That was definitely a good game. I feel sorry for people like Sparhawk, that were locked away in corner, for the most part, with no room to expand (He was to the Poo's northwest).
I made the decision early-on to go after Mercator, just because of his position. He was where I wanted to expand. I was able to seize a few worlds and stop him from creating a few new colonies, but I didn't fully understand the scope of his expansion until I started exploring some more. Then I found he'd been pretty much moving EVERYWHERE and colonizing everything in his path.
About mid-game, after he pushed me out of the sector we were fighting over, I decided that he definitely had the edge, with more planets in his possession, so I built large fleets, blocked my borders, and focused on the research necessary to open warp points. I didn't find my partner (Iron chicken) until about this point. He was in a fairly bad position, fighting with the Whatsits AND the Mercator. Unfortunately, he had less research than I did, and I asked him to focus on Spaceyard research while I was working on Stellar Manip. He did, but I still only had Space Yards 1, when I began production of the warp point creator. After about 5 turns, I noticed new warp points appearing in Whatsit territory, so I gathered all of my fleets together and began my raid! I was able to destroy all of Whatsits colonies in 1 sector, and a few in the next. I split my fleet up, and sent several ships to another sector, who were all successful, until I ran out of supplies. This caused a "raiding delay" of about 5 turns, and by that time, the Mercator had assembled a defense fleet for the Whatsits, and they were easily able to destroy my fleets. (My ships were only equipped with level 2 ECM and level 2 sensors -- never researched shields or Phased Weapons)
At some point after I sent out my fleets, Sparhawk's substitute player decided "now" was a good time to take back the planets I took from him, earlier in the game. I only had 4 systems, but this, of course, shut down the entire system with rioting, which really put a dent in my capability. Early-on I made the decision to go after him after I looked at my scoreboard, and after the Mercator repelled me out from his territory, and saw that Sparhawk's empire was REALLY poor, with only a few planets, and no "units". Unfortunately, I didn't know it was Sparhawk's empire, or I probably wouldn't have attacked him, as we've played well together in other games!
Anyway, this was fairly near the end, as I discovered the Whatsits and the Mercator, purely by accident, at their soon-to-be home planet. My ship wasn't equipped with weapons, but it did have cloaking detection, stealth armor, and the ability to deploy fighters, mines and satellites. (Unfortunately, it had none on board!)
As the message I sent out indicated, I rammed the Whatsit ship, but it was 600kt, and mine was only 400, so I didn't expect a whole lot. Unfortunately, the ram only did 47% damage, and his ship was at least 70% cargo containers.
This was pretty much the mid-point of my downhill slide. After The Mercator defeated my fleet in Whatsit territory, they sent another fleet into my northernmost sector, which broke through after a fairly large scuffle. Only 20% of his fleet made it, but that was enough to multiply the rioting that I was fighting off with Sparhawk's attack, and basically the end of an empire.
I made peace with Sparhawk but it was just too late. I built a small repulsion fleet to try to keep Mercator out of my next sector, but they failed too, since he had spent a little time to allow new ships to rendezvous with his attack fleet.
The End
Overall, I was really impressed with Mercator's play. He was shifty, he was slick, and most of all, hard to kill!
I didn't really run into anyone else, but from my perspective, the Whatsits had a ton of room for improvement. For the most part, they didn't use mines, and didn't have any planetary defenses. I saw fleets that looked like they were coming at me for an attack, and then they'd turn away because he would miss a turn or two. Then they'd come back, he'd miss, and then they'd go away. It was hella-confusing.
How'd it go for everyone else?