Can't build in another empire's territory

[Osito]

I'm at the early stages of pre-warp, just one colony, starting to explore other systems. I've found several nearby systems within my sphere of influence which are owned by another empire. That other empire has no facilities in these systems. I do not know this other empire, so I can't get on the phone to them from the Diplomacy screen. I can't build in these systems, because they are owned the other empire.

Haven't come across this before; is it normal?

Edit: Hmmm to answer my own question, I guess it's that I haven't found their home planet yet. It's at that point that I am going to discover the ugly truths that:
1. My sphere of influence is nowhere near as big as I thought it was.
2. Owing to my sector colonisation limit, it will be impossible to colonise more than one colony except by force (unless I happen upon a friendly independent).

This is going to be a bit tough, since I decided I was going to play this game as a pacifist. Anyone know if it's possible to win with just the one colony?

[MarQan]

Welcome to the club! [:)]

We have no other choice than to try..

[Shark7]

Build a fleet, build an army, take over their empire.

It's what I do. [;)]

The truth is, sometimes the colonization limits end up hurting you badly. The only option you have in that case is war.

[MarQan]

I like when it hurts
My Mortalen Generals and Admirals are definitely agreeing with you Shark [:)]

[Icemania]

I don't play with Colonisation limits but there are other options in the case of building bases ... even if it's just to build up the resources to provide a larger war machine for the colonies you will need.

Keep expanding your range and exploring to see if you can find other systems further away where you can build without the influence of others getting in the way. In some games this distance can be fairly high so having ship designs with significantly increased fuel capacity can become critical.

Another approach is to develop relationships with friendly races until they provide mining rights to you and then you can build in their territory. This can be risky if the relationship is not likely to remain stable.

Some Pacifists elect never to declare war but are happy to respond in force if they are indeed attacked. If this is the case, they are ways to encourage them to pull the trigger first ... or try being a Pacifist with more Aggressive settings [;)]

[Osito]

In the end I decided to start a new game. The problem was that I had (as an experiment) set the influence range to the maximum, and I think that setting is just too large, even with a 1400x15x15 galaxy. I'd like to play a pacifist style all the way through some day, but it doesn't really suit me.