Intelligence war

[rockman]

Cheers for the ideas mates. I have tried using puppet political parties but my attempts always seem to get blocked by their counter intel. I have used a few ships to blockade etc but I still have to fork out for the maintainence while they are doing that - can't afford it. I have stolen a few colony ships but there are very few planets to clolonize left that are worthwhile and the enemy soon blows them away anyway.
I guess I will have to scrap some research and intel and build mineral. I heard you can build facilities to change the atmosphere of a planet and therefore could build more facilities and therfore more mineral mines. What do you need to do this. i have researched planet imrovement (up to lvl 5?) but all I get is planet value improvevers - does this change atmosphere as well? Am I on the right track re: changing atmosphere to improve my mineral situation?