Eminent_Waffle wrote:
I would rather have reality over specially designed systems for players who can't deal with it. After all, our own solar system has gas giants, frozen dwarf planets, molten rocks, and asteroids. That's life, deal with it.

Oh gee, and here I thought having 99.9% of planets being barren, lava, gas giant was realistic, but apparently having a tundra, an arctic, a desert, a tundra, and a jungle orbiting a blue star in that order is realism. How silly of me.

If you start in a sucky situation rewrite your own victory conditions, maybe it's more realistic for you then to just aim to survive the game or help someone else to victory. And who knows, whilst trying to achieve those maybe a situation will open up in which you can become a real contender. Survive and thrive.

Our biggest problem right now is that everytime one person drops. The game totaly changes. suddely after the reload the computer has double the points. fleets missing. the computer added a bunch of shit to your planets if you are the player that is droping. also shipplans, moving your ships to other systems and so on....

Played an 8 player game the other day(We had 7 and I had a great spawn as Hissho, but someone joined us so we rehosted to 8 players)





so the 8 player match. Didn't get my first colony settled until turn 15. I had a single colonizable Tundra with Mineral poor 4 turns travel from me. I finally found an at least acceptable planet 9 turns travel from me.(Everything else near me was Desert/Arctic/Barren/Lava/Gas. Stuff that even if I raced for the tech would still set me significantly behind and that I wouldn't be able to grow anyway.



I figured that because my immediate vicinity was so terrible that it must have surely given me an edge in Luxury and strategic resources. This was not the case. I didn't have a single luxury resource and only had Titanium 70 as a strategic resource. I was good and truly boned. When every had 70 pts(that means it's early) I had 29 pts. You can't recover from a start like that.

Unique is supposed to remove all wormholes, so you shouldn't even have to touch the wormhole factor.

Well, if Wormholes are your problem: set the number of constellations to "unique". And "Wormholes" on "low".

No Wormholes blocking your way.





Sincerly

davea wrote:
And also, this thread is specifically talking about multiplayer. Against the AI, it can be quite fun to have a weak position and try to win anyway. Against other players, getting pwned is no fun.

Correction, getting pwned when you had no control over it is no fun.



I dont have an issue with half-decent worlds around you compared to someone else, then it comes down to your intelligence as a player. However I DO have a problem with me getting boxed in with 4 crappy systems and my opponents get 6-7 systems due to WORMHOLE PLACEMENT. I can control how I expand and build with half-decent or crappy systems, I CANT control me being stuck behind a wormhole with little opportunity to get whormhole travels without an ameoba helping me out. If that Ameoba's a player? Tough shit, GG qq Brah.

I totally agree with the OP on this subject. For MP some balance needs to happen in the opening game.

Haree78 wrote:
Have any of you that are not happy with Random Galaxies ever played a board game called Cosmic Encounter? I'm sure a lot of you have, if not check it out.

You each have a unique Alien that has unique skills, and they are far from balanced. However this is totally acceptable because most of the game is about forming alliances and ganging up.

The most powerful Alien wins about as often as the weakest because the guy who is in the lead can never make alliances or is ever asked to help because it feeds the leader.

In a game like this people who get dealt the best hand will get ganged up on because they are doing well, the empires that are doing least well will trade and pact with each other. Creating balance in Galaxy generation will greatly water down the replayability experience in this game, for the love of god don't do it.

So the only problem with that, is that this game isn't all about forming alliances and ganging up on others?

Have any of you that are not happy with Random Galaxies ever played a board game called Cosmic Encounter? I'm sure a lot of you have, if not check it out.

You each have a unique Alien that has unique skills, and they are far from balanced. However this is totally acceptable because most of the game is about forming alliances and ganging up.

The most powerful Alien wins about as often as the weakest because the guy who is in the lead can never make alliances or is ever asked to help because it feeds the leader.

In a game like this people who get dealt the best hand will get ganged up on because they are doing well, the empires that are doing least well will trade and pact with each other. Creating balance in Galaxy generation will greatly water down the replayability experience in this game, for the love of god don't do it.

A way to resolve this, why not give those with a lower score on planet spawn a few more ships for them ? colony, and defenders ect...

I't stands to reason that if civilizations lived on a crap planet, they would be driven more to build more ships to find something more suitable...

Mainah wrote:
If you start in a sucky situation rewrite your own victory conditions, maybe it's more realistic for you then to just aim to survive the game or help someone else to victory. And who knows, whilst trying to achieve those maybe a situation will open up in which you can become a real contender. Survive and thrive.

Fun for you, maybe not fun for everybody. Imagine starting a game of chess where you have no queen or bishops and only four pawns.

AngleWyrm wrote:
Is there a debug switch that reveals all systems? It would certainly be useful for seed exploration.



