I'd say you should put in more opponents. I play with the full 9. This increases the number of allies you can get and targets for the warmongers out there; so if the Drengin are on the warpath there are 7 other races apart from you they can fight.

But in the end you're probably going to go to war with *somebody*. And don't give into extortion. It just makes you look weak and they declare war soon anyway.

You're going to end up at war with someone, that's pretty inescapable. It doesn't mean you have to fight in their territory though. Just concentrate on defending your space (large fleets, military star bases, etc...) Let the other guy waste resources building fleets you'll just trash. As those defenders gain experience, this gets even easier. I had a couple medium hulls with 65HP in my last game. That's obscene when the same ship, new off the line, only had 23HP! Since you're spending resources building invasion fleets, you can put that into other peaceful endeavors.

If you want a quicker end to hostilities, it's often easier to take a planet from them and then offer it back to them in exchange for a peace treaty (after you've removed all your troops of course, no sense giving him free population.)

You should look at the relationship screen for each race and see where your pluses and minuses are. Theres really nothing you can do abut the negetives for "close borders" but like nullspace just said, #1 get trade routes.

So to answer your question, NO, there is no flaw in this game that cauises that. its things you need to learn to prevent the wars. of course some will still happen but you can keep them to a minimum and exterminate the real bad warmongers.

Now heres my own question i have after ready #7 above. I've wanted to get one race to go to war with another, but on the trade screen when i click on "attack" that other races name does not appear at all. So how do i get them to decalre war?

Also someone else may be able to answer both of us, does having a high diplomacy level help? Other than helping get better trades, what doe smore diplomacy do?

Bah, I give up in this game it seems your either a primary military power or your dead. My 15th try has yet again ended in being over run by the Yor this time. Thanks for all the advice but I just don't think this is my kind of game, I can't seem to win without being so powerful militarily that I can conquer the whole galaxy...at that point what's the point of a influence, diplomatic or tech victory when you have it made for the conquest win.

I'm sure you will disagree with me but I very much believe this game is flawed if I can not achieve a victory condition that I set out to do without becoming the dominate military force in the galaxy on a normal difficulty level.

Anyway, I can't see enough here to entertain me for more then a week before I get bored.

I will agree wity Masteroldschool on the point that you DO need to be a dominant military power to win any victory condition. Not that you need to go to war, but that strong military will help keep the warmogers away and keep the friendlies as allies. I'm playing as the Korx because i just wanted to be a trader, like Lord Anger above, figuring I'd eventuall get an alliance or influence victory. But war was declared on me, i had no military, but i did have the techs and the cash. Alas, the Drengin are no more.

So to Masteroldschool, if you havent completely given up, next time keep the game balanced, research so weapons techs early on and just get a couple ships build, even if you leave them in orbit. Try to stay off the bottom of the "Most Powerful Civs" list.

If you pick the Super Isolationist ability and put up military starbases then you can play defensively; the enemy will be constantly stifled by your bonuses in your territory.

i always thought super isolationists are overpowered. i was allied to all 9 civs and i won the game, i did not know i won until the cutscenes poped in. but what you do is you make sure you have a very powerful economy, and keep giving the AI opponents money on a consistent basis, then there relationshiops changes with you to warm to very close. then when you researched alliance tech, ssk them to ally with you. chances are they will all say yes

Yeah in this game is quite impossible to go pure peace and forget the guns but just remember this, if this was a multiplayer game and I had guns and the other guys didn't I'd be sure to take over your puny empire because I can.

Really all you can do to deter possible warmongers is to biuld up your military to respectable levels (you gotta be at least slightly lower than the top dog to stay out of their radar, and it doesn't matter if you're second place militarily if the difference between first and second is 3 parsecs and a country mile)

Also you could sweeten them up, if you have the means to butter them up then do so, use trade, treaties, give them something for their birthday, and if you both have alliance give them that too and a couple of BCs on top of it and you got a pal for life, and a pal with the biggest guns to boot (I've never seen an AI break Alliance) but of course you gotta stick up your guns as well, you cannot slack off.

