Colonize

[Greybeard]

No Gryphin, you must designate a planet after the "colonize" command for the population to be loaded. However, a trick I sometimes use is to "colonize" a planet that already has a colony. This will load population and move the colony ship to the designated planet. When it arrives, I get an "unable to colonize" message and know that I can give the ship new orders.

You can also change the orders of the ship while it's moving, but in turns after loading, and give it a new destination if you wish.

Greybeard

[Wardad]

Sometimes I do use emergency build to crank out a complete colony ship every turn. I have also built colony hulls and ship yard stations in one turn.

Just what I do depends on the race setup and it's construction bonuses. There can be some real balance issues for construction, maintenance, resource, combat and ecetera. The home planet type and universe type is also considered.

I generally do not include a cargo pod. Draining the homeworld population can reduce your population build bonus. DOH!!!, been there, done that. What a way to ruin a plan.

[capnq]

Population will also automatically be loaded if you use the "Send Colony Ship" button on the (F4) Planets screen.

[Gryphin]

Greybeard, capnq
Thanks, you just saved me from disaster.
Hm, Like the others said, it ain't a dumb quesiton.
BTW: I do appriciate folks not pointing out how long I've been reading this board.
Wonder if I will ever loose my newbie edge.
Edit:
WarDad,
I have to dissagree with ommiting the Cargo hold. I tend to have my home worlds hover around 1/2 max while I build up my Breath Type Huge worlds. I take the long vew when comes to that.

[ September 13, 2002, 02:34: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Gryphin:
I have to dissagree with ommiting the Cargo hold. I tend to have my home worlds hover around 1/2 max while I build up my Breath Type Huge worlds. I take the long vew when comes to that.

I concur. It is foolhardy (in my view) to send out a CS to a breathable without including a cargo pod for extra pop for that needed production/pop burst.

If I get what you're saying - you've been able to reduce your HW pop from - say 4800 to 2400 - without a loss of productivity and or research?

[capnq]

It seems to me that trying to keep your homeworld maxed out is less productive than filling colonies.

If your homeworld can hold 4800M, it will still have the same +40% production bonus down to 4000M. The "extra" 800M could be getting a +5% bonus at each of eight other colonies.

Even if you're not playing a race with Advanced Storage Techniques, your choices are one homeworld with 4000M at +40%, versus one homeworld with 3000M at +30% and ten colonies at 100M and +5%.

[przy]

Thanks for all the replies gentlemen, I really appreciate it.