An odd Mega Event/Random Event

The ICTG will get an incremental increase in all their abilities over time. Just think of it like an "anomially a turn" that gives a +1 bonus to all catagories. Over time they will exceed your abilities. To play off this, just keep them small and covertly help anyone at war with them. Get them to go to war with other races OR just wipe them off the face of the map!!!   

I've never gotten this event but I've seen it mentioned for DA. The difference being, in DA i think one of the major races gets the event.

From what i know, it will increase the races abilities over time, however don't be alarmed because for what I remember the change is very slow and the race never qyuite gets to be all that powerful. Thjis may be different in TA though.

What is the ICTG btw?

If they are left alone for the rest of the game, they will get powerful. It will happen over a long time, but still!

I'm going to take a guess at ICTG   Intergalatic Council for Touring the Galaxy!  

Ahhh thanks a lot for the advice Xrati and Yar, it doesn't seem as epic changing as I thought it would be, which is a relief. (I've put a lot of effort into this game). Hopefully I can get a Ranger then I'll launch and attack.

And the ICTG is one of my custom races; The Intergalactic Coalition of Terran Governments so you got 1/4

There are actually two very similar events that do this, one a normal random event, and one a mega event.  The mega-event increases their abilities a lot faster!

Sentient species taste better...

Oh... I see... How would I know which of the two I got?

I also got the event in my game yesterday. I was playing as the Thalan and the Altarian got this. Well, I don't think I have to worry about them now since I'm controlling 85% of the huge map and am taking other races' planets just by influence.

And this event happen jsut a few turn after another mega event that cause all unhabited planet within 2 sectors around the Iconian homeworld become PQ15 planets. Man, that's one sweet event.

Is that one Iconian exclusive? Or can it happen to anyone?

It can happen to any major race.

Ahh alright thanks a lot for the info guys.

One last question, if you guys don't mind though that's kind of unrelated to the thread's topic.

When I first colonise a planet, what is it I should concentrate on building to get my income greater than my expenditure?

You could take a number of different approaches. 

The most counter-intuitive would be, dont build anything for a while.  Let the population build until the taxes generate enough bcs to support development of the planet.

Alternately, if you have fertility clinics, build that and nothing else, until the population grows.

Or, build one factory to get the social output up, then build nothing but economic buildings.  You'll want at least 1 farm & morale building once it gets close to max population, so it can continue to grow.

Sentient species taste better...

Cheers, that's probably where I've been going wrong... I've always filled up most of my planets with building blueprints straight away to save me the trouble of having to come back. I've always made a ton of research facilities and usually 2 or 3 factories on mostly all my planets.

On that subject what should I do with research facilities? When and where does one go about building them for the optimum effect?

I've found the best way is to specialize planets.  Designate each one for either tech, econ, or industry.  You will get the most out of structures like the research coordination center, power generators, and capitols.

Sentient species taste better...

KzintiPatriarch is right, concentrate your research on one or two planets. Naturally the ones with any research bonus on them. This leaves the rest of your planets to build social or military units. I always try to get a factory up and running ASAP so you can build/upgrade faster later on.

Another point - should you capture a red planet (one for which you have not yet developed the basic or advanced techs yet), you cannot build anything on that planet - but you can BUY improvements and get their benefits.

Good point 10kLakes...and you also still get tax revenue from the people on those worlds.  So they are still useful even if you dont have the tech.

Sentient species taste better...

I have one specialized tech world, the one that has my research capital. Other than that i build like one research building per planet unless there are multiple bonus tiles. the rest of my planets are half factory and half economic with a farm thrown in. Later in the game when i have more than enough planets creating ships, I'll fill PQ10 or less with all stock exchanges (+farm).

It's also important to note that the penalty only applies to social/military spending. Research is unaffected, so you can buy labs and never have to worry about the colonization techs at all, just make it a research/econ planet. Cheesy but effective.