Newbie Q on starting positions

[mrflibble]

Hi there,

I am about to start my second multiplayer game of SE4, this time with 4 friends. I have been testing the placement of empires on large maps using the different type of quadrants but am annoyed with the crap placement of the empires.

Is there no way to position the empires manually? Can you somehow configure the game to place them equi-distant from each other?

In my tests sometimes a few players would be far apart, but there would always be at least 2 empires right next to each other. This is unfair to those empires IMO

Please can someone help with this. I don't want to have to re-start the game dozens of times until we get a nice placement by pure chance.

Regards,
Mark

[Zarix]

Map editor is SE4Map.exe in your SE4 folder.

[mrflibble]

Excellent. Thanks very much!

Mark

[geoschmo]

You can use the map editor and assign starting points. If you just want to ensure they aren't too close together you can use common startign points. If you want to control which system wach empire starts in use speecific starting points.

Since whoever sets it up will have advance knowledge of the system, you should have a player that is using the ancient race racial trait do the map to be fair. If none of the players are going to be ancient race, you should get a non-involved person to make the map for you to your specifications.

Geoschmo

[mrflibble]

Ah, a map editor. That would work!

So... How do I get hold of this map editor then? Is it built into the game (I don't remember reading about it from the HTML help files).

Thanks in avance.
Mark