Custom game

[WarHunter]

I spent some time just playing around with the creation of custom games. Here are a few things i found out.

Max # of turns for a game 1Million.

You can possibly start with a Poor home world. Suggestion, unless you want to have a handicap, restart. Poor Home world is bad, very bad for a start.
Suggestion, to game designers, Please do not allow Home-world to be Poor.

You can possibly start with a Rich Home World. This is great. Suggestion, to game designers, Please do not allow Home-world to be Rich.

When creating a custom game, you can't save the parameters.
It would be nice if the player could input map size, planet density, turn length and number of players and save the options for the future. Especially if faced with multiple restarts because of Poor Home-world, complete lack of habitable worlds to colonize, or both.

I like the game. Exploration and contact can be both surprising and depressing. Having to make the decision to colonize a poor world to expand into another part of the galaxy brings rewards at a cost. Space combat so far is adequate without being overwhelming or a clickfest. The pause button is my friend. I'd like to see more formations than just the Line Caracole and Circle. Maybe Wedge, Echelon, others. Glad i bought it.

Now that i have an idea of what my crumputer can successfully handle. I'll be working on a 8 player, 100by100, dense, Spread out galaxy with 1Million turns.

[Iceman]

Hehe, I tried to convince Bob that random homesystems were a bad idea. He didn't listen... [;)]

[WarHunter]

I created a tiny map with 12 players. Looking at the Home-worlds of the Aliens, i noticed over half were Poor worlds.
So as i created more to experiment with the custom game, i realized, if a home world is Poor, its a huge handicap. As the creator of galaxies, i can just restart if my home-world is poor, not so for the poor aliens. 

[Iceman]

Exactly.
Not only do you get lower taxes from most of your pop early game, you'll also pay almost double costs for structures and ships. You cannot also build a Mine in your homesystem.
I even suggested making this a kind of difficulty level setting, the player starting with a Poor homesystem and the AIs with Normal or Rich, depending on pretended diff level, to provide more of a challenge.

[Rosseau]

Warhunter,

You can also edit or create new maps and buff the planets as you like. Same goes for lots of game parameters in the campaign XML.

[Ntronium]

The game calculates a score for your starting position, based on the quality of your home planet and nearby ones. It creates a bunch of random starting positions, and chooses the ones with the least variation between the scores. So if you find you have an unfavorable starting position, it's likely everyone else does too.

[Iceman]

ORIGINAL: rosseau

Warhunter,

You can also edit or create new maps and buff the planets as you like. Same goes for lots of game parameters in the campaign XML.

But you don't know if you'll get a Poor system or a Rich one... So it's not really useful in this aspect.

[Iceman]

ORIGINAL: Ntronium

The game calculates a score for your starting position, based on the quality of your home planet and nearby ones. It creates a bunch of random starting positions, and chooses the ones with the least variation between the scores. So if you find you have an unfavorable starting position, it's likely everyone else does too.

Well, I told you about that time where I started in a position where I only had 3 systems in range, and I couldn't colonize a single one... I doubt all the other AIs had the same fate [;)] (2 were planetless and one was irradiated IIRC).

And again, early taxes depend mostly on your homesystem, not nearby systems. And building a Mine in the 1st turn. Etc.

[WarHunter]

rosseau  Checked out the create maps, its a nice way to design a galaxy and all. Will look it over more.
But, part of the draw of any space game is the exploration.
Loading a map to fix planets that are poor home-worlds, especially AI ones. takes away from the "going where no one has gone before", feel. 

[WarHunter]

Ntronium,

The game calculates a score for your starting position, based on the quality of your home planet and nearby ones. It creates a bunch of random starting positions, and chooses the ones with the least variation between the scores. So if you find you have an unfavorable starting position, it's likely everyone else does too.

I appreciate the fact scoring takes into account starting position. To tell the truth, getting the high score is not all that important to me in a solo game. Maybe if a Thread was started with players posting a screen shot of Victory it might be worth it just to contribute.
The 4X's have much more attraction. "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate".

Starting with a Poor Home-world does nothing to keep me playing and actually motivates me to just restart. Hopefully acquiring a normal or even rich Home-world. Why spend hours playing with a handicap in a game, i"m looking to have fun in?
Now that i know even the Home-worlds of the Aliens could be Poor, makes me rethink Editing a map. Just so the AI is not economically stunted and weak at the expense of "exploring" for me.

I think over time, you will find many more players are not willing to sit through a game with a Poor Home-world. AI Worlds should never be poor either, imho.

[killroyishere]

Can you customize races like you can in Galactic CIv 2? Also I'm glad to read there are random starting home worlds each game as that is why they call it random. As a player you're suppose to deal with getting a Poor planet not reload. Same for the ai it's not suppose to get a perfect home world everytime. I love random I hope he doesn't change it in the future to everybody gets a 10 home base equal to everyone else's.

The game calculates a score for your starting position, based on the quality of your home planet and nearby ones. It creates a bunch of random starting positions, and chooses the ones with the least variation between the scores. So if you find you have an unfavorable starting position, it's likely everyone else does too.

That's excellent Ntronium keep it that way as that keeps the game from being redundant or get stale and boring with the same starting effects every game.

[Iceman]

ORIGINAL: WarHunter
I appreciate the fact scoring takes into account starting position. To tell the truth, getting the high score is not all that important to me in a solo game.

That's not what he meant. All initial positions get a "score" (not game score!) to compare against the others. Similar "scores" are used for all players, to be fair. But if you don't get to those better systems (if you get a Poor one) faster than one of your neighbours, scores are not helpful.

[Iceman]

ORIGINAL: killroyishere
Also I'm glad to read there are random starting home worlds each game as that is why they call it random.

I'm not sure they call it random anywhere in the game. Only if it's in the manual. You won't notice it until you get a Poor homesystem.

As a player you're suppose to deal with getting a Poor planet not reload. Same for the ai it's not suppose to get a perfect home world everytime.

These are *homeworlds*. How can a race expand into space if it developed in a *resource* poor homeworld?! Do you think it makes any sense?

I love random I hope he doesn't change it in the future to everybody gets a 10 home base equal to everyone else's.

Well, an option on galaxy creation would make everybody happy, wouldn't you say?

That's excellent Ntronium keep it that way as that keeps the game from being redundant or get stale and boring with the same starting effects every game.

Yes, this adds lots of variety...