looking for a non combat strategy. any ideas?

Sounds good, also a great way to put the diplo system through its paces.

AAR = After Action Report. I've done some for RTR (Rome Total Realism, a complete mod of Rome Total War).

Erm, diplomacy wise SE:V is still uncharted waters. The AI seems to respond oddly to messages and suggest treaties that cripple eachother/themselves... So I'm not sure how well you can use diplomacy to keep the more aggressive and larger empires in check.

As for playing defensively, one thing that I found would work really well against the AI was to defend your borders with mines and fleets containing a capture ship or two. With this combo you can guard less used warp points with mines, and keep your fleets guarding the hot spots. The boarding ships are great for turning their own fleets against them and acquiring new technologies. Bonus points when they send undefended colony ships through!

Since the AI eventualy starts to employ self destruct devices, you can only use this tactic to stall while you work your way up the steller manipulation tree (an thus neglect important areas as hulls and weapons) to the point where you can close all your border warps and cut yourself off from the galaxy. Then you go and turn all those asteroids into planets, get the other colony techs and build your secluded empire. When that grows boring, build some fleets, open a warp point to an enemy system and raid it--cutting off that system's warps and glassing it's planets. Works charms!

That said, this is a SE:IV strategy meant for games where you are facing off agains all the computers. I'm not sure how well it translates to SE:V, and it isn't a non combat strategy, but if you really need to defend yourself, mines/capture ships/warp closing is a potent combo against the AI.

A more effective method, though more costly in terms of research, of "boarding" enemy ships is a high-level, horribly overpowered psychic weapon called the crew subverter. When it works, the target ship becomes yours, ignoring self-destruct.

For real fun, try having two fleets equiped with crew subverters fight each other.

That's a fine idea you have. Don't enter an alliance! The alliances don't work right yet.

The self destruct seems to be a bluff. I don't think the AI knows how to use the thing. I've capped more than one ship with that device & learned the tech itself off of them.

Under this strategy, main part of any treaty will be the nonagression section. Depending on different things several may want to start with the "neutral systems only". Keep a good eye on those who never allow this to improve. In my experience they often turn on you.

I've had success with posting sats on the enemy's side of wormholes. That way they can see them and you don't have single ships warping in all the time.

Once the diplomacy develops and you know who your friends and enemies are, you can try fighting indirectly by gifting or selling ships to your friends. I've done this on a part-time basis, but probably not on the scale you'll need.

I'm thinking if you get AI's to do your dirty work, you should be able to slip in and colonize carefully selected planets after they're glassed in the wars. Stealth, cloaking, and the other colony techs would be handy.

You might get lucky and cap colony ships that can be analyzed for the techs you need. I got ice that way in my current game. It can take several tries, because if the colony module's damaged your people don't know how to repair it, so you can't analyze it - at least that's my experience. I don't know the official rule.

This is so appealing I think I may give it a try some time soon. You'll need at least 3 exclusive systems in your empire I'd say. Then you can begin playing puppet master.

It's still good to get some weapons tech early. I tried not researching any tech I could cap, but my ships got behind schedule and it was hard to catch up.

Should an enemy empire give you trouble, don't panic. They're too dumb to follow up, so they might take a planet or two and then they'll run out of gas. No matter how tough they look, you can probably take them down. Good luck.

I'm astonished no one has said this to you yet...

Pick up a gun and shoot some aliens you PACIFIST!

That definitely works in SE4 but I think the crew subverter is only temporary in SE5. ie by the time combat is over the captured ship is no longer in your control. I may be wrong on this but I seem to recall giving up the Psychic trait in disgust when I realised it didn't work as it did in SE4.

I admire the Role Play aims of playing a pacifist nation but the treaty/alliance system just isn't up to it.

There are already pacifict races in SEV... Their call "neutral". and usually they're in the way.

I think what your asking is to expand your techniques into the noncombat arena. I'd go with Intel. I actually enjoy combat, so I haven't done too much intel, but I hear you can plague planets (to wipe them out, and still have facilites). or you could cause them to rebell...

SEV, more than a feeling.

I don't see the idea as pacifist. Is it not a trait of a good leader to want his people to live rather than die? The whole trick is to get others to do your fighting (which they're more than willing to do) and then find ways to reap some of the benefits (which may require some innovative thinking).

This will also make for a more challenging game. Galactic conquest by direct force is easy, too easy to suit some of us.

It is the job of the citizen to fight and die for the empire. Only the heretic and the damned embrace the xeno scum.

Close your mind, purge the heretic, and pray to your particle cannon for deliverance.

... Why do I suddenly feel like making Gothic shipsets?

Well said!

Say NO to alien loving traitors!

My, what excellent puppets they'd make...

For 20k minerals and 2 frigates a turn either one of 'em'd battle the Eee and the Terrans. Meanwhile we trade at 30% with these empires for a healthy profit...

It's good for pawns to think like pawns. Very good indeed.

lol

I'd like to see a wider variety of practical victory paths myself, including diplomatic. The "fight to the death" attitudes that most races seem to have is jarring, especially for races where that seems out of character and in situations where they may be better off in my empire than the one they were originally.

One of the reasons that the Civilization series of games has done so well over the years is that it supports multiple victory paths; direct conquest, indirect conquest, diplomatic, scientific/industrial, and so on.

I've been thinking about how to make races more individually distinctive, and both diplomatic-focused and sneakiness-focused races are hampered by the bugginess and poor performance of the diplomatic system as it now stands.

Ignorance is bliss.

Seriously though, I don't think it's really possible to win a diplomatic victory right now. The alliance system is broken, and while it's easy enough to peacefully co-exist with the AI xenos, getting them to do the same with each other seems to be impossible.

I agree it's rather more satisfying to get factions to work together than it is to watch them pummel eachother into oblivion, but I think you'll have to put the dream on hold until someone develops an AI, the diplomacy system gets fixed, or both.

I'd like to see the option to offer planets & other bribes (compensation) in peace talks.

Come to think of it, I've never been able to make peace with any AI. Once the starts - no, once war is even delcared, shooting or not - it's to the death no matter what. I'm pretty sure I've seen AI's make peace with each other. Has anyone had any success (as if you'd try, lol)?

For my present game, the 10 years of peace box has a dot in it. One way or another, we're gonna have peace!

As for diplo-raping the AI, it can be done using the alliance feature. Sucker a smaller empire into an alliance where you have the votes to dictate affairs. You can then offer to trade 1k of surplus resources to the alliance for tech (and probably planets and ships also). The next turn when the request shows up at the alliance, move to accept the deal and vote the motion through.

And do it fairly early in the game. Entering an alliance breaks all treaties even if that box isn't marked, so it can be very expensive if you have good trade %ages built up.

You'd want to limit the alliance to yourself and one AI because right now a lot of things don't work with alliances. You need to be able to break it up at will. I see it as revenge for the first treaty I ever accepted, the one with the "no research" clause... now I know to scroll down and "read the fine print".