You'd be surprised that all races will eventually succumb to the temptation of the warmonger if it happens, you just also gotta be in the game as well and keep everyone on their toes.

Trust me, before I knew of all this they were demanding tribute left and right, it was as if all the major races were pimps and I was the universe's only (word removed). It can be hard if you're a pacifist but remember those monks that are also pacifist, they can also bust out some strong fighting style with a roundhouse kick way better than what Chuck Norris could do.

I find it difficult to win a pure peaceful victory. I find it much easier though if you are a warmonger early game. If you sucessfully warmonger early, it assures you have a better start and larger planet base to tech. I usually try absorbing 2 major civs and as many minor civs as I can before I try for a peacful victory. This almost ensures that I'm at least 2-3x larger than my next closest competitor. This is better if you disable surrenders so you can gobble up all their planets. If you are bigger and stronger than everyone, you are free to do whatever you please.


I find influence victories easiest to achieve because you can do it with stock exchanges that give you both economy and influence. a tech victory requires to you use expensive tech buildings

influence victories are easier on abundant and tight cluster galaxies. Instead of building influence starbases, I try to maximize planet population and influence techs. Fill planets with stock exchanges, which increase both influence and fill your coffers with credits. To do this, you will need to maximize morale buildings and try to take as many morale resources and abilities as you can. And of course try to take as many influence resources as you can. be sure to build all those morale boosting galactic acheivements

with every planet filled with 14+B population and stock exchanges, your influence will be massive. and with the money from the stock exchanges, you can maintain a huge fleet to ward off aggressors

you'll want very few manufacturing planets, but they need to churn out a constant stream of ships to bolster your military rating. everything else should be econ planets and enough research to keep you ahead of others. I've won influence games where my weapons tech was 3 generations behind the next military leader, but I had 3 times his military rating comprised of small-hulled ships that I can churn out every 1-3 turns on my half-dozen manufacturing planets. With 90% econ planets you can build these indefinately as the upkeep is negligible.

on planets closest to the border, fill them wtih influence buildings instead of stock exchanges. When you've flipped the neighboring planets, turn them into stock exchanges and build influence buildings on the new border planets. I've won a few influence games without the need for influence starbases at all

i did have problem with spies as everyone tries to spy you when you are largest and have the most tech. be sure to research counter-espionage early so you can make your planets immune. otherwise the spies can really eat into your production as the AI loves to put them on your capitals and bonus tiles.

by the way, the best way to get relations to "close" is to have a MASSIVE military. 1.5 to 2x their size should do it, unless you've insulted their mothers or smizmars

and if you have money to spare (and you should if you are doing this properly) then build 10 spies and drop them all at the same time on your nearest opponent to slow them down. you can literally make several planets useless with spies and force them to divert all their spending on counter-spies. I love putting spies on farms for 1 turn each to cripple their populations (it's kind of a dirty trick, i know)

lets not be too blunt now, i mean its only my feelings at stake. lol

Winning with an cultural influence-win is so easy i turned it off long ago.

Yes, it's more fun (for me) to win by diplomacy than by might these days, but that's too easy as well.

Merely building ships orbitting around my planets so nobody will attack me as an easy pickin', and then work the diplomacy, getting alliances and telling race_x to get rid of race_y and so forth.

Then again, there are times when i feel for a Sporerush.

Funny, I have yet to win a conquest game. I disable Influence victory, because if you go for a conquest win, you usually end up winning via influence sometime during the war with the last civ. Most of my victories are Diplomatic/Alliance, I disable tech victory too.

I'm playing on the difficulty setting above normal, usually with 6 civs on the map. Once my military really starts getting turned out, everybody's relationship usually goes to "Close" with me. I'll even attack and conquer a Civ or two with "close" relations, and the others just smile and watch, as I pick them off one by one. It's kind of disappointing that they don't catch on really. I think if you start wars, you should take some pretty heavy diplomatic penalties. Usually I get bored and end up allying with the last civ.