Funny things that work

from Stardock Forums
Add your amusing strategies that are effective but not that
cheesy.

My current favorite amusing strategy is mid game to take
my overwelming tech lead and give it all to a minor civ
with multiple systems in exchange for thier most populous
system. They always go for it.

I then build a couple combat transports import a few
dreadnoughts and capture their remaining systems with
their own people.

This just cracks me up.
699 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
When I play on Tiny, I like to get speed +2, rush to Impulse Drive and send out a couple transports. Nothing like wiping out a couple AIs before anyone else has a military (on maso I have to settle for minors; majors tech too fast).
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I was experimenting with buying starbases after reading another thread here, and I bought a fully upgraded influence from the Arceans located in their home sector. The capital flipped to me a couple of turns later.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Not exaclty funny, but I like to move a Bship etc next to a moral/military resource of a powerful civ.

I then donate it to a civ/ minor who is at war with them in the hope that they will blow it up for me. I then move in with a constructor or.. 10.

Doesn't always work though, as 50% of the time they wait a few turns and then move of somewhere else instead.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmm.
Well my most used strategy is simply moving a few capital ships next to a particular civ's starbases, and destroy them all at once, causes a huge drop in their mil rating.
Then you trade a peace treaty for every technology/BC/planet they'll let you have.

Rearm and repeat.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
When two AIs go to war and your at peace with both of them, send constructors to important starbases of both races. When they are blown up, build an own starbase there and sell it back to the AI for a good price. ;p
(Works, but most time it makes more sense to keep the bases for yourself, thou.)
[Message Edited]
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Some may consider this somewhere between cheddar and brie (both cheese), but early on when transports have very few movement points there's a way to squeeze 1 to 2 more parsecs out of a transport in certain situations.

Assuming the transport has a speed of 1/turn, its possible to dock with a system when 1 tile away from it. Its also possible to relaunch that same transport on the same turn, and it will have 1 movement point left.

If you have closely spaced systems, this orbit hopping will let you transfer troops between systems indefinitely, and get your troops into enemy territory a lot quicker ... quite useful for rushing early on.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
When playing crippling, medium size... I like to piss off the Drengin early, which is of course not hard to do. They blather on about using my corpse for cheap fuel and declare war. I then go on a 100% defender building spree (1-2 turns per defender.) Even with a few sporadic attacks, I soon have 6 or defenders on each planet. Clearly, the drengin suffer from defender-phobia, since their ships far outclass mine. As a result, they are then willing to "reconsider their war" and negotiate peace, giving me nearly every tech they have in the process (~12). Sell those to everyone, and we become financially secure for a long while.

I guess it's not that cheesy, but it has worked both times I tried it, and it gave me a chuckle each time. Now, if they came at me with a bunch of ships right after they declared war, I would probably be singing a different tune.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
user-friendly: One trick I've learned that helps keep that from happening, and also helps keep the victim from destroying your gift before the antagonist can do his job is to surround the starbase and the gift(s) with a square wall of constructors. It takes 12 to build a wall that encloses 4 spaces, which is enough for the target starbase, a gift starbase, and misc gifts, including room for shifting around. In fact, if the gift is AM missiles, you can send more AMMs in over the constructor wall if you didn't give him enough. That one trick took me from 57% to 100% resource ownership in 5 turns in my last game.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Popup Target - good trick, never thought of that, but is imho a bit cheesy... since it is a 2d interface.

