How to play an Easy Introductory Game in the Pre-Warp Age of Shadows

[tylertoo]

Erik, your nice suggested start fails to list how many other empires you create, and with what setting. In other words, the "Start a New Game: Other Empires" screen is missing. Even if we auto-generate opponents, how many should we do?

[Erik Rutins]

Whoops, not sure how I missed posting that!

If I recall correctly, I set it to two other empires and set them to "Distant". It's fine to let the AI decide which species/governments, given the other settings.

[tylertoo]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

If I recall correctly, I set it to two other empires and set them to "Distant". It's fine to let the AI decide which species/governments, given the other settings.

Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps an edit to add this to the end of post #4 or the start of post #5 (where the missing screen would appear) would help newcomers who stop by this thread.

Just two other empires? I suppose this would give a new player plenty of time to build up an empire without being nagged or hassled. But it seems kind of low given the size of galaxy. I'm still somewhat new, and really want to learn the systems better, so I'm going to give it a try).

[Øystein]

I haven't played DW in a while, so I upgraded to the new Universe version, and most of these options are not available anymore in the New Game screen.

Is there a way to get the old New Game selection screens back, since the new one only gives you the choices for galaxy size/shape/star amounts, then race and government and difficulty. None of the other options

Edit: Nevermind, I was hitting "Standard Empire in Age of Shadows" instead of "Custom Game as Standard Empire".

[bobthe]

One problem with the AI that can handicap you as a beginner is auto-retrofitting. The AI automatically retrofitted my small space station at my homeworld to a large one very early on. It was before I had even finished researching the first hyperdrive. The maintenance cost was too much to get positive again that early and I was basically stuck not being able to build anything. I could have scrapped the station and built a new small one but by that time I had lost too much ground in the expansion race and decided to restart.

[Hattori Hanzo]

I'm a "Distant World Universe" learner and I find this thread really G-R-E-A-T to start to play and slowly learn without be overwhelmed by the incredible amount of "things to do and message to read".. [:)]