I guess that just confirms my earlier suspicions... which is why I dropped out of playing some time ago, I'm afraid. And you're not even up to six months yet ;-)
Nothing forces you to have as many colonies as I do, I just can't resist it. The game has few goals, really if you wanted you could just build yourself a nice heavily defended little core, and go raiding your allies if that floats your boat. It is also pathetically easy to defend yourself right now.
