So i was playing a non-campaign game on a huge map, with full opponents on gifted.
Bribing the willing and avoiding the angry.
Luckily, I had a nice private starting point over by the right corner, with some very very nice starsystems tight and cozy, with some distance from the rest of the universe. I wasnt bothering anyone. I was fast and generous. I had to.
Im not one to play with maxed opponents on gifted and survive to the end.
But this time, I would!
After some hours, god knows how many, I had myself a steady empire and found myself in the top ranks.
Several upon several wars had been fought between most races, except me, and yet every race remained in the game still. Some would even put a cockroach to shame.
Things were doing great, and when I mustered out my first superheavy custom capitalship, I finally felt at ease. I now had the greatest weapon in the universe. A titanic creation that would lay down the law.
Anyway, I started to pump out military forces to reinforce my borderguards and to ensamble a big invasion force for future purposes.
My economy was great, my military was rocksteady.
I felt like Alexander the Great.
Then all of a sudden, out of the blue!, a message showed;
"The Jagged Knife has come. They have taken 61 planets from various races. 14 of those are yours."
I was like "What the.. Who?", so I checked it out.
And WHAT THE HELL?!?!?
They took ALL my key planets!! And since I build every Trade Resource, galactic projects and other one-time-i-build-you-cant-buildings I can on the same freaking planet, that is not a nice thing at all.
Im left with second rate planets and freaking culture-rejects! My safe startingpoint is completely taken by these jagged knife people, save for the capital planet!
Who are these guys?
I spoke to them and their greeting was that they aimed to please me! What the ****, man?! They just stole my entire economical and financial power! Just like that!
And 61 planets?!? Thats almost TWICE the size of the biggest race in the game!
What the hell were my espionage agency doing?
Well, obviously you can tell im upset. I am not amused at all.
I cant really see how this improves the game. When I finally - FINALLY - could hold my own and project my power, amongst 9 gifted opponents, i get this... aaaallll the way up my ***.
I dont mind having this kind of events. But 61 planets? And why have them claim all of my best planets? I mean ONLY the best. Oh, Im not kidding. Top 14.
I mean.. "Oh, thats great job, son. Youve done very well. Here, suck on this!"
Whats the strategy-value in this, if I cant predict it? And Im not talking about some flowerpower-headed roleplay value here about whats really going on down on the planets.. you know, fuck that. They were 100% approval planets, most of them.
So.. how do I fix this, ladies and gentlemen?
Whats the deal with these Jagged Knife? Are they staying until someone kills them?
Is there a way to hack the savegame to give me back my planets? Or some other cheat?
Because I do not agree at all with this shit.
Thank you.
You think you had it bad i just got out of a game where i had a nice place in the left lower corner in the map.
Having my outer worlds basicly serve as canon fodder and my inner (prime) worlds serve as the economy's backbone and militairy production i was busy fighting my second war basicly over two systems that i wanted to secure my defence ring.
Then the jagged knife appeared with 37 planets of which 27 were mine seriously 27...(seems a bit overkill) and guess what

Yay! my entire militairy infrastructure and economic backbone gone... losing the war over the 2 systems and losing my an additinal seven systems which were basicly supporting my war effort on those systems.
Finally stopping my enemy in his tracks by using the only two real production planets i had left building up a defence. i was starting the proces of retaking my prime planets. i had everything in place to start the assault to recapture my initial 10 production worlds and building from those to retake the other 17 followed by the 7 other systems i lost and the 2 that i wanted...
two AI races decided in their infinite wisdom to start their assault on the other side of my defence ring which was severly weakend due to the operation to retake my worlds they struck right after the operation was launched. And that was about it. capturing two planets that were able to produce battleships within reasonable time i could hold off my enemies for about a year but losing more and more ground to finaly having only my home system left and my defences severly weakend by a three front war which had allready lead to a 4 front war.
My god was i stupid to not turn off the mega events altough it was fun to really lose like this and seeing how long my defence ring could hold on with almost no support. i learned a lot about defensive combat.
What suprised me was the amount of planets the jagged knife actually initially got