How man empires do you use on a huge galaxy (1,000 stars)?

[Fenris_SE]

Just curious what others use. I've been using 20 and 4 Fallen Empires, but starting to think that may unintentionally be making the game too easy a lot of the time. There are games where other empires are only a short way off in each direction, effectively blocking growth. I was thinking that was just a "me" problem, but if other empires are running into the same thing, then none of them can effectively grow. With the player it isn't too bad, may make for a boring early game but I can usually turtle up and concentrate on science, alloys, and growing a fleet to eventually burst forth and start taking over empires. Just not convinced the AI does this well when running into the same situation.

Could be because I only play on Captain level, maybe I should try Commodore. But when empires actually grow a bit, it seems like captain may be my skill level lol

So are 20 empires too many, or am I just getting unlucky with the placement RNG?

 

[Fulgrymm]

I put 10 and 2 FEs and 3 Marauders. The extra room to grow does seem to help the AI, for a while anyway. Because they manage their planets very suboptimally, they are always going to fall behind a human player at a certain point.

 

[Strangedane]

Depends on what sort of game I want. But always GA with no scaling.
I do like cramped maps though, so I'll usually go for 30 AI, 5 FE and 3 Rauders.

Depending how high I put the the crisis multiplier, I'll add have some advanced starts to snowball faster off their pops.

 

[hart30]

I also go a bit more cramped with 27 empires all marauders and all fe. This situation is more similar to multiplayer from distance to ur neighbour (but the map is bigger, so the ai can conquer more and get bigger). I also forcespawn some genocidals. This gives the player a bigger need to fight wars early, with some ai doing a decent job in keeping up and staying unfriendly. But i also use admiral diffuculty - so...

 

[Cat_Fuzz]

I’ve found that generally 10 empires per 500 stars works well and translates if you use mods like bigger galaxies etc. It’s enough for there to be a decent number of empires but also gives some room for exploration before the inevitable boxing-in happens.

EDIT: To add - I normally have random number of empires on as well, set to +25% of ideal number above, plus:

1-3 fallen empires
1-3 Marauders
2.5x hyperlanes
2.5x wormholes
1x gateways
3.5x Primitives

 

[Bezborg]

Max empires
2 fallen
1 marauder

 

[DeanTheDull]

Max empires.

All Clones.

Play pop-abductor necro-purging necrophage.

 

[A2ch0n]

23 regular empires
5 fallen
3 marauders
1.5 x primitives

 

[Ryika]

I don't really have a fixed number.

I find that even 30 still feels somewhat empty in conquest-based games, which is why I often use a mod to increase empires to 60.
In games where I focus more on exploration, I generally use 15.
And then on other occasions, I use something in-between.

 

[Andy_Dandy]

Max empires, but it would really be nice to be able to put in more without depending on mods that never update - since 30 also works fine for medium map.

Especially tiny to medium maps could have had their amount of empires cap increased without too harsh performance issues, at least on my system.

 

[Losttruppen]

30 advanced start AI, scaling grand admiral, 5x habitables/primitives, max FE/marauders, 1000 stars.

Make a couple good force spawn premades or groups of them with the same "random" starting system so they cycle.

 

[steven1mac]

For me, it seems that the largest galaxy seems to cramped with more than 20, and 5 fallen empires. I personally think 16 is the sweet spot, allowing growth with out having to fight for it.

 

[Pancakelord]

2/3rds full empires, 2/3rds advanced, max primitives/marauders/FEs, 1.5x habitable worlds, 2x tech costs.

 

[Wenla]

3 against me.

 

[bunkerman]

i usually put 0 AIs in my single player games, AIs are just derpy, annoying, prone to exploits and easy to defeat, i find it much more interesting to slowly colonize teh galaxy or race against time to defend my galazy against a crisis alone (also usually tunr off primitives as they are an easy give me pops too)

 

[Strangedane]

Max empires, but it would really be nice to be able to put in more without depending on mods that never update - since 30 also works fine for medium map.

Especially tiny to medium maps could have had their amount of empires cap increased without too harsh performance issues, at least on my system.

I almost never use mods, but you're so right.

I'd love to play a 30 empire thunderdome on the 200 star map.

 

[Pancakelord]

I almost never use mods, but you're so right.

I'd love to play a 30 empire thunderdome on the 200 star map.

Managed to squeeze 19 normal empires, 1 fe, 1 marauder, 10 nebulae and 1 caravaneer on to a 200 star map with a few quick edits lol:

If I'd edited the cluster distances some more, I probably could have squeezed all 30 on (the game will fail to spawn them otherwise)

Drop the attached edited 200 star galaxy setup TXT file in to \\Stellaris\map\setup_scenarios\ (or make it in to a mod if you want)

 

[Strangedane]

Managed to squeeze 19 normal empires, 1 fe, 1 marauder and 1 caravaneer on to a 200 star map with a few quick edits lol:
View attachment 759059View attachment 759060

Drop the attached edited 200 star galaxy setup TXT file in to \\Stellaris\map\setup_scenarios\ (or make it in to a mod if you want)

That looks awesome tbh. ^^

 

[Pancakelord]

That looks awesome tbh. ^^

Not tried 200 star matches, but I've taken to playing 400-600 star galaxies post 3.0, with increased planet counts, AIs and tweaks to slow down hyperlane speeds.
The game feels more vast with fewer 'filler' stars overall, performance isn't an issue until like the 2900s or 3000s.
I think I do prefer them to 1k stars, particularly with base FTL reduced to 1/10th its speed (a la old warp) (with T2 Hyperlane at 1/3 vanilla speed, and T3+jump drives at 2/3ish vanilla speed)

 

[unmerged(350868)]

I only ever play with 10-12 ais on a huge galaxy.

Its never what I would call "hard", as you should have a lot of room to expand, and even if you get into a war you cannot handle, worst case you will lose a few systems on your border. After a while you will outexpand the AI, unless you get boxed in.

One problem I have been noticingis the number of races joining federations. Often one of those will pick a fight with a fallen empire whoch drags the entire federation down.

I was planning on trying a 20 ai game next, but I worry the AIs will be even more ineffective late game against fallen empires and crisis, with even smalle fleets than they can muster now.