[Dracus]

I play like this all the time, I do not research any weapons until first contact. I only explore one sytem at a time. The game I am playing now has 14 races and 200 systems.
made contact on my 3rd turn, they entered my home system and sent a trade treaty. they have not been back since. they nor have they explored beyond thier home system which is next to mine. I never sned ships into their system nor beyond their system. My next contact came after I had moved two systems out. This race declared war on me. since I do not explore beyond one system at a time, I had no idea how meny systems they own.
I never use the map to look this up. once war is declared I switch to weapons research. I also impose a rule that I can not glass any planets. they must be captured. In 4 weeks real time playing 3 hours a day, I have captured 30 planets in 5 systems from them. but have 6 races in my empire since it seems that they like to either capture other Ie races or use subVersion to get planets to join them. only 4 planets that I have captured had the crystal race I was fighting. hope I find their home system soon. plus the game now reports 3 new races are out there somewhere.
Yet I have yet to run across the actual empires of the races that once owned these worlds. 2 still only have 2 known races. They all seem to be voiding the war zone.