[Poddu]

Well, I seem to be in a singular minority about the Colony Ships. So be it ... it's a small issue, but here are some replies anyway.


WhiteHojo:

Yes, I understand, but why does the Colony Ship have to be full? You can colonize a planet with just a few million people, and have it be quite productive. This is a function of there being very little production penalty on a near-empty planet. You can send a Colony Ship to a new planet, build a Space yard in 5 turns, and build a Colony Ship 2 turns later. Even with only a few million (or even 1 Mil) people left on that planet, I can still crank out Colony Ships every 3 turns [only 1 extra turn], and send then off with a couple of million colonists. If there were a major production penalty involved it wouldn't be viable, but as it is, it works.

Richard:

About the manual issue, there is a similar comment in the user guide where Aaron says he would have needed over 350 pages to tell us all. It seems to me that there is a World Of Knowledge between what we have and these dense tomes that you propose. For example, when you are first playing the game, you might wonder what the differences are in the advanced traits. "Hmm", you say, "I wonder what is the difference between a Psychic race and a Deeply Religious race." When you look up "Empire Setup - Advanced Traits Window", you get a picture of that window and find out that this is where you select advanced racial traits. Yes, I figured that much out. But where do you get a brief description of what kinds of abilities or technologies are involved? I don't need a 20 page detailed description, but how about a 2 or 3 paragraph overview? As it is, one learns if a trait is interesting or useful to your type of playing style by investing an hour or so playing a game with it.

dmm:

Yes, this can happen, but usually by the time that it does, one has multiple spaceyards on multiple types of worlds, and one can systemize colonization. If the default were a filled colony ship, then once in a while one would have to offload and reload colonists. But the vast majority of the time, you'd be good to go. I'd rather micromanage the occasional exception, than every colony ship .. but, I can see that it cuts both ways.

Zodd:

Maybe you're right. Maybe, as you so kindly point out, some of us are just "slow learners" and need things "spelled out in manuals." Things like ... "which is better,computers or a real crew?" Things like ... "When you select to give the computer players a bonus, what exactly to they recieve?" We all have some questions, Zodd, and maybe a better manual would help some of us. Unlike yourself, I have not "discovered I knew everything already from playing the demo."