The risks of random starting locations

[Jerev]

Beforehand I want to say that I deeply love the game. I say that because I will use words like ragequit and I don't want anyone to get a false picture in his or her head.
So I just sort of ragequited a game in which not a single war was fought. I wanted to start a calm game where everyone could expand freely until mid- or near lategame. So I set the settings to 1000 stars, 8 AIs with 7 advanced, random starting location, no advanced AI near the player and Ironman-Mode.
After 2 hours I guess, I faced this galaxy:

So in 1/8 of the galaxy I got spawned right next to 3 of the 8 other players. Since it clearly is not what I was looking for, I will start another game.
As a result I will create a suggestion thread regarding the new starting location option 'even' which would place every empire in roughly the same distance from each other.

Have any of you experienced something similar or did I just had bad luck?

edit: here is the suggestions thread https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-starting-option-even-placing.989351/

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

There's a mod that evenly spreads starts, IIRC.

 

[Melabranche]

Small size spiral galaxy, 10 empire, 2 FA, no cluster.
Result - Between two FA, and three more AI some systems away.
These galaxy settings work even?

 

[CarlVonClausewitz]

Bear in mind that some of these empires may not be among the 8 AIs that were set up in the start of the game. Very often the galaxy is plagued with primitives, and some of those primitives are in the Early Space Age era. When they are, it is just a matter of time (sometimes very little time) until they become a full civilization in the game.

 

[Jerev]

Bear in mind that some of these empires may not be among the 8 AIs that were set up in the start of the game. Very often the galaxy is plagued with primitives, and some of those primitives are in the Early Space Age era. When they are, it is just a matter of time (sometimes very little time) until they become a full civilization in the game.

The thing is I can be sure that they aren't spawned AIs because for one they were all made by me and I set them to force spawn. But more important since I made the other starting empires all but one advanced my neighbours were all slightly superior to me which would be quite an accomplishment for a much later spawned AI.

 

[Jarhead1833]

It's funny you posted this, because the exact same thing happened to me last night. The game started with me and 6 of the 10 AI empires spawned in a small area that took up about 1/4 of the map. It's highly annoying when you spend 3 hours in game exploring and find that you are completely encircled and the rest of the map is pretty much open... I wonder if the settings are correct, as I turned off clusters. Maybe they need a new setting that spreads out more evenly.

 

[I am Sovereign]

There's a mod that evenly spreads starts, IIRC.

We shouldnt be mod dependant in that matter. It would be easy to add such an option for Devs.

For the sake of all those who like achievments/ironman.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

We shouldnt be mod dependant in that matter. It would be easy to add such an option for Devs.

For the sake of all those who like achievments/ironman.

That's an argument that can be made, sure- but I brought up that mod as a solution. If his game is less fun because he can't have properly spread-out starts, he can make the game fun by using the mod. None of us have any idea of when Paradox may deign to include a similar function in the vanilla game.

 

[I am Sovereign]

That's an argument that can be made, sure- but I brought up that mod as a solution. If his game is less fun because he can't have properly spread-out starts, he can make the game fun by using the mod. None of us have any idea of when Paradox may deign to include a similar function in the vanilla game.

Didnt wanted to criticize you or your answer.
It was the right thing to inform the OP of that option ofc.

 

[cloudwasher]

I've had 2 games I've started in the last week where I picked random placement and warp drive for my specie's engine, and ended up spawning on a single star system on the outer edge of the galaxy located far enough from any other star that I couldn't leave my home system... needless to say, both were immediately restarted.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I've had 2 games I've started in the last week where I picked random placement and warp drive for my specie's engine, and ended up spawning on a single star system on the outer edge of the galaxy located far enough from any other star that I couldn't leave my home system... needless to say, both were immediately restarted.

Happened to me once. Fun times. I actually kind of want to try something like that on purpose, using some mods maybe- if you could colonize your home system you could build the research infrastructure to go exploring beyond home eventually. Be interesting to see how the galaxy got on.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

Heh. When they say random empire placement, they mean /random/. I still prefer it to cluster starts, but definitely not above restarting if the opening layout is utterly horrible for what I want out of the game. I don't know if I'd say I rage quit a lot, but "despair" or "disgust" quits are definitely a thing.

And yeah, an "even" or "random with minimum distance to neighbor" would be nice to see as a basic game setting. Or two separate game settings, really, for a total of four. Even, random (minimum distance), clusters, completely random.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Heh. When they say random empire placement, they mean /random/. I still prefer it to cluster starts, but definitely not above restarting if the opening layout is utterly horrible for what I want out of the game. I don't know if I'd say I rage quit a lot, but "despair" or "disgust" quits are definitely a thing.

And yeah, an "even" or "random with minimum distance to neighbor" would be nice to see as a basic game setting. Or two separate game settings, really, for a total of four. Even, random (minimum distance), clusters, completely random.

i asked Wiz about 'no clustered starts and he explained that it is random with a minimum distance between homeworlds. he did say that that distance isn't very large.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

i asked Wiz about 'no clustered starts and he explained that it is random with a minimum distance between homeworlds. he did say that that distance isn't very large.

Heh, yeah. It'd be nice to see it a bit larger, but at some point, I guess it's not really random anymore.

I think what a lot of people want is some space (heh) to do the exploration + expansion part of the game, rather than being forced into a resource race right from the word go.

 

[I am Sovereign]

Also it is making playing in spiral galaxy so unfun to play.