Core galaxy
Core, or fortress, galaxies are a late PAX tactic involving an alliance concentrating as many of its members as possible in a few galaxies. This tactic contrasts with fencing, an earlier tactic that involve alliances spreading their members throughout a lot of different galaxies in order to make targeting them difficult.
The advent of exiling and the expansion of the buddypack increased the viability of this tactic. The success of core galaxies lays in improving communication and coordination and maintaining morale throughout the round. Fortressing, however, is not a magic formula for success and requires a lot of activity and dedication to pull off.
Method
Creating core galaxies consists of first creating a handful of solid buddy packs, while everyone not in one signs up as a random planet. After protection, coordinated exiling allows the random players to relatively easily exile into the core galaxies, though a certain degree of luck is required. At tick 336 a late joiner can join a galaxy of their choosing, allowing galaxies to continue to build their fortress later in the round.
Core galaxies have various exile policies. Some exile everyone that's not in the correct alliance, while others take a more relaxed approach and exile only inactive players.
Sometimes people will switch alliance mid-round to improve the fortress of a galaxy by adding a member of the same alliance to it.
Success
Core galaxies have been used successfully by only a handful alliances. Ascendancy used it several times throughout its history, most notably in round 19, and the late 20s, early 30s winning streak. Apprime used core galaxies in round 32, 34 and 35. Conspiracy Theory got the winning galaxy in round 36 by creating a fortress in a random galaxy.
