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[Kebooo]

Ok, so that's three for random, I'd like to be Li-halan, since I'm willing to sit there creating the game over and over to find a fair galaxy.

One more thing, do we want passwords on or off?  Usually with passwords on we'd give our password to the player that had the turn after ours, but that still didn't prevent one player disappearing from the face of the earth and the person that had their password losing it.  Passwords off of course means someone could look at other people's turns if they wanted to.

[Dwarmin]

1) I'll Play al-Malik
2) Yes for traits
3) Yes for plague!
4) random
5) Universal warehouse off

[Kejardon]

We're playing for fun. If someone cares enough to cheat to win, oh well.

[Kebooo]

Yea, I agree.  Especially since someone in theory could keep reloading their turns to cheat anyway so everyone has to be trusted to play fair.

I went ahead and started the galaxy, I'll wait to do my intro post until everyone signs off on this galaxy being fair.  The Symbiots are closed in, everyone has a fairly viable route to Byzantium II, and everyone has a viable way to get six planets (or more), plus plenty of planets to dispute and engage in diplomacy or war over.  Decados will have the most disputes, but also has the best proximity to Byzantium II.  I spent about an hour starting the game over and over and this was the best one that came up so I hope you all are happy with it.

Everyone should load the Hazat turn below (obviously don't play it or explore any of the planets near him) just to see the galaxy and if you're all alright with it. 

Here's the turn:

http://s235607088.onlinehome.us/whote/Stuff/turn1hazat.sav


And make sure you load this using the Nova 2.3 patch.

[Kejardon]

I'm not an expert on what's fair and what isn't as far as galaxy distribution goes, so I think I'll just go along with whatever is acceptable to everyone else.
Also, are we using the patched EXE from the hyperion maker?

[Kebooo]

No, I didn't use the Hyperion exe (I never have).  It's to my understanding that the only difference is to allow the symbiots to build spaceships?  I'm against that for multiplayer, because really, the purpose of those ships is to break free from Stigmata, which is always unfair to whatever player has to deal with that.  Whoever is near those planets (and inevitably conquer them) will have to deal with hundreds of symbiots as is.  The Hyperion mod was never used very much compared to Nova back at the height of the EFS community.  It's great for single player though.

[Mlittle]

That is one whacky universe. It is probably not ballanced at all, but I am shure human players can find their own ballance.

It's good, as it should offer very intense diplomacy.

The way I see the starting positions:
Al-Malik has unlimited options and unlimited chances for tensions
Li-Halan has a lot of room for growth, but it's not a clear cut path
Hazat position is more limited, but also less complex.
Decados has a lot of room for growth, but it's a very complex path.
Hawkwood is boxed in, but it could still grow. It's the only position I would call hard.

The early growth could give us a completely different scenario.

[Aqizzar]

That is one wacky universe indeed.  Good luck untangling yourselves from that mad crescent.

My condolences Hawkwood, you're freakin' screwed, unless you and Li Halan team up good and fast.

[Il Palazzo]

No, I didn't use the Hyperion exe (I never have).  It's to my understanding that the only difference is to allow the symbiots to build spaceships?  I'm against that for multiplayer, because really, the purpose of those ships is to break free from Stigmata, which is always unfair to whatever player has to deal with that.  Whoever is near those planets (and inevitably conquer them) will have to deal with hundreds of symbiots as is.  The Hyperion mod was never used very much compared to Nova back at the height of the EFS community.  It's great for single player though.

I wasn't aware there existed such a "patch", or, for that matter, that symbiots don't build ships(though it was dawning on me after a couple of decades being the stigmata commander).
It's not entirely bad idea. In fact, it might be quite awesome - you could loosen the voting restrictions, whose sole purpose is to not unbalance the game so much, when the ministries suddenly have some reall threat to counter. The Fleet would have to stay above stigmata, the garrison would have to build more troops, and abandoning their duties would be heavy in consequences. The Eye would be suddenly more valuable, as it's free of such obligations to the galaxy and can be exploited freely. All in all, it would add another layer to the already interesting voting deals.

[Kebooo]

Well the thing is, the Symbiots still take an extremely long time to spread very far, too long for it to be relevant unless you edit the stats of their units (which the Hyperion mod does, but then you'd just be playing Hyperion and not Nova), so no one but Hazat would have to care, meaning they would really have to secure a ministry or else face the possibility of being crippled.  If I became fleet commander in such a scenario I would simply abandon Stigmata unless I had some kind of alliance with the Hazat. 

