Oh boy...

not a bad idea, i wonder why i didnt think about it... last game i played i ended up around 40k money, and bought all the tech i could,(i was stuck in a corner with 5 planets only... good thing i had good relations LOL ) and had 20k left and i couldnt do anything with it lol next time you can bet ill buy those starbases

Up the difficulty level a few notches and you won't be able to purchase a single starbase without offering 20 systems for trade

I managed to trade an economic starbase for 3 worthless tech + Ranger tech to the yor. Intelligent + huge galaxy

~SDC~

Ranger tech is rather valuable, being as it's military.

~SDC~

Good point Za H, I only played on "normal" or whatever the medium default level is.

The cheaper way to get a starbase is to park a constructor and a couple warships nearby. Then bribe one of the AIs to attack the base's owner and give them the warships. They'll take your gift and blow up the starbase at which point you move in with your constructor.

That seemed rather chessy but the underlying issue is that it is relatively easy to bribe AIs to go into a potentially cripplling war. And most of the time, they do fight very hard rather than declare peace soon after.

Maybe bribing for war should cost you an arm and a leg. But it should definitely be still doable as I believe all of us liked being able to play puppet-master.

i did it once, against paid a minor civ(lol i was desperate to get them down), only cost 8000 to do so, but the stupid(or smart lol) minor civ declared but didnt send ONE single ship against the drengin....

Perhaps you should have tried the other cheese tactic of getting a major to declare war on the minor while parking your transport next to the system waiting for the last defender to get blasted out of orbit.

LOL i definitely have to try that one.... park a transport near all the planets of a civ being killed