I'm amenable to either birds or rocks-although we might want to try meklar espionage sometime, they're almost as good at it as the darlocks, and their production centric view makes for interesting espionage decisions.
As an aside a Small only minus col ships alkari is entirely doable--your colony ships do tend to carry bombs if you get the shaft on miniturizable pieces, however.
On the upside, late game glassfests go fairly quickly with a reg-colony base bomber to imediately resettle the planets you glass....I always have this image of the cowboy from "Dr Strangelove" when using that colonization method.....
Alan
As an aside a Small only minus col ships alkari is entirely doable--your colony ships do tend to carry bombs if you get the shaft on miniturizable pieces, however.
On the upside, late game glassfests go fairly quickly with a reg-colony base bomber to imediately resettle the planets you glass....I always have this image of the cowboy from "Dr Strangelove" when using that colonization method.....Alan