What's your favorite galaxy settings?

[Sparviero]

I like to play with:

- 1000 stars and 15x15 sectors map becouse I like big galaxys but also with some distance between stars
- Prewarp start becouse I never like where the IA build the first mining base and make me feel less free
- Research cost x2 becouse I like slow tech grow...the only problem is the reaserch time of the very first warp tech...but after that, it feels perfect. Maybe in the future I will change the cost of the first warp tech and use the global research cost x4.

I will try very soon:

- minimum numbers of colony and indipendent: untill now I played with this two option on few, but looks to me like there were still too many colonizable planets
- very few pirates, normal strengt: untill now I played with pirates on normal...but there were too many of them...there were more pirates than empires. It was funny fight them...but too much...untill now I never fight against others empire...always against pirates.

[Bingeling]

Whatever stars and galaxy...

Prewarp because it lets the pirates set up properly before empires reach space.
Very slow research to give the pirates more time to set up.
Many independents only so that the pirates have more colonies to corrupt before empires reach space, and thus be more powerful.

The only issue is that Prewarp is rather boring, and it takes ages with very slow research. If I started now I would probably start on full auto with autosave enabled (20 minutes or so), and take over once hyperdrive is researched. With the autosaves I would not have to actually watch the game in this phase, and it is no big issue if I forget about it for an hour or so...

[RogerBacon]

My usual setup is 4x4 with the most stars I can squeeze in (I think its 400). I used to have crashes when saving the game and I assumed it was memory related so I kept things small. I haven't had a crash in months though so maybe I'll start to ramp up the galaxy size.

Research x2
Pirates: max and max strength
Era: pre-warp. Sometimes default starting
Other empires: Usually 9 auto-generated.

[Franky007]

A long time ago i wrote a file with my favorite settings:

Settings : (PreWarp/Normal/Pirate)
Galaxy : Spiral or Irregular
Star Amount : 400 or 700
Physical size : 8x8 for 400 stars, 10x10 for 700 stars
Expansion : PreWarp/Starting/PreWarp
Difficulty : Hard (difficulty scale)
Aggression : Restless
Research costs : 120k/150k/240k
Space creatures : Few
Pirates : Few/Few/Normal (Average)
Pirate strength : Weak/Normal/Strong (no respawn)

Colony prevalence : Occasionnal
Independent alien life : Scattered
Colonization range : 2.00

Your Empire :
Home system : Normal (Disband 2-4 troops at start to reduce upkeep)
Size : Starting
Tech level : Normal
Corruption : Normal

Number of starting Empires : 8 with 400 stars, 12 with 700 stars
Size : Starting
Tech level : PreWarp/Starting/PreWarp
Home System : Normal
Proximity : 0 x Nearby, 3 x Average, 5 x Distant (1/4/7 for 700 stars)

Enable ONLY racial victory conditions
Put victory treshold at 80%
Victory apply after 30 years
Disable Tech Trading
Disable Original story to disable Debris fields

[Ranbir]

Largest galaxy possible, slow tech growth because I like some periods of time where I'm not having to upgrade every 15 minutes.

Then I work to limit colonisation range to being just under a sector, this keeps everyone contained and their borders continuous. I like orderly things!

[Hattori Hanzo]

1000 Stars size: 15 x 15
because I like huge galaxies and having some space between clusters

Pre-Warp Start
I like to slowly grow-up from scratch

Research Cost: 2x
I don't like to be forced to refit every and each 10 minutes or so.. [:o]

Pirates: Few - Normal - No Re-Spawning
I like to make war to the Pirates, but not too much.. [8D]

[Unforeseen]

Irregular Galaxy (It's essentially a star cluster which makes more sense than a galaxy with only a few thousand stars in it)1400 Stars, 15x15 Grid.

Restless, Normal, various house rules.

Creatures: Few
Pirates: Many/Weak (respawning)

Agreeable home system for all empires.

Tech Level: 1 (pre-warp starts tend to result in unbalanced games in favor of high reproduction races)
Size: Lowest

Research: 999k

Prevalence: Highest (bigger wars, the lowest setting is technically the most immersive but being limited to 1400 stars under such circumstances makes the game a bit to small for my tastes)

Colonization range 2.0
Influence: 200% (more wars)

Independent aliens removed with editor.

Sandbox

[RogerBacon]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

Research: 999k

Glacial. I play with only x2 research costs and I've never seen the second half of the tech tree.

[Unforeseen]

ORIGINAL: RogerBacon

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

Research: 999k

Glacial. I play with only x2 research costs and I've never seen the second half of the tech tree.

Lol even on 999k the default research costs with RetreatUE are too low for me. Granted I min-max my research and very carefully choose what technology to advance in, taking the next few decades into consideration.

[RogerBacon]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

ORIGINAL: RogerBacon

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

Research: 999k

Glacial. I play with only x2 research costs and I've never seen the second half of the tech tree.

