4X and especially 4X Space has long been my go-to genre. Started playing ISG a couple weeks ago and really enjoy much of the game, especially how clean and straightforward the UI elements work together. However, moving into higher difficulties, one increasing frustration is the commonly untenable starting areas. At easier settings this of course isn't noticeable, but it starts becoming obvious even just at 'hard'. We expect challenge, that's part of the fun, and giving AI bonuses to production and research are traditional ways of providing challenge. But regularly having to restart by turn 60 or 80 because you've barely got a 2nd, let alone 3rd, decent colony running while seeing the nearby AIs with 4 or more because of their guaranteed favorable start? Gets a bit tedious, and this isn't just observation bias... I spent a few hours starting matches (large, hard, 5 player) and advancing turns while deep scanning all the sectors around my capital, plus whatever nearby system I colonized with the starting colony ship, and searching outward what I could reach with my frigates. After 30 or so tests, only once did I have a 'great' planet nearby (large, preferred biome & gravity, rich, no specials). 8 times I had an 'average' planet (where richness or specials offset size/biome/gravity) and twice had 2 'average' planets. All other times I had no decent planets near enough to have meaningful impact early enough to offset the AIs starting advantage. Now, I'm not the best player on the pitch, but I'm certain I understand research priorities and colony development well enough that I'm not missing something obvious (like med-bays to combat morale, or cloning centers for growth.) I'm not suggesting winning couldn't eventually be possible even with bad starts. I can appreciate an uphill battle in terms of difficulty, but I rather expect that at the highest 'impossible' difficulties, not the ones just past 'average'. Given, 30-ish tests is hardly scientific, but enough results to know my experiences aren't anomalies. So at this point, before I put any more time into the game, I'm wanting to know if this sort of starting bias intentional, or are things still being tweaked and balanced? If it's intended, then I can wait for mod support before going further. But if it's not, and as I've read other people complain about the difficulty jump ramping too high too soon, can you spend a few dev cycles looking into this? I'm sure many of us would appreciate it. Thanks!
Hi Zinjigee, welcome to the forums. I can confirm that there was indeed an issue on the map generation algorithm - that I discovered and resolved in the meantime but the fix is not available yet - about the player's starting conditions which could cause the behavior you are reporting of seeing less "great" planets for the player than what it could be expected. This was not intentional and it doesn't happen every time. It also depends on the number of players you go with. The more players the more this effect may be felt. The distances between players also have an impact. The more distant the players are the less this behavior may occur. Basically, the more players you play with, and the closer they are, the more the map generation algorithm may tweak the map starting conditions too near other players. Tweaking and normalizing the map is an intentional and desirable process. However, there were a few cases were the algorithm was tweaking a bit "too much" nearby other player's maps, which could lead to a great planet for a player to suddenly turn only "ok". This was addressed as I said above and the fix will be available in the next update, which will be quite large and will need thorough testing before it can be available to the public. So, in the meantime and if this is an issue for you you could try going with less players and with more distance between systems, and the effects should be less felt. Alternatively, you can also consider reducing the bonuses the AI gets in the harder difficulties a bit if you think that may provide for a more balanced session. The AI gets the bonuses in the higher difficulties (which you can tweak in the players setup) screen, but it also gets more aggressive, and you may enjoy that extra challenge. So, tweaking the bonuses down could make the trick for a smoother session. Also, please make sure your production and research sliders are set at 100%. It's not uncommon to tweak those values and forget about them. The values will keep as you leave them, so please check that your empire's production and research efficiency are at the level you desire. Hope this helped, and sorry for the inconvenience.
Hi, Adam! Appreciate the quick reply. It's good to hear testing and tweaking remain ongoing processes. I look forward to the next patch (as I do to see what's in store for the expansion), and in the meanwhile might give 'huge' maps a shot for the extra distance - daunting as that is. Also I didn't realize the AI behaves more aggressively at higher levels; this is not always the case in 4X games where often they just get bonuses. This sounds great to me, and I'll certainly play around with the bonus sliders + higher difficulty aggression to keep pushing myself. It's always a pleasure gaming and being part of a community with smaller dev shops which products are as much a labour of love as anything, and I'm glad I saw early on the potential here and posted my positive review for it on Steam. Thanks again for the response and the welcome!
I was wondering about this myself. I am glad to see it is being handled. Just had my worst game ever... 5 stars in the starting zone, 3 had no planets, the two with planets also had monsters. Not much 2 Frigates can do against a dragon and an amoeba anytime soon. /sigh
Well in 1.2 unstable problem still exist, but also I was wondering if is there a chance to change the way of generating starting home systems. Now this systems are made up of one habitable planet and the rest are not, and whether home systems could be larger than 1, 2, or 3 planets. It worked for the SOL system, maybe it can be done for other.
You say the problem still exists. In which way? Could you provide some details? Regarding starting home systems, sometimes they have more planets than others. In some occurrences even another ideal world in the initial system, depending also on the difficulty level. Allowing further customization of the starting system is an interesting idea.
