Re: does the "place empires evenly throughout galaxy" work?
 

The solution seems simple to me. We can generate games (choosing starting positions for the AI), then trade savegames. Empires will be evenly distributed but you don't know where they are.

Re: does the "place empires evenly throughout galaxy" work?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Absolutely right. I tried to make a map with even distribution of starting planets, not all starting at the very corner of the map, with at least two systems between races. Try it yourself and see. For a medium map, it's pretty difficult to get eight races evenly spaced like that.

Re: does the "place empires evenly throughout galaxy" work?
 

i think i am getting the hang of it now.

it is tricky

Re: does the "place empires evenly throughout galaxy" work?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I do not see this. I play 20/255 cluster w/o connected warp points, generated and regenerated until all systems are connected.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Neither do I. Just a bad luck I think. But in any case there is nothing "even" about empires placement.