Colonize

[przy]

Sorry for the dumb question, it has probably been discussed here before. I was wondering, I have been colonizing planets but there has been no population growth on any of them at all for a number of turns. Do I have to transplant a percentage of my existing population from the planet(s) I start out with to the new colonies for the population to start growing? Or is there something else that I am missing or doing wrong?
Thanks for any replies

[cshank2]

you need to pick up population with your colony ship

[Atrocities]

The number one question asked is a varation of this question. Its not dumb at all.

When colonizing, you must be sure that your colonizers have population on them. Otherwise they will colonize a planet, and no growth will occur.

You can manually load your colonizers, or use the Colonize button on the upper icon tray.

I use the colonize button my self.

Also, only build and load colonizers from planets that can handle them. IE you don't want to build a colony ship at a newly colonized planet and then tell it to colonize another planet as it will take all of your population say for 1 million and go and colonize that planet.

Right now if you have planets with Zero population, you can colonize them simply by transfering population to them from a cargo ship or another colonizer.

I hope this was a help.

[Tezzezar]

Definitely not a dumb question. I always put a cargo component on my colony ships. If the ship is starting out at a planet with a decent amount of population I'll just hit the colony button and tell it where to go. Population automatically loads.

If you're starting out on a planet with a low population level or sending the colony ship to a war zone, manually add a few million citizens to start the colony. Move the ship to the colony and manually hit the colony button. You can use population transports later to add populations if necessary.

One Last tip: beware building colony ships and moving them without population. You'll be very unhappy five turns later when your planet colonizes and there are no people to produce anything.

T-

[Technomage]

Tezzezar and Atrocities have some good advice for you. I would add that if you're moving into a possible war zone with your colony ship:

1. Be careful how many colonists you load. Use the manual load command to control exactly how many millions of people you are willing to risk.

2. Send escorts with your ship! Pretty obvious, but easy to miss in the heat of battle.

3. Don't hit the automatic colonize button if your ship will be traveling across most of a system to get to the planet you want to colonize. It will plow ahead, no matter what, and may well end up in a combat situation. Control the movement manually, in short command steps.

[Baron Munchausen]

And one final hint: Anything in the cargo storage of your colonizer will be deposited in the cargo of the planet when it is colonized. So if you build larger colonizers out of transports later on, you can build a WP or two and include it in the colonizer to give your new colony 'built in' defenses when it lands.