does the "place empires evenly throughout galaxy" work? [Archive]

Silent Sorrow

July 20th, 2003, 11:07 PM

You can set this in the setup options before a game but I don't think it's working. I set up a TDM game in a huge galactic edge galaxy. There are three AIs plus myself. I was placed very near the lower left corner. It's now become apparent that one of the AIs, the Tessellate, was also placed there--in other words, nothing at all like spacing four players evenly throughout the galaxy. We're pretty much on top of each other.

Anyone have thoughts on this? Does that setup option not really do anything? (I've noticed it before but this was the first time I made a point of noting where the other AIs were.)

Ed Kolis

July 20th, 2003, 11:45 PM

The rest of the galaxy wasn't filled with uninhabitable systems (nebulas, black holes, etc.) was it?

geoschmo

July 20th, 2003, 11:52 PM

Does it work? No, absolutly not. Setting the option or not setting it makes no dif. Placement is practically random.

[ July 20, 2003, 22:52: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Master Belisarius

July 21st, 2003, 12:09 AM

Originally posted by Silent Sorrow:
You can set this in the setup options before a game but I don't think it's working. I set up a TDM game in a huge galactic edge galaxy. There are three AIs plus myself. I was placed very near the lower left corner. It's now become apparent that one of the AIs, the Tessellate, was also placed there--in other words, nothing at all like spacing four players evenly throughout the galaxy. We're pretty much on top of each other.

Anyone have thoughts on this? Does that setup option not really do anything? (I've noticed it before but this was the first time I made a point of noting where the other AIs were.)Like Geo said, it doesn't work.
By the way, are you playing with "bonus"?
Would be great to me, know how the Tessellate performed starting close to you.

Slynky

July 21st, 2003, 12:17 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Does it work? No, absolutly not. Setting the option or not setting it makes no dif. Placement is practically random.See? Geo is nice. Full of explanations. But I can answer your question easily:

NO

Andr�s

July 21st, 2003, 01:58 AM

Most quadrants aren�t even to begin with.

Krsqk

July 21st, 2003, 03:39 AM

Does it evenly space empires, but not across the quadrant?

geoschmo

July 21st, 2003, 03:52 AM

Originally posted by Krsqk:
Does it evenly space empires, but not across the quadrant?No. I have seen it stick five empires together on one half of the quad with one or two systems between and stick the Last empire by themself 8 systems away from anyone else.

It just flat doesn't work at all.

Geoschmo

deccan

July 21st, 2003, 05:36 AM

I have to say that this is a really big problem.

I just quit playing my first single-player TDM because of this. I've heard good things about the TDM AIs, particularly the United Flora and the Rage, so I made sure that they were in my game. However, as it turned out, I started out at the very eastern end of the map and had taken control of over a dozen systems before I met the first AI. I was far and away the leading player throughout the entire game.

I took control of some of the AIs to see what they were up to and discovered that they were all bunched together. The Rage had started in a system with two warp points, with a Neutral on one side, and another AI empire on the other, and had gotten nowhere (DUC 3 when I had PPB 5 ).

I've just started a second TDM game, and this time I've started with two neighbors very close to me, and things are much more interesting and challenging.

oleg

July 21st, 2003, 02:15 PM

Yeah, I hate it too. I like to play Proportions or AIC with many AIs. But given the insane starting pace of bonused AI, I prefer to have some buffer spece for long entertaining games. Unfortunately, that means low number of AIs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

May be i should generate map, place starting positions manualy and load it ? But that will reduce the joy of exploration http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Nocturnal

July 21st, 2003, 03:28 PM

Hehe, in my current game I started in the same system with the Rage and blockaded their homeworld immediately, then researched troops and took them over with minimal fuss. Poor things are my servants now. But my highest-population world is an airless Rage world.

Suicide Junkie

July 21st, 2003, 04:07 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
May be i should generate map, place starting positions manualy and load it ? But that will reduce the joy of exploration http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Use a custom map generated by someone else.

For some really tense action, try the FQM sphere quadrant. You don't need lots of AIs to make that one hard http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Silent Sorrow

July 21st, 2003, 05:24 PM

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
The rest of the galaxy wasn't filled with uninhabitable systems (nebulas, black holes, etc.) was it?Nope, all standard.

