New player with a couple questions

[nissantech]

Hi everyone. I'm playing my first game in classic mode as humans against 3 other races just to sorta learn the gameplay. Playing the version that allows playing the other races. I am enjoying the game alot but have 2 questions. I have looked on the forum but didn't find the answer. Sorry if both of these have been answered before.

1-I am approximately 220 turns into the game and have terraforming researched to level 5. The description for says I can't terraform gas giants which is ok but I tried colonizing a toxic planet and could not change the pollution control over to terraform like with Mars and Venus. I kept the colony on the toxic planet for maybe 5 or 6 turns hoping that after I built industry on it the option to terraform would be available but it never happened. Just gave up and abandoned the colony. Noticed that when I colonized a desert or arctic planet the option to start terraforming is available before the listening post becomes a full colony. Is this normal or a bug?

2-Currently at war with one of the other races and I'm trying to invade one of their worlds but when I try to deploy ground troops it tells me they can't be deployed when the world is defended. I have destroyed all starships and starbases. Have bombarded the world for 2 or 3 turns yet I don't understand why I can't deploy troops. Any ideas as to what I'm not doing right?

Thanks for any help with these 2 questions. I really like the game and am looking forward the improvements and additions that will come in the future.

[CrispyMouse]

At the moment toxic planet's must be cleaned of pollution first, but that is currently not working because the game keeps the population from growing above 50k and you need about 200m for the cleaning processes to begin.

At the planet that you are trying to invade, does it fire missiles at you? If so you need to bombard the planet until you destroy the missile defense. Another way to tell is if, when you are targeting the planet, there is a green "shield" in the info box with a number.

[nissantech]

Thanks for your reply. So the green shield number must be reduced to zero before you can invade? Wow you really have to bombard the planet alot then to invade.

[CrispyMouse]

Yep, and the shield regenerates between turns