Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-27560448-20160611174237/@comment-1892820-20160611202511

If they're talking about Spode, they're Zealots for sure. They'll demand tribute if you have colonies near them, and they won't stop no matter if you pay them or not. The only way to make them stop is to ally with them. Depending on what badge rank you are, it's usually not too hard to get them to +70 relation points by doing missions for them. If you're rank 10, doing 2 missions will get you the max +100 for completing missions.

I should also ask what difficulty you're playing on. On Normal and Hard, Zealots start with an automatic -30 relations, so if you've turned down one of their tribute demands before, you'll have to do a little more past the +100 for missions to get +70 overall. Like giving gifts or trading.

And if push comes to shove, I would recommend making some money by doing missions for other empires or trading high-value Spice so that you can invest in some defenses for your empire. And for Space Stage warfare, a good offense is a good defense, unless you're playing pacifistically. They can't demand tribute from you if their empires are destroyed.