How many opponents do you play against usually?

from GalCiv2 Forums
I've always set my opponents to random (not intelligence though), and usually ended up with 7-8 races plus minor races. Now I've got two races for opponents the game gave me and it's incredibly much easier. What's a good opponents setting to balance out the game for an average player who doesn't take notes while playing? Maybe I've been beating myself up for naught. The only victory I've had is a Tech Victory and I've turned that off now but I guess I did have to stay alive long enough. The game I'm in now with two opponents should lead quickly to a conquest victory (Normal difficulty) with 88 percent of the galaxy.

Curious how some of you are setting up opponents, never thought about it much other than randomizing it. BTW, I also turn off Mega Events and do Blind Exploration.

thanks.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
More opponents typically will mean an easier game if you are an agressive player who takes out weaker AI's quickly. If you are a defensive player then Less opponents will be easier.

Bottom line is that more opponents always makes for a more interesting game.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Interesting comment. But I'm not sure I agree with that. There are more races to conquer, possibility of alliances against you, etc. If that's true, then I must be a defensive player...actually, I go the influence route often.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I generally play with as many as possible, and there are times I wish there could be more.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Everyone will give you a different answer - this is because it entirely depends on the type of game you enjoy playing. You can go nuts searching for answers in the forums because so many opinions appear to contradict one another.

I like games that can be finished in a reasonable amount of time. So I like to use a Medium size galaxy with three random AI opponents. Some of the settings I like to use and my reasons for doing so are ---

Tough opponents: Anything less and they are wimps - set it higher to torture yourself.
No minor races: Minors are just there begging to be conquered.
No Mega Events: Events don't let the AI capitalize on their native potential.
No Special Abilities: They give more distortion to the AI than I like.
Blind exploration: Makes the game tougher tougher - otherwise it's a cakewalk.

I never use the Ctrl-n restart. Some people like to use it to set up a strong starting position for themselves. If you choose to play with what you are given, you can have the satisfaction of climbing out of some really hairy starting situations.

I like to randomize everything else. This absolutely forces you to adopt a different winning strategy from one game to the next depending on what the galaxy looks like.

I have played as each of the game's races. Some races are quite powerful, while others are less so. It can be a real challenge to be able to win consistantly with whatever race you choose to be. Also, if you play as a particular race, you will have a better understanding of its capabilities when you later see it as an AI opponent.

A final comment: the Custom Race is appealing to many people because it starts with a completely clean slate. The problem with it is that it is (unhappily) the weakest race in the game - a lot of people in the forums have complained about that. I went into the race configuration file and totaled up the values for the native ability and starting research for each of the game's races and came to the conclusion that the CustomizationPoints field in the RaceConfig.xml file for the Custom Race should be raised from its present value of 15 to about 20-22 to make it average with respect to the other races. Making a mod (or changing the base file) to do that makes it more enjoyable to play as that race.