[Poddu]

Yes, Tomgs, you are right, and the info (or lack of it) is present in the demo as well. Thank you for this observation. However, in the Planets screen the information is not present.

This does seem to indicate that the game is keeping track of all that you've seen, but choosing to present it to you in a somewhat subtle manner. It seems to me that this would be better represented by a shaded-out empire icon. So that when you're in the system, the empire icon is bright and when you leave, it dims to the shaded icon. In times of much conquest, the information would be of dubious value, but at the early stages of the game it would be somewhat reliable. After all, unlike fleets, homeworlds and colonies don't move around all that much, and are rarely abandoned for trivial reasons.

It is also not a question of the planetary status being out-of-date. You may lose information in the middle of your turn if you use the next ship button to check through your ships. This would happen if you moved a ship through (or out of) the target system before you moved your colony ship. "Oh!" you say to yourself, "If only I had moved the colony ship first. I had a ship in that system and I don't remember if that particular planet was colonized."

[This message has been edited by Poddu (edited 20 December 2000).]