So what do the Drengin do? They demand a star system. I tell the jerkos to buzz off, and relations sour. They come back not long after that and issue another demand for a star system. We're now at Hostile relations, but my first trade has arrived and two more will arrive soon.

Meanwhile, the Yor. I don't know why, but my trade situation this game really stank. Only one freighter from the Yor, none from the Drengin. The one from the Kwilasians was unable to connect because they ran out of routes. Only the Torians, who sent three routes, brought me significant incoming trade. The Altarians, in the far far southeast corner and hemmed in by a vast swath of empty space, had sent one transport.

Incredibly, even though I am sitting parked on 0 alignment, I am warm with the Torians, neutral with Altarians, cool with the Yor, and hostile with the Drengin. NOT GOOD. The Arceans had not shown up yet, but they had to be south of the Yor, only place left with any stars.

The only civ near the Yor was me. Not good either. I decided my risks were so badly exposed, I needed to play the bribery card. So I paid a whopping 39 gpt (Civ3 term, "gold per turn" -- better than saying "bcpt" or some other such) for 99 turns, to the Yor, for them to attack the Arceans. That left the Drengin, with relations worsening. I decided if they were busy too, they wouldn't declare on me, and a little time with my trade routes doing their thing could bring relations back from the brink. I paid them a combined 64gpt for 99 turns to attack both the Arceans and the Torians. With over 100gpt going out in tribute, my economy was markedly slowed, but my trade income was now on the rise and my freighters had finally begun to arrive. Now I had two routes with the Yor and two with the Drengin, and I was researching Trade Organizations. I also had enough evil to research Xeno Intimidation, which would allow me to delay research into the costly Conglomerates until I had a seventh freighter about to arrive somewhere.

So what do the Drengin do? They declare on me anyway. And unlike Civ3, my gpt payments are NOT cancelled out. So I still have to keep paying them. Go figure. Two trade routes established into Drengin space were erased, one just a single turn old! Blah and blah. The third trade ship about to arrive had no hope of escape, so I gave it to the Yor to try to boost relations. I also gave the Yor a defender or three, and since they had also gone to war with the Drengin (wow, they were making a lot of enemies), these gift ships helped keep our relations at Cool while trade began to increase.

I finally met the Arceans. They and the Yor began to threaten me on occasion, sometimes demanding nearly 1k in cash, but I paid. I paid. At least they didn't keep coming back for more every couple turns, Drengin-style.

The Drengin were mostly busy with the Torians, but I did receive a few corvettes, battleaxes and a frigate or two into my space. By battleaxes absorbed these attacks, mostly, but started to get killed off. Drengin took out my military resource starbase with a frigate. While that was going on, the Arceans became interested in evil tech. They offered me this trade:

Of course I took it.

I immediately switched to battleship production at my best rate, civ-wide. I also bought grav accelerators from the Torians for some tech plus about 15gpt. My tribute was up to 120 per turn now, all told, but trade was still on the rise, too. In fact, with the Yor now at war with both the Arceans and the Drengin, they had no choice but to send trade my way, and I secured the rest of their trade routes, and they would never again trade with anybody else all game long.

The Altarians gave me some ships, twice: defenders at first, then corvettes, frigates. They had a long way to go to get home, though.

With my b-ships still in production, maybe one or two built, the Drengin were getting ganged enough to offer me peace. I took it. At that point, relations were looking up. I built three new freighters and shipped them off toward Drengin space.

Note the Torians have taken a system from the Alexians (dark red). They will get the other, too, in short order, giving them five systems instead of their initial three. Good news for me, boosting them as a counterpoint to the Drengin. If the Drengin would just shut up for a while, I could make friends with them, finally, and start moving toward an alliance victory.

Two turns after making peace, the Drengin demanded 1900bc. Relations are back to Wary just like that. A few turns after that, they demanded a star system. I saw the writing on the wall and turned my freighters south. A few more turns later, they declared again. I went back to making battleships.

THIS is the drawback of playing evil alignment. There's no guarantee you can cozy up to the other evil civs. When playing good, you can always cozy up to the other good civs.

I decided that sitting on zero alignment was a bad idea after all. It wasn't helping with the Drengin, and it was hurting with everybody else. I started to choose the Good options when events came up.

Go back to that last screenie and see the small blue dots on my map. There are three really small dots. Those are my three PQ13 BH's. The slightly larger dot left of the dark blue (no defenses left is why it's darker) is my PQ14 with the big production boost, making it almost as good as a 16 on production, though of course still like a 14 on economy and morale and population. The big star in the north is the double-15, and earth is in the middle on the left. Kylearan didn't settle any of the BH's, so his map looked more sparse.

Of the three freighters I diverted south, one got shot down by wandering Drengin frigates. The other two connected up with the Yor, giving me five routes to them. Their trade stability with me, and both of us doing exlusive business with each other, boosted my economy up to normal and theirs over the top. They became the Runaway AI.

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