Growing concern - but optimistic

[capnq]

Barnacle Bill said:

I don't know - did that happen in SEIV? I mean, even though the AI wasn't constrained much by claims, there were Ancient Races and the ability to claim explored systems...

You didn't have to explore a system to claim it in SE IV. (Having to explore a system first might have slowed down AI expansion, for one thing.) In multiplayer games, some people routinely claimed the entire map on their first turn, so as not to give away any information about where their colonies actually were. Other people didn't claim any systems, or rename planets, for the same reason.

And why shouldn't an Ancient race claim the whole map? They were there first, after all.