Colonizing planets

I think that's a good idea. It should add even more realism to the game.
However if you choose to adopt this into the game you have to balance it considerably
in order to keep the gameplay as much enjoyable as possible.
At least you must have the capability of identifying such an uncolonizable planet (from a long range).
It's indeed quite frustrating if you traveled half the galaxy with your colonyship only to find out the planet you were after is unsuited for your race. It's even more nerve-wrecking when an alien civilization appears and colonizes the same planet which could not be colonized by yourself.
But it's certainly a good idea!

Another thread on this? What's wrong with the other two?

Having another civ come and colonize a good world before you? It really boils down to "Hey, I saw it first". The ability to Claim a world before you Colonize would nice. The way it could work is a survey ship could just park in orbit of a system and keep the other civs from taking it. It's like when Spainish explorers hit land, stick a flag in the ground, and claim it for Spain.

What do you think?

Why couldn't you be able to colonize a great planet? From the view of realism, its good, but the players will hate this.

I can understand not being able to colonize lower level planets at first but higher level.

Survey Crew to Colonization Minister:
"Sorry sir, that planet is so perfect for our biology that it is impossible for us to colonize at this time."

Sorry but that makes no sense. This Planet Quality measure how well we can survive on the planet. Thus higher is better. In less there is something to the statement "Too much of a good thing..."

high class planets AREN'T perfect for our biology. It's a jungle wourld with Tree-Rippers, Saw-Birds, and Venus Man-Traps. The worlds native biology is too hostile too use to colonize. It's also a game-blance Issue. I also like "claim before you colonize" idea.

I think we have different ideas about what PQ means.

I think the way it is now is fine, so long as by the end of the game you can colonize all planets. For example, a mars or venus like planet should be terraformable to something decent.

But what about gas giants? Gas giants (and all class zero) should either be removed from the map (since they are useless to the game as-is) or given colonizable moons. Colonizable moons presents an interface challenge however. If there was more spacing on the map between stars, their planets and other systems, moons could be faked (several colonizable planets around a class zero gas giant) but everything is too cramped for this to work in the current set up. I would very much like to see the spacing beefed up to something like this:



Which would of course mean larger distances between stars. In the previous gal civ, this distance could be accurate because you didn't see the planets. But now, there are planets sitting a few spaces away from a neighboring system. Fine for a binary system, but most stars are not that close.

But if done, aside from a more realistic map, the only useless bodies in the solar system would be stars and gas giants which would serve an asthetic purpose. Since we here on earth are on the cusp of planet detection from our own system, maybe a gas giant detection tech would be another use for gas giants. This could clue you in on the location of habitable moons.

Gas Giants are usable. All you need is a bit of AG and radiation shielding.

For instance, there's a range on Jupiter, where, if you could manage to not fall into the planet, you'd find a mix of gases that are close enough to support Earth life. A human wouldn't be able to survive the exact conditions unprotected, but much of the simpler life here on Earth could. Toss in some Anti-Gravity and some decent radiation shielding, and you'd be able to "colonize" Jupiter just fine: think cloud cities of Vespin. They could have ships that go out and harvest hydrogen to bring back to power their city's fusion reactors (providing cheap and plentiful power to run all that AG and radiation shielding).

There isn't any place but a star or its more massive relations that cannot be reasonably colonized by an adequately advanced technological star-faring civilization. There's just a question of whether there is any motivation to build something there.

So, the real question is: Would that be fun? Dealing with planets isn't fun in GC2. It's just resource management. You do it, but its a drag on the enjoyment of the game. So I don't think we should be putting forth the idea that we should be adding significantly to the amount of colonizable worlds... at least, not until worlds are as easy to deal with in GC2 as they were in GC1.

As for being able planet class and colonizing... as you increase in your tech, you should automatically gain tiles. This means in the beginning, a "Venus" world would be class zero. But as you gain material and construction techs, it would become "Class 1" and "Class 2". As you continue to gain techs, it would slowly grow, until it was effectively a nice little spot in your empire. Of course, Earth would be an over-grown monster by then, as techs would also improve those few "perfect home-world like" planets. After all, if you can build a domed city to survive the pressures and corrosiveness of Venus' atmosphere, you'd certainly be able to properly build in and more fully utilize those "useless" deep ocean tiles on Earth.

This is entirely logical. However, this would be less fun then the current system, as it would mean that you'd end up having to give yet even more build orders at different times to your worlds (all those new tiles!). So, I think the critical thing to do to the game is to concentrate on reducing the micro-management of the worlds as they currently stand, before adding in "gaining the use of more tiles/worlds". Otherwise, it would detract, rather then add, to our gaming fun and the flow of the game.