For a change of pace, try a "finite resource" game.

[geoschmo]

I stepped into one on PBW when the original owner quit, and BOY is it different!

This one is complicated by the fact that it is colonize own type and own aptmosphere only. My empire had apparently conqured a couple of players or AI before I took over, but they are all rioting, so I am getting no production out of them. Most of my planets are depleted in minerals. I am scraping by to get enough minerals to build LC's to do remote mining, haven't researched large sattelites yet. Even when I get them built, the LC's only net me about 400 minerals per turn, so they are almost not worth the effort, except that without them, I'd have NOTHING! laf.

Talk about your fixer upper. It's different though. Quite a change of pace from the usual slash and dash I am used to. Insead of fighting an enemy, I am fighting entropy, and losing.

Geoschmo