I've noticed that others have had some issues with colonization and related events. The issue I ran into during my first playthrough was an inability to colonize a particular planet. The planet was habitable and a bread basket, but I couldn't colonize it from any direction. I also tried multiple ships. Perhaps this is a tech issue, i.e. I need some form of planetary adaptation in order to colonize...

Also, I've seen some interesting suggestions, such as allowing players to position the initial colony on planets.

Curious to see if others are having similar issues, and to hear other feedback paricularly about colonization.