Sorry if I rant a little here, but hey.

I have been coming up against the good old colonies instantly switching back to their previous owner due to influence. So I fathomed a tactic against it. Steadily wipe out each of their planets, removing the race from the game. This then gets rid of their influence as well, leaving their planets free for the taking . . . Worked a treat against the first faction.

Did this against the second faction, slightly harder as they had two routes to the first planet I destroyed, so I figured the most dangerous planet and sorted that one out next, then moved onto their home planet. Little did I realise that my ally (supposedly) had sent a colony ship to the first planet I'd 'liberated' from this faction, ready to colonise it. So, I scroll out a little to find out how the rest of my empire is getting on, and I see the original planet is red again. I look around, no colony ships. I zoom in a little, and see a pink colony ship. This is now heading towards the next 'liberated' planet, ready to colonise that one. So I send my cruiser force to sort out the first colony and take out the pesky colony ship on the way. I got there to find that my cruisers simply wouldn't attack the colony ship. I checked the diplomacy window, and lo and behold, they were my allies.

So, where is this going? Well, I can't take out the ship, so I know they're just going to continue colonising the planets behind me and handing them back to the enemy on a silver platter (a big one at that, I wonder who gets to carry it . . .) whilst I try my hardest to push on, failing miserably as my cruisers are busy taking out the planets my ally is handing over quickly so they can't build up a force behind me.

So anyway, my issue? the planet was obviously well inside the enemies cultural influence, in fact, their influence was only just beginning to be pushed back from the planet next in line. So why did my ally colonise this planet that was so far into their cultural territory? Or do they not think that an important factor in their deliberations?

However, my rant is over, time to go and see whether I can get rid of the enemy once and for all.

Oh, and I can't just turn on my ally as it is a locked alliance.