But it does also reveal something about the nature of knowledge: Any map generated from a given seed can be considered to be completely revealed to all players. Exploration is no longer a valid game play mechanic when the map is predetermined by a given seed.

The seed only defines the Systems and planets. They are seen at start with the amoeba.

If the seed influence anomalys I can't say for sure (didn't pay atention to it)



Funnly enough the resource destribution (luxory and strategic) is NOT in the seed, but in the resource department (low, medium, many) but also the AI difficulty and the pirate difficulty.





Sincerly

Saranea wrote:
For multiplayer a mirrowed map would be the best with a random mid.

(horizontal and/or vertical mirrowing)



Alternatively the comunity needs to do a little research on the seeds.

Is there a debug switch that reveals all systems? It would certainly be useful for seed exploration.



But it does also reveal something about the nature of knowledge: Any map generated from a given seed can be considered to be completely revealed to all players. Exploration is no longer a valid game play mechanic when the map is predetermined by a given seed.

thegreedyturtle wrote:
Step 1: Play Amoeba.

Step 2: Quit unless you are in a good position.



I also think that we should be able to see the planets connected with one link to our homeworld when the game starts, theoretically, your race has had it's eyes to the sky for some time. This reduces the luck a wee bit, and gives players a more interesting choice at the start of the game.

The human race has had eyes to the sky for how long now? We have data on some extrasolar planets, but still can only guess on some of these objects.

Photon_Ventdesdunes wrote:
The fact is even with some less randomness in multiplayer, who can guarantee the planet where you move first will be the one you can colonize with a wonderful jungle world ? Who tell you it's not the system at the opposite way ?



It will be always luck at the beginning.

Step 1: Play Amoeba.

Step 2: Quit unless you are in a good position.



I also think that we should be able to see the planets connected with one link to our homeworld when the game starts, theoretically, your race has had it's eyes to the sky for some time. This reduces the luck a wee bit, and gives players a more interesting choice at the start of the game.

From release notes:

Lt_Miles wrote on 6/8/2012:



Home systems are now with no less than 3 planets and can't have terran, jungle and ocean planets on top of the home planet.

The AI will make trade buildings only when they can improve the system's dust gain.

Strategic resources will spawn at least one deposit for each type. The GalaxySettings.xml file contains the size of this first minimal deposit, which is under design consideration. Monopoly is not guaranteed, but presence in the galaxy is.

Luxury resources should now only spawn if the generator can allocate enough for a monopoly.

So the home system has had a bit of a tweak, but as a more important note, the devs are trying to hammer out this issue right now, so speak now or forever hold your peace.

Here's the problem:





One side has nearly double the number of systems. And that side also has 6 instantly colonizable planets (terran/ocean/jungle) with 3 on the other side. And all of those planets are within 3 hops of Blue.



I don't know what it would take for me to beat Blue, but a human player would have a massive advantage.



Two other points: A non administrator hero at start doesn't really affect balance much. But with the random galaxy how it is now, the Amoebas have a huge initial advantage.

Ranzear wrote:
One of my tenets of game design: Random is never fun.



There's more to this than planet availability. Having to make a two turn jump to a star just to see there's nothing there but lava and asteroids, followed by a two-turn jump back and another turn or two to a different and still questionably viable star? That's a crippling and random starting disadvantage. An unviable system is more than just not having a habitable planet, but losses in travel time and opportunity costs.



The best way to fix this, off the top of my head, is a flat guarantee that two of the systems connected to your homeworld will be habitable by your race. If you have five strings from your homeworld, you get to play the 40% chance roulette as a small cost of having such options. Three strings? Much better odds of still getting a good first expansion. Two or one string? Still gonna get at least somewhere.



One should have to cope with the types of other planets in their system, not with getting that first foothold to even be able to tech onto those planets.

Its always debatable how normalized one wants it to be, for me i dont think the cost of colonization rounds at first is the end of the world, i just won a multiplayer game actually where it took me like 15 turns to colonize my first planet. i didnt do great for quite a while, but i got over it - because in general my "arm" was quite alright.

One of my tenets of game design: Random is never fun.



There's more to this than planet availability. Having to make a two turn jump to a star just to see there's nothing there but lava and asteroids, followed by a two-turn jump back and another turn or two to a different and still questionably viable star? That's a crippling and random starting disadvantage. An unviable system is more than just not having a habitable planet, but losses in travel time and opportunity costs.



The best way to fix this, off the top of my head, is a flat guarantee that two of the systems connected to your homeworld will be habitable by your race. If you have five strings from your homeworld, you get to play the 40% chance roulette as a small cost of having such options. Three strings? Much better odds of still getting a good first expansion. Two or one string? Still gonna get at least somewhere.



One should have to cope with the types of other planets in their system, not with getting that first foothold to even be able to tech onto those planets.