Automated Colonization

[sw30]

I did manual colonization to get from 0 to 200 colonies (largest galaxy size) from 201-250 or so, I did suggestions, which got annoying because I had to check all the suggestions to make sure that they were not way far out in an enemy territory. (there were a couple of yummy un-colonized places for ice, which were not only far away, but one was in an enemy home planet.)

From ~250 or ~260 onwards, in an attempt to speed things up and saying heck with annoying my neightbors, I went to automated colonization. This was really really slow in terms of expansion. I saw my new colony rate drop to 25% or so. took me as long to get to 280 as it took me to get to 200... Is this normal for large empires? If so, how does one conquer the galaxy? I barely exert influence over 25% of the map...

[Wicky]

Nope, this is not normal. It's because the AI chooses colonies nearest to the target to build colonizers. Which means you often end up with a newly founded colony at 30 construction speed having 10 colonizers in the building queue lol

[Malevolence]

I agree with Wicky--- build your own Colony ships and then assign them to targets while under construction.

[taltamir]

I build my own AND have the AI on full auto... when on full auto the AI only builds colony ships if I have forgotten to build any in a while, or if I discover a planet with precious resource.

And if you deselect a checkbox in the options that allows the AI to colonize in enemy systems then the AI will never try to colonize in enemy systems. (I highly recommend it; colonizing in enemy systems just leads to war... and war is a waste of resources that could be spent grabbing more planets... let the other empires fight each other while you become the sole superpower).

As sun tsu said, the wise general wins the war before he starts it. (or something like that)