fuck
>anyway, building my armies and fleets
>first douche decided to invade from the north
>invades my strongest system with a 5k fleet
>my space station alone is 2.7k
>two 2.9k fleets alongside it
>he is completely out of fleets afterwards
>steamroll his entire realm and armageddon every single one of his planets
>hes gone now
>bitch to the south tries the same
>makes the same mistake
>am tired, decide to just armageddon one planet
>at the last stand before his first world, HE invades the system MY fleets are in instead of letting me come to him and his defense station
>sue for peace having shrunk his empire
>ANOTHER dude from the further north tries the same thing, gets beaten the same way
>end up with pic related empire purely from retaliation strikes
For comparison, the sector in the centre is where my empire was BEFORE they fucked with me. Are NPC players just that dumb? Do they get smarter and cleverer at higher difficulties or do they just get more resources to cheat?