This has been on my mind for a while now, and I've thought of a few things and decided I wanted to share it. Hopefully somebody will find some hint of inspiration/ingenuity in this.



basically, with everyone complaining about the unbalanced map generator in multiplayer games, I was thinking of ways to make the generator more balanced.

Let me preface this post by saying this: I have absolutely no idea how the Endless Space map generator works. As in, I don't know the order it takes - does it dot the galaxy with systems, then draw phase lines/wormholes, or produce these one-by-one? Does it generate the map around the players' home planets or randomly add them in? I don't know these answers, and that may make some of my ideas impossible/unfeasible. If you're aware of how the generator works and would like to inform me, let me know and I could attempt to adjust my suggestions to the *actual* system.

That said, I'm going to try to order the suggestions based on what ideas I like the most.



Without further adieu...



Starting Heroes

Obviously Heroes aren't technically a part of the map generator, but as it's been subject to the balancing issues I felt like throwing it in here; and I'm doing it first basically to get it out of the way.

-My proposed fix is this: When picking the Heroes for each player the game first chooses a set of six Hero classes. Obviously they can include doubles (no more than two of one kind). From there, for each player, the game will split those six classes into three pairs, and find a Hero whose traits match each pair to give to said player. This obviously isn't "perfect," but to me it sounds less frustrating than completely random Heroes for every player. If one player misses out on a Food/Industry Hero, he/she can know there's not another player who managed to get one.



Home Systems

-The Home Systems are your first system, and, depending on the kinds of planets that surround you, it could be your only system for quite some time. This means that a player who just-so-happened to get the lucky system could gain an early lead, so it's important for these to also be balanced.

My first solution is this: The game should start by creating an Approval value. It could be positive, negative, or even zero. Basically, all of the other planets, anomalies, and resources in the system should have an Approval rating that adds up to that number. Meaning, if the value is -20, you could have a system with your home planet and a Gas Giant, or two Tundras and two Arids, or four Lava Planets with Low Gravity. Approval ratings on the home planet do not count (so if the calculated value was -20, a Cravers' home system would add up to -25 for their Arid homeworld), except in the case of resources (like Transvine) that can be distributed to the home planet and will still count. Also to note: Systems don't all need to have the same number of planets. I could have two planets in my home system and you could have five.

-My part 2 to this is a bit sketchy, mainly because I assume it would be incredibly difficult to pull off. Basically, all the FIDS in the home system should also be the same for every player (again, not including homeworlds). This would mean that no player could get a few lucky Terran/Ocean planets in their system to colonize immediately while other players are stuck with a Barren Planet or two. However, since FIDS are influenced by the planet type, anomalies, as well as resources, I would understand if this were simply too complicated to pull off.

-My third point, which is the most minor issue of all, is for all players to have the same number of Wormholes linked to their home planet. I remember playing a game a while ago where there was a single Wormhole link to my home planet; I'm not sure if that possibility is gone in the current version, but if not, then all players should share a number of wormhole links (between 0 and whatever) so that no one's home planet is any more protected/exposed than anyone else's.



Galaxy Map

This is the one I've thought the least about, and quite frankly, seems like the greatest logistical nightmare so far. Maybe it has something to do with me not fully understanding the galaxy generator. I'm not too confident in my suggestions here, but still, I'll post them in case anyone sees a glimmer of genius laying around.

-My first suggestion relates to the planets connected to your home planet. Obviously, you want to colonize and expand straight away, so these starting systems are crucial to establishing the game. I think that, between all the systems connected to your home planet, the game should place an equal number of Ocean/Terran/Jungle planets among them. This means that no player can truly get an early lead, beyond just happening to go to the right system first. All other planets and planet types will still be completely random - a Craver player starts off with the advantage of being able to colonize Arid planets, and that advantage shouldn't be revoked or nullified.

-My next suggestion involves wormhole links to other constellations. I've been in games where only a single planet in my starting constellation was actually linked to other constellations, and yet some enemies had three different planets in their starting constellations with wormhole links. I think the number of wormholes, and the number of systems they connect to, should be the same for each player. Meaning, if the game decides 3 wormholes and two systems, each player will have a planet in their constellation with two wormhole links, and a second system with only one wormhole link. This would mean no player can set up an impenetrable fortress by stacking fleets around one system unless his enemies also have that privilege.



These are all things that have been circling around in my head for a while, so please try to give some feedback. I'm not even sure if any of this is possible within the game, but it's better than keeping my mouth shut I suppose.

I know what you mean, even though I've only played two multiplayer game (and they were against the same person) I've encountered a lot of those things. In the first one my friend got off to a great start with three well balanced heros opposed to my the fact that none of mine were admiral like people and he colonized another system in turn 2 whereas it took me 13 turns!!! The next game gave me all the luck, hero wise and with wormholes (my starting spiral arm was basically impenetrable with 1 planet having 2 links on it). We both colonized around turn 10 but that was only on arid and tundra planets then I found loads of large ocean and terran planets. But I've never had a wormhole on my homeplanet in a multiplayer game and the FIDS were always equal-ish