I agree, they seem to ignore class 1 planets, now I don't remember lower than a class 4 planet in DL but, they could have just been very rare.

However, the computer at varrious intellagence levels seem to also know exactly where the high class planets (such as 19 or higher) are as well, and sometime seem to ignore a high class planet fly their colony ship right by and colonize a class 5 planet in the same system.

So who, knows this is one of the reasons I hope they eventually come out with a multiplayer expansion.

Class 1 planets are among the best in the game once you get the terraforming techs. Any neutral civ should be clamoring for them.




There were no PQ1 planets prior to DA.

It's an easy enough mistake to have made. Prior to the way terraforming now works for low PQ planets there wouldn't have been much point. Who'd waste a colony module on a class 1 that would only become a class 4 or 5, after all? I think the lowest used to be PQ3. Regardless, the point here is that it's not a new bg, it's the AI failing to react properly to a new feature. It still needs to be fixed, of course.

Well, keep in mind that planets of that quality tend to take a very long time to develop unless you are rush buying the terriforming techs, redirecting a HELL of a lot of asteroids, or your have a neutral alignment in xeno ethics. In other words, these planets tend to start as an economic drain and remain that way for a long time.

Yeah, the AI should grab 'em... but the additional colony maintainence could catch up to you!

Or if you have orbital terraforming, or if you add cheap midrange factories to the first 5-6 tiles immediately after each one is soil/habitat improved. And especially if you have the Super Hiver special which lets you lay down factories very quickly and develop new planets fast.

The secret to developing high PQ planets quickly is just building a lot of factories (like 6-8), if you have industrial sector build older ones because it's hugely overpriced. Then once you've filled all the tiles, build over some of the factories if you don't want it to be a factory world.

At the same time you can have more established planets throwing out constructors to set up economic starbases.

Early neutral helps a lot with PQ1's as with just about everything else...

Going neutral and researching up to habitat improvement will turn PQ1'S into ethier PQ11 or PQ13 in no time at all at normal tech rate early 2nd year in my games. Takes a bit longer to get terraform tech but I almost always risk going for it at maso level before I spam factories and build military.

I haven't paid attention to which particular low PQs the AIs favor or ignore, but I can also confirm that the AIs colonize *some* very low PQ worlds.

I suspect that the underlying gripe here is about the fact that the AIs are still way behind strong human players when it comes to building infrastructure. Things are much better in this regard than they were when GC2 first shipped, but IMO the AIs have gained much more strength in fleet design and use than they have with colonization and colony development choices.

You don't colonize Mars? It is generally the first thing i do. Fill it with research techs, and save Earth for Eco/Manu buildings.

Works well for me anyway....

Well, if I'm Terran, I take Mars early because I like to play with Rare habitible planets, and so far I play tiny or small maps because of my computer, so I have to take what I can get.

I agree I want to know the reasoning if this is a design in the game or if this is something that they've been looking at but, just haven't had a chance to take care of this issue being of more pressing bugs in the last few weeks.

Well, it looks more like a "propaganda"-style thread than anything else. If they have been taking notes from the forums all along, and they have tons and tons of ideas for GC3, I really don't see the point of such a thread. Except to get players talking that is. All of it has already been repeated countless times.

PQ1 planets becoming very good planets is weird. Doesn't really make much sense. Maybe they'll tone them down...

But habitability is a very different issue. If you'd say a planet was PQ1 for humans but PQ5 for thalans, that'd be one thing. Different temp tolerance and gravity, environmental conditions, etc. But that's not the case. All of a sudden, with only Soil Enhancement (we're not talking terraforming) you get a *huge* boost in habitable/building space.