Connecting Borders

[Defiant Mercy]

Is there any real benefit to keeping your borders connected? I've realized I've been playing the game with the mindset of ONLY taking planets nearby so my borders stay connected.
Though lately I've been thinking it would be more beneficial to take planets outside of your immediate area to not limit yourself.

I don't really see a downside to this. Aside from the planet being farther away from your "main" area and I believe planets are more influenced by other empires?

How does everyone else play? Colonize close or do you include planets that are farther away?

[Half Phased]

Well if the AI fills that gap and their hostile to you, you won't be able to move your ships through that gap without declaring war. Especially annoying if you use hyper lanes.

Other than that, your borders slowly expand as the number of pops you have increases, even colonising a planet deep in your borders can push them out a bit. I don't know exactly how it works, so I don't know how blobs work like that.

[Defiant Mercy]

Originally posted by Destructively Phased:

Well if the AI fills that gap and their hostile to you, you won't be able to move your ships through that gap without declaring war. Especially annoying if you use hyper lanes.

Other than that, your borders slowly expand as the number of pops you have increases, even colonising a planet deep in your borders can push them out a bit. I don't know exactly how it works, so I don't know how blobs work like that.

Well with the next patch coming up, borders will be open from the start. Sure a rival COULD try and block you but I feel that would take them more time to block you than would benefit them.

[Almost Psychic]

As a wormhole guy, I figure that as long as I can get to any of my controlled systems without ever jumping to a system outside of my borders, I can freely dot my territory around other empires.

[Straybow]

I'm reasonably sure ugly borders is a legitimate casus belli

[Danceofmasks]

The territory attached to your main "blob" has greater border range, due to the much larger pop numbers filling in that space (due to the contribution of overlapping territory between planets).
Then there's ethics divergence due to distance from your homeworld.
Soon, there's going to be a greater influence cost for colonising further away.

Other than that, feel free to go wherever.

[ElanaAhova]

The disincentives for colonizing 'far away' from capital are: (azimov beta 2 yada)
>greater distance = higher possibility ethics change.
> hostile might colonize in between (as menioned above).
> greater distance (supposedly) costs more influence to estabish colony. (I've never seen this, always seems to cost 30 influence sop far in my first playthru).

[Azunai]

i think you can only put adjacent systems into the same sector, and my impression was that they don't count as adjacent if the borders aren't connected. so that would be a reason to aim for a "blob"

[Dray Prescot]

I think the biggest reason is that when you establish a sector each new system that you add has to directly border systems that are already in the sector. No gaps in claimed territory.

Someone with Wormhole drive does not care since he jumps directly from system to system, as long as there are systems available to use that are not blocked by other Races. (it is best for him to secure control and ownership of the necessary stepping points/systems)

Someone with Warp drive would have problems but might be able to get by another Race's territory, if it is not too thick.

Players with Hyper drive would have the most problems.

In the early game Hyper drive players can find the tough space monsters' (or Fallen Empire's) systems hard to get around/through with non military ships.

[Half Phased]

Originally posted by Dray Prescot:

I think the biggest reason is that when you establish a sector each new system that you add has to directly border systems that are already in the sector. No gaps in claimed territory.

Someone with Wormhole drive does not care since he jumps directly from system to system, as long as there are systems available to use that are not blocked by other Races. (it is best for him to secure control and ownership of the necessary stepping points/systems)

Someone with Warp drive would have problems but might be able to get by another Race's territory, if it is not too thick.

Players with Hyper drive would have the most problems.

In the early game Hyper drive players can find the tough space monsters' (or Fallen Empire's) systems hard to get around/through with non military ships.

I've found that if both ends of a hyperlane don't end in claimed territory you can move through it (may be a bug, I was moving through an AI territory to reach the preythorn). Also hyperlane may be the best for moving through systems with natural dangers, due to the lack of cool down, the ability to jump from anywhere in the system and generally arriving far enough from a danger so as to not be attacked straight away. And you can just set civilian ships to passive and micro manage them to a safe system.