Universalists' Luck = LOTS of yellow stars?

You know, I noticed this as well. I just started playing a small map, and I'm practically the only one with any yellow stars nearby. I think I have around 6 systems, next closest might be 3.

I'll look for that.

But in any event, I think starting position is too important in this game. A balanced game would allow the player just as much chance to win or lose EVERY GAME. As it is, a great or above-average starting position can really make your game easy (or vice-versa). In a balanced game there would be no do-overs (ctrl-n or whatever). Does everyone disagree with this?

"Does everyone disagree with this?"

Yes, for the following reason: any algorithm which will give a balanced starting positon will also give a predictable starting position. Might as well play on pre-generated maps as the end result is the same - you would know exactly where everything was once you learned how the balancing was done. As a consequence the game would suffer even more than it does with the variability that occurs with the current system.

I certainly do billy--Ive never had a challenging game yet.Im either hopelessly beaten by a bad starting location(80% of the time) or I get such a great start that its no fun to keep playing.

And watch out with this +25 luck attribute.
Sounds like its overpowering so it will get nerfed real soon.

oops--I mean I agree with Billybaruch

Oh and I forgot the other scenario--One of the AI get such a great start that they become unbeatable.

"And watch out with this +25 luck attribute.
Sounds like its overpowering so it will get nerfed real soon."

Actually, I don't think the luck attribute has anything at all to do with yellow stars. I could be wrong, and someone official is more than welcome to correct me if I am, but I'd be willing to bet that the map is generated completely independently of where the races start off.

I'm playing with the Universalists and got exactly the same sort of start as four of the other races. The only one that got hosed was the Yor.

I won't give away what Luck does since that would ruin things. But it's based on the magical power of Bink from the Xanth series.

But Bink doesn't... ohhhhhhh...

I guess it's all in how you look at things. "Luck" indeed

For what it is worth, I have also started a 1.3 game as the Universalists. And I do indeed have slews of good planets nearby. Sol wasn't anything special but the sector just below it had 2 class 26 planets in it. 2 out of every 3 stars I've explored have at least a marginally habital planet. One sector (not the one with the class 26s) has 5 class 15s or above and 3 or 4 class 13s and 14s.

Luck gave me Rangers. Lots of Rangers. It did not, however, get me Chameleon. Frankly? I feel hosed.



Mark

Heh... no Chameleon? Bummer..

Bink was anti-magic, wasn't he? Been so long since I read that series! He couldn't be affected by bad magic? Hmmm...

Anyways, yes.. you most certainly at least get more yellow stars, for one thing, that's for certain. Absolutely you do. Is it unbalancing? It could well be. Perhaps why they decided to ditch it final release to begin with.. LOL

fleabitfox

"Anyways, yes.. you most certainly at least get more yellow stars, for one thing, that's for certain. Absolutely you do."

I'll believe this when either one of the "superstitious" lot that looks at one game and decides something is going on posts some statistical data where n > 50, or one of the devs says that's what the code is supposed to do.

Do you really think in the same patch they took out the PQ +15 they would have put a party in that "most certainly" gave you more yellow stars? You really don't give them much credit when you make this declaration.

I had a game the other day with huge numbers of yellow stars by me, and no AI civ anywhere near. I had chosen +2 sensors, obviously +2 sensors gives more yellow starts and places AI civs further away. *nods to self*

When someone posts a set of numbers showing average number of yellow stars per sector in the 8 sectors around your starting location plus your starting sector, and the average PQ of the '15 or larger' planets around those stars, for both +50 luck and +0, and if those numbers show a difference, then I'll pay attention. Of course, you'll need to have a statistically meaningful sample, say 10-15 universes for both +50 and +0.

My last game was completely different. My system was placed in a corner with absolutely no stars in the three adjacent sectors on a small map...and only one habitable planet in the Sol system...needless to say I was crushed soon enough by the Drengins...

Galaxor, this is the absolute minimum info you can give us. We only know you played a small map. Apparently you have never finished a game yet, or it is not submitted to the metaverse. The situation you describe is so uncommon, that we would like to hear more details about this game.

"any algorithm which will give a balanced starting positon will also give a predictable starting position."

You may be correct on that. It is just your theory, though. Or can you prove it in all cases?

I was thinking about Alpha Centauri and maybe the Civ series. Also there's a game named Chess that doesn't seem to suffer any lack of re-playability.

I've tried starting several new games and don't see a direct correlation between luck and more yellow stars or higher PQ. Besides if you read Brad's comments on luck you soon realize that it's not so much that good things happen to you...

Freya:
You´re right, I haven´t submitted any games to the metaverse yet. I will give it a try when I´m better with the game
What else can I say about the game I mentioned?
I played as federalists(I think...), common habitable planets and didn´t change anything of the starting options. All alien races were set to normal intelligence.
I started out in the lower left corner with no other stars in reach. When my ships had a better range, it was already too late, all habitable planets were occupied. The Drengins were my neighbours and soon started to demand money. After refusing three times they declared war. They were far better in numbers and technology, so I quit the game before I was actually conquered.
Well, for me as an unexperienced player, the situation was far too difficult. With only one planet, how was I supposed to expand? As the other races know the location of the yellow stars, there was no hope for me to find a little gem later on. Weak, good aligned and Drengins as neighbours, I knew what would happen soon...

"I'll believe this when either one of the "superstitious" lot that looks at one game and decides something is going on posts some statistical data where n > 50, or one of the devs says that's what the code is supposed to do.

Do you really think in the same patch they took out the PQ +15 they would have put a party in that "most certainly" gave you more yellow stars? You really don't give them much credit when you make this declaration."

