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Questions - 11/28/2011 12:08:58 PM

Ubercat

Posts: 96
Joined: 12/19/2007
From: Near Allentown, PA
Status: offline

I just bought the game plus both expansions and have some praise, a complaint, and some questions.

First, the game is gorgeous. I love the tech tree, the many races, and the sheer size of everything.

Second, "random" starting placement seems to be skewered. I started a game with 1400 systems, 20 random races, and took the honorable humanoids with good research and big heads. The regular human home world was in MY home system! With 1400 systems and 20 races, the odds of that happening should be VERY slim. Even in the "Let's Play" videos, which I watched before purchase, the player had another race start out almost on top of him. I've read other complaints online to similar effect.

I read someone suggest that I should manually select 20 random AI races and set the starting distance to average. I tried that, and I saw that they need to be individually set 20 times. OK, no big deal I guess, and then I saw the other settings that start at "random", Size and Tech level. AI Size ranges from "Starting" to "Old", and Tech from "Starting" to "Level 7".

Since they start at random, I could end up facing an Old, Tech 7 race right in my back yard from the start, unless I go through and manually change 60 settings. Why is that even necessary?

The obvious solution is to make the settings sticky. When the player adds 1 random race and sets it's options, all further added races start with the same settings as the first. The player can tweak the additional races if he wants the galaxy to have some stronger races, for example.

Thanks for listening!

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"I�m not convinced that faith can move mountains, but I�ve seen what it can do to skyscrapers." -William H. Gascoyne

Post #: 1

RE: Questions - 11/28/2011 12:29:42 PM

stewart.bragg

Posts: 88
Joined: 7/4/2008
Status: offline

Manually set the races and set their distance to "Average". This usually sets them equally apart.

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Post #: 2

RE: Questions - 11/28/2011 12:42:12 PM

Ubercat

Posts: 96
Joined: 12/19/2007
From: Near Allentown, PA
Status: offline

Thanks, I got that part. Do you know anything about the other settings?

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"I�m not convinced that faith can move mountains, but I�ve seen what it can do to skyscrapers." -William H. Gascoyne

(in reply to stewart.bragg)

Post #: 3

RE: Questions - 11/28/2011 1:11:44 PM

Bingeling

Posts: 3871
Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline

If you randomize all the others, I think you risk finding one empire starting as large with max tech, and another as 1 colony starter tech...

Some old posts somewhere contained some player settings that looked quite nice. With intelligent races starting on higher tech, other races starting with more development, etc.

See the post from WoodMan in this thread:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2637833

It is a nice way of customizing, and you can of course adjust to your preference.

(in reply to Ubercat)

Post #: 4

RE: Questions - 11/28/2011 4:23:29 PM

the1sean

Posts: 841
Joined: 5/11/2010
From: Texas, USA
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ubercat

I just bought the game plus both expansions and have some praise, a complaint, and some questions.

First, the game is gorgeous. I love the tech tree, the many races, and the sheer size of everything.

Glad you like it, and welcome to the community!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ubercat

Second, "random" starting placement seems to be skewered. I started a game with 1400 systems, 20 random races, and took the honorable humanoids with good research and big heads. The regular human home world was in MY home system! With 1400 systems and 20 races, the odds of that happening should be VERY slim. Even in the "Let's Play" videos, which I watched before purchase, the player had another race start out almost on top of him. I've read other complaints online to similar effect.

I read someone suggest that I should manually select 20 random AI races and set the starting distance to average. I tried that, and I saw that they need to be individually set 20 times. OK, no big deal I guess, and then I saw the other settings that start at "random", Size and Tech level. AI Size ranges from "Starting" to "Old", and Tech from "Starting" to "Level 7".

A couple of things can effect this: galaxy age, and independent prevalence. the higher the age or independent prevalence the more often you will see many independents near you. Start another game or two with the settings at the lowest point and you should see a big difference. Otherwise, if you keep having this issue then it is a bug and should be posted in the tech support forum.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ubercat

Since they start at random, I could end up facing an Old, Tech 7 race right in my back yard from the start, unless I go through and manually change 60 settings. Why is that even necessary?

