Well, I guess it's a toss-up on just who was going to chew on whom. With another empire just 4 systems away, your person would be in trouble (unless, of course, another empire in your alliance were close by...and if that's the case, then the starting homeworld positions, which were supposed to put 3 empires on one side of the map and 3 on the other side of the map weren't done as well as it should have been...since there would be 4 empires on the left side of the map).
At any rate, everyone agrees that the starting homeworld placement got messed up. Are we to assume it has to do with the order we joined the game? If so, I suggest geo withdraw from the game and then re-join. That should put us in alliance order.
Oh, and IF I was correct about there being 4 empires on the left, the homeworld starting positions should be modified a bit.
Perhaps a new map should be rolled up. I say a new map because it's possible a person could have chosen Ancient abilities, now has a copy of the map (and planets and warp lines) and can then turn around and use those 1,000 points somewhere else while keeping a copy of the galaxy information. Not that anyone would cheat...but just to remove all doubt (after all, that's why we asked for a map generator...
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Comments?