How about.. I've tested it myself, and it is OBVIOUS. It seems to favor you with more decent planets for one one thing, more decent planets in a system, and it also seems to give you more resources nearby (often in your starting sector), more closeby asteroids, and anomolies.

Before picking Universalist, the best other star in my starting system was a class 19. I started a Universalist and got a class 26 planet IN MY STARTING SYSTEM. Gee, how.. lucky for me.

It may be that it finds the best cluster of systems in your galaxy and makes that your starting point. Whatever it does, it favors you with a better stating position almost every time.

If you don't believe who have solid #'s gleamed from some file Codemonkey, try it yourself. Start 20 or so games as a universalist. Increase your speed one or two, and just check out all the surronding sectors. We are who are seeing this are not proclaiming that Brad and Co. would release an unbalanced political party.. we are just telling people what we have seen for ourselves. I've started a bajillion games by now.. I can tell the difference, it is not even difficult.

Just so you know, Universalist was going to be in the original, but Brad said it was to unbalancing (I don't recall if he said it was overpowered, but I do believe he did), and so it was removed. Has it been nerfed? Maybe, maybe not. But I'm not an idiot.. I know when I see a difference.

When I can start with a resource a couple parsecs away in SEVERAL games I start.. and there are more yellow stars.. and in those yellow stars, there are more habitable worlds.. I know something is up. Also, I have found several of the higher influence purple systems nearby. I rarely find those when I start a game. I've found several in the universalist started games.

Don't take our word for it.. go check it out yourself *shrug*

fleabitfox

I've been testing it out with different settings, and from where I sit I don't see how picking Universalists is giving you more yellow stars or a better starting position. My starting positions seem to be about the same, regardless of the party pick.

~SDC~

On my third game as Universalist, I can say with relative certainty that you won't get more yellow stars nearby by picking Universalist as your party. IMHO, I believe Luck will give you a better chance of good random events - found a Ranger in just about every game as Universalist. Twice in one game so far. Also it should lower your chances of getting the bad random events.

~SDC~

Posted by billybaruch1, #17
> You may be correct on that. It is just your theory,
> though. Or can you prove it in all cases?
>
> I was thinking about Alpha Centauri and maybe the Civ
> series. Also there's a game named Chess that doesn't
> seem to suffer any lack of re-playability.

First, SMAC and any of the Civ games do not have any sort of guaranteed balanced starting position. They generate a random map, same as GalCiv. What makes them less likely to screw you is the fact that most of the land types are roughly equally usable. OTOH, I guess you never started off in all fungus or all jungle, or maybe on a tiny isthmus 2 squares wide and were boxed in by another civ? Is that why you think they are balanced starts, because I know damn well I've been screwed and blessed by starting position more times than I can count.

As for proving, no I don't have any sort of mathematical proof on hand, just common sense. If the algorithm generated a map that was guaranteed to be balanced for all players then what it has to is guarantee that there is roughly the same number of yellow stars and habitable planets near each of the civs, and it should make sure that each of the civs are placed equidistant from one another. For example, if you're playing a large, abundant map you would know that you have between 8-10 yellow stars all within a certain distance of your start and you would have a decent idea of which directions they were located - after all, you would want an even distribution within each race's territory so you don't get one race sitting on a massive clump of yellow stars while the others have to spend multiple turns getting to theirs.

At that point, the exploration phase breaks down to even more of a rote formula. You would look at the map, figure out approximately where each of the other races were. At that point by looking at where you were relative to your "territory", you would know how many colony ships to build, where to send them, and how many colonists should be in each one (for daisy chaining the colonisation).

This is why the majority of RTS games, where competition is seen as so important, use pregen maps (e.g. Big Game Hunters for Starcraft). And the ones that use random ones usually use a method that makes a more or less homogenous map but the predictability is less severe than in this game. As an example, consider AOK - in that game, the layout of the random maps were very predictable, but where the resources wound up was very random. But because we're not talking a map that shows you where resources (star) are from the beginning, it balanced out in terms of what you know and what you don't know - and it still could screw people severely.

STarted two as a Universalist, bailed on the first one, am well into the second. Pet peeve so far is Large map and all the civs knocking on my door right away...please! it's a large map! 1st game...2 26 planets right off the bat...found 3 more, 2 20+...went ofr it..BAM Torians get 2, Dengin get the other! about 20 moves in for cryin out loud! Next game better, planets much lower quality, but too much contact too early! Having the Drengin and Yor(shortly) declare war on you early isn't helping, but the Drengin are taking a beating now. Torians surrendered, gave me theit 3 planets left, the ALtarians are almost done, Arceans love me but have like 2 planets. ALL the minors love me but it'll be me against the Evil twins shortly...turned out good, but large map, I expected more separation. I was going all diplomacy/trade/Eco/research, but The Drengins forced me into military buildup, and I beat them handily to Battleships as I quit last night!
Doc

For the people trying to come to conclusions about something based on starting position, forget it: your starting position can vary so wildly that you can't draw any conclusion except that anything goes. I've had starts with no AI civ near me and 8 (yes, 8) resource sites around in inside my clusters, when I was done expanding I had 25% of the entire gigantic map inside my bounds before I ran out of yellows to colonize. On the other extreme, when I was rolling for my game last evening my 2nd reroll gave me a pitiful cluster of stars in the bottom-left corner, my starting star and 2 others and nothing even close to within range. That last one had the +25% luck pick, btw.

If you play the game enough you'll have some incredibly good and incredibly bad starting locations, as will the AIs.