Silent Sorrow

July 21st, 2003, 05:35 PM

Like Geo said, it doesn't work.
By the way, are you playing with "bonus"?
Would be great to me, know how the Tessellate performed starting close to you.I just downloaded the Tessellate race yesterday after reading though the ENTIRETY of that AI deathmatch 2 thread to find out which AIs I should play against. I didn't give the AIs any bonus points. Should I have? (All I did was set their difficulty to "hard".)

As for how the game's going, I'm crushing them simply because I expanded fast and was able to bottle them up in about five systems. I'm about to deliver the coup de grace. So it hasn't been anywhere near as challenging as I'd hoped for.

But I'm hoping the Vikings will give me more of a fight. And then there's the United Flora (which I haven't run into yet and I assume are on the far side of the quadrant opposite me), but from looking at the scores, I'm guessing that the Vikings are kicking UF ***. So it'll probably come down to me vs. the Vikings.

All that said, I think this match would be ENTIRELY different if the four empires really had started evenly spaced.

Silent Sorrow

July 21st, 2003, 05:38 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Krsqk:
Does it evenly space empires, but not across the quadrant?No. I have seen it stick five empires together on one half of the quad with one or two systems between and stick the Last empire by themself 8 systems away from anyone else.

It just flat doesn't work at all.

Geoschmo<hr /></blockquote>Do you think this is something that could be fixed by a modder or is hardcoded?

Silent Sorrow

July 21st, 2003, 05:40 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by oleg:
May be i should generate map, place starting positions manualy and load it ? But that will reduce the joy of exploration http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Use a custom map generated by someone else.

For some really tense action, try the FQM sphere quadrant. You don't need lots of AIs to make that one hard http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif <hr /></blockquote>Where's a good place to get custom maps that I can use in this way?

I play only huge galactic edge quadrants (basically, the map type that will give the largest number of systems to play in) so that would be the type I was looking for.

oleg

July 21st, 2003, 05:45 PM

Originally posted by Silent Sorrow:
I didn't give the AIs any bonus points. Should I have? (All I did was set their difficulty to "hard".)

Absolutely ! AI without bonus is basically what you see when you play your race with all ministers "on". If you ever tried it, you would appreciate the need for some AI bonus http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Arkcon

July 21st, 2003, 05:59 PM

Hey there, I'm jumping in late but I gotta say, the evenly spaced function does do something -- only when its turned off do you end up with two races in the same system . Really bad if the opponent is the Krill or the Amonkre.

BTW, the TDM modpack races do need at least a small bonus, to defend them against the possibility of starting surronded by meager planets. The Rage should have conqured the neutral and had 2 homeworlds by now. Survive that.

United Flora, with religious and organic racial techs, will need a bonus to complete research in a timely fashion. That's why the Space Vikings are winning, they don't use racial tech.

I just started a TDM game on medium bonus. Ouch. I have my home system. That's it. I researched frigates. The Krill had destroyers with DUC III. I got APB2 and Shield 2, they have LC, DUC V, Shield III. The Abbidion hate me, and glass worlds in between trade alliances, and to think I used to think they were nice orange puffballs.

[ July 21, 2003, 17:00: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

July 21st, 2003, 06:10 PM

One odd thing I realized about placing the empires: As a single human player I almost always have an AI empire in an adjacent system, even if there are few empires in a large quadrant with more than 200 systems. Did you see this too??

Loser

July 21st, 2003, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by Q:
Did you see this too??I do not see this. I play 20/255 cluster w/o connected warp points, generated and regenerated until all systems are connected.

Erax

July 21st, 2003, 10:36 PM

The solution seems simple to me. We can generate games (choosing starting positions for the AI), then trade savegames. Empires will be evenly distributed but you don't know where they are.

Arkcon

July 26th, 2003, 07:00 PM

Originally posted by Andres:
Most quadrants aren’t even to begin with.Absolutely right. I tried to make a map with even distribution of starting planets, not all starting at the very corner of the map, with at least two systems between races. Try it yourself and see. For a medium map, it's pretty difficult to get eight races evenly spaced like that.

tesco samoa

July 26th, 2003, 08:03 PM

i think i am getting the hang of it now.

it is tricky

oleg

July 27th, 2003, 06:05 AM

Originally posted by Loser:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Q:
Did you see this too??I do not see this. I play 20/255 cluster w/o connected warp points, generated and regenerated until all systems are connected.<hr /></blockquote>Neither do I. Just a bad luck I think. But in any case there is nothing "even" about empires placement.