[Taqwus]

and don't forget that early wars can be rather expensive in the long run, since some of the maintenance required for a fleet capable of a decent offensive could have been spent expanding via more colonies. start fighting too early and you might get bogged down in a war while somebody on the other side of the quadrant's still building up. it may be more in your interest to get those two busy fighting each other. the communications mimic intel op is the most direct way to do this, but i suspect you can achieve the same result by doing things like trading for ships in their space, and then giving/trading ships to the other party so that they have ships / colonies in each other's space, which may perhaps cause mutual anger.

Also, if you're running short of a resource type but rich in another, you may be able to make some useful trades in that way... especially for minerals, which are disproportionately valuable (almost everything takes minerals to build, and some things take *only* minerals to build).

Trade with them (some tech trades are safe if they're not in a position to exploit them well... for instance, if you research shield-piercing weapons, offering them low levels of shielding is an option. If you use many fighters for defense, which can't be hit by missiles, you might want to trade missile tech. And so forth, as long as you have the patience (the AI doesn't seem to like tech trades that much -- often rejecting even pretty good offers without a counter-offer).

There are numerous ways to temporize while you expand, and encouraging them towards pointless squabbles with each other, and tossing the occasional trinket in their direction.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night