Colonizing

[4xfan]

Is there any reason not to colonize every planet you can?

[Deto]

ORIGINAL: 4xfan

Is there any reason not to colonize every planet you can?

I guess its harder to keep watch (keep steady supply of fun and games) on large number of rocks with few hippies living in vs having a productive colony that you supply with candy

[4xfan]

I'm wondering if spamming colony ships as fast as you can is going to be how it works.

[Gertjan]

I think DW needs (if it hasnt already) as system in which empires that grow very large at some point take a penalty due to corruption etc.. (like in Civ4 and armada I believe, not sure though).

[impact]

Corruption does already exist. The more colonies you have, the more corruption you get. When selecting a government system, you can see how it will influence corruption (you generally seem to suffer more from corruption the closer your system is to despotism).

[4xfan]

Good to hear, I'd like making new colonies to be an actual decision.

[lordxorn]

From what I have seen, colonizing every planet (except the ones listed as red) has not hurt me that much. When I look at the F4 report, most of my colonies produce decent tax revenue except one. So I may has to let that planet go.

So th. Question before you colonize is the size, resources, and location that should dictate your decision to colonize. The galactopaedia says to have at least 10 luxury resources available, and if the planet is near a pretty place that is good for tourism (clicking on the neutron star or gold asteroid will tell you the fActor), and a good sized planet to support a god tax base.

The reason I would colonize eveh planet reccomended by the expansion planner is that there are not alot of planets suitable to your race. Because I see many systems near me with good resources and size but notnopem to colonization.

Another thing about tourism, is that my blackhole 2 sectors away is not drawing any tourism, I am hoping maybe with faster drives it become a good tourist spot because I has a factor or 85%

[ussugu]

I have only been playing for about 2 hours or so. I read a post yesterday by someone that said after they had reached 10 colonies, their cash flow suddenly went negative in a huge way, like -10,000 and very quickly his empire was broke and the game crashed. I have been very fearful after that.

I have refused many colony suggestions and start to get worried when my cash reserves fall below 40,000. It seems like I am holding the reigns on a machine that is just wanting to grow, grow, grow and the costs of that growth be damned.

Does the AI take into consideration your state's cash flow and money reserves when trying to grow? Should I just approve every expense request? What is a sensible "cushion" of cash reserves?

Thanks!

[Erik Rutins]

If you have it set to make suggestions, you should always consider the state of your economy and empire when deciding whether to accept or not. If you are keeping an eye on resource supply and demand as well as not allowing your empire to overbuild ships, troops, agents or bases that require upkeep, you should be able to grow just fine. There may be brief periods of negative cash flow, as the private economy factors and the influence of pirates and enemy empires can be unpredictable, but a sound economy will always recover positive cash flow given some time.

[impact]

Yes, if you use the default options, be careful about building colonies - the AI will recruit ground troops whereever and whenever it can. Which means that a new colony very soon has tons of ground troops that produce high upkeep costs, while the colony itself doesn't give much revenue yet.
Either change settings for automatic agent and ground troop recruitement to keep the AI in check, or keep a very close eye on your expenses and don't colonize too fast.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: impact

Corruption does already exist. The more colonies you have, the more corruption you get. When selecting a government system, you can see how it will influence corruption (you generally seem to suffer more from corruption the closer your system is to despotism).

Corruption is just one of the 'fringe benefits' of being a tin-pot dictator. [:D]