A better accelerated start?

[Q_tip1976]

Has anyone found a good alternative to starting friendly (i.e. non tournament) games with out the accelerated start? In my experience with the accelerated start at least one player gets put in an impossbley bad position because of the computers inane terraforming etc. An alternative is to just start the games from planetfall but that seems like a long peroid of time not doing much.

Has any one found a more fair system w/o resorting to a tournament style map and rules? I would rather play on a planet with out identacle islands etc.

[DilithiumDad]

There are several options.

1. Easiest is to use Time Warp, but to use a map with balanced start sites so everyone is an equally bad and messed up position. Huge Map of Planet is good, and the Ultimate Builder Map works well with this, too. My map also provides some acceleration because there are extra specials, nutrients, bonuses, monoliths and pods at start sites so everyone can get off to a raoring start (even the AI factions!).

2. Next is to consider using the Scenario Editor. Easiest thing to do is to give each faction 4 colony pods, 4 scouts and 8 formers. On Map of Planet, there are 11 balanced start sites to chose from, and more on ultimate builder.

3. In Scenario Editor, you can use the "Change View/Switch Sides --->> Play all factions sequentially" option to play all 7 factions for 20 moves or so and get them all set up. Use the might graph to keep the factions balanced.

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Creator of the Ultimate Builder Map, based on the Huge Map of Planet