When you first meet a race

[Coal]

When I first meet a race, I start to plan the conquest of them. I try for diplomacy, but I know at some point we're going to fight, and I'm going to be ready. And I'm also power hungry and don't like neighbors being to close. If they start colonizing inside my borders, my fleets will be quickly moved to pre-invasion stations.

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'Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?'
Grand Moff Tarkin, just before the Death Star blew.

We are Dyslexia of Borg, futility is resistant, your *** will be laminated.

[Atrocities]

When I first meet a new race:

1. Avoid ship contact
2. Send nice message
3. Get insulted
4. War is delcared upon me
5. I Kill the AI

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New Age Ship Yards

"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Captain Picard STNG

Borg Breen Species 8472 Cardassian Dominion STNG Ferengi Klingon Romulan
Trek Movie era TOS Illuminati Starwolf

[BeeDee10]

Sheesh, I must be the only one here who's willing to live and let live indefinitely if my "opponent" so chooses. Perhaps that explains why I always seem to end up getting attacked by people who have become frustrated at me for not provoking them.

Perhaps I should come up with a more genocidal and agressive race... I might feel bad playing them, though.

[tesco samoa]

I still aways go

Man what did I do wrong. I figured I was further ahead than that. Man those scouts could kick my ships of the line back to the stone ages. Hope they don't attack.

Damn. They like the same worlds.

....
And other mass hysteria.

Brave Brave Sir Robin Stuff

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Inter arma silent leges

[Baron Munchausen]

First contact?

In the early game: Plop huge piles of sats down on warp points as far out as possible towards your new rival. Colonize nearby planets if you haven't already so you can support ships to stand with the sats. It's all about the 'land rush' in the early game.

In the mid or late game it depends on your situation. If you've got lots of enemies already and your 'new' contact cannot easily send colonizers into your space make friends and get some trade going. It helps both of you get stronger compared to your current enemies. If they are close enough to crowd your territory you might have to stall for time until you can reduce your current enemies to manageable size. Unless you are already MEE, in which case you can just accept their declaration of war gracefully and queue them up for slaughter.

[capnq]

It depends a lot on which race I'm playing, and whom I've encountered. I usually send a general message on first contact, then wait for a reply.

When I'm roleplaying a pacifistic race like my serene scientist Tiktsin in solo games, I don't even arm my ships until I discover We Are Not Alone, sometimes not even until we've actually been attacked.

I don't play pacifists against human opponents. The honorable warrior Rrurrr try to maintain friendly relations and negotiate borders until they run out of expansion room or are attacked. The psychotic schemer Mi-Go try to maintain friendly relations as long as it serves their purposes, then focus on undermining their weakest opponent. I had a lot of success with the Mi-Go in their Last multiplayer game by picking up the scraps from the losers of other races' wars.

In solo games I normally play with "View All Scores", so I always know roughly how I compare to the AIs. In multiplayer, it's safe to assume I'm behind in tech and ships. I've been amazed at how fast my PBW opponents build up fleets and climb the tech tree.


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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[bearclaw]

For me, the biggest factor in how I am going to respond to a First Contact depends on the race descriptions. If it says that they are an Honorable Scientist then I will treat them that way. I often get screwed, however, by people who pic their racial descriptions based on the bonuses not on the roleplaying aspects. I really enjoy reading the history and discriptions of new races. I try to play my games as close to my descriptions as possible and assume that others do the same.

If the race has NOTHING in their description and history, I automaticly assume they are hostile and prepare for war. Whether it happens or not... that's a different story but I prepare nontheless.

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"You don't know the Power of the Dark Side. I must obey my Master"