If you have been involved in the Space Empires community at Shrapnel Games for a few years, you might remember a list of gamey tactics that was compiled. The list is primarily focused on cheesy tactics you find in PBW games, but some can also apply to solo games. Here are some comments I made regarding the list. I will eventually intersperse relevant links into my comments when I find the motivation to.

Captain Kwok's Response to the Gamey List

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1. Trading with AIs.
I agree with this one. It's far too easy to rip off the AI and gain an unfair advantage over other players. You shouldn't need to use this tactic either in a solo game, as it removes some of the challenge.

2. Building multiple training facilities on each planet in a sector (moons) to increase the training rate.
I think this was an unintended feature and so I think its cheesy to do it. It's also why many mods use the system training abilities to eliminate rapid training.

3. Retro-series building.
This is where you create a number of 'step' designs to build a ship faster. I don't use this very often myself, but if you can spare the additional resources and keep on top of all the extra management - it's fine by me.

4. Surrendering to allies to merge empires together.
I agree. This just leaves a sour taste in the mouths of other players. I hear in some countries where Space Empires is apart of their lifeblood, they'd kill you for doing something like this.

5. Surrendering to an ally or other 3rd party to keep what is left of your empire from going to the enemy.
Ugh. Yet another cheap way to exit a game - fight to the end or let a replacement player or the AI try to redeem your empire's honour. Like #4, this can cause game-delays and increase sourness.

6. Surrendering your empire when you just want to leave the game.
Never do this! If you can't stick around, let people know so a replacement can be found or if it's near the end for your people, let the AI try to squeeze it out.

7. Surrendering to the empire attacking you.
I'd say let them work hard to capture or destroy your remaining planets, after all, why let them off the hook so easily after they've hurt you people so much.

8. Intelligence projects.
I don't mind the espionage projects, but some of the sabotage projects can really hurt your empire and are have far too powerful effects. I prefer intel disabled in games I play unless changes have been in advance or there is an agreement to use only certain projects. Some mods have really worked to improve intel by doing a good job of balancing it.

9. Gifting/trading planets.
I wouldn't call these gamey if the trade is of equal value - i.e. planet for a planet or for the construction of special facilities that have been paid for - but only if it is not rampant throughout the game.

10. Gifting a planet for the primary purpose of keeping another player alive.
Nah, if the player is in that bad of shape, why prolong the suffering?

11. Tech Sharing.
It depends on the game type I suppose. If there are two empires that are being Role-played as a special alliance, it seems logical that they might share tech - but as a way to get ahead in the tech tree, I'd say this was super gamey. Then again, the occasional technological exchange is fine if it's not unbalanced and occurring every turn.

12. Gifting/Trading population.
I'd say this is gamey most of the time. I don't like this tactic for the sole sake of gaining an advantage, but in a good role-play game with strong allies, you might expect some 'natural' migration. Anyway, you'll see this gamey tactic used often in competitive games.

13. Gifting/Trading colony techs.
I hate this one, but sometimes it's a necessary evil if everyone else is doing it in the game. I prefer that this should be researched on your own. Fortunately, many variants of Ed Kolis' original colony tech mod make colony tech trading a thing of the past.

14. Min/Maxing the empire setup.
This is certainly gamey, but again usually necessary when playing the stock game in any sort of competitive way. I personally try and create a somewhat realistic setup based on the race I'm playing even it's to my own detriment. Perhaps that's why I lose more often than not. PvK's balance mod certainly makes this sort of thing much harder to do.

15. Allies laying mines in the same sector to get more than 100 mines in it.
I have no major problems with this one. After all if their relations fail - they both have to face each other's mines in their own territories - and you just know at some point their relations will fail.

16. Turtling yourself using warp point closers and system gravitational shields.
To some degree you might expect a xenophobic race to pull something off like this, but doing this in a PBW game is just making the game boring - for yourself and for all the other players.

17. Declaring war on an ally and attacking at the same turn.
No real problem with this one, sometimes you just get backstabbed. I'd prefer though if it was for worthy reasons (i.e. mistreatment of another race etc...) rather than just to get ahead.

18. Moving ships over enemy planets and then declaring war to bypass mine fields.
I heard this maneuver was once called the 'Tesco' maneuver. However, this should only ever work once in a game, so it's not that bad. On the other hand, it can lead to lasting bitterness if the damage is severe.

19. Email diplomacy between players when races haven't met in the game yet.
Ugh, I consider this basically cheating. At least wait until you've met each other in the game.

20. Gifting/trading ships.
Sure, you'd expect some exchange of ships between good allies - but you wouldn't expect something for nothing, i.e. a battleship for an escort - so at least make it a fair trade.

21. Gifting ships to an ally to get around the maximum ship limits.
Pseudo-gamey and risky as who knows if the ally will continue being your ally for the long haul?

22. Allied victory or Last Man Standing victory conditions must be chosen and declared, or there will usually be some friction towards the end of the game.
Usually the friction will be 'is it worthwhile for all players to continue?' To avoid this sort of stuff, I'd be sure to include end game conditions right from the start.

23. Talismans.
Sure, I hate them, but they are part of the stock game so what can you do right? If you're the religious player expect to be ganged up on and attacked early.

24. Using annoying/deceptive shipsets and informing people of what ship set you will be using prior to game start.
This is just annoying. I prefer it when everyone has visible and unique ships for each game. Duplicate sets in a game can make some people go bonkers.

25. Emergency building when there is no emergency.
Sure why not. At some point you'll have that slow build time if you've used it on planets or space yards (if not scrapping and rebuilding) and can deplete your coffers if your economy is near or in the red.

26. Pre-arranged alliances in non-explicitly team games.
This is worse than #19. In fact, I think somebody was trying to get this added as a mortal sin in the Catholic church.