jahroen is making me nervous. Attacked my home planet, just 12 cruisers, probably a test, but still. Too big for me to be entirely comfortable with him nearby.
Do you want me to send over a few ships in case he turns up with something bigger? I can send over 3 Super Battleships and sit them inside your Planetary Defence radius. Not a great help against a big force, but it will be able to mop up most smaller fleets he sends in.
He's close to me too, the jahroen. But I haven't been playing so long so I'm not that powerful (have 12 cruisers myself, JAH declared he was going to conquer me...).
You could try asking other larger empires near you if they want an alliance. It means they don't have to worry about you attacking them and they'll probably help you if jahroen, JAH or anyone else tries to attack you. They'll probably want open trade and some help with who ever they're attacking, but it'll keep you alive long enough to become bigger.
By the way, I'm making a lot of merchants because I think trade will speed up my expansion. True or not?
Probably true, it'll help you recover steel from your colonies so it can be put into other arcs.
Decided I'm not going to get Mind Control on my planets. Food production may disappear, but everything else rises so it's worth it. Also, according to the resource graph, food production bounces back - looking at it I seem to be in the dip, so hopefully it won't be an issue in a few weeks. I'm still getting Farming Subsidies on a few planets just in case though
