colonizing new planets

[aswiren]

im trying to colonize a planet in a system that is partially held by another race. its the only avenue out of my starting position, so i need a foothold there to secure the star-lane. i have control of the space...ive had a fleet there guaranteeing passage for a while. so i manually sent a colony ship to land on one of the planets. after it stayed in orbit for 20 turns or so, i disbanded its TF, then had the AI send it. so now i have 6 colony ships there and no colony. for 20 turns or so. i know about the AI quirk with sending tons of colony ships to one planet...my question is if there is something preventing me from claiming a world in a system with someone else's planets.

i suppose i should also mention that at first i had no diplomatic contact with the computer civ (even though we had both explored a common system and had been engaging in combat most of the game), but now i do have contact, and a non-agression pact, and it still won't let me colonize hte world. at this point i dont even need it, but i want to figure this out so i know for the next game...

thanks

aaron

[Harry Seldon]

Open the planet screen, highlight the planet, and select Forces from the bottom screen. Scroll until you find your colony ship. Click on it; of the three buttons on the bottom of the screen, one should be colonize planet. Select it and your colony ship should drop next turn.

[aswiren]

yeah, ive tried that. with a bunch of differnet colony ships. thats why im wondering if the fact that the system is partially owned by someone else is relevant. i just spent another hour or so playing and i can colonize other planets in other systems, but still not this one.

[Bblue]

Does the other race have a system ship in the system? I've run into this situation also, and it *seems* that you can't colonize if they have ANY ship in the system UNLESS you have a .... can't remember which one... one of the dilpomatic agreements... OT borders or defensive alliance. That's my working theory for now, but is likely to change as I understand more of the game

[aswiren]

yeah, they have a couple system defense ships. i figured my fleet would balance that out, but i guess not. ill take care of those ships and see what happens.

the only dip agreement i dont have with them right now is an alliance of any kind, so that must be it.

thanks a lot.

[Harry Seldon]

You may have to escort your colony ship there with a military task force. I colonized an enemy system with defensive vessels without fighting. Maybe the colony ship won't go down if they figure they'll be blasted after they land.

[aswiren]

were your defensive ships part of the same task force, or just there alongside? i had a fleet there providing cover, but it was a separate task force. never occured to me to group them together.

[Hydro]

I’ve seen this problem too. I have a non-aggression treaty with the Klackon, and colony ships and outposts won’t land. What is odd is that there is no enemy fleet there to contest the landing. Previously I’ve colonized systems with other races and many of these were trade/research allies, although the only one I have a specific memory of was a full ally. In no instance were the colony/outposts escorted.

What is annoying is that the AI races do not seem to have this limitation. I made the mistake once of choosing ‘defend planet’ when a hostile AI task force entered my system. The next turn there was a colony there (evidently the TF was a colony ship – should have noticed that), which I spent the next 15 or so turns bombarding into oblivion (I’d made transports obsolete so I had none in reserve, and my Trilarians are pretty poor against Sacra).

[Darklighter]

Try this, this was brought up in the Strategy thread. Go to the victory page and change you empire stance to the most open stance towards the empire that is currently in the system. Can't remember the options. But your empire defaults to a defensive stance. The open stance negates the combat screen and should let you colonize.

I have not tried this myself yet, but going to give it a try as soon as I get the chance.

I'd like to give proper credit if this idea works but can't remember the poster's name.

[Michaeldsd]

I have had exactly the same problem in colonizing unoccupied planets in a system occupied by another race. I do not have contact with this race.

My colony ship is grouped in the same task force with a well armed frigate. There are no other ships in the system at all.

I have attempted to "create a colony" using the task force containing the colony ship at the sytem (an approach that works in every unoccupied system). I have also selected "send colony" for the AI to send a ship. Neither approach works.

The game should warn me that I am not allowed to colonize an occupied planet in an occupied system in that is the case. I can find nothing in the manual of encyclopedia that addresses this.

I will attempt the work around in modifying my empire's stance to see if that helps. Does anyone else have this problem or know of a solution.

I would prefer a peaceful co-existence option. Thank you!

[Darklighter]

Modifying my empire stance did the trick for me. But, in your case you do not have diplo relations with said empire. I don't think the empire shows up on the victory tab until you have relations with them, keeping you from adjusting your stance. I haven't figured out what triggers diplo relations yet as I have ran into several empires and didn't establish relations with them for several turns.

[Michaeldsd]

Thank you for your help. I have spent some more time attempting to colonize star systems with other planets previously occupied by other races.

It appears to be the case that you can colonize only if there are no ships of another race in the system. This includes system ships such as hawk defense.

I have not tested the diplomatic means of settling in systems previously occupied with ships of other races but it makes sense that an open boarders agreement would allow for this.