foreign colony

[davidchin 0]

Suppose there are a foreign (blue) colony with only blue ships on it in my home system.

I have drawn a destiny card indicating blue, which is my own home system.

I want to land my ships in that planet although I do not want to have encounter with blue and my encounter ends.

Is this allowed?

Thanks in advance.

[davidchin 0]

sorry. my mistake.

The destiny card drawn indicates my color. Not blue.

[PJSlavner 4]

This is not allowed.  You may land ships on one of your own planets only if the planet is empty.

[Just_a_Bill 84]

Just to clarify: "You may land ships on one of your own planets without having an encounter only if the planet is empty."

[PJSlavner 4]

If you land on one of your own empty planets, doesn't that count as one of your two encounters you are allowed on your turn?

[Just_a_Bill 84]

Yes indeed.  Sorry ... in my attempt to clarify I introduced ambiguity.  What I really meant was, if you draw your own color and want to reclaim a home planet without encountering another player, that planet has to be empty.  It definitely counts as an encounter, and furthermore should be counted as an encounter that you won.  The FFG rules don't explicitly state that last bit, but it is implied by the Eon moon rules* and is a good definition for keeping the game engine well lubricated.

* Eon did not allow you to challenge your own empty home planet, so they had no need to define an outcome for such a nonexistent event. However, challenging an empty moon was possible in Eon, is directly analogous, and was explicity defined as an encounter with "a winner but no loser".  Had it been possible to encounter your own home planet in Eon, I am certain that would have also been defined as a win.

FFG calls reclaiming an empty home planet a "successful encounter", which is sufficient to tell you whether you can continue your turn, but is not sufficient to answer other gameplay questions about winning and losing, since a successful encounter is not necessarily a win (successful encounters include non-win situations such as deals and, at least under FFG apparently, other outcomes explicity declared "successful" but without telling you who wins, loses, or deals, such as Mite or Wild Leviathan).