Techniques are provided to generate a transmit power plan comprising transmit powers to be used by wireless access point devices in a wireless network. A wireless network controller receives, from each of a plurality of wireless access point devices configured to provide wireless service in corresponding coverage areas to client devices, data indicating receive signal strength information with respect to signals received from others of the plurality of wireless access point devices. Overlap of coverage areas of wireless access point devices is computed from the received signal strength information. A plurality of candidate transmit power plans are generated each from a deterministic or random sequence of selections of wireless access point devices. One of the plurality of candidate transmit power plans is selected to achieve a desired amount of coverage area overlap while maximizing overall coverage by the plurality of wireless access point devices.