Some hints for approaching SEV

Beorne · #1 November 27th, 2007, 06:19 PM

I haven't been clear.
If I click on "new game" then I'd like, for example, play Eee Consortium. I go on Add new empire and I can' find how to load the Eee or any other pre made races, it appears I can only build a race from scratch. How could I, without doing a quick start, load a pre build race?
Thanks.

Fyron · #2 November 27th, 2007, 06:43 PM

The game does not ship with pre-built empire files, since you would need at least 16 copies of every race to cover every combination of racial points and starting tech levels (full isn't necessary, since any empire file selected will still result in full tech levels at game start). Maintaining all of these empire files with each patch would be a nightmare for Malfador, as would selecting them from the lists. Imagine scrolling through 240 empire files, and that's just the stock races... The game setup code just isn't designed to select a race based on the Empire folders, and still be able to customize whatever game options you prefer.

One possibility might be just a base set of empire files with only 2000 racial points spent, and 0 tech points. This is a flawed solution, however, since it would more often than not result in players starting with an underpowered empire file.

You can generate empire files as the AI would make them yourself, though. Start the game up with the settings you prefer to play with, turn all AI empires over to human control in the Players menu, and use the "save empire to file" feature. Then start a new game and load the particular race you want to use.

Beorne · #3 November 28th, 2007, 06:18 AM

Soryy, there is something I don't grasp.
If I do "Quick start" I can select forom some pre-built empires. So they have to be somewere ...

Hugh Manatee · #4 November 28th, 2007, 07:24 AM

The game builds it when the game starts, there are no saved "stock" empires in stock SEV. It would be kinda pointless with all the rule variations, point variations, tech points ect to try and make a "stock" set for each scenario outside of quickstart, so the game auto builds you an empire with the race style you choose when you quickstart.

You can quickstart a large game with each race, use the "master" password to take over for the non player empires, save all the empires as outlined above in fyron's post and use them as "canned" races, but you're better off getting to know the traits so you can build your own effective empire. If you're doing single player, you can still have AI empires randomly generated too.