Heya, am interested what in your experience is the most balanced gallaxy setting for a 10 players game. Ideally would be if all races would start in their own constellation.

Am asking this because I play on endless speed (600 turn) and many races like Vodyani, Vaulters and Unfallen have a hard time colonizing early game compared to rest of civs (mainly UE, cravers and Horatio).

Getting cravers or horatio next to you in same constelation on endless speed is a doomed start because you can't keep up with them and you will run out of space to settle (keep in mind that researching a T1 tech is usually 15 turns outside of exceptional starts where you could bring it down to about 9 turns, building basic infrastructure is about 10 turns as well, a scout / colony ship 10-14 turns).

Any gallaxy shape, size huge, constelations few pretty much.

Since nobody had something to say, I'll add that my experience continues to show that a good start (including "good" neighbours) is so much influencing your game than a bad start.

Example1: start near the end of a constellation with a neighbouring Craver. Yey!

Example2: start in center of constellation, with only neighbour being Horatio. Yey! (close borders, he can't grab your stuff, you fill bacwards colonization wise and defend that one system knowing that you will have the advantage military speaking).

Huge spiral 8 seems to be the best preset at what you were trying to achieve. Almost everyone will start on a separate sleeve of the galaxy, however sometimes constellations can touch 2 sleeves at once. Also from my experience with this galaxy type it is uncommon to start in the academy constellation which can be bonkers for some factions that like minors, so less rng in that way.

mamarider wrote:

Huge spiral 8 seems to be the best preset at what you were trying to achieve. Almost everyone will start on a separate sleeve of the galaxy, however sometimes constellations can touch 2 sleeves at once. Also from my experience with this galaxy type it is uncommon to start in the academy constellation which can be bonkers for some factions that like minors, so less rng in that way.

I would agree however he did specify that he wanted to play with 10 players which would make thing weird as if each arm had a player which doesn't always happen as you said, where would the other two go? Somewhere in the centre I would guess which is less than ideal for some factions.

Cheers much appreciated!

Yeah I was going for 10 to have every race in it since it was a huge gallaxy (and recommendation was for 12 players in fact). But now when I am not playing Vodyani myself, they will not make it in my game, so I can go down to 8 total for a nice spiral np.

The reason why I was asking is because some factions have a really hard time when they are neighbours with more hmmmm fast paced ones? Like Unfallen, Vodyani, Sophons next to Cravers or Horatio or Lumeris. They will get eaten alive. But if they can get through early game, they can offer a more diverse competition and setting - IMHO.

Why did you mention Horatio? They are considered to be a pretty slow faction. Also Sophons can be played in a very agressive manner with their hero's +40% energy damage on weapons, use-and-lose quest trait and great attacking ships. So it is all a bit controversial, and AI can be fooled quite easily. And in mp there are rarely more than 3-4 ppl in the game.

Because Horatio can settle any planet, so they can spam outposts without much worries in early game. Plus AI gets insane bonuses on highest difficulties, so it doesn't really hamper them to spam outposts :)

Yeah Sophons can get very good, but with their crappy industry good luck getting a 7cp fleet out anytime soon or settling more than 2-3 outposts before early game is over.

PS: Vodyani has same 40% energy weapon and better ships (module wise).

PPS: Riftborn Hunters are completely insane, I wanted to complain about lack of utility slot for more energy dmg & crit but hey.... with so many weapon slots who really cares. If you luck out to get a Sophons or Vodyani hero you will pretty much OHK everything in first phase of combat.

I am playing on endless speed, it takes you 8 turns (with sophons science law -20% improvement industry cost) to build drone networks. Earliest you can build a fighter is turn ~30. With no upgrades (the basic version of it) it takes you 12 turns on home system (having 2 industry improvements and about 5 pop). To make a 7cp fleet of those would mean you would build nothing in 1 (or more systems) for over 50 turns at least.

I believe game speed plays a bigger role than what we might presume, as it's really slowing down production more than anything else (science and exploration can still be similar to a normal game, but everything else is much slower).

The reason why I mention Horatio is because in my games, they always have at least 4-5 outposts by turn 30 on endless speed, even playing as Riftborn I can't get more than 2 outposts out by turn 30 it's just not possible (12 turns for 2nd colony ship). I have no ideea how they can build the damn things so fast, but they manage it.