What Was Your Best Start?

[Darkaiser]

I started a new game with a race with Totally NOT an 'Imperium of Man' vibe to try out the new Paragon toys. The new leadership stuff is pretty cool but as my science vessels looked around I was amazed at how good my start was! I had, within ten years, scouted

2 Habitable worlds.
3 Worlds that were at 60% so not terrible.
1 wrecked ship
1 Automated shipyard (that builds a Cruiser IIRC)
And TONS of space! I had the core against my left so I went North and South and had lots of room to spread out before meeting anyone but the usual Shardlings and random stuff. My empire was pretty good before I even met another race's border! My economy is going nuts and I have good choke points to defend myself!

What was your best start, not because of your racial pick but position, resources, etc?

[Sedmeister]

I have a nation I call The Spacing Guild, a mega corp rip off of the Dune faction. I swear, every time I use it, I spawn in an area with at least two adjacent worm holes. Best start with them was three wormholes and two gates all within five jumps from my capital. I became the travel nexus for the whole galaxy.

[Darkaiser]

Originally posted by Sedmeister:

I have a nation I call The Spacing Guild, a mega corp rip off of the Dune faction. I swear, every time I use it, I spawn in an area with at least two adjacent worm holes. Best start with them was three wormholes and two gates all within five jumps from my capital. I became the travel nexus for the whole galaxy.

Nice! I found a ton of Archaeology sites in my current game and I have no mods affecting that so I'm going to call it luck of the draw. Only one black hole though...

[Mr. Hanky]

One time, because of marauders and fallen empires and an insane amount of luck, I somehow got blocked off from the rest of the galaxy to the point where I literally had half the huge sized galaxy to settle for myself with no real competition. The other 14 empires all had to share the other half of the galaxy. By the time I was in a position to be "threatened" by any of them, I had already expanded to own 70+ worlds (game modded for no habitats), had left all of them behind in the dust technologically, and my territory expanded across that entire half the galaxy. I also had 4 habitable worlds spawn right next to me and a ruined matter decompressor 2 systems away. Easiest game I've ever had.

[ScreamCon]

Originally posted by Mr. Hanky:

One time, because of marauders and fallen empires and an insane amount of luck, I somehow got blocked off from the rest of the galaxy to the point where I literally had half the huge sized galaxy to settle for myself with no real competition. The other 14 empires all had to share the other half of the galaxy. By the time I was in a position to be "threatened" by any of them, I had already expanded to own 70+ worlds (game modded for no habitats), had left all of them behind in the dust technologically, and my territory expanded across that entire half the galaxy. I also had 4 habitable worlds spawn right next to me and a ruined matter decompressor 2 systems away. Easiest game I've ever had.

I've had a couple like what Mr. Hanky said only less severe where I got a third the galaxy in one swoop. Fanatic militarist combined with xenophile tend to be the easiest empires to play. The starts most likely to do well.

[Blaze Shadowflame]

My first time trying out machine empires (ordinary one, no DE, DA, or RS) I got an entire fourth of the map to myself by being lucky enough to avoid surveying dead ends with baseline sensors and the Honorbound Warriors on my southern border decided they liked me enough to ask to start a martial alliance with me less than a hundred years after start. Spent most of that campaign sitting pretty as the only people attacking me, a rival hegemony of four, were on the other side of the warriors that coincidentally expanded enough to form a buffer between me and them while everyone else in the galaxy is too afraid of the two-nation federation repeatedly repelling what should be a stronger federation to dare try anything against us. Great Khan rolls around, they are hemmed in by me, the warriors, and a custodian matrix that got in the way (turns out FEs can gain territory and colonies if the Khan owns them) and when that was done the remnants that kept a couple planets asked to be my protectorate since they certainly weren't gonna be able to help themselves. Contingency shows up, matrix awakens and fights, and all the people that were starting to dislike me enough to consider war get partially-to-mostly wiped by the crisis while I get all three ringworlds left behind by the matrix as I shared a border with them.

[Darkaiser]

Some nice luck for maps, people! I often complain when I see something too soon and I feel crowded but I forget that the AI doesn't take down NPC enemies all that often. One group of 1K Shardlings is a good deterrent that can keep you safe!

[Cinnamoon_dragon]

I consider it a great luck if you manage to find a destroyed Science Nexus somewhere near your capital. This will allow you to unlock Megastructure techs earlier and does not count towards the total number of Megastructures in your empire, so you can have 2 Science Nexuses. This happens quite rarely, much more often you can find a destroyed Ring world.

