Can you limit the number of opponents in the retail game to a specific number?

[Fyron]

If you want X random opponents, you can go into Settings.txt in the Data folder. Find these lines:

Minimum Computer Player Low Setting := 1
Maximum Computer Player Low Setting := 3
Minimum Computer Player Medium Setting := 3
Maximum Computer Player Medium Setting := 7
Minimum Computer Player High Setting := 6
Maximum Computer Player High Setting := 10

For example, change the Minimum High setting to 8 and the Maximum High setting to 8. Then, start a game with a High number of computer players. If you select to generate no Neutrals, you will always get 8 computer players. Even leaving Neutrals could be fine, because they aren't real empires; they never leave their home system, and always have 1 homeworld, regardless of how many you set the game up to use.

[ July 02, 2002, 18:28: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[jimbob]

Neutrals are a wonderful gift, they make excellent slave labourers, and generally have a good homeworld. If you leave them long enough, they'll usually colonize the entire system, then you can go in and drop troops to take each planet over. This is followed by population movement to optimize the races on each planet by atmosphere type.

However I've never seen the computer successfully i) take over a planet or ii) move populations around to maximize "breath-ability". So the more neutrals, the bigger the advantage for the human...
... this is why my wife invariably napalms neutrals into the nether-world.

[Fyron]

Yeah, neutrals are too much of an advantage to humans.