What starting settings do you prefer?

[|Nick]

What are your prefered starting settings for the galaxy etc?

[Ax4711]

Maximum map size, 1k stars, 12 or 15 empires is the way to go for me. Unfortunately starting at the center of a spiral galaxy always puts me somewhere off center, even in the middle, so I start on the fringe. Wish there was a "dead center" option to start in the eye of the storm, or there could even be a big bad black hole there.

[Sabaithal]

Max size, max stars, clusters, 10-18 empires so that I can safely remove a few that are spawned far too bloody close for comfort, chaos aggression, hard difficulty, highest strength pirates with maximum numbers at average distance, highest space creatures, and none of the distance settings function as they should so they don't matter.

[iGi]

300 stars, prewarp, research speed slow, tech trading off, colonies rare, independent colonies very rare, most other things on normal.
6-7 empires.

I like the smaller maps more, because you mostly skip the tedious phase when you are clearly more powerful than everyone else, but you still need to invade many planets to win.

[jorgen_cab]

2000 stars, largest map, rare colonies and independents, slowest research.

Hard difficulty.

About 10 other empires that starts as young to developed empires with tech level 1-3. I start as Pre-Warp.

This will always give a rather live galaxy with allot of challenges.

In my current game I'm still dead last after 100 years in the game and I'm barely into mid game technologies.

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by jorgen_cab:

....slowest research.

I understand the other parameters, but I have to ask...why the slowest research? Does that affect the feel of the game significantly?

[jorgen_cab]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Originally posted by jorgen_cab:

....slowest research.

I understand the other parameters, but I have to ask...why the slowest research? Does that affect the feel of the game significantly?

It feels more epic... but it also make the significant advantage in starting position of the AI that much more challenging as well.

I rarely "win" any of my games... I'm just happy to not be eliminated along the way. I always get bored of games if the challenge is gone.

[MaGicBush]

Originally posted by iGi:

300 stars, prewarp, research speed slow, tech trading off, colonies rare, independent colonies very rare, most other things on normal.
6-7 empires.

I like the smaller maps more, because you mostly skip the tedious phase when you are clearly more powerful than everyone else, but you still need to invade many planets to win.

This is how I like to play as well.

[AK_icebear]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Originally posted by jorgen_cab:

....slowest research.

I understand the other parameters, but I have to ask...why the slowest research? Does that affect the feel of the game significantly?

I prefer slowest research in nearly all 4X games.

Default settings often have new techs replacing old ones that you never even had an opportunity to use in battle/development. It makes the size of the tech tree irrelevant.

Slow research means I really, really notice when there is a new component. When the enemy is a few components ahead of me.

As a perk, it makes manual designs of ships much less frequent.

[ZumZoom]

Originally posted by AK_icebear:

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

I understand the other parameters, but I have to ask...why the slowest research? Does that affect the feel of the game significantly?

I prefer slowest research in nearly all 4X games.

Default settings often have new techs replacing old ones that you never even had an opportunity to use in battle/development. It makes the size of the tech tree irrelevant.

Slow research means I really, really notice when there is a new component. When the enemy is a few components ahead of me.

As a perk, it makes manual designs of ships much less frequent.

But it also probably makes campaigns longer, yes (not that it's a bad thing)?

[AK_icebear]

Correct. But I rarely play any 4x, on any settings, to the absolute end. Once I'm completely overwhelming the next largest opponent I take as a sign I've won.

[Berethain]

I like to shake things up so quicker games are more my speed. I mostly play on 4x speed as a technocracy. For the Aurora update I kept almost everything default to get a baseline. Normally I prefer a small galaxy with abundant planets and fast research. It squishes empires together and makes for a quicker game overall.