Galaxy Size

[indigopegasus]

Any reccomended Galaxy Size and number od opponets for a good game against the AI?

[Firgof]

I find 10-15 Systems per Empire, less than 100 total, and having two galaxies creates a tight, interesting, and fun universe.

So for instance a 5 Empire game I might make a 20 system Cluster and a 30 system Spiral galaxy. The game will try to evenly distribute empires between galaxies.

[KaidenOZ]

would not recommend over 1000, :P played a 1500 for a few hours till my 8core CPU started overheating. 10-15 is a good number although i personally prfer the sprawling mega empires of 50 too each empire

[Shockonator]

I don't really play anything less than 500 systems.

[IllyiaSvara]

Depends upon what you like in your games.
If you like short(ish) fast paced games with lots of raiding/planet swapping a very small dumbell galaxy with just 10 systems each and asteroids turned up to max.
Small enough to get constant interaction between you and a savage AI fighting from close to the start.
Large enough that you can achieve a reasonable economy with the asteroids included. Sometimes I prefer this just because its more limited in econ terms and forces you to keep to ship sizes the AI actually makes.

Larger systems/multi-galaxies which I mainly do, I consistently find require more and more AI to get well the AI doing stuff. Normally I fill it with just Oko or Fehyr(feyhr???) since those two seem to raid more often than the others and try and attack/expand more. Though even then the AI still just seems to reach a limit, when over 24 hours into a x10 speed multigalaxy game and the AI still hasn't taken of their uncontested galaxy (every ai has their own seperate galaxy) its rather well saddening to me that they barely expand or even build defenses or fleets. Its like 24 hours in still using just 6 fleets (yay go oko and your tree fleets). Difficulty doesn't seem to actually ramp up in terms of AI skill or what it does or even just building defenses, more fleets or taking more planets. They just get little tiny boosts to try and keep up. Though even then despite claiming to be able to cheat savage still seems to always fall behind on points, econ and ships.
These games are nice to just see what comes up and watch the AI more than for a fighting the AI.

[Dalo Lorn]

Feyh, Illyia, Feyh. :P

Anyway, yeah, Oko seem to fare pretty well, partly because they make unsuccessful attempts at reinventing the wheel and just upscale the stuff they know is good.

OP: I personally tend to play a spiral galaxy of around 100 stars with 25000 spacing and 2-4 AI to fill it up. It's a bit slow that way, though.

[Proteus]

If I play with a fixed number of stars, I usually take around 20-25 systems per empire often [# empires] star clusters around a central galaxy of another type.

But often enough I just take a single Remnant-Galaxy.
In a Remnant galaxy (as far as I understand it) the number of stars is dynamic ... you have the galaxy core (which is gaurded by remnants) a middle cluster (one for each empire) and the outlying regions ... the outlying regions are, where AFAIK new layers of stars are generated, if you expand / scout stars there ... but each system of the outlying regions is guarded by remnant ships with the defenses getting harder the more distant they get from the galaxy core.
With other words, with the Remnant galaxy you have lots of room to expand ... if you have fleets strong enough to clean the systems from defenses (you cannot colonise in those systems before all defending capital ships are killed))

[Lvl 3 Slime]

That's the expanse map. However, the AI, even Oko on savage, seem to have problems properly colonizing the extended map as well as the center area. I noticed that if they do manage to have strong enough force (Oko, Savage, cheated government), they always do so in a straight line at the right, causing them to fight very ramped up defenses.

[Dalo Lorn]

Indeed, the AI doesn't deal with the Expanse very well.