[Monroe]

They aren't actually fortress galaxies. I just gave you the intro to the plan, not the plan details itself. The idea is to have about half the gal as a fortress gal, the rest as players in other allies. So it becomes a fenced galaxy with a single ally as it's base. This idea beats the heck out of an 8 player galaxy, whether fortressed or not. 24 active players beats 8 active players any day... just look at the galaxy rankings right now. The top ten contains mostly public galaxies, at least several of them are fortressed (I don't have intel on all of them). The ones that are fortressed followed the outline in the plan details not included in my first post on in this thread, including the top gal.

Because as AndroX notes you can only defend your ally mates and gal mates, having a strong mix of ally mates and random active players in your galaxy is the best strategy, when the following conditions are met:
1. There are few public galaxies relative to the number of private
2. The stats make the best defense ships only available in galaxy (for example BS that target CO)
3. Exiling out of private galaxies is possible
4. Defense is limited to allies and galaxies
Ironically if the PA team made no changes to the system for next round, and we went with public/privates again, if there are a lot of publics relative to the number of private galaxies then private galaxies are way stronger. So basically the system as it stands is a paradox and will always be unbalanced one way or the other. The galaxy seeding system should be fair to all, is not currently, and therefore should be abandoned, this is the bottom line in my thinking.