Nerfed empires

[geoschmo]

We had a discussion a little while ago about playing a game as an empire and purposly not doing any research. Limiting yourself to the techs available at game start, while playing against AI that operated normally. The result would be an empire that relied on swarming techniques to attack. Lots and lots of low tech escorts.

Don't remeber what thread it was, and this is really tangental to that anyway.

What other sorts of "nerfed" empires can you think of. Ones where you have some intentional handicap, yet not so drastic that there is no posibility of survival, at least short term. And what sorts of strategies would you employ to counteract their weaknesses.

Examples:

An empire that only puts colonies on breathable worlds of their native type.

An pacifist empire that only uses "non-lethal" force. Boarding parties, shield depleters, engine and weapon destroying weaponry.

Can you think of others?

Would it maybe be interesting to have a PBW game where all the players played some kind of limited empire like this. Either as a cooperative game against the AI, or without AI. We'd have to of course have some significant discussion beforehand and make sure that the quirks are somewhat balanced.