Zero Zero Zero

[PeterD]

At about turn 150 in a solo game against 11 TDM
AI's I noticed a yellow "never" in the build
menu.

I checked the planet out and it looked normal
except the population read 0M (none).

There had been no intel attacks, no plague and
I could still access the planet, it just wouldn't
build anything. The min/org/rad totals showed
0 0 0.

Over the next few turns 4 more planets did this.
No attacks or plague's and the game isn't
limited rescource. Some of the planets had been
around a long time some were newly colonised.

Some of them were green cross planets so I guess
it wasn't bad conditions.

I built a cargo ship and sent over some
population and off it went building again.

The only change to colonisation I made was in the
settings file. Automatic col = 2 (to hurry
things along).

Is this the problem? Any help appreciated.

[Droplede]

Actually, this sort of thing happens when you send colony ships out without people aboard. It makes the colony, but nothing else happens. Are your shipyards set to automatically send ships out somewhere, and then you're giving colonization orders a turn later?

[Atrocities]

Sometime plagues happen and are not mentioned in the turn even file. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif I have seen this a couple of times in many of my games.

[PeterD]

Ok I can believe there's a plague and its not
mentioned.

But if all the people die you'd lose the planet
and alls it facilities, wouldn't you?

In answer to the first post, my shipyards aren't
set to anything automatic.

[Paul1980au]

Having something that happens not turning up in the events turn file needs to be fixed Version 2 anyone.

[PeterD]

I thought it was something I was doing.
It still could be but this "non reporting event"
sounds plausible.

Thanks

[oleg]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
If all the people on the planet die from a plague or some other event, you do not lose the facilities. The planet goes dormant like you are describing. Only if the population is killed in combat are the facilities also destroyed and the colony erased. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really ? I just lost a colony to a plague and planet lost all facilities. Planet converted to the uncolonized status. With a loss to values too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by oleg:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally posted by geoschmo:
If all the people on the planet die from a plague or some other event, you do not lose the facilities. The planet goes dormant like you are describing. Only if the population is killed in combat are the facilities also destroyed and the colony erased. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really ? I just lost a colony to a plague and planet lost all facilities. Planet converted to the uncolonized status. With a loss to values too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I may be going off old information. I know in the past you kept the colony with zero population. Perhaps that was changed.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Well, I may be going off old information. I know in the past you kept the colony with zero population. Perhaps that was changed. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think it was lost in the change from SE3 to SE4.

Check to see if your planets are rioting. Various things happening in your empire can lead to an increase in anger levels. What happiness type did you pick? Bloodthirsty and Neutral get angry over new colonies established.

[PvK]

Anger and even riots don't decrease population, though.

I was pretty sure plagues and random or intel-generated population loss events would leave empty colonies - the colony box shows (except on moons) with no population bars inside it. Enemies who land troops will get the planet and all facilties and units that were on it, too, IIRC.

PvK

[geoschmo]

If all the people on the planet die from a plague or some other event, you do not lose the facilities. The planet goes dormant like you are describing. Only if the population is killed in combat are the facilities also destroyed and the colony erased.

[Arkcon]

Plagues, either event or bomb caused, definitely always reverts the planet to uncolonized when all population is dead. You get a message to the effect that "Population of planet has expired from the plague"

What leaves an empty planet with facilities intact is the food poisoning Intel option, and maybe some other events too, I don't know.

This is the second thread today about wierdness associated with altering the starting population setting up from zero, in order to speed things up. Gonna be cool when someone figures out what's happening, this is all to wierd for me to start experimenting.

[ June 08, 2004, 02:26: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

[Kamog]

In a recent game I was playing, a bomb exploded on one of my planets (an intel attack) and killed all my population, but I still had the colony. Just zero population.

[oleg]

This is all very odd.

I once again had an event-plaque and my planet was cleaned up completely. Is it possible "zero population and nothing else" happens in classic turn games ?

I am 100%, no 1000% ! sure plagues wipe out planets completely in simult. turn games

[PeterD]

I've just checked all the TDM AI's that played
against me (turn 150) and they all had similar
problems.

From a couple to a couple of dozen "never" in
the production menu. All had zero population.

I guess the only way to avoid plagues is to setup
your race to be immune to them at the start of the
game.

I'll try that next game and report back.

[PvK]

Ok, maybe I mis-remembered about the plagues causing empty colonies... so perhaps it's the other events and intel strikes that remove population without removing the colony.

Those should all generate log Messages, though... but perhaps one of them doesn't?

PvK

[Will]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
If all the people on the planet die from a plague or some other event, you do not lose the facilities. The planet goes dormant like you are describing. Only if the population is killed in combat are the facilities also destroyed and the colony erased. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm not sure about this. I remember losing all population on a planet, but the damage wasn't enough to destroy all the facilities, so the colony remained.