Major players need to be further away from each other

[scottrossi]

I don't feel like this is a bug, as it's been in the game since launch, but it seems to be getting more pronounced as the game advances. I don't know whether it's a suggestion or just something to discuss so I'm putting it here.

Major players are far too close together. Most games, I'll see 4 or 5 clumped together and then the remainder given a good spread, sometimes too much of a spread.

Since this latest patch, especially on the new Hydra class worlds, it's even worse. In the most recent game I rolled, I was in the middle of a clump of five majors, the closest major city was four hexes away from me. Then about 40 hexes of non-aligned territory away, the remaining majors were all clumped together with the exception of one lonely major all the way up on the north pole, alone with no neighbors. In the previous game, which I quit as soon as I started it, there was a major city one hex away, and another was three or four! I've seen some minors like that, but that's just frustrating.

While I wouldn't mind one, maybe two major neighbors, at a reasonable distance, it sort of ruins the fun of the game when you're immediately boxed in and miss out on all the exploring and dealing with minors. I don't want to play with Nemesis, because I like there being a whole bunch of major nations to deal with as well. I don't know what the ideal distance should be for majors, but I definitely want to see the clumps broken up. I feel like there should not be more than 3 majors in proximity to each other, and definitely obeying the rules of city placement (5 hexes IIRC?).

I am hoping that Vic has this on his to do list already, as part of a world creation overhaul or something, but I still didn't want it to go unremarked. This game is incredible and I've been playing it a ridiculous amount since last June. This isn't something that's going to kill the game for me, but it definitely makes me quit and reroll way too much.

[DasTactic]

I agree 100%. At least this should be an option in the History set-up to have Majors spread across the planet instead of in clusters.

[BlueTemplar]

Ah, yeah, this game comes to mind :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWiB-35dtZU
First Major City : 3 tiles away !!!
First Minor City : 7 tiles away (5 tiles from the major)
Second Minor City : 8 tiles away (7 tiles from the major)
However he *did* enable the "Survival Stress" option...

The "worst" that I've seen myself was (without "Survival Stress", in 1.07.05) this minor city, only 2 tiles away from mine !!

[redrum68]

+1 especially on higher difficulty levels it seem major regimes often spawn very close to you with large portions of the map without any

[Mercutio]

I agree as well

[Arralen]

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We NEED equidistant spawns as a History Class

[scottrossi]

ORIGINAL: Arralen

.
We NEED equidistant spawns as a History Class

oh i missed this! i don't do MP but good gods i can imagine how much worse it would be.

[Tchey]

Options needed indeed.

[Jorgas]

This have been brought up several times on the forums, sadly people seem to be more interested in having super easy early city caps from the AI in the start of the game, which gives the human player a huge advantage and a insane kickstart so the rest of the AI's wont ever catch up not even the extreme dif/nemesis one, then giving them time to expand and be a threat at all. In my latest game I had 3 cities by turn 17, 4 by turn 27, and I could without any population issues found 3 more cities for a total of 7 by turn 50-55ish my nemesis had 2 and were slowly working on conquering their third, and then I accidentally "won" the game on largest map lol.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Jorgas

This have been brought up several times on the forums, sadly people seem to be more interested in having super easy early city caps from the AI in the start of the game, which gives the human player a huge advantage and a insane kickstart so the rest of the AI's wont ever catch up not even the extreme dif/nemesis one, then giving them time to expand and be a threat at all.

This maybe be a somewhat difficult concept, but:
Not everyone that disagrees with you has the exact opposite opinion. Especially not if the opposite of your position is such a cartoonish parody of logic.
There is a lot of room between [Your Opinion] and [Cartoonish Opposite you thought up]. And there are plenty of positions on that spectrum where people can disagree with you.

Nobody here disagrees on this needing work.
We are just well aware that it is not trivial and basically requires reworking major parts of the planet generation and history process.
So we try to make due with the mechanic we have, until Vic has time for such a massive rework. There is nothing else to be said about it.

[Vic]

Everybody seems to be quite agreed here. Making notes!

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: Vic

Everybody seems to be quite agreed here. Making notes!

Please also allow players to select their start location. I've had lots of maps that could lead to epic campaigns, but became boring because of meh start location.

[eddieballgame]

ORIGINAL: newageofpower

ORIGINAL: Vic

Everybody seems to be quite agreed here. Making notes!

Please also allow players to select their start location. I've had lots of maps that could lead to epic campaigns, but became boring because of meh start location.

Maybe a way of selecting zones could work out well.
For single player games, this does not bother me too much; more of an issue per multiplayer. imho

[scottrossi]

VIC YOU ARE THE BEST DEV, SERIOUSLY!

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Vic

Everybody seems to be quite agreed here. Making notes!

Yes this would be my biggest request as well! Thanks for listening!

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: eddieballgame
Maybe a way of selecting zones could work out well.
For single player games, this does not bother me too much; more of an issue per multiplayer. imho

Also, generally being able to select what major you want to load your game into, even in singleplayer would be really nice !

[Tong_Lo]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar

ORIGINAL: eddieballgame
Maybe a way of selecting zones could work out well.
For single player games, this does not bother me too much; more of an issue per multiplayer. imho

Also, generally being able to select what major you want to load your game into, even in singleplayer would be really nice !

This, it would be great to be able to select the number of Major you want to play against.
And overall scattered start positions, as an example Civilization (I know it's a way much simpler title), you start to gradually meet other "civs" the more you explore, which is good for early development.

[BlueTemplar]

No, that would be another setting, and you can already kind of control it.

What I mean is that when you load a game (and potentially when you start a game) is to be able to pick what major you're going to be playing.

How does it work right now for multiplayer - there must be a selection screen for each player to pick their Major, password-protected I assume ?

P.S.: The start positions are *already* scattered, this is where the issue comes from : they're perhaps *too* random, what we are asking here is for start positions to be (optionally) *less* random ( = less "scattered" ?).
Some Civilization titles also run into this issue... well, depending on your preferences.

[t1it]

If not a being able to pick a start location, allow a random seed at least.

[Culthrasa]

+1 to more spread out starts!