quote:
My feeling is a race should expand at some rate, slow for the pirates in my opinion.
Exactly. But the pirates already expand fairly fast by capturing colony ships.
[edit]I also consider the outlying secret bases as a
major expansion of my empire. Basically without intel to worry about, those bases have
more value to me than a planet.[/edit]
I could have had 8 planets already, which is more than a number of races have, and I would still be winning even if somebody glassed every one of my planets.
Heck, even if my sun went nova, taking out half my fleet & all my planets, I'd still come back because of my hidden bases & outlying fleets (& zero maintenance). Just using captured ships retroed at my secret bases from now on would be enough for me to win.
What I'm saying is that playing Pirates without colony abilities, and having super-powerful intel centers for the homeworld, would make it reasonably fair.
If we ever get the ability to have an intel producer on a station, then even the homeworld would be only a minor advantage after the station intel goes up.
All assuming Pirates don't get offensive intel.
[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 08 March 2001).]