Can a player take over a Neutral AI Empire?

[Fyron]

douglas said:
A neutral empire is restricted to one system by the fact that its ships are quite incapable of using warp points.

The ships are perfectly capable of warping. The neutral AI just does not warp any ships it owns out of it's home system. It will warp them around if the ship is located elsewhere in the galaxy, either by an event or from a gift, as any other AI would.

[Alneyan]

In both non-simultaneous and simultaneous test games, I have been unable to warp with neutral ships, even after the ministers were shot down. It might be something set at game start, though I am not sure how it would work for neutrals created in the course of the game.

[geoschmo]

Imperator Fyron said:

The ships are perfectly capable of warping. The neutral AI just does not warp any ships it owns out of it's home system. It will warp them around if the ship is located elsewhere in the galaxy, either by an event or from a gift, as any other AI would.

Nope Fyron, you are quite incorrect here. The Neutral doesn't just not choose to warp, he is physically prevented from doing so. Ships gifted to an AI player in other systems will work fine in those systems, but will not be able to travel through a warp point. You can verify this by taking over for a neutral player. You will see that you cannot warp. The game just wont let you do it.

But it's not a restriction of the ship. If the neutral player gifts a ship to a non-neutral player, the non-neutral player can use it like any other ship. It's only the neutral player that is prevented from warping.

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

geoschmo said:
The Neutral doesn't just not choose to warp, he is physically prevented from doing so. Ships gifted to an AI player in other systems will work fine in those systems, but will not be able to travel through a warp point. You can verify this by taking over for a neutral player. You will see that you cannot warp. The game just wont let you do it.

But it's not a restriction of the ship. If the neutral player gifts a ship to a non-neutral player, the non-neutral player can use it like any other ship. It's only the neutral player that is prevented from warping.

Geoschmo

This is why "Taking over for a Neutral Race" is so high up on the "Ways to make SE4 more challenging" list

[geoschmo]

Suicide Junkie said:
This is why "Taking over for a Neutral Race" is so high up on the "Ways to make SE4 more challenging" list

Ya, I tried this once. I did actually manage to get another race to trade me a planet. It got a little monotonous waiting on other races to discover me though.

[Alneyan]

The attack-wormhole order does not work either, but it does drain your supplies. This is the closest I got to a working warp engine, but it still didn't quite work.