Colony Suggestions in Legends

[Lantean]

[Long time lurker, first time poster...]

Before I start, I'd like to say how much I love this game and the new features added in Legends. I just don't want the first thing I say here to be a complaint... [:'(]

So, I started to write an explanation of my gameplay and why I can't stand the new colony suggestion system, then stopped myself at the third paragraph. Instead I think I'll simply ask:

Is there some way to switch to the old colony suggestion method? (ie. the pop-ups in the middle of the screen, rather than on the side)

I may go back to playing with just RoTS if not...

[ASHBERY76]

You would go back to playing messy borders and a no chars system for that tiny detail.

[Fishers of Men]

Welcome Lantean to the forum. I agree with Ashbery76 on this one. There are way too many advantages to playing the Legends expansion to go back to RoTS just for the colony suggestion feature. I would play with colonization on manual, instead.

[w1p]

even on 15x15 1400 star systems with 12 empires (I like big vs big wars!) I find I still have colonization on manual

The AI does a decent job, but I find it gives me a lot more control over my borders + population distrubition (eg. which world gets colonized first etc)

like fishers of men says, I'd highly recommend turning it to manual if you havn't tried it

[Lantean]

Maybe I should have explained my gameplay a bit...

It's not a tiny detail when you're talking about manually controlling 400+ colony ships every game. I'm very meticulous about colonization, even OCD, but I don't really want to build and then direct that many colony ships. Automation is not an option for me, as I'd have the computer producing colony ships at, say, the Naxxillian homeworld I just conquered. I like the (previous) automation system because it frees me from half of a boring job. The new system might make sense on a small map where there's few planets to colonize, but I don't see a point playing on anything but the largest map, with the most possible habitable worlds. In a game that emphasizes multiple play-styles it just seems odd that they would do something that forces you into a new one.

As for the 'messy borders', I actually have mixed feelings on the new sphere of influence system. It makes more sense realistically, and I like that, but I liked having colonies extending through other empires' territory. It's a bit disadvantageous for both sides, but that's fair. I could go either way on the character system too. It adds a nice role-play touch, but the level-up messages get annoying pretty quick and it doesn't really affect my play-style. The only things I'd truly miss are the new events and the new faction.

It seems like they tried to fix something that wasn't broken, and broke it in the process. I'm forced to either change my play-style, play a previous version or find a new game altogether. I don't like any of those choices...

Edit: I'm now 6 years into my first game and it seems like the other races are having the same problem. By this time on a game with just RoTS, the larger empires should have around 20 colonies. The largest empire in my current game has only 6 though. Yes, I'm using the exact same settings I used on my last game on RoTS, besides the new sector setting. So my issue with the colony suggestions not popping up often enough is affecting everyone apparently. The pace of the entire game has been slowed to about 25% of what it used to be...

[Fishers of Men]

Your empire is creating 400+ colony ships every game? Wow, thats seems like a lot. Are there that many habitable planets in your galaxy? Certainly you are sending maybe a couple of colony ships out at one time. As new planets are discovered, you could have one or two colony ships ready to send. You could build a colony ship from a specific planet with a specific race on board to send to a similar planet.

Manual colony ship control, creation and orders, do not add much additional work for me. I guess your games are much different than mine.

[KnighHawk]

Solution for you sounds like pop it on manual, especially given your noted odc'ing over such.  Personally I've had to revert to manual because I find a the repeated messages about colonies that I should not be notified about anyway (below 50%) annoying as hell, and if left on automation they get colonized when they shouldn't ie it's 1/2 broken feature (at least on .6 & .7).  So manual seem to be the solution. BTW I play 15x15 games as well.  (or tried at least since I've found the game simply isn't designed for it epic maps atm as it just becomes a dog performance wise even on great hardware).
  

[ASHBERY76]

Huh, research new planet types and many planets can be colonized.In Legends the planet habitable numbers has been better balanced.In ROTS I never even bothered to research new planet types.