Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Xmudder
Shorter than I thought it would be, but I like how automated it all is.  How long does it take to build a ship?  I'd hate to have my future colony colonized out from under me.

Colony ships take about 2-3 mins to build. Colonies with smaller populations build more slowly. If you're near another empire there can be a race for the good colonies.

Do you need a construction ship to build at your colony, or can a colony build it's own base?  can a single planet / moon have more than one base / station?

No, colonies can build their own bases and colony ships. Colonies can have more than one base, but for some base types you can only have one, e.g. one space port.

Is there any point to colonzing lousy planets, given they will increase your corruption level?  seems like mining them would make more sense.

Corruption is actually based on population, not the number of colonies. Because poor planets have lower populations anyway they don't effect your corruption so much.

Poor planet types often have valuable resources so that's one reason to colonize them. When you have a mining station at a planet, another empire can still colonize it, and when they do your mining station disappears.

Poor planets may have an existing independent alien race living on them. If you want to include this race in your empire to obtain their racial bonuses, then you'd need to colonize (or invade) the planet.

Also there's more poor planets than good ones, so you may find a poor planet is more strategically located for your goals.

Does your planets consumption of imported luxury resources effect your profits, or just those of the private sector?  IS it like Victoria Revolution, where your private sector needs a certain amount of wealth before it will build anything?

Your private citizens purchase luxury resources. Your job is to ensure that the resources can reach your colonies by keeping trade open.

  Why were there only 5 luxury resources on that screen?  is that all you have discovered so far?  I thought there were 20.  expansion planner at 2:30

At the top of the Expansion Planner screen is a scrollable list of all resources - there's about 40. You'd need to scroll down to see the rest of them [:)]

For each planet there can be up to 5 different resources - but they vary for each planet. The resources each planet provides is displayed in the resources column of the panel at the bottom.

ORIGINAL: elliotg
Corruption is actually based on population, not the number of colonies. Because poor planets have lower populations anyway they don't effect your corruption so much.

Poor planet types often have valuable resources so that's one reason to colonize them. When you have a mining station at a planet, another empire can still colonize it, and when they do your mining station disappears.

Poor planets may have an existing independent alien race living on them. If you want to include this race in your empire to obtain their racial bonuses, then you'd need to colonize (or invade) the planet.

Also there's more poor planets than good ones, so you may find a poor planet is more strategically located for your goals.

Ooh, I like this. This game seems well thought out. Basing it on total pop instead of number of colonies, for example.

I also saw a system with 2 habitable planets and a lot of resources on them. Nice.

Is there a REX stopper in the game anywhere? Or is Rapid Expansion the way to go.

Very nice video!
A few questions though:
When you build and send a colony ship to a new planet do you then remove some population from the planet it's built?.
I mean if it doesn't cost population you can just spam colony ships, and if no population is removed who is in the new colony - I saw a silly example of this in another 4x game that shall remain unnamed

Is it possible to send more than one colony ship to a planet? or can you choose to have a certain amount of populace migrate to a new colony?

You only need to colonize a planet once with a colony ship, but there is absolutely migration, and this can even happen across borders.

THanks for answering all our questions. I have another one. Does the distance from the centre/political capital of your empire matter for unhappiness, corruption or any other aspect of the game? In other words, can you get an empire overstretch?

ORIGINAL: Xmudder

ORIGINAL: elliotg
Corruption is actually based on population, not the number of colonies. Because poor planets have lower populations anyway they don't effect your corruption so much.

Poor planet types often have valuable resources so that's one reason to colonize them. When you have a mining station at a planet, another empire can still colonize it, and when they do your mining station disappears.

Poor planets may have an existing independent alien race living on them. If you want to include this race in your empire to obtain their racial bonuses, then you'd need to colonize (or invade) the planet.

Also there's more poor planets than good ones, so you may find a poor planet is more strategically located for your goals.

Ooh, I like this. This game seems well thought out. Basing it on total pop instead of number of colonies, for example.

I also saw a system with 2 habitable planets and a lot of resources on them. Nice.

Is there a REX stopper in the game anywhere? Or is Rapid Expansion the way to go.

The limits to expansion are really whether you can properly defend all of your new colonies. That means building ships, which costs money (both up-front and for maintenance), and because your small, newly-established colonies don't make much money to begin with, you can only expand so far before you need to consolidate. Your larger colonies effectively subsidize your new ones for a while.

ORIGINAL: elliotg
The limits to expansion are really whether you can properly defend all of your new colonies. That means building ships, which costs money (both up-front and for maintenance), and because your small, newly-established colonies don't make much money to begin with, you can only expand so far before you need to consolidate. Your larger colonies effectively subsidize your new ones for a while.

Yet another reason populated neutral planets are nice to colonize. I like the intuitive complexity this game displays.

How cumbersome is taking care of all the planetary defense fleets plus all the convoy escorts? Both economically and time wise? Taking care of the colonies themselves seems delightfully simple.

Is there an I Win point where you control enough of the galaxy everyone else gives up and you win?