Lol even on 999k the default research costs with RetreatUE are too low for me. Granted I min-max my research and very carefully choose what technology to advance in, taking the next few decades into consideration.

I think I don't research very well. Even late in the game my spies have many choices of tech to steal from the AI. In all other 4x games I'm usually way ahead of all AI empires by mid game.

[Unforeseen]

I just keep all my labs in one base (home colony) with all my scientists and run the math to make sure I'm exactly at maximum research. I double check this after every completed research project. It's helpful to remember that as your population increases, your number of scientists will increase. Causing lower tech research to become much faster than when you originally reached that tech level. So I select a small number of must have techs that I foresee needing in the near future and focus on pushing those into the next tech level and then go back and get the others later when they are easier to complete.

So lets say I'm at Tech 2 FTL and Shields, Tech 1 in everything else. My focus is the former, so I'll push those to Tech 3 then go back and bring anything else I need from Tech 1 up to Tech 2. If I have a decent spy, or someone just bad at CI for some reason I'll send them to steal research on Tech 1's while I research the Tech 3's.

You can also completely break the game by maxing out your population on every single colony. Just set a planet that is under the cap to zero percent tax until it maxes. Doesn't take long and your research will be ridiculous compared to the AI.

[Uncle Lumpy]

"To each, their own." This is my current way:

Varied Clusters, 1000 stars, 15x15
Starting, Chaos, Hard or Very Hard (I admit "Hard" is very easy, but I only play that level for fun)
Normal research, no creatures
A few, normal strength pirates, with no re-spawn. (I've noticed the game seems to generate way more pirates on "Very Few" than it does on "Few"?!)
Colony prevalence: Abundant; Indi Alien Life: Teaming (can form empires-and they do)( I often build a modified Monitor base and put a fleet over a favorable Indi., simply so it can become an empire)
Colony Influence range: 125%; Colonization range: 2.08 sectors
Home system Normal-Excellent (depends); Size: Starting; Tech Level 1, Corruption: Low (I don't have the patience for Pre-warp)
I randomly generate three alien empires (races, government, and size random), all with my tech level or higher, and all DISTANT from me (gives me enough time to develop a bit before we go at it)
Victory: Territory 20%, Population: 30%, Economy: 25%; 80% threshold at 80 years; ends in 110 years
Enable: original DW story events, Race-specific events, Tech trading (I use it more to give my higher tech to a weaker ally-sort of like foreign aid)
Plus my own "house" rules to keep from "cheating"

250 stars in a 15x15 galaxy can be great fun, too.

[Unforeseen]

Of course hard is easy! There are only three other empires and your galaxy size is meant for at least 16!

[Serenitis]

Irregular Galaxy
250 Stars
15x15 Sectors
Lots of empty space, travel takes a while, and expansion is very slow.

Kind of torn between prewarp and standard starts.
Standard gives you the first two tiers of hyperdrives so you don't have to wait to discover/develop them yourself. But the RNG often gives you interesting start systems with hardly any resources.
Prewarp makes you wait and build everything from scratch, but guarantees you will have all but two strategic resources in your home system which arguably makes it much easier.

Unstable.
Normal difficuly.
Normal & Weak Pirates.
Normal creatures
650k research.

Occaisional colonies.
Normal independants.
100% colony influence.
Enforce 2.5 sector colony range.
Expansion can be.... Interesting. Sometimes you get a lucky break and can settle a decent cluster of systems. Other times RNGeesus smites you with empty sectors and low quality worlds.

Start at galaxy edge. (I really wish it did start you on the edge instead of in some fuzzily defined boundary area that covers 2/3 of the galaxy.)
Trying home system.
Starting size.
Prewarp tech if prewarp selected in galaxy setup, otherwise normal.
Normal corruption.
Either republic gov. if available, or random and make the best of it.

Generate 11 random/random starting empires with normal/distant home systems.
Set starting tech to match your own.
Allow independants to form new empires.

Turn off all victory conditions.
Turn off Shakturi story. (Too "exciting" for what I want from most of my games.)
Turn on original DW story. (Wrecks. I love wrecks like a magpie loves shiny.)
Turn on disasters.
Turn on events.
Turn on Shadows story.
Allow tech trading.
Allow start Kaltors.

Load a variant of the "Lower Speed and Range" mod package to make early exploration harder.
I'm here for a comfy game and I care nothing for your expectations.

[Retreat1970]

I have no favorite but if I had to choose it would be 100 stars and as many races that will fit. RetreatUE on extreme. Intense and quick. I hate playing games where I know I've won before I click start (you know what I mean?). I've lost as many games as I've won on 100 stars, and that's ok.

[Hattori Hanzo]

for Serenits:

what do you mean with "RNG".. ????? [&:]

[Sithuk]

random number generation

The roll of the dice that determines the universe setup, within set parameters.