Corvettes are also extremely useful for building yourself a "paper tiger" military; plunk down four 'Vettes at every planet, for less than the cost of one Battle Hammer, and the AIs will leave you alone until past the late dreadnought era.
arroyochampion
You sure? I've taken over planets in the dreadnought era that didn't even have the basic +PQ buildings. And they'd been colonized since the early game...
Thanks russell. I'll add those next time I'm home. Yellowsign: You did a lot better than I did. Alliance victory in 2232. Which is nice, because I don't think I would've teched by the fifty year deadline.
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Miguel: things have different worths to different people. Otherwise no one would ever trade anything, even IRL.
Note: I havent read every post on the thread, so forgive me if I repeat ideas. My suggestion would be to make the game events have more long term effects; for example, lets say you colonize a planet and put the indigenous people into slavery. Perhaps a few years later a slave revolt happens on that planet, shutting down all production and possibly ruining a few buildings. Alternatively, perhaps if you were kind and worked around the natives at planetfall, it would be neat if they help