Leaving the UP - good, or bad?

from Stardock Forums
I left the UP! (Thought I'd just let you know...) No, seriously, I was wondering...

1. Does leaving the UP *only* shutter your chances of trade - and voting on those now-no-longer important resolutions?
2. Does trade affect how easy it is to flip star systems?

My reason for asking this is this.

Basically, I was pursuing a cultural-military victory (turned off cultural and am attempting Total Galactic Domination without firing a shot... hehehe). To this end, I require - well, would find it easier with - Terror Stars, but the UP has (twice, yup, twice) banned the things.

Thus, I left the UP, thinking "haha! The foolish Yor are all that's left, and with my mobile Party Palaces on the rampage, it's sure to take only a few years!". The joke seems to be on me. Is it?

Wooster

{Edit in:} Darn it - wrong forum. I'll try again.

[Message Edited]
369 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
The joke is partially on you. If you attempt to play on Maso or another high difficulty level, trade is a MAJOR source of income. In fact, being a good trade partner is probably your only way to have any fighting chance against the AI that otherwise will be able to make your life very difficult.

In addition, without trade the AI is likely to turn on you quickly. Trade is the main diplomatic helper, and without it a lot of AI's will declare war on you, especially when you'll start creeping mobile party palaces near their territory (even if you don't actually invade their sectors). The AI DOES notice this things and act accordingly if he is not in best of terms with you.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't know. I once wanted to do something similar (limit the number of starbase modules to 2 and leave the UP to build more) but the trade thing definitely was too much for me so I didn't try.
You should try leaving just before building a terror star to see if you can.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
As it seems that you are in very last phase of the game, you might be able to survive without the trade and then finish off the AI with your terror stars.

1) To my knowledge - yes
2) no

Please post what your experiences with leaving the UP have been. I would very much like to hear
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
My experience has been that if your economy has been thriving on trade, you had better end the game quickly otherwise you will be in the red very quick.

OTOH, I have only been faced with leaving the UP because of the Terror Star ban issue. So for me, in two turns after leaving the UP, POOF! The universe disappears. Muahahahahaha.

Nothing else has phased me enough to make it worth while.
~SDC~
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Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, I *was* only playing on Simple, or somesuch, and I seem to be improving my abilities reasonably rapidly, so it was still quite easy.

The Yor soon crumbled. They held out for quite a while after leaving the UP, but then we had a bit of Berlin Wall experience, and they left, with only me and a couple of minors - Carinoids, Scottlingas, one or two others - and hence, a victorious Kingdom of Man!

The result of leaving was that I found making money slightly more tricky. Trading with minors is also shuttered, so I occasionally I was monkeying about with the tax figures. That said, 'twixt difficulty level and the fact that I had silly amounts of Morale resources being mined, tax was quite easy to raise.

It just meant I was spending considerably less of my income than previously.

As the game had progressed, increasing numbers of civilisations had capitulated - Drengin to me, Altarians to Arceans, Arceans to me and I sucked the Torians in. Thus, I also held a huge majority of the galactic resources.

[Side question: why did holding Research resources increase the amount I spent on Research and take it from my budget, rather than increasing the amount I spent as free increase?]

Anyway, I was able to balance the books quite successfully, mainly due to a successful economy that worked incredibly well with trade, and reasonably well without. My advice would be that leaving the UP can be a helpful way to go if you're very close and the UP has done something dashed annoying (like banning Terror Stars). Oh, but make sure you've got the cash reserves to build them Terror Stars and maintain 'em.

Further advice - if you successfully destroy a civ, they still hang around for the turn, n'est-ce pas? So milk 'em. My fave (only happened with the Torians) was trading practically everything I owned that wasn't tied down for everything they owned - including what was tied down. For some reason I stopped paying tribute once they died, so I got all their starbases and techs for about 100bc and a few of my techs - which they never got to use...

As it turned out, it would have made more sense just to keep building Party Palaces in and around the sectors required - they're my sectors, I can do what I like.

Incidentally, the UP had passed one helpful motion regarding the presence of rival systems in your own sectors. I made a modest sum from that particular motion :)

Wooster
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
[Side question: why did holding Research resources increase the amount I spent on Research and take it from my budget, rather than increasing the amount I spent as free increase?]
End of quote


It did both: Increase the paying and the free portions. If you kept the same number of bc in it, then the free portion would have augmented.