Which settings for your first game?

I always like to be left alone until I am ready to deal with everyone else, and I haven't played it before (besides like 10 turns of the galciv1 demo)

Race: Terran
Galaxy size: Gigantic
Opponents: all of them
Habitable planets: common
Clusters: tight
Difficulty: easy

so I expect to be playing the first game for about 3 days.

Hmm, played GC1 quite a bit, I was a tech fiend. I'd have 50% of my spending set to research. And with a 40% bonus to research production, I could fairly shoot up the tech tree.

Race: Terran (Tech party)
Galaxy size: Large
Opponents: All
Habitable planets: Common
Clusters: Tight
Difficulty: Beginner

Hey, a guys gotta start somehere. Besides, I'm not too sure what the general difficulty rating will be when I set all races to sub-normal. In GC1, the general difficulty comes up as beginner.

Once I'm used to the layout and feel of the game, I'll bump up the difficulty.

Small probably, maybe medium galaxy. Normal difficulty (I've been playing the beta at challenging, but I understand the AI has been greatly improved since). Humans, starting out neutral and walking the hard path tha leads to Goodness (altough that path may be paved with enemies bodys - I guess in the end being good is a matter of perspective).
But tight clusters and uncommon habitable planets, again, probably...

But it will be in the metaverse setting

ftn49, you're gonna sooo loose, but you're gonna play it for 10 hours, and then you're gonna loose, and then you will be mad, very mad... i think you should try few tiny or medium galaxy size maps, to get a hang of it...

Well... Being a GalCiv newcomer, I plan to start easy and work my way up... Though I can say I plan to walk the path of good... I've tried the evil thing and it just doesn't ever sit well with me.

Peace...

Unless you deserve War.

Fenrus Starwind

Race: Human, but with my own choice of boni (focussing on economic and research)
Galaxy size: large
Opponents: all of them
Habitable planets: common
Clusters: tight
Difficulty: painful

this I've known for weeks... but I know I will spend at least 30 minutes trying to decide what colour my ships should have.

I am going to start easy.

Race: Terran - standard bonuses
Galaxy size: Biggest damn galaxy
Opponents: 9
Habitable planets: common
Clusters: tight
Difficulty: normal

Race: Yor, to teach all the "meat" who the master is.
Galaxy size: Gigantic
Opponents: all of them
Habitable planets: common
Clusters: tight
Difficulty: All AI set to one level below Intelligent.

Seeing as so many of you play terrans, I will make it my goal to destroy them utterly ASAP.

Normaly, I let the normal setting, but a turn down the difficulty to learn how work the interface so it will be

Race: Terran
Galaxy size: Default setting
Opponents: all of them
Habitable planets: Default setting
Clusters: Default setting
Difficulty: The easiest level

I did expect to be beaten bad even at this level. I did play a lot at GalCiv I but I was a pityful player...

I'll try a tiny map against only one other player, probably the Drengin, and on beginner level. It seems prudent to figure out the best way to ID your enemies ship configuration and how to make ships/fight. I played a game of Galciv I over the weekend and it took me over 20 hours of game time to finish. I'd hate to get 10 hours into a GalCiv II game and find out I'd made a stupid choice at the start and need to throw in the towel.

Race: Terran
Galaxy: The biggest one I can find
Opponents: All of them
Habitable planets: Random
Clusters: Random
Difficulty: Beginner

Gonna get my butt whooped.

Race: Custom (military-focused bonuses)
Galaxy size: Tiny
Opponents: One - Drengin
Habitable planets: Common
Clusters: Whatever "evenly spread out" is
Difficulty: Easiest (Cakewalk?)

The idea will be to finish it in a hurry, letting me get used to the game mechanics with as little in the way of actual difficulty as possible.

- Ash

A note of caution: gigantic map games can be a real fun killer if you're not used to the game. they take foreve and are very slow paced, at the beginning.
I agree with Goldie Zlac, I'd advise to start at medium which is a good compromise. At least in galciv1, gigantic were almost a whole different game. IMHO.

Race: Custom (research-focused bonuses)
Galaxy size: Medium
Opponents: 3 - Random
Habitable planets: Common
Clusters: Default
Difficulty: the easiest possible

Race: Custom (research-focused bonuses)
Galaxy size: Medium
Opponents: 3 - Random
Habitable planets: Common
Clusters: Default
Difficulty: the easiest possible

I will start in the middle and then decide which way to go

I am going to start easy.

The ruler of GCI starting easy? Something is wrong in the known universe.

Race: Terran 50%Diplo 50%Res
Galaxy Size: Large
Opponents: All
Habitable Planets: Common
Density: Tight
Diffulcity: Check the Meta in a few hours

Race: Probably Terran, but maybe not.
Size: Gigantic (because I can't play on anything else. I just can't.)
Opponents: All
Stars: Abundant
Planets: Common
Habitable Planets: Common
Density: Random

Race: Terran
Galaxy size: tiny
Opponents: All
Habitable planets: default
Clusters: default
difficulty: sub-normal


I want to see every single race crammed into a tiny galaxy if the game will allow it. I may never play on a gigantic galaxy, just because I never find it fun in TBS games spending hours building and expanding before I even encounter another race. In those games you end up making mistakes early on that you don't realize until 50 turns later. especially in this game, where if I commit early on to a type of offense and defense that end up being useless to me, I'd be hella pissed.

Will do as I normally do and play at the easiest level possible first game.

Terran, Medium, Clusters, rest defaults.

I'm going to have to bite the bullet and accept that the new AI kicks my butt on Challenging, and drop back to Normal. And that was just the .003 post-release AI. Brad kept tweaking it after that to the point that he lost a game on intelligent, and was getting stomped in another last Friday, though I don't know if all those tweaks are going live (he commented at the time that he wasn't sure if the tweaks would be an overall improvement, or if they just helped the Duel scenario).

So, with that said:

Race: Custom (economy-focused, to fund non-stop colonization)
Galaxy Size: Gigantic (it just doesn't feel epic otherwise)
Opponents: 9, probably all but Terran (While you can select all 10 races, the game acts a little funny, so I'm not sure it's a good idea).
Habitable planets: Abundant
Planets: Abundant
Clusters: Scattered (last I checked, which was after the dev-mentioned tweak, you still got fewer stars if you went with either of the clustering patterns)
Difficulty: Normal

Noone should be worried about loosing to the AI that's set to Fool level. The one time I accidentally started a game with one Bright opponent and 8 Fools in a Gigantic galaxy, the Fools weren't even speed bumps. By the time I had half the galaxy and the Terrans had a third, none of the Fools had a third colony. So I started giving them colony ships, and they refused to use them. Basically, as near as I can tell, they're there to practice invasions on.

They took out Battle of the Gods for Metaverse.

Well, I'm gonna drop my difficulty down to Normal then.

Race: Iconian, peaceful
Galaxy size: small
Opponents: default
Number of Stars: rare
Number of planets: abundant
Habitable planets: abundant
Clusters: tight
Difficulty: Normal

Race: Arceans or Yor (probably Yor, although I haven't decided yet)
Galaxy size: max
Opponents: max
Number of stars: max
Number of planets: max
Number of habitable planets: max
Clusters: tight
Difficulty: beginner

I have no illusions when it comes to setting the difficulty level. If the gamma testers are getting bitch-slapped on Challenging, I know I probably won't stand a chance even on Normal! Aside from that, I want a big, epic game where I can tech up and turtle at my leisure.