I'd swear that TOA was supposed to have MORE habitable planets...

from GalCiv2 Forums

...yet now, into the first game I've really played of it, I have yet to find anything at all besides two barren worlds.

It's very, very early in the game, and I haven't even met any other races yet, but I've already scouted out about 15-20 systems near Earth (I am Terrans) and the lack of habitable planets is distressing. I started with friendly relations with the Arceans (for backstory reasons) and from talking to them it doesn't seem that they've found any habitable worlds either, as their only colonies are Arcea and Hammer II.

Habitable planets are set to "Occasional", extremes to "Uncommon". In a DA, this would give a decent amount of planets per map without turning into a micromanaging nightmare.

Am I just remembering wrong and TOA has less habitable planets on average? Or am I just in a bad starting position?

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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

So why don't you set it to abundant?

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

What map size are we talking about by the way?

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Immense. I'm one of the ones who wants the biggest map possible.

Quoting Moosetek13, reply 1
So why don't you set it to abundant?

I never play with abundant habitable planets on any game. It increases the amount of micro-managing to an intolerable level, and in addition, there's a lot of evidence suggesting the AI does better with less planets. This thread isn't really a complaint about the game, but is about whether I'm remembering correctly that TOA is supposed to have more planets on average.

Edit: Apparently I was just a victim of bad luck. I looked at the debug.err file and saw:

Debug Message:  Star Frequency: 4  Max Num Stars: 320
Debug Message:  Planet Frequency: 3  Max Num Planets: 1024
Debug Message:  Galaxy Size Set: 22 x 22
Debug Message:  Creating Random Map
Debug Message:  Creating Random Map... Stars
Debug Message:  Star Density: Loose clusters.
Debug Message:  Number of Unplaced Stars: 0.
Debug Message:  Creating Random Map... Planets
Debug Message:  *************** Failed To Place Planet ***************
Debug Message:  *************** Failed To Place Planet ***************
Debug Message:  *************** Failed To Place Planet ***************
Debug Message:  *************** Failed To Place Planet ***************
Debug Message:  *************** Failed To Place Planet ***************
Debug Message:  *************** Failed To Place Planet ***************
Debug Message:  Total planets placed: 65

Not sure what the "failed to place planet" means, but it looks like I just got about as small a number of planets as possible.

Second edit: Ignore the above... it looks like it says "Total planets placed: 65" no matter what the settings are. Not sure what it actually means but it certainly isn't listing the number of planets.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

You're remembering incorrectly.

TA has less habitable planets, at minimum, on average, and at maximum. A scattered/loose Gigantic DA has ~650-750 planets, whereas the same settings in TA generates ~450-550. Other sizes and star patterns show the same effect.

Interestingly, an Immense map actually seems to have on the order of 8-10% less planets than Gigantic (both TA), at least from memory. So you're seeing -both- effects, not just one.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

If you are not playing abundant just raise the level, It looks like you need to fix your game. I would like to see as many planets as possibile anyways. With an AI that knows what to do with them.