Question: Is There Such A Thing As An Economic Win?

In a pure sense, no, there is no way to simply "win" with money alone.  In a practical sense, if you have a substantial economic advantage your victory in the long-run is assured anyways.  You could pull off superweapon spam with sufficient economic advantage, and in a battle of attrition you're going to crush the enemy anyways.  Certainly in team games online it's very difficult to lose if you have one player with a super-massive economy that's fuelling the others. 

I always go for super-economy in large multi-star scenarios (provided there are no enemies in close proximity, of course).  If no one puts pressure on me, I can easily have over 100 creds per second by the 1.5 hour mark (regardless of start position), and my first superweapons are up by the 2 hour mark.  I've had many players simply quit once they realize I have an economy to fuel superweapon spam.  Actually it's the primary reason I don't play multistars anymore, because strongest economy wins hands down if you don't/can't rush.

But when there are two or more competing super economies, thats when it gets interesting. You have novaliths, kosturas and d.signals flying everywhere, upgraded starbases at nearly every planet, stars armed to the teeth and massive fleets clashing. Oh so much destruction, its rather lovely. I quite enjoy multistars when I have the time for them.

multistars are the judge of a true player.

Not really, unless you can build so many defensive structures and starbases and replace them at such a rate your opponet gives up in fustration. Having a massive economy certainly increases the probability of winning by default.

I thought having all the ladies love you was the judge of a true player.

Perhaps you can mod the diplomacy in the game and make it so that you can buy favorability with other empires through monetary donations. Thus, you can form a peace treaty with everyone. You could also perhaps mod the pirates somehow and use the bounty system to win (perhaps you can unleash multiple pirate raids at once).

I'm looking forward to the diplomacy expansion .

  The last one here, was much the same thinking i was on, i havent played multiple stars, and online not yet at all, but the "buying" of allies and "pirates" was one i was thinking along the same lines as you, perhaps even a weak military force with enough money could pull it off. It certainly would make a different kind of game play to concentrate on that if i know that my ships cant stand up to a larger or more powerful force.

Thank you for the ideas, i appreciate it very much, take care,

-Teal

hmm. that made me think.

All the ladies DO love me! Its just that alot of 'em are your moms....

LOL so it's come down to "your mom" jokes.   hehehehehe

Either that or your daddies wear lipstick... bloody lumberjacks.