Custom Starting Empires

[Succulent Chinese Legend]

This has been an ongoing issue since the Toxoids DLC (I think), essentially I have created 13 custom-made Empires and set them to force-spawn but can never get them to all spawn in-game, currently only 11 custom empires will spawn and 2 random ones will take the place of the what should be the remaining custom ones.

So far I've test the following:

. Originally I thought it could be a mod problem but I've tried without mods and the problem remains.

. I changed their starting systems to ensure every one had its own unique star (e.g.: random unary, binary, trinary) which didn't work.

. I increased the number of AI starting empires but only 11 of the custom empires spawned still.

. I ensured each empire had a unique origin that doesn't spawn additional empires, this has not resolved the issue.

Has anyone else encountered this problem, and is there a way to get around it? I'm happy to provide details about each empire in case there's a conflict with their origins.

[Mr.Person]

I think I'm having your issue too, I've built a library of like 35 custom empires over the years and the last few games I've started, 2 are always random vanilla factions even though I have more than enough custom ones to fill the new game.

[Succulent Chinese Legend]

Glad I’m not the only one! I have a theory that some origins can’t be together in the same games which I’m going to test later, but that in itself is a problem because as far as I’m aware none of the origins should be conflicting.

[HappySack]

There are three requirements for your empires to all exist in the same game that are not explained anywhere at all:

1. They have to have custom names, no randomly generated ones
   
2. They must all have unique origins but there are certain exceptions like Prosperous Unification or (Void Dwellers I think?)
   
3. Lastly, starting systems must also be unique except the very first one which is the only one that can be shared

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by HappySack:

There are three requirements for your empires to all exist in the same game that are not explained anywhere at all:

1. They have to have custom names, no randomly generated ones
   
2. They must all have unique origins but there are certain exceptions like Prosperous Unification or (Void Dwellers I think?)
   
3. Lastly, start systems must also be unique except the very first one which is the only one that can be shared

1. Not accurate at all. I've made empires with randomly generated names and they still all spawned, back when I had fewer custom empires.

[slight001]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

1. Not accurate at all. I've made empires with randomly generated names and they still all spawned, back when I had fewer custom empires.

Then you got lucky.

As I understand it the game uses blocks of words to generate the names and only lets each block be used once per session/galaxy.

This is why we can some of them spawn in, but not all of them or even most. I've had groups of custom empires that all spawned in just fine and ones that only a single example spawned in from.

I took that last group, who could only ever spawn a single empire, and simply retyped their names, exactly as they had been generated and suddenly all of them every time would appear in my galaxies.

[Mr.Person]

I too have randomly generated Empire Names in my library of factions and they never had trouble spawning on their own, though I do need to double check the others, but I'm pretty sure I have them all set to random stars, and most origins are different. I'll have to double check, but still a game with 15 faction spawns while I have around 35, there are no way 20 of them share origins that it passes by to use 2 vanilla ones.

[Succulent Chinese Legend]

I'm gonna list my plan below to see if I can identify the problem:

. Rename each empire to 1-13

. Check that each empire's starting system is completely unique and remove any that may spawn additional empires

. Check that each empire's origin is unique as well

This is about all I can think of that might impact other empires spawning, I'll do this now and see what the results are.

[Succulent Chinese Legend]

Welp, it was the Empire names. Renamed each empire to just a number and I observed all of them in the same game start. I then started including Fallen Empires, Marauders, Caravaneers, etc., and they were all still there. Bit ridiculous that was the issue but at least it's solved now - thanks for the help!

[Mr.Person]

So what, just re-type in all the names manually? I never had that issue before and most of the factions I made have been there for almost 5 years. None of my factions even share similar names