GRR! Jagged knife are annoying, but only when they take your planets hehe. I can remember I was playing as the Yor. things were going well.. the organics were being crushed quite steadily. I was embroiled in several wars and my military production was vital, my empire was spread across in various places of the galaxy due to conquest.. then, BAM jagged knife appears. 20 planets gone. i was annoyed at first, then I got enraged as I realised the computer had heartlessly gone across the galaxy selecting my highest planet quality worlds and specialised ship building planets, its like it knew which planets to take to damage my chances the most!!! It took less than half of my worlds, but all the others were research and population planets, basically I were boned. To add insult to injury, every time I conquered one back, the JK bastards had demolished EVERYTHING on the surface except the starport, leading me to have to rebuild my specialised planets

This being said though, they can work in your favour. If none of your planets defect, the event is a godsend!

My last game, I was the Drengin in a large galaxy at the painful level. I had finally mastered the colony rush, and, to some extent, the Drengin tech tree. I expanded nicely, built up a decent military, went to war with two other races, and held my own. All of a sudden, I get the pirate mega event. They destroy my entire fleet and all of my star bases. I couldn't even build a ship since the pirates would destroy it instantly. Instead of panicking, I spent time researching some advanced engine techs and the psionic beam. In the meantime, While I was doing the research, I didn't build any ships. Once I had the techs in place, I designed a custom Battle Axe with speed and weapons. As I build them, I moved them away from the pirates into empty space and formed a couple of fleets. Then I started pushing back. I got my fleets to engage the pirates, and began building ships at a furious rate. I started making headway, and then...

The Jagged Knife appear, and I lose 20% of my empire. I was ready to quit the game, but after thinking about it for a while, I decided to take advantage of the event. I continued beating back the pirates, rebuilding my star bases, and building transports. I declared war on the Jagged Knife and began capturing my and other races planets. Before too long, I had a huge empire built up. The remaining two races were hostile toward me for the remainder of the game but unable to attack due to my huge and powerful military.

To close the game out, I teched my way to victory. On top of the two mega events, it was my first successful game on painful and with the Drengin.

The beauty of ToA, is the unique tech trees. It took me several tries as the Drengin to figure out how to beset use their tech tree. I've now switched to the Korath Klan since they're tech tree is both similar and different. It is different enough though to have to change the strategy.

I now look at mega events differently. They do change the complexity of the game, but they also offer opportunities if you are mentally prepared to take them.

I curse the Jagged Knife, it's like they always know which of your worlds is the most important and then they revolt. Secondly, most of the Jagged Knife worlds come from my worlds! WHY?!   

 Actually, I never play as good. It hurts you too much in the beginning to get there. I tend to stay neutral or occassionally evil, but 95 percent of the time I am neutral. I just hate the JK so much because it is indeed like they KNOW which worlds to take. I even lost about over half of my empire. I got so mad that I quit the game because they basically took all of my most important worlds besides my capital and I couldn't take them back without damaging the worlds severely. I curse the Jagged Knife.

My problem with the jagged knife versus other mega-events is not that they're a game breaker, but that they'e an immersion breaker. It is *so* arbitrary, and obviously so that it reminds you you're in a game, not running an actual empire.

Most of the other just aren't that kind of problem for me.

Jonnan

Least we could have a counter for Jagged Knife take overs like a counter espionage building doing the trick against them also or influence starbases and planetary approval ratings above 90% or something. Just to much of an annoyance to have all of a sudden half or more of your worlds owned by the JK and not a darned thing you can do about it or to have prevented it.

Also it seems to be far more unfair to the player since now I've been hit a few times and each time I lose a much higher precentage of my planets then the AI civs. I  generally have more planets then most the AI civs but I lose 50-70% of my planets while AI civs lose maybe 5-25% max.

I hate that max speed fo 5 parsecs mega event as I tend to a later stages like building big ships with alot of engines to get around and terrorize enemies very quickly

I just had The Edge steal my super planet.  I was lucky to find a planet with a +29 on it early.  They took it and I didnt even have planetary invasion trained.  Along with 10 other of my planets.

At the same time I have roving pirates with 2 ships that can insta-pop any ship I build at my shipyards.  Annoying but very fun.