If you're like me, you are competitive. You've got a background in a lot of RTS games, straight up from C&C, Red Alert, Warcraft, Starcraft, TA, then into a couple Civs and Alpha Centauri. You know the way to play the game is to conquer your opponent. Build up, crush them, rejoice at your greatness.
But what if we break from the norm?
I just started a game where I decided to try something different. What if I put military as a bottom priority? What if I concentrated on self-improvement, actually using diplomacy?! Until now, diplomacy consisted of the AI requesting something, and me rejecting it. After all, anything I give them only makes them stronger, which only postpones their inevitable destruction (this is the mindset I've had, which I guess I picked up from Alpha Centauri).
How did all those old games go? Well, after the initial colony rush, the build up, I'd end up with everyone hating me and at war with me. Normally I could win, unless something 'unusual' happened (which has taught me to always turn off mega events). But to be honest, these games were fairly boring.
This time, I went high on diplomacy, and economics. I still put some priority on research, which is always necessary in these types of games.
What has happened:
1) Population/Size speaking, I am at par with every other race.
2) My military is non-existant
3) On each planet, I concentrated on economics and lightly on moral and research. Nothing on manufacturing or food (food = population = moral drop, a serious problem in all my other games).
4) My economy is through the roof, with moral nice & high, I can tax the heck out of everything, and everyone pays up with a smile.
5) My research was strong, but not the best - until I utilized my high diplomacy (my first research priority) and started trading with other races, sometimes even 'unfavorable' trades. After that, I was top for research. I even picked up some nice military techs, and managed to train medium hulls for when I might need to defend myself.
6) By doing all my research trading, the other races started to really like me. I managed some treaties, and decided to keep relations strong, which would come in handy later!
7) I stayed on bad terms with the top race (Terrans), so as to provide a possible significant opponent later, or at least someone to throw the other races at to wear each other down.
8) At this point I've got great relations with everyone (except Terrans), my economy and research is #1, and its time to have some fun.
9) I tell the #2 military race (Drath) to attack the terrans (a tiny portion of my huge fortune was needed for this). A couple other races notice... one decides to join the fun on their own and attacks the terrans, the other just drops relations with terrans.
10) The terrans, though weakened, kick their butts, and peace treaties are signed. Perhaps if I had kept diplomacy going with Drath, they'd have stayed in the fight longer... I shall try that later.
11) I trade a bit with the Drath, wait a bit for them to rebuild, and bribe them to attack again. This time, I keep re-inforcing them with tech, and a small amount of donations. This war seems to be fairly steady. Hmmm, some starbases built on 'bonus resource tiles' seem to have been destroyed (on both sides) - YOINK - I'll take those bonuses.
Well, thats where I have to halt the story - because that's where I am now. The AI is still mostly using small fighters, with a few mediums thrown in. I'm in the process of building some very powerful custom mediums (cruisers), and I'm thinking I'll steamroll across the terrans, then the drath. Unfortunately, this goes back a bit to my traditional militaristic mind-set, but I'm getting a bit bored now. Any ideas what I might want to do for fun?
