So, I finally met some aliens ready to talk first, and shoot later. Problem was, the shooting later should have been totally avoidable.
When I met some aliens, I set a "colony" on their home planet, so I could move an espionage team over. Please could someone explain the correct (totally non SM) way to do this? Because, as soon as there was a Jump Gate between our systems, 10 of my civilian's craft dropped colonists off at the aliens' homeworld.
War.
I'm going to lose, too.
Amusing, but not really the way I wanted it to end!
How do you do espionage without that happening?