You shouldn't be able to invade a planet you cannot inhabit.

You can invade planets that you don't have the techs for--you just take over the domes or whatever the case may be. However you will have 0% production, so you can't build anything else there until you do have those techs.

You can have planets you don't have tech for flip to you too, and it works the same way - they'll be at 0% production. You probably still pay maint on buildings that are doing nothing for you too.

Its not a perfectly concieved system yet, and could use some tweaking.


You are, in nearly all cases, better off invading than researching colony tech. In the early game, when you actually need it, colony tech is far too time intensive, for a far too situational payoff, and early on, races will *generally * not trade it. You *need* weapon/military tech(mandatory for all game types, as soon as possible), and invasion tech is much more valuable for most game types, with a shorter path to enable(though not excel at), given that youre going to get the precursor techs to it as a matter of course(you have to go out of your way for colony tech).


Later in the game, colony tech is much more easy to pick up(for free via diplo, or possibly even through invasion of the world in question), or to research at your leisure with a much improved research machine, when sitting on a freshly conquered waterworld, covered with free factories and labs just awaiting activation. And correct me if Im wrong,Im not entriely sure, but the planets still seem to make money for you even without the tech.


I still think we can look forward to some revisions and refinements to the system. But I applaud the new ideas and work put into it, and Im happy Stardock has put thought into the whole colony rush nerf.

Well, not a DIRECT benefit, anyway - I could see one invading that kind of world not so much to gain new planets for production or what not, but more to deprive other players of those worlds. It's basically just a matter of figuring out what options are most cost-effective and militarily effective.

I suggest an additional maintenance cost for every billion citizens left on a world they don't have the technology to live on as if it were normally habitable. Just because it's there doesn't mean you left someone alive to show you how to run it.

You're forgetting about cosmic radiation. Mars doesn't have as strong a magnetic field as Earth, nor does it have as thick an atmosphere. Any habitat that is set up on such a planet will need to either have some form of shielding, or at least a shelter built in solid rock.

Plants still need oxygen to breathe when there isn't any sun, and they need nutrients and water from the soil in order to grow. They might not be as high maintenance as humans, but it's a long way from getting a few plants growing in a hydroponics bay to seeding an entire forest.

heres my two cents, given i have yet to play DA. though that will be remedied very soon. I think that if a different civ colonizes a world and builds the infustructure to inhabet it, whats to stop you from killing them and taking their already built buildings. you dont need that tech to tax your people or move to more people into the already existing buildings. it seems to me that it makes perfect sense to alow normal pop growth and taxation, and maintanence costs. but keep the social production value at a strict 0% untill you have the tech. if you dont have the tech to inhabet it there is no way you will be able to build new buildings, only inhabet the prexisting ones. seems to me the existing system sounds prefectly fine... but thats just my two cents, i may change my mind

I don't yet have DA, so I'll have to see how it plays out.

However, from a gameplay standpoint, it does seem to do an end-run on the whole purpose of having environments.

Arguing "reality considerations" in a science-fiction computer game is a bit far-fetched in any event, so the way it affects gameplay should really be key.

Given that a planetary invasion force tends to be 1M people or more, I find it a little difficult to believe that you could logistically support such an endeavor without being able to set up bases of your own from which to operate. Like I said, this comes down to the question of "What does ground combat in the Gal Civ universe really look like?" which is a pretty esoteric question.

Guess I'll have to play the game myself to see. It does seem sad that the colony rush tactic might just be in the process of being replaced by a Transport rush tactic...

I only have a few games of DA under my belt so far, but I have noticed that Planetary Invasion has moved up considerably in my research order. It's gone from a mid-game tech to a colony rush tech. But then, I've also found myself having to build up my military sooner in DA also.