In my latest game, I drew two scenic vistas near my start area, and ZERO (0) shards. I'm in the mid-to-late game and still don't have any shards. This made a diplomatic victory seem fairly obvious. I've managed to create alliances with 4 out of 5 of my opponents, but Kraxis has such a high power rating that he isn't quite as awed by my diplomatic agility.
So... my choices are to either build up a lot of capital and then "buy" the alliance or to build up my military so that Kraxis becomes convinced that he can't out-muscle me. I decided on the latter.
Enter the Uber-High Tech Ultimate Unit of Great Might (fully armored Warhammer units - the best I've got in this stage) coming out of my cities in groups. The first one caused a HUGE jump in my power rating. But the subsequent ones hardly affect it at all. I now have about 5 of these on the board, but my power rating just doesn't seem to be affected.
Which brings me to my question:
How is the power rating calculated? If it were based on the raw might of units, I'm pretty sure I'd have Kraxis begging for an alliance by now, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Do I need DIFFERENT types of units? If so, which ones are most "impressive" for power rating purposes?
(And, yes, I know that I could probably go crush Kraxis at this stage - but where is the fun in that?
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