[Silent Sorrow]

I'm in the middle of a long TDM game against the AI and have noticed two strange things.

1. All the colonies in two systems have "disappeared." (In the case of the second one, I had happened to save just before it happened and so went back to that save game and all was well.) That's right--disappeared. That is, the system is there and the planets are there but all sign of life--population and ships--have disappeared. The mines I laid are still there, however. There was no message of any system destroying devices given either. (But the planets are still there so it couldn't have been that anyway.) What's going on here?

2. In this game and previous long games, I've noticed that after a very long time many of my ships mysteriously gain the ability to cloak and decloak--despite not carrying the cloak device and not being fleeted with any cloak-capable ships. (In fact, in the current game I haven't built a single unit of any kind with the cloak device.) A pleasant surprise somewhat, but also strange and worrying. Is this some kind of bug?

[ January 22, 2003, 20:37: Message edited by: Silent Sorrow ]