When you are ready, your colony may begin production and training of soldiers. When the soldiers are ready for battle, the system takes a turn into “Real Time Strategy”. You will be able to engage other players in political and strategic warfare. You can also make friends, enemies, become a king or perhaps an Emperor of the server. Forming an alliance with other players colonies will benefit you by a reward of more turns.
Newbies (up to a certain tech rank) cannot attack or be attacked. When you are attacked, you can never lose more than 10% of your colony. If 10% of your colony is destroyed by an opponent, then your colony is considerd to have been conquered. Being conquered in colonization doesn’t mean you *lose* anything, it means you’ve been conquered and now have a King.
You have 3 days of immunity after being conquered. Also, while you are immune to attack (the three day window) you can’t attack anyone else, so if you’re hit every three days like clockwork with no defenses, you won’t be able to conquer anyone else. It would seem that you would probably want to build up your defenses during this immmunity period. Three Days is roughly what it would take the casual/leisure player to rebuild that 10% and a little bit extra.
When you are conquered, any colonies you had conquered regain their independance. Your new King will not be able to attack you again unless you become independent of him. Your colony will pay your King a tithe (tax) of 20-30% of their production/resources. Your conqured colony has many options concerning its fate. It may perform one of the following scenarios.
- Revolt (attack your King)
- Work with the king
- Ally with other colonies the King has conquered and stage a revolt
- Beg the king for independance
- Wait until someone else conquers the King
If you want your colony to revolt, you must use your time wisely and accumulate a large army, and attack your King or Emperor. A King has not just his own colony to defend anymore, but yours, and all the others he has conquered as well. It’s going to get increasingly difficult for him to not only fight off enemies, but keep you happy enough where you don’t want to revolt.
Some players may plan to ignore building defense all together and build up offense. The fact remains that those colonies you have conquered can easily come in (after the 3 day immunity period) and beat you up in return. You’ll be without defenses to stop it.
If you have no interest in the strategic element to colonization, then you may let yourself be conquered. A conquered colony gives up 20-30% of its production to his King and no more.