[QuarianRex]

Gozra,

What's "gamey" about building shipyards? Essentially they are dedicated construction yards useful for the building of weapon platforms, satellites, ships, bases, troops, fighters, and even facilities. It makes sense that any world that requires significant development or industrialization would set up the infrastructure to allow the job to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

If you think that this is cheesy in any way then I cannot see where you are coming from. Also it is mitigated bt a five month delay in actual production (waiting for the SY to be built before you can start on actual development), the loss of a facility slot, and the fact that most basic facilities take but a single turn to produce therefore receiving no benefit from the enhanced production (and those that take longer are usually specialty facilities that are constructed only in limited quantities).

If you are incised by such rational actions (or at least apparently rational actions, who knows he could be obsessive-compulsive or something) on the part of your fellow players then perhaps you should define what you consider to be ethical (or quasi-ethical) behaviour so that I might better understand what you are refering to.

P.S. As far as the surrendering goes, it is also a perfectly rational and acceptable alternative to annihilation. The problem (if you are refering to the thread that I think you are) was that the player surrendered to the most powerful computer player and then took over said player. Therein lay the cheese.