Who doesn't have CIWS?
If you play a conventional start, you will not have CIWS unless you invest a sizeable amount of time in their research. And since they are very sub-par when it comes to battle fleets (area PD weapons or AMM missiles are king for fleets PD, compared to CIWS who are more effective for ships who operate alone), they usually take the backburner. Thus, it is quite possible to either not have them, or to have them at a low tech level. In that case, railgun or laser turrets are better, or your only choice.
Well, I sort of assume that they get there on abstracted civilian craft that the game doesn't model... yet.
You are obviously free to play how you want, and I don't want to force my view on others.
It's just that in a game where I can't even have minerals on another planet unless I manually carry them with MY ships (civs won't move minerals), I cannot simply justify the fact that some "abstracted civilian crafts" are carrying my geological teams to prospect planets in a system 3 jumps away, where there's simply nothing a civilian ship would ever want.
So no, no teleporting for my teams
Examples?
There's too many to count. Example #1 would be overreliance on missiles, which some players even use as their ONLY weapon. No sane political power would ever do this, even more so in the case of box launchers, because they are easily counterable.
Yes it works on the AI of course, and missiles are a very valid weapon. Worthy of being a sizeable part of your fleet. But as your only weapon? Real enemies would adapt quickly, either sending massive PD fleets OR "soaker" armored fleets to eat through your missiles and get close to kill you.
The same reasoning can be done for some fighter designs which I have seen posted in the forums. Or really, for any over-reliance on super-specialized designs, which once again work on the AI because it can't adapt.
When creating a ship, I always ask myself 4 questions:
Would the USA build and use such a ship? If the answer is no, back to the drawing board.
Would China build and use such a ship? If the answer is no, back to the drawing board.
Would Russia build and use such a ship? If the answer is no, back to the drawing board.
Would a 10 year old child be able to easily build a cheap counter to this ship? If the answer is yes, back to the drawing board.