The neutral challenge

[taterbill]

Also, I agree that turning off neutrals in an N.C. game is probably a good idea.

Finding a neutral next door and either fighting a war or building an alliance with a similarly handicapped neighbor would be interesting. I could attack them, but only using my speed 1 ships, because I'm not really fully warp-capable yet!

But on the downside, neutrals seem to be "borders" for AI empires. I've only played a few games of SE4 so far, but I don't recall ever making first contact with an empire that had expanded beyond a neutral whose system acted as a chokepoint. So the presence of neutrals will probably (on average) really slow down the onset of First Contact and Activation.