Matrix Games Forums

Hi there, i got DW U recently and ive been having issues getting it to run how id like.

What i want to do is set up a game on full automation and have it running in background all the time like some virtual space ant farm i can more observe than take part in.

I leave most settings on default except to drop the 2 piracy sliders down a notch, ive tried different galaxy layouts, sizes and starting locations but always ends the same.

What i do is set the game to full automation when launching along with ruins and ships set to be investigated and hide info along with supressing popups.

No matter how i have the game set, after a few hours on x4 speed every other race has expanded to cover huge areas of space with colonies and distant links, while my race has only managed to expand to maybe 3 or 4 colonies and then starts to decline. Ive tried adjusting the colony range limits higher and lower but it doesnt make any difference or even effect the AI it seems, they still seem to spread all over the place fast while colony range is set to 2.

Is there any way to set the game to work in full automation mode so my AI can be properly competitive and actually expand like the other AI races? Ive tried 4 or 5 games now with different settings and all have ended up with me having 2-4 colonies while everyone else is spread all over the place after a few hours on accelerated time.

Thanks for look.

I think you have done something to stop your own AI from doing well. Some races are less likely to do well than others, so take note of who are consistently good. When I have tried to do long, automated runs in order to hunt for crashes, I have used the gizurean. They may suffer in later game as the rest catch up in population, though. The point of these games have mostly been to not lose so that the game ends for that reason...

Set whatever you want in the first setup screen, but make difficulty "normal" if you want a fair fight. Also normal corruption. And make sure to have the same settings for your empire as the general galaxy ones when getting to that screen.

In the game, use the options window to set full automation, empire settings to suppress all popups, and off you go.

Having a look at an old automated game in an old spiral(?) galaxy, I saw my gizzies a distant third behind the naxxilians and ugnari. It is probably not all random that the two leaders started near the edge and not in the center. Luck of the draw matters too, but it helps to have a racial advantage on top of that.

Ah sweet thanks.

I was using humans for my initial runs so that might be the issue.

They just never seemed to make large jumps out into space compared to other races who were linking to colonies 1/2 way over the map, my humans only sticking to close planets and never expanding beyond that even if there was lots of planets and space between other empires.

About the colony range limit option, is it best left at 2 (or 2.5 i cant remember), to raise it or to remove the limit altogether? Does it also apply to computer AI too as ive seen a few AI colonies miles from the rest of their empires?

Thanks again!

The rules are the same for all, apart from difficulty tweaks. You can invade far away, and the AI is happy to do so. They attack what they can during war.

I don't think humans should do particularly bad, so either bad luck, or you did something to handicap your empire in game setup.

Thanks again, i ended up choosing Gizurean as my race and it dominated right to the victory conditions.

I noticed that the game can keep running after victory, i take it the game continues to play out just as it has been until one empire rules them all? Also will the game continue to autosave every 30 mins after a victory claim?

The game always autosaves, even if paused.

The game will run until you are wiped out or conquer all. The latter will hardly ever happen, since the game punishes the very large empires that are continuously at war...

Just cancel and play on, but in my experience saving takes a long time when the game has run for very many years.