Ruining a competitor empire economically

[Wizaerd]

I'm curious if it's possible some way to ruin an empire strictly economically? No war, no actual clashes of military might, just manipulate the economy that they'll eventually just go broke and get eaten up? I know it's possible to use spies to do some sabotage, but can you do enough of it to ruin an empire?

I doubt it's possible in this game, but I always wanted to secretly raid another empire, capture some of their ships, then using those ship as disguise, attack another empire and have them think it's the faction from whom I stole the ships from.

How much sneaky and underhanded approaches are there to play this game?

[ReadeB]

I do that by invading their high quality/GDP colonies and declaring peace.

The AI ends up scrapping fleets and spaceports etc to stay in the black.

[Locarnus]

No, I guess that would not be possible without military clashes.

Although, it does not need to involve your military.
You can just finance pirates and give them missions to destroy the enemies installations/attack colonies.
With enough strong pirates in the vicinity, you can kill the enemy economy.
Like England used the pirates in the 16th century to deal with conventional spanish naval superiority.

[btd64]

If you have enough agents you can also go after their gas mining stations only. Loss a few of them and soon they will start to have fuel problems. GP

[towerbooks3192]

ORIGINAL: General Patton

If you have enough agents you can also go after their gas mining stations only. Loss a few of them and soon they will start to have fuel problems. GP

Thank you George!! Never thought of that. I will use it in my current war.

[Wizaerd]

Maybe I read too much, but I've always wanted to be the sneaky underhanded leader, in the background juggling people and different threads, setting other empires against one another while my public face is all about benevolence and compassion. The Senator Palpatine approach to rising to power...