Though in real life it would be possible to give a society an object with the specific intention that they attempt to destroy X object with it. This would seem possible to code using the current ship list on the 'Foreign Policy Screen i/face. However you would need to be able to select another races ships. This could be achieved by selecting ATTACK race X when they are already at war (with the race you want to grab the resource from), so that the ship list changes to that race. Then you offer them a ship(s) and also select the SB/ship(s)or planet etc that you want them to attack.
A bit too complex/confusing perhaps...but possible.
[Message Edited]
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Try this sometime. GO for evil, take every evil choice on events. DO not colonize 12/13 worlds unless you need range expansion. Go for master race,life force wonder mainly; couple of others along the way. Then get terraformer tech and build terraformer wonder. Build a lot of colony ships. Colonize all those 12/13 worlds all over the map. Take all the good choices if any of choices are real bad give that star to you worst alien race that hates you. Will be up to saintly in no time. by this time your research cap is so high that all the good research options shouldnt take more than a few turns. Interesting to see the Drengin go from groveling to you to wanting to eat you and the reverse from the altarians. Works best on huge/gig tight cluster. Going from good to evil is tougher. Taking the good choices in the beginning screws up ship/production bonuses and planet quality upgrades.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
My fave, especially early is if my survey ship is lucky enough to get a bonus to weapons (even just one) I then use it as an alien colony ship killer. It's defense by then is usually good enough to fend off anything coming at it early. By the time they have anything for it, I have battlehammers ready to take its place. And with the speed advantages I take, if it does get into trouble, I can easily bait their entire fleet away from my space with it while I expand.

My other fave is to deliberately leave colony ships right next to about 6 or 7 planets fairly close to alien space. Their colony ships come right for those planets. I wait untill the last minute to colonize drawing theirs to it. Meanwhile I colonize every other place they could have gone like fury. hehe.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
How to get free planets without firing a shot or culture flipping:

Go to your diplomacy screen on the drengin. make a trade declare war on the Torians for money. HEHE you get the money. Or if the Drengin won't pay you to do it just give it to them (it even ups your standing with the Drengin) Then proceed to talk peace to the Torians. If he's weak enough, you get some planets out of the deal.

Lather. Rinse, repeat but this time, give your declaration of war to the Yor. Then go back to the Torians. Get more planets.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

About the third time through the puter didn't have a declare war on the Torians option available to me in the diplomacy screen of any of the civs. But I did find it hilarious.

I used to actually go through the trouble of invading one Torian planet to do this. But I've found I don't even have to!!! If they are weak just the war declaration will do. But watch allies.... hehe, this could get you in trouble if not careful.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Ive been doing a lot of extorting for planets lately.

I build up a nasty fleet, wipe out everyones fleet
and then demand planets in exchange for a month
worth of peace. After getting a few key planets, the
rest will culturally flip. I dont even bother very much
with transports or even colony ships to culturally
bomb anymore :)
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I was trying out a diplomatic-monster strategy and toying with trading in 1.04.62 (huge/normal *shrug*), and found once I'd established a military big enough that the tribute requests stopped coming, I could stay at peace.

I then proceeded to work as a tech broker, and found myself able to fund at 100% even without having many trade bases or bothering to boost econ resources (to my knowledge, I owned all resources in the galaxy; the ones the aliens beat me to, I bought).

The particularly silly part came with the minors, because they weren't doing all that much late-game resource (single world, y'know) and the AIs generally preferred to wipe them out instead of trading with 'em. So I'm their main tech dealer. In addition, 1.04.62 made them considerably more spendthrifty as far as I can tell.

At one point, the Sanderians (IIRC) were down to some -1000 BC or so -- they'd been recovering from a long-term deal I'd offered them in years past. During that time, I'd accumulated quite a bit of tech that I was willing to sell them (already bought the wonders and goods outright, *shrug*)... but they had nothing to offer, unless I wanted to take their only planet.

Solution: I *give* them 3000 BC, and then make them a long-term deal that would cost far, far more, and would quickly send their treasury below -500 again making it fairly hard for them to make use of that tech other than offering it to the rather hostile majors (whom I'd also been bankrupting this way; e.g. I had the Yor past -7000 BC by the time they surrendered to somebody. Even the Arceans, whom I'd bought most of the resources from, weren't doing to hot economically c/o long-term tech deals (plus grabbing their resources ;) ).)