Luckiest Start Location... ever!

Resources are important, you say?!

from GalCiv2 Forums
In a similar type of subject of what Nasty-Tang gave us last week about high planet classes found during your gameplays, i figured another type of "odd event" could be made public through these forum threads.

Call me lucky - but what you see in the snapshot below has actually happened to me in a recent game.

Still on such a tiny map setting it boggles my greatest imagination skills that something like this could ever occur -- at Random! Now, pick your best wishes and consider the following details and observation;

- Out of only five resources available anywhere i got served three with Morale_Influence_Economy right nearby. And the lonely blue Anthropod constructor overthere - well, it was tooooo late to grab any!

- At the lower left corner, out of 6 minor races, TWO of them share the same system and both planets are 15PQs+. You'd think exploiting the situation for awhile might be a good idea - specially for highly efficient (short distance but fast) trade routes and gain huge advantages by keeping those under my thumb as long as necessary. Oh, and i've also got the third planet (low-8 but who cares!) in that system ready for later use.

- To the extreme right corner... there WAS two class-5 Barren planets, and these were the very last to grab. Got barren colonization from the Apocalypsions in a slick trade for a trade-good and a few more thingies, rush-bought the newly designed & faster Colony-ships, sent the two on a wild chase... only to beat the Apocalypsions themselves to BOTH. Race to the wire. Funny to see their ship stuck in orbit around MY planet.

This has to be the best game setup i've ever played - so far.

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Anybody else has such an incredible (or BETTER!)  start to share with us all?
;)

- Zyxpsilon.
25,436 views 25 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I got a similar starting setup the other day where three economic (!?!!) resources were just outside my solar system. That tiny map had another economic plus one research thingy, iirc - which I rushed for as well.

=> I had no tax problem during this one...
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I had a start where I had two economic resources, 1 research resource, and three high quality planets (qualities of 16, 20, and 26) One had a precursor factory.  :LOL: 

Gave me a huge advantage!
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Im just playing from an amazing start

Homeworld - precursor factory 700%, 300% research, all asteroids arranged around planet so max yield.
next colonised world PQ 12 had 2X 100% research tiles
fourth colonised world PQ 7 had precursor library and 100% research tile

oh and i also had two military bonuses, an influence and a moral resource nearby which i took without rushing due to my huge manufacturing ability.

Its a large sized map with occasional planets and 7 opponents on crippling and its a total walkover, i dominate completely militarily (conquered yor, terran and dregin almost without losing a single hitpoint) and its very seldom the ai has a tech i want.
Currently my home planet has about 400 manufacturing potential and my research planet has ~600

I pray for a lesser start next time, if its too easy its no fun :D
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@ AJackal:

the problem with this start is to decide whether to wipe the others out or go for a research victory...  :SNIFF!: 
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
swh. Yeah, all of the civs love me because of my military and diplomatic strength which i researched highly to pick up all the civ specific bonuses early.

I think a research victory would be pretty simple if boring. And militarily its just a question of waiting for my population to recover before i invade more worlds.


Personally my favorite games are the ones where my planets are the ones being invaded and its a real slog to slowly bring my worlds back under my control and then take the fight to the enemy. :D
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heh, what the heck is this forum spam?

As for the OP, you might as well just turn on cheats because the game is going to be that easy. Well, not if it's a metaverse game though, heh.

You can just have fun experimenting with different strategies or something. I once thought it would be fun to see what the highest possible research output could be from one planet. I cheated the planet to PQ36, then got a lucky event that boosted it to PQ52 or something ridiculous like that. I plastered it with research buildings+tech capital+massive economic base arrays all around that sector and the surrounding ones too. I don't remember the value now, but it was pretty ridiculous.

In my normal games though, I never get lucky and I don't have the patience to ctrl-N until a great one pops up. I usually just ctrl-N until I get a map setup that looks even for me and the AI. Too easy is no fun. :)
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hmm - I did never restart a game...

A bit off topic, but:
In my last game I had an amazing colony rush which got me 2/3 of all planets (medium galaxy, 2 opponents) and afterwards all bonus resources but 2. Moreover, I found a class 32 planet which is the highest I've seen so far. Another planet was a real research monster... Only PQ8, but it contained a +700%, a +300% and another 2 +100% research bonus tiles, which I plastered with Neutrality Learning Centers. At the end of the game this colony gave me 1.753 research points - with only 1 econ base and without research capital which I built elsewhere for some reason. (Posted a screenshot to the library but it won't show up...)
-> That was the most amazing planet I've encountered so far!
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I tend to think the most important aspect of a starting position is the quality of the bonus tiles on your capital. My best start had a 7x industrial tile and 13x worth of research bonus tiles (a 7x plus 2 3x tiles). Needless to say I jumped out to such a big tech lead that it was easy to stay there.

