The species added in the expansions are trickier to play but it's not an attritional combat game except for the very largest maps and part of that is the economy is balanced for 12 systems per faction or so.
Every planet is a source of production. There is no strategic-scale target with intrinsically more value than any other unless you're playing against Terrans. There are no chokepoints, no battles of maneuver, no snapping links off the production or logistical chain.
I'm not even going to acknowledge the "shot across the bow" you use in that post.
Each species has a different type of FTL so strategies have to be different.
First off forge worlds v.s. civilian support worlds do exist:
Different planet sizes lead to different production ratings. So you can cut off the head of the enemy and force them into debt and unable to manage fleets. This is in the vanilla game.
With Born of Blood civilian trade is added, now you can harass trade networks and cripple economies without direct warfare and send your fleets to wipe out the industrial planets.
With A Murder of Crows civilians, surrendering, and stations had been added. Stations adding a MOO quality of planet customization and civilians adding more depth to the trade system.
Now you could customize planets even more, and needed to prioritize targets. Take out the sensor network and repair forward base? Or focus on the softer civilian trading worlds and cripple the economy?
To a degree it took two expansions to get the features to the point that you'd consider there to be any strategic depth, but it's there.
Each form of FTL also has real implications.
For the Tarkas, no there's no choke points. There really weren't choke points in MOO for the same reason with warp drive. It's still an island-hopping system even in 3d.
However, Tarka FTL is damn slow, so most races can wrap around them.
Liir slow down in gravity wells, so dominate deep space but get screwed in tight clusters.
The Zuul make their own node lines and networks, but once you figure out the routes they're taking you can outmanuver them.
The Hivers with the gates means that you can easily cripple them if you go all out and strip out the gate system. There's a limit to the ships they can warp through gates so strike at multiple systems at once and you'll screw them over hard.
So yes, there's strategy AND tactics. *sigh*
