BUG - Game Creation off-by-one

[mordachai]

Game creation - penultimate dialog - asks for you to specify how many opponents.

The top option - automatic - asks for how many - with a minimum of 1.
The lower option lets you add them one at a time.

They both max out at 20. Presumably, 20 opponents, for a grand total of 21 including yourself (plus menaces, like Mortalen AI)...

But if you put 1 for the top number (meaning, 1 opponent) - you get ZERO opponents.

So that top interface is "off by one" in your implementation.

This has been true of every single version so far released.

VERIFY: start a game with that indicator set to 1 - notice how your empire is representative of around 75% of all categories, even starting pre-warp with nothing.

You can use the in-game-editor to list the empires - and you'll also find there are none but yourself and the NPC AIs like Mortalen AI -- no actual opponents.

[stuart3]

Not quite. It actually asks you how many starting empires - not opponents - will be in the game, and the first empire is your own.

[mordachai]

Then it's dumb, and needs to bottom out at 2.

And it's still dumber than that - since you can have 1+20=21 with the lower interface.

[AKicebear]

Then it's dumb, and needs to bottom out at 2.

And it's still dumber than that - since you can have 1+20=21 with the lower interface.

At the very least it needs to explain that clearly.

I would also like to see the two options (random empires, preset empires) be an AND option, not OR. E.g. I want 10 random based on the earlier game settings, and 2 that are distant big bad guys for me to eventually contend with.

[thegreybetween]

I actually dig the ability to play a game with 0 opponents. Turn off win conditions entirely and you now have the perfect setup for a pure sandbox casual space exploration and development game.

I totally get that it isn't for everybody, and I'll spend only a small fraction of my time in this type of game. But I'm thankful that the option exists and hope they keep it. Sorry you think it is dumb, but it definitely doesn't need to bottom out at 2. Clearer explanations are always welcome, and the default setups should absolutely contain some number of opponents. But simply having the ability to set a 0-opponent game is a feature, and an appreciated one.

[mordachai]

That's cool if they want to offer a pure sandbox mode - Just needs to say that what it is.

I also like the mixing random and specified.

Would be nice on the random ones if you could specify other defaults that only are available in the lower UI - distance from player, e.g.

I have no idea if they really honestly intended for a solo sandbox option - since it doesn't warn you that there would be no opponents - and it almost instantly declares that you won the game (doesn't default the win conditions to off/disabled when you're in that solo mode).

[stuart3]

You can get the same effect in the lower UI by setting an empire's race to "(Random)".

[zgrssd]

"The two hardest things in programming are:
- cache invalidation
- naming things
- off by one errors"

[mordachai]

@zgrssd That's Perfect!