Empire Placement—what do the settings really mean?

[LameFox]

Having used "random" in MP for quite a number of games, I get the distinct feeling it has a hidden minimum distance for human players specifically. With two people, we're not always at opposite ends of the map, but we're never close by either. This is kind of disappointing because the whole idea of selecting "random" was to get a bit more variety in.

Clustered players does what it says reliably, but what about the others? If we start a bunch of games with something like "clustered empires", are we just going to be apart every single time again, or can it put us nearby?

This feels like something it could stand to explain a bit better.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I get the distinct feeling it has a hidden minimum distance for human players specifically.

There's a minimum distance for all empires. They obviously have to have a reasonable opportunity to expand.

 

[LameFox]

There's a minimum distance for all empires. They obviously have to have a reasonable opportunity to expand.

Okay, but I mean I've occasionally started like 3 systems from AI empires. With only two human players I don't think random has ever put us in the same quarter of the galaxy, and we've started a lot of games.