Starting near Agressive Race makes game near impossible

Im playing at gigantic size with only few planets, about 5 each race, since mamaging more annoys me, and I think it gives the game a good feeling.

Still, at obscene difficulty, starting near Korath for example, they simply rush me. Of course, they ll attack even with me having good diplomacy and trading relations, since I cant get my fleet even near a level with em.

What are you doing in such situations?

strategies

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As a matter of fact some races don't like it when others have a good diplomacy rating, the Drengin are one example, AFAIK Korath should behave the same.

You can do alot.

Decrease their military (before they declared war) by trading for their Military vessels with techs &/ influental points.

Increase your own MM by building the SCC.

Send them Freighters.

If war is inevitable, rush-buy some Medium (or bigger) hulls, research the correct on-type defense and upgrade all these hulls to 75% DEF/ 25% ATT vessels using the longest-term lease. Before ahead, get sufficient Troop Transports. Then conquer them.

The newly aquired planets usually pull you outta debt fast, even more fast if you go all-econ before-ahead, and/or have some Constructors ready to send to newly acquired Moral/Econ-resources.

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I have found that being next to the most aggressive AIs can lead to the easiest wins.

Simply bribe them to attack others. Get them in multiple wars and keep them there. The better your diplo, the easier it is. Note that if you can get them to attack any of the races that has the mega-ability to get others to join them in wars, then you can keep everyone in multiple wars all game long.

Meanwhile, you prosper ....

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I usually pay other race to war with my nearer enemy. That way they have less in the way of money to fight back. Also I mod the hell out of this game so we are playing at different scenarios.

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Using the option tight star clusters tends to start the races at distances from each other. Your "few planets" leads to a massive advantage for a race if they have some good bonus tiles; I saw this post just before I started a game where the Drengin had both 700% and 300% production bonus tiles on Drengi, and they are my neighbour.

Some of the other races helped me against (I bribed the Korx to attack) the Drengin, and I obtained some techs and money from minor races.

It seems impossible when the Drengin usually colonize many planets quickly and build hi-tech ships; trade and military might puts them off attacking.

AAR:

Soon, the Jagged Knife took control of about a third of all planets, one was mine. So I captured some former foreign planets (obtaining a new tech and ready built planet with every conquest) by only going to war with the Jagged Knife. The United Planets voted for every race to give every other race 2 unique technologies so I got my firepower up. The Korx had a major event which vastly increased their influence, they took one planet from me by influence. I made peace with the Jagged Knife later so I could get some money off them by selling techs.

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Similar Ethics

The Korath declared war on me (Altarian Universalists), then another four evil races helped me because "they have similar ethics".

This was near the beginning of a game when I hadn't researched much diplomacy. Our military sizes were about equal, and I had some trade (not with Drengin). Didn't cost me a penny, I was even tight with my tech and trade goods trading .

Later in the game, the Drengin and Korx surrendered to me - I wasn't even at war with them! Drengin were my ally! This was again due to similar ethics I believe.

[EDIT, March 2011:] My race had the "Super Organizer" special ability (good at getting other races to rally to our cause).

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