In the long run the boost from the resource starbases will be higher but it takes a lot longer to get the full benefit than it does from your initial planetary bonuses. On turn 3 I effectively had 16 xeno labs on my home world...
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Heh, got one start with a home world with a 3x research, 2x Industry, Econ resource in system. Next system over a size 31pq and a 14pq and a 4 planet. the size 31 had a 7x industry tile. and the first one I colonized. short game.

Duh
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
For homeworlds, here are the best I've had:

Photobucket

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Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Holy crap! what diffculty were you playing on. Mine I am lucky if I have one or two special tiles.

Duh
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Those were both on Suicidal, gigantic map, rare for all star & planet settings. I think the scarcity of stars and planets in conjuction with the map size has something to do with the density of bonus tiles.

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Holy crap!
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Agreed... KP, these two planets are sick. ;)
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Agreed... KP, these two planets are sick
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I'm betting that Kzinti Patriarch won those games.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You would be correct General. ;)

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
You would be correct General. ;) 
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Thank you, I like being correct. I don't however, like being corrected. ;)  :LOL: 

Now, if only I had planets as good as those...I would actually manage to keep up with the other civs in military strengh and technology levels. :NOTSURE: 

Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Kzinti,

You should have took a screen shot after having built farms and market centers on all those tiles, you know turn them into economic planets just to get some OMG!!'s out of us. :LOL: 
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Technically speaking, this looked more like a cheat at first than "true" random luck... but, given the situation explained, i might add that having such strengths directly on Homeworld straight out the gate can only mean two things;

1- What if anything should be built to get some kind of optimal results from such a klondike!
2- How fast could anybody win using that much power and if so, what would be the maximum possible for a final score.

But, you're right - value(s) of any tiles DO matter every single time a game starts.

Too bad the initial PQ was soooo low, though! :)
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think these were homeworlds in zero year win-efforts, so they were never built up completely.

Nevertheless one should try to play a 'normal' game on these galaxy settings...

Those were both on Suicidal, gigantic map, rare for all star & planet settings. I think the scarcity of stars and planets in conjuction with the map size has something to do with the density of bonus tiles.
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But wait! Does that mean the KI got homeworlds like this too??  ;) 


{
KI = künstliche Intelligenz (that is german) a.k.a. AI
}
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

{
KI = künstliche Intelligenz (that is german) a.k.a. AI
}
End of quote



I was wondering If you had made a serius typo ;)

Those were both on Suicidal, gigantic map, rare for all star & planet settings. I think the scarcity of stars and planets in conjuction with the map size has something to do with the density of bonus tiles. Sentient species taste better...
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hmm... so I am able to get such a planet to if i just ctrl-n a lot with those stats?

Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Technically speaking, this looked more like a cheat at first than "true" random luck... but, given the situation explained, i might add that having such strengths directly on Homeworld straight out the gate can only mean two things;1- What if anything should be built to get some kind of optimal results from such a klondike!2- How fast could anybody win using that much power and if so, what would be the maximum possible for a final score.But, you're right - value(s) of any tiles DO matter every single time a game starts.Too bad the initial PQ was soooo low, though!
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I would agree....it does look like a cheat. When I started doing ZYWs (Zero Year Wins) on gigantic maps, I was completely surprised by the bonus tiles I was getting. I was just hoping to get the occasionaly Precursor library, but the results were exceptional to say the least. For those not familiar with ZYWs, you generally win by April 8th of year 1, the earliest allowed date. Check out the
Year Zero Club thread for more info. I generally average around 85k for these sorts of games on gigantic maps, and they only take about 15 minutes to play.

Does that mean the KI got homeworlds like this too??   {KI = künstliche Intelligenz (that is german) a.k.a. AI}
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The enemy homeworld does tend to be quite nice too. :)

so I am able to get such a planet to if i just ctrl-n a lot with those stats?
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Well those were the two most exceptional that I've ever seen, and I've played over 500 games with all my characters combined, so dont expect it to pop up right away! ;)

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Dang....just got this one today, on Korx II:

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And I didnt even select luck as an ability. ;) Unfortunately this showed up while I was trying to get a good ZYW setup, and it wasnt really suitable at all. So it gets thrown back into cyberspace.

And someone was wondering about the enemy homeworlds. Here is a shot of one I encountered today:

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Try similar settings, and see what you can come up with. :)

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Try similar settings, and see what you can come up with
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What are the settings? I'd like to get these worlds. :d 
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Some of these settings probably dont matter, but who knows if they might use some really weird algorithms, so here are the settings: Gigantic, suicidal, rare everything except anomalies, scattered star pattern, very fast tech, rare asteroids, 8 minors, all victories off but conquest, supers enabled, 1 enemy, tech trading on.

It's likely only the map size, planets, and star settings that matter.

Kzinti empire2.JPG Sentient species taste better...
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's likely only the map size, planets, and star settings that matter.
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I sure hope so. I can't beat any level over normal. :NOTSURE: