Forgive the rant:

New game placements

from GalCiv2 Forums
I just have to take a moment to sound off on a pet peeve, so in advance, forgive the rant.

When you start new game, placement of planets is so utterly random that it takes a lot of the strategy of the game out and makes it much more a game of luck - or a game of new games. Often I'll get stuck in a corner with a few inhabitable worlds while half the other civs have a plethora of planets. Or, I'll get a so-so selection of planets bound tight to a few other civs, and one or two civs will have a relatively clean, peaceful corner with lots of planets.

I suppose if I started new games over and over enough I could work this to my advantage and more or less cheat my way to success with an amazingly unfair initial advantage - something I would imagine already affects the metaverse rankings right now.

Can SD look into this and try to balance this out more? Thanks for listening.
11,029 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My best game to date was when I got tired of restarting the game to get a favorable starting position and played from a corner. I cherry picked the nearest worlds, going for class 15 or higher and won an influence victory on a medium map with only 5 planets in the entire universe.

Life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You can modify your star clusters, I personally like this feature, as I think that it adds spice to it (have to modify your gaem style based on whats around you (and you can be very sucessful in either of the situations you mentioned).
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I dunno, I consider part of the fun and challenge of the game is not always getting a super sweet starting position. The same can be said for Civ IV; you can start surrounded by swampland with maybe 2 or 3 city's worth of building area, surrounded on all sides by enemies. Or you can end up on fair sized island alone with all the resources you need and progress unchallenged.

But, if you really want to make the planets a little easier to access, change the star distribution to "scattered". The stars end up fairly well spaced throughout the galaxy. In that case, ending up in a corner isn't always a sign that you're only going to have a handful of yellow stars available to you.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've had the same problems with my maps. My solution was to set the star clusters to loose, literally the only way I could get a decent distribution of the stars. And whilst it did seem better than this before the beta, I didn't play the pre-beta as much as I have the beta version, so can't be sure. However I wish they would fix the planet distribution. If I set the habitable planets to abundant, I have literally every planet in every star system habitable. Knock it down a notch, and I have 2 planets for every 3 star systems habitable...
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
An option for wrap-around maps would also be a possibility. Or for ring galaxies, spirals, etc. Though wrap-around would quite likely mess up the AI.

Edit: Hmm. How come my Metaverse medals aren't showing up?
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Havarel - Hence 'abundant'. Turn planets to 'uncommon' or 'rare'

Caine Hill - There's an option in the character screen (I think) - a small, dark grey button that's very difficult to see called 'Default'. Click on it, and it will light up and show your medals. Took me a while to find it.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd like the option to have a mature galaxy where all the colonization has already been done, and the planets divided up evenly with basic techs and building already done.

But until then just use Ctrl+N.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd like the option to have a mature galaxy where all the colonization has already been done, and the planets divided up evenly with basic techs and building already done.


I like that!
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd like the option to have a mature galaxy where all the colonization has already been done, and the planets divided up evenly with basic techs and building already done.


I'd like to see something similar, but not necessarily with any building done. I was just thinking more of a "quick start" that assigns all habitable planets in some fair and logical fashion.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Thanks for the feedback. By the way, my medals also don't show and I tried the default button but it seemed to do nothing (I only have one character, too).
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I went to make a post a little while back to complain about empire placement. I was just tired starting out on the edge of the galaxy, often times in a corner. Rarely would I get would would appear to be a fair starting position. I had coped a tude and decided I WAS NOT GOING TO accept an edge start. if you start out closer to the center, you have all directions to explore (more anomalies), and more systems that might hold some sweetspots. But the kicker was I was irritated that it seemed any game start would be ok even if I lost over half of my influence radius to the edge of the map. Now I still think that is unbalancing. Just on tourisim alone, you start out handicapped against ANY opponent that has not had it's sphere of influence quartered or halfed. I was also tired of starting right next to someone or someones and not having any breathing room at all.

Off the to boards to vent my frustration, and post exactly how it should be done. i type out half a post and wanted to explain the obviously better method of race placement.

I made a large map grid representation using "#" for sectors and numbers for races. I study my grid for a second and start showing how you would best place 9 races and not have any radius loss.............. After about 15-20 min of "no, rats, grrr, na, oops" I decided it was not possible to have random placements with that number of races on that size map. One way to deal with it, is have race starting points on the map, and randomly place the races on those starts. A start sector would always have a race in it, even if you don't know what that race would be.

Oh well, doing it that way would get cheezed so bad I laughed again. Maybe rotate the position around, although every civ retained about the same spacing (breathing room). Ah hA! Back to the grid! Oh yeah, I couldn't get it balanced before and I am still messing with 9. (no map edge starts, 2 sec away. And no starts right next to another).

I deleted the first part of the post and went back to the game. If I want a better chance at a sweet start, I needed to use less than the max civs. The thought of playing against 9 on a tiny map (and getting a good start) made me actually laugh. I could seee someone taking 3 hours of time being stubborn about a start. It might not be an issue on gigantic maps (no interest in playing one of those on this computer).

About the only question remaining, was the order in which raced are placed. If the Terrans are always placed first, and a custom race is always placed last, then the custom race is not going to get the pick of the litter. I do think the humban play should get placed first. Less chance of an edge start, and the AI really don't mind a bad start (I asked them, they said "huh?").

So imo, I think the game should place human player first, then the AIs, using random race order. Aside from the first part I think that IS how it's set up. But I was not going to make a post whining because "I didn't get to go first". I started a game, played a few turns and quit.

And then the real kicker happened. I took a look inside the debug file from the start I had just done (took what ever it gave me as a start). I was shocked. The game had tried to start a galaxy several times and failed to initialize (iirc it was "failed to place planet" or "race"). Wow, the game really is trying it's best to give me at least a viable start. If an edge start is still what I get, I know it at least tried to put me in a decent start. It was not like I had assumed where the game goes 1> create map, 2> scatter AIs, 3> stick human in worst place possible.

I really do view edge starts in a different light now. I don't mind them. Heck stick me in a corner. Don't care. Use to love those single civ island starts in the civ series because I had a strategy for it and knew I could win most of the time. If I get my hat handed to me in a corner start game, it really would be silly to blame the loss just on starting location. I would have to screw up a lot more to lose a game and blaming the loss on the start would simply be denial that I had pooched the map all by myself.

I have no use for CTR-n now with the rare exception of a total corner start with no other systems around for 2 sectors. THAT, would be a non-viable start. Just getting a bad start is not enough to get me to make a new map.

my best fix idea for an edge/corner start fix:
It would be neat if the game looked at your starting position, and gave you an initial cash bonus for the civ radius that fall beyond the edge on the map. You would not hate an edge start if that start gave you an extra 500bc, or the corner start if you got an extra 1k. The little extra money would allow you to thrust towards center a bit easier and get yourself some breathing room. And by all means, give the AIs the same bump when they get a bad roll.

Yeah, I know. My standard choices are: common planets, common habital, occasional stars, large galaxy, 9 AI races.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have no use for CTR-n now with the rare exception of a total corner start with no other systems around for 2 sectors. THAT, would be a non-viable start. Just getting a bad start is not enough to get me to make a new map.


Noooo.... most fun game ever was gigantic map with very rare resources. I started out in a corner with NOTHING for 3 sectors around me. I guessed right and was the first to a class 15 planet in the exact middle of the map. 3 planets total; the Drengin had the most with 6. Strategy is easy when you've got but-loads of planets and can set up your specialized manufacturing/population/technology planets. Try conquering a bigger map with next to zero resources and at least 6 neighbors just as starved as yourself. That's a bit more challenging.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I have seen some bad starting positions but lack of home world bonus tiles is worse than any position problem.

Just because a map is covered with colors it doesn't mean they have colonized the planets. They start with one just like you and they aren't that smart about it. They will colonize 4-5 planets starting with their low quality home system world and then go for the closest worlds without a care for quality. They will then stop colonizing for about a year.

In that year you can cherry pick the galaxy. I colonize their influence area first and then back fill closer to home. On any map up to large you should get at least twice as many colonies as any single AI.

I think they must use their start up 5000bc to rush build as many colony ships as possible + one constructor and probably a starbase on each of their planets. Then they find themselves with no treasury, no factories and a long build time to get more colony ships and to get their economy up to speed.

They will make a rush for the low quality planets in your area sometime in year two but fear not if they get a few they will flip back to you in due time. I have found that the AI cannot hold a planet in my area of influence for more than a couple of years max.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I LOVE, even PREFER being in a corner. As long as I get a few good planets nearby. The trade routes tend to follow the same lines for a while and it's easier to get them all inside of economy starbase influences.
It's also easier to defend and I don't have other civs tresspassing through my turf all year long!
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The galaxy distribution isn't purely random. It IS weighted to make sure it's fair. If you unhide the map, you'll find that the way the galaxy is set up 9 out of 10 times anwyway) is pretty balanced.  But not in the sense one might be thinking of "Balance".

Our definition of balance for this relies on each team having equal opportunity for a victory.  That does NOT mean that every side is equally distant from each other or that each side has the same # of habitable planets. There's a lot of other factors involved (galactic resources, special tiles on planets, minor races, closeness to an edge).