The way I look at the random galaxy is that outside of one planet, Hawkwood is in the exact same position as Li-Halan - every planet within both empire's general sphere of influence is equal distance from each other's homeworlds except for three, Pentateuch, Daishan, Tethys, one being closer to Hawkwood and two being closer to Li'Halan.  However, since Delphi has 4 gem markers vs Kish's 1, and also 4 exotica markers to Kish's 1, I felt that was about as even as random galaxy would ever get.  I see 15 total planets that will no doubt be split between Hawkwood/Li-halan, peacefully or through force, so a 7.5 average, and I see 12-13 planets that Decados and Al-malik will occupy, a 6.5 average, while Hazat 8 or 9ish, but they are flanked on two sides by two other houses and the symbiots, not to mention the symbiot planets will be more of a challenge to take than others. 

If people think the galaxy isn't fair I'm willing to try to find another, but this one honestly was the most balanced by a long shot after an hour of making them.  Most galaxies either had at least one house either having almost no place to expand to, or having half the galaxy to expand to uncontested, and then the other 'fair' galaxies had routes to Byzantium II that required other houses to travel through other house's homeworlds, which was just too unfair a path.

[mainiac]

Maybe one of the players from the other game can use the galaxy editor to make a balanced map?

[Kejardon]

I wasn't aware there existed such a "patch", or, for that matter, that symbiots don't build ships(though it was dawning on me after a couple of decades being the stigmata commander).

Well the thing is, the Symbiots still take an extremely long time to spread very far, too long for it to be relevant unless you edit the stats of their units (which the Hyperion mod does, but then you'd just be playing Hyperion and not Nova), so no one but Hazat would have to care, meaning they would really have to secure a ministry or else face the possibility of being crippled.

I can kinda confirm that. Even with the patched EXE, if the initial Symbiot fleet is destroyed the Symbiots are about as 'fast' and 'aggressive' as an AI house, and either the fleet or Stigmata can easily hold them the rest of the game probably (as long as the fleet didn't lose 3/4 of its ships). It's as if they know how to build ships, but don't know how to use the new ships... I've captured a good number of them in the Hyperion mod while only losing ~3 of my own ships.
Actually, for some reason, the patched EXE is somewhat more stable for me. I really have no idea why though, but because of that I prefer to use it.

[Kebooo]

If you're able to capture Symbiot ships (do they just not launch them?) that's a real balance issue I'm not sure I would want to deal with.  If there is no way to capture them and still keep them I would be open to using the .exe if the others want to, but wouldn't that require starting the galaxy all over?

I'd like to avoid having someone design a galaxy.  The historical galaxy itself isn't balanced, and that lack of balance inspires a lot of the diplomacy and wars.  Plus in a random galaxy we know we're the first ones exploring these uncharted worlds.  Because of the importance of resource markers and gems, there's really no way for us to actually know who has the best situation.

I spent another half-hour generating random galaxies and couldn't come up with a better one, so I'm willing to play as any of the houses in the random galaxy I posted, or play as whichever house is the consensus weakest, and if there is a consensus strongest position, then the least experienced player could play that.  I feel every house has about equal footing in their chances, and the only big difference from the historical galaxy will be how tangled Li-halan and Hawkwood are, but they have enough planets to make up for that.

[Kejardon]

They don't launch many for some reason, but the Symbiots seem to build units like crazy. The ships tend to be very well protected, EXCEPT that the Symbiots build so many units that ships will actually overflow to outside their cities. You'd still need a good fleet to defeat the Symbiots' own home fleets (I tend to see 6-8 ships per Symbiot-fully-controlled planet), and then a way to find and capture poorly-defended ships. I think they built units with 0 loyalty though so the ships would be less useful in combat... in Hyperion I tended to disband most Symbiot units I captured for biochems, not that I needed biochems but because the Symbiot units weren't actually useful to me. I mainly kept only ships that could transport stuff.
I'm not sure how all that will translate to Nova. Also, no you don't have to restart the galaxy, either .exe can load the saves fine.

[Kebooo]

The only problem with that that I see is if you simply farmed symbiot ships, gaining space supremacy, allowing a few hives to live, and only landing units on the planet to gain control of the ships whenever you wanted to.  It would be a lot of effort of course, but could give someone a constant flow of free ships.  If the other players want to use that exe, I won't object, but I'd prefer not to have to deal with the effects of a stronger symbiot presence and the ability to exploit them for their ships.  What happens if people conspire to let the symbiots flood out to cripple other players?  I've always preferred players crippling each other as opposed to the AI doing so.  I'm also unsure of what the exe does, if anything, to the Vau's behavior.

So what is everyone's opinion on the random galaxy?  Are we ok with it?  Like I said, I'm willing to play any of the houses in it, so if someone wants Li-halan instead of the other choices, I'm more than willing to exchange.  I'd like for our game to start so we don't spend five months theorizing on what's best and what isn't.

I made a map to show a feasible potential outcome of planet distribution.  Note, this is not to create arbitrary mental lines of spheres of influence, there's plenty of disputes and negotiations and wars to wage.  But it just seems, that in general, the galaxy is balanced, but more contested than usual.