So I unfortunately didn't get to play this one, partly because of time constraints, and partly because (especially after editing the map after early exploration) it seemed silly to play a shadow for a game of which scoring was intended to be an important component. Even if I could have magically un-spoiled myself and played a non-shadow game though, I don't think I could have beaten Vanshilar's amazing score!
I rolled a bunch of possible maps for this game, looking for one with a Silicoid opponent (to ensure the Council doesn't take as long to meet as it did in the previous game following the ~never-meeting Council of Imperium 36) and a relatively central start for the player (to make full contact faster and easier). This map looked pretty good until one of my scouts reached Vox (then 5 parsecs away, where Herculis was in the game) several turns in. With the possibility that one player might nab something like IER, Controlled Dead, II8, or Range 6 as early as turn 5, and another might be saddled with a fifth-turn RC3, I decided I had to either roll a gazillion MORE maps or edit it somehow. I thought about just switching Vox to a rich world or something, but I'm not happy with the idea that Artifact worlds must always be absent from the player's region in Imperium games; one of these days, I'll just imitate Sullla from back in Imperium 10 & 11, and just let a nearby Art world be. With scoring so central to this game though, I felt this was the wrong game for that kind of thing, so I wound up switching Vox for Herculis (with the added bonus that it meant the player wasn't completely surrounded by poor worlds) sending the scouts to the colonizable worlds, and starting the Imperium at 2303. (I also thought about offering two different starting saves: A Gentle version with a good early tech grab and an EXTREME one with RC3. I'm glad I didn't though; I think this was more fun, and allows better comparisons and hopefully more of an opportunity for less-experienced players to learn from the veterans.)
If I'd examined the map in more detail, I would have made some further changes - mainly opening the west and northwest of the map to easier expansion by the AIs on that side. This is a disadvantage of trying to minimize spoiler knowledge while creating an Imperium, but it does have a couple advantages: It means the players won't always know what to expect from the map before the game begins, and (though it wound up not happening in this case) the sponsor can still play at least a mostly-unspoiled shadow game.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who played and reported; I hope you all had a good time with this one!
I rolled a bunch of possible maps for this game, looking for one with a Silicoid opponent (to ensure the Council doesn't take as long to meet as it did in the previous game following the ~never-meeting Council of Imperium 36) and a relatively central start for the player (to make full contact faster and easier). This map looked pretty good until one of my scouts reached Vox (then 5 parsecs away, where Herculis was in the game) several turns in. With the possibility that one player might nab something like IER, Controlled Dead, II8, or Range 6 as early as turn 5, and another might be saddled with a fifth-turn RC3, I decided I had to either roll a gazillion MORE maps or edit it somehow. I thought about just switching Vox to a rich world or something, but I'm not happy with the idea that Artifact worlds must always be absent from the player's region in Imperium games; one of these days, I'll just imitate Sullla from back in Imperium 10 & 11, and just let a nearby Art world be. With scoring so central to this game though, I felt this was the wrong game for that kind of thing, so I wound up switching Vox for Herculis (with the added bonus that it meant the player wasn't completely surrounded by poor worlds) sending the scouts to the colonizable worlds, and starting the Imperium at 2303. (I also thought about offering two different starting saves: A Gentle version with a good early tech grab and an EXTREME one with RC3. I'm glad I didn't though; I think this was more fun, and allows better comparisons and hopefully more of an opportunity for less-experienced players to learn from the veterans.)
If I'd examined the map in more detail, I would have made some further changes - mainly opening the west and northwest of the map to easier expansion by the AIs on that side. This is a disadvantage of trying to minimize spoiler knowledge while creating an Imperium, but it does have a couple advantages: It means the players won't always know what to expect from the map before the game begins, and (though it wound up not happening in this case) the sponsor can still play at least a mostly-unspoiled shadow game.
Anyway, thanks to everyone who played and reported; I hope you all had a good time with this one!