The obvious solution is to make the settings sticky. When the player adds 1 random race and sets it's options, all further added races start with the same settings as the first. The player can tweak the additional races if he wants the galaxy to have some stronger races, for example.

Thanks for listening!

Actually it's more nuanced. The random values should fall near your galaxy default setting. Lets say you set the galaxy age to "young", and tech 2, most of the empires will be either starting, young, or expanding, and their tech levels should be 1, 2, or 3. You don't have to change them all for them to fall withing a "nearby setting" from the initial galaxy settings page. So the settings are already pretty "sticky", start a couple of games then open the editor and look at the map, you will see that it works. If you want to fine-tune each race's exact settings then I suggest then you can do it one race at a time. It may take 2 or 3 minutes, but the nice thing is that whenever you return to that screen it will have saved your previous settings that took a minute to set up.

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(in reply to Ubercat)

Post #: 5

RE: Questions - 11/28/2011 5:02:32 PM

w1p

Posts: 135
Joined: 11/23/2011
Status: offline

I found adding the number of races you want personally, and changing the size + tech level personally to starting/tech 1, and leave the distance from you to random.

With 18 other's, 1400 star 15x15 size map irregular + clusters, I normally only get 1 or 2 near me. I think by leaving it "random" the distance from you box, it selects from nearby (low weight) average (medium weight) distant (low weight) and never uses in the same system.

I say "normally" as there's a lot of random factors :)

(in reply to the1sean)

Post #: 6

RE: Questions - 12/1/2011 10:49:38 PM

Ubercat

Posts: 96
Joined: 12/19/2007
From: Near Allentown, PA
Status: offline

Thanks, guys!

Next question: If I leave fleet creation at automated, but create one or more fleets by hand for specific purposes, will the AI disband the fleets I made myself in favor of its own?

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"I�m not convinced that faith can move mountains, but I�ve seen what it can do to skyscrapers." -William H. Gascoyne

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Post #: 7

RE: Questions - 12/2/2011 12:56:01 AM

Gelatinous Cube

Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline

If you leave your personal fleets on Manual control, then the AI will leave them alone. This is how I tend to do things, with the AI creating and maintaining most of my fleets, but I like to take control or create specific fleets for personal use or specific war goals.

It's all about the Automation button, and Empire Settings. Set war and attacks to suggest, and then set fleet automation to auto, and your military will mostly think for itself, asking you when it wants to do important stuff, and all you have to do to take total control of something is to just click the automate button for the ship or fleet you want to control.

(in reply to Ubercat)

Post #: 8

RE: Questions - 12/2/2011 1:50:11 AM

Ubercat

Posts: 96
Joined: 12/19/2007
From: Near Allentown, PA
Status: offline

Ahh, so I would have to micromanage those fleets. Rats, I was hoping I could set a couple of small fleets to base themselves in specific, pirate prone areas so that they don't have to travel so far when the bad guys attack.

It seems that, if I don't want to hold my military ships hands, then the best way to make sure that my outlying areas are well protected is to overbuild ships. If the AI has a lot of extra ships to play with then maybe they won't keep them all at the capital. Kind of like throwing enough sh*t at the wall so some sticks!

_____________________________

"I�m not convinced that faith can move mountains, but I�ve seen what it can do to skyscrapers." -William H. Gascoyne

(in reply to Gelatinous Cube)

Post #: 9

RE: Questions - 12/2/2011 7:52:19 AM

Gelatinous Cube

Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Ubercat

Ahh, so I would have to micromanage those fleets. Rats, I was hoping I could set a couple of small fleets to base themselves in specific, pirate prone areas so that they don't have to travel so far when the bad guys attack.

It seems that, if I don't want to hold my military ships hands, then the best way to make sure that my outlying areas are well protected is to overbuild ships. If the AI has a lot of extra ships to play with then maybe they won't keep them all at the capital. Kind of like throwing enough sh*t at the wall so some sticks!

Not so! If you have a star base or space port or mining base in an area that you want defended, you can take a fleet off auto then set its home base to that particular spot. After that, set the fleet posture to "Defend" and the range to whatever you want
(usually defend sector is a good one).

(in reply to Ubercat)

Post #: 10