cheese, or a easy way to get a lot of ships?

I don't think it cheesy but the question is "Is your economy strong enough to take all that ships?"

at end game yes. i had tax rate at 15%, spending rate at 2%, and with 100% tech, i was researching the 4D techs one per turn, and making 2-3K in taxes. my trade routes were bringing in about 4-5K a month. a two sector route with all 10 routes going there and 600% trade boost per sector kicks butt.

I can only speak for myself, but I find it unnecessary to rip-off the dead. I will keep them alive longer than necessary to exploit them in the future, but once they are gone, they are gone in my book. Mission accomplished, move onto some other hapless alien if the winds of war so will it.

This is just a variant on the tactic of selling a civ all your techs and trade goods for huge wads of cash just before you conquer them.

Paul.

~SDC~

Would it be impolite to ask what kind of pirate doesn't rip off the dead?

He's a chaotic good pirate. He loots them and then spaces them. Besides, no clean up that way.

In the context of the original poster's message, I see it as bug exploitation. If a civ is listed as defeated, it should be dead then and there. The lingering around a turn longer happens because cleaning up the map and straightening out all the details doesn't happen immediately. It would be nice if this could be fixed so that diplomacy could immediately be cut with a "dead" power to plug the loophole.

In the vein of my character, on the other hand, my rules of engagement are pretty clear cut. If I have to fight to get a decent position or to respond to a sudden war, my fleet may well be big enough for an alpha strike right away (I tend to have stacks of transports and warships just lying around by mid-game ready to respond) but I will fight a limited war instead. I'll take out the starbases (to steal the resources and weaken the enemy), crunch a good portion of their fleet, and then take a few planets. It is then time to open up the peace negotiations and loot them. After that, the war is over and I will be content to culture flip them later.

If the war starts up again for some reason, I repeat the process for another limited war with a nice payoff at the end. Nothing like a victim that not only keeps on giving, but is foolish enough to attack me after I clearly have an advantage over them from the first time.

Eventually I might tire of dealing with a foe. For whatever reason, I decide that the promise of future payoffs is worth less than the problems they are causing. Then they are marked for death. There will be no negotiations or compromises after this point. The enemy will die no matter what I am being offered.

So I am the type of pirate who would prefer a cut of the profits while corrupting the alien culture, the old trade route and culture bomb combo. Outright warfare is kept to a minimum. All those warships sailing around shooting everything are bad for the freighters and my percentage of the take.

kinda makes you wonder what happens to all the ships that are left over after the last planet falls. maybe any left over ships and starbases should become a minor AI, they wouldnt have any planets, so they would make money by selling their services to the other AIs.

Or maybe they'd keep fighting to death... it could depend on their race and morality.

This can be abused much more.

You can trade your tech and ships to a near-dead civ in exchange for $$$$ for 50 turns, even though they aren't going to be around to pay for it. You can even throw in a peace treaty.

This doesn't work if the civ has a negative cash balance. But if they're only slightly zero, gift them enough money to put them at around 500-1000, and then get back 500 for 50 turns.

Actually, it may not be a bug. There might be a reason you want to keep that civ alive a while longer. Especially if it was a common enemy that was destroying them. It might in such an instance be worth giving them a minor planet somewhere and the capability to defend it. Not something you'd want to do in most cases, but the possibility is there.

And the bug about getting money out of a dead civ over a number of turns works both ways. I once payed a civ over a large number of turns and then took them over to try and get out of paying, but found that I had to carry on paying them even though they no longer existed!

Hmmm. Would it be an idea if, when a civ is defeated, all of its navy becomes pirates? I'm thinking C J Cherryh's novels where several of the Terran battleships became freebooters. That may make more sense than have them 'disappear' into thin air. Or is that complicating things too much?

That would be nice as an random event if it can work that way. I don't like the idea of having them becoming pirates all the time.

~SDC~

Hmmm Ray. It would certainly complicate alpha strikes. Personally, I rely on vast navies suddenly disappearing after my alpha strikes.

Their disappearance may make sense, because vast armadas couldn't survive without massive support from navydocks.

Randomly happening may be fun (although one could just reload) or what about a percentage of the opposition navy hanging around? Say, all of their ships in a sector which had one of the civs' surviving starbases? The starbase could also become an independent starbase, rather than just disappear.

maybe this should be implemented in a future galciv2? im guessing its too late to add this to this version.

I don't have a problem with negoitating a peace settlement with an AI that's about to disappear. One condition is the decommision of the navy, another is whatever terms you can get... if you've culture flipped a number of systems, it's not like you exterminated their race.

Plus, there have to be physical assets of a culture that could be liquadated...

I think it makes sense economically and I assumed the AI knows enough to do this...