does the "place empires evenly throughout galaxy" work?

[deccan]

I have to say that this is a really big problem.

I just quit playing my first single-player TDM because of this. I've heard good things about the TDM AIs, particularly the United Flora and the Rage, so I made sure that they were in my game. However, as it turned out, I started out at the very eastern end of the map and had taken control of over a dozen systems before I met the first AI. I was far and away the leading player throughout the entire game.

I took control of some of the AIs to see what they were up to and discovered that they were all bunched together. The Rage had started in a system with two warp points, with a Neutral on one side, and another AI empire on the other, and had gotten nowhere (DUC 3 when I had PPB 5 ).

I've just started a second TDM game, and this time I've started with two neighbors very close to me, and things are much more interesting and challenging.