Starting positions with odd # of players

[czechcongo]

This isn't a bug report but it is something to be fixed, imho. I've noticed that in games with an odd number of players, the game seems to partition the outposts into the starting positions as if there were an extra player (an even number) and then leave that extra player's outposts dormant. This results in inequities as some players have an enormous number of dormant outposts to expand into while one or two players may be hemmed in by the others. If you could arrange the starting positions evenly with an odd number of players (lol) that would be more fair.

[ron]

hey czechcongo, can you name a game where you've seen this? there's no distinction between odd and even in terms of world creation, but worlds that are very imbalanced should be extremely rare. if i have some examples of these worlds i'd be able to dig into the problem more deeply.

[czechcongo]

My current game (witty name), there was an enormous dormant area to my (red) northeast.

[ron]

that area has 6 players around it, so even though it seems huge, it's just a little bit for everyone. it seems like for you that was the only area you could really expand into.

in general, the world creation code checks how many outposts each player would get with optimal expansion, and if the gap between the best and worst players' outpost counts is 4 or more, it discards that world and creates a new one.

most of the time the gap between the best and worst starting positions is 0 or 2 outposts, and that's something that can change based on how many drillers you send where.

overall, your world looks ok to me in terms of starting positions.