[maerchen]

I once happened to stumble upon a primitive civ with 20 pops in the next system so I got them all integrated as soon as my armies freed their minds from deviant thoughts with my driven assimilator empire.
A conquered 20 pop in the first 10 years of the game. I became the scourge of the galaxy.

[yuzhonglu]

Any Clone Army start next to a Fanatic Purifier.

[𝒞𝒶𝓉𝓎𝒶♡]

I once had a lucky start with, both Helito system (that leads to another system that has sweet Gaia's with several pre-ftl planets) and Wenkwort Gaia just next to my spawn, so close that they all did get included in my Core Sector haha. :)

Still on that same run, had 5 relics in my small corner area. Super lucky. 1st time then did also get the Crystal of Odryskia, was nice, could dump all that energy credit amount to Alloys (did not have Cybrex that time) each time it was ready. :) Scaling on that is a bit crazy, it started to give like 200k energy credits at some point.

Good times. And smooth until win with all that sweetness from near spawn, from early game already was building up strong with such a good spawn luck. Was almost too good lol. I felt slightly overpowered with all them relic toys haha

[corisai]

Human fanatic purifiers that had with 3 jumps:
a) another human empire (so galaxy had united nations too).
b) early space era primitives.
c) a ruined space nexus.
d) enigmatic fortress (as it was before combat rebalance arc emitters&NT were the kings of battle and Engimatic Decoder was >>> everything else for A-slot).
e) (a bit futher then 3 jumps) Ancient Caretakers. So yean, 2 free ringworlds since midgame.

Xenos filth was cleanised in no time ^_^

[Hector]

Happened the other day to me. Started up a human run and spawned next to a continental world and then I proceeded to scout and stumbled across another ocean/continental world and then another and then another so I colonized them and and had about 6-7 planets all ocean-continental worlds. I also had a primitive civ with 20 pops in my claimed space as well. I got attacked around the time I was colonizing the last of the 5-6 planets and end up winning and taking three planets from them and another empire jumped them and took planets and solar systems from them and took there remaining planet and solar system as a vassal. I also locked out a section of space that lead to an endless amount of unclaimed solar systems so I had lots of free space to expand toward and then I also got the leader who gives tons of experience to ships and gives an event with an option for 20% claims reduction. On top of that I’d gotten exoskeleton as the first tech and shortly after got robots not that I needed it my planets pops were growing faster then I could upgrade them. Well when I took on the new planets I took on on one super unstable planet with 14 unemployed pops the other two had unemployed pops as well. At the same time my economy took a big impact with new pop and I started rushing food building to create jobs and to grow food as I was losing food fast and I couldn’t relocate the unemployed pops because I had nowhere to put them as my own worlds were maxing out and they had low habitat on ocean/continental worlds. The 14 unemployed planet started going through the revolt phase and well that one unstable planet dragged in the other two planets and they revolted before I was able to stabilize them with the essential buildings and jobs. When that happened my current ally who’d I signed a defensive pact joined in with the vassal. So here’s where everything went wrong after I took the first solar system back ownership transferred to my Allies vassal and then I took another and and it happened again same with planets and when I finally took the last planet the war ended and my defensive Allies vassal got all the solar systems and planets I had originally fought so hard in the early game to win. I quit the game and deleted the save :(. In hindsight since I didn’t have the resources nor time to build the essential buildings to stabilize all three planets I should’ve turned the additional 40-60 slave pops into cattle it would’ve solved my stability and food problems instantly and I could’ve changed them back to regular slaves in 10 years once I’d built the essential buildings and would make enough food to where the loss of the cattle pop wouldn’t have adverse effects on my economy. Tbh I’m still learning, worst part about having a really good start is that kinda ruins the game, at least for me it did. I’ve been starting over an over and trying to get a similar start with 5-6 ocean-continental worlds it turns it’s rare especially all the other things that happened.

[bri]

Best I ever had was 4 of my type (all 18+ size) and a gaia 23 within 2 jumps of my hw and then the chain that duplicates your hw fired...

[Existence]

I once spawned in a system with 3 toxic worlds, one being at 30, one at 24, and the other at 20 size. I dont actually remember if I spawned directly inside the said system, or very close by to it. But, with a toxic world terraforming mod on, I managed to get a decent amount of production out of that system, without wasting a tradition slot on it. And I am pretty sure there were 2-3 systems of that exact type within that map.