And I think we have allied/team victory conditions, so it makes sense to fully cooperate and not defect if your "side" is already winning.
I am not sure how well developed theSilentOne and Oberlus are, but current intel is not suggesting their empires are greatly in the lead.
So I am mulling what to do with this situation.
Maybe the winning should be "split" in a tournament situation. So each empire gets an even split (0.5 for each player in a two-empire alliance). If teamwork/short games are stressed, such alliances could not be broken after a certain point. This is like meh.
What would be necessary to play a Comsat (BattleTech)/Guild (Dune)/trader faction (e.g. if 2 2-player teams formed, the last empire gets that role) that should become as powerful (in a sense) as a 2-empire team?
One idea for game progression would be
- the teams fight against each other, meanwhile the single provides services and has time to build up. One team wins and takes the exploits (the single will probably try to delay this). Then the winning team fights the single (which is probably not powerful enough).
- the teams fight against each, a team attacks the single (taking some stuff from the single); the single joins the non-attacking alliance
- not allowed:
the teams team up to destroy or shrink the single (which will probably succeed); afterwards the teams fight each other
- annoy an empire so much they will start to attack you so you can join an alliance
- grow and trade so much that you are becoming as powerful as two empires in the four empire space (not sure this is possible)
That would give the single room to breath and trade.
E.g. it could concentrate on cryo colony tech early and become the colony provider for the two teams (they give the species to the single in order for the single to grow them that species).