How common is multi planet starts?

[Jesterman]

In an older thread I had pointed my perceived low amount of enemy AI ships throughout the course of a game. Now i realize many of the screenshots might contain multi planet starts. How common/often do people do this?

[Spikey00]

I don't ever start with multiple planets, else that would make my life a lot easier and laggier.  Heh, an eight planet start in my game would have probably ended a lot sooner (in me quitting due to lag)... 20K ship fleet would like seem nothing!

[Diazo]

It's something I don't do myself, mostly because I feel the game is designed around a one planet per player start.

Having said that, I do know several people on the forum here do use multi-planet starts from what I've seen them post.

D.

[wyvern83]

I occasionally do multi planet but I've only done single with the new CON beta. (Either is fine, I enjoy both)

[Lancefighter]

my only multiplanet starts involve snake maps, merely so i can test new things.. i never intend to finish them

If i am going to finish a game, it will be a singleplanet start

[Fruden]

 It depends if i'm looking for a quick or slow game. Starting with a couple planets allows me to skip the early game (establish economy and get initial research) and have a significantly shorter game.

 I play about half single homeworld half multi.

edit: also really fun to experiment with high ship caps

[Vinraith]

I get the distinct impression that multi planet starts, at least at present, make the game massively easier. Consequently, I avoid them like the plague.

[superking]

I generally play single homeworld start because I really enjoy the early game, but when I want to quickly experiment with new ships types I play 8 homeworld games for quick starts (usually, when the AI unlocked it and cut a huge swathe through me, I raged, saved, quit, started a new game using the shiptype that the AI pulled on me only to learn its crippling flaws)

[Ozymandiaz]

I use single planet games only, it gives the best feel for the gameplay imo.

[zebramatt]

Although I've almost always started with one planet, I don't see any reason not to start with more and, if that makes the game too easy, cranking up some other settings to increase the difficulty...

[Draco18s]

I get the distinct impression that multi planet starts, at least at present, make the game massively easier. Consequently, I avoid them like the plague.

I've only done multi-planets....three times.

Once to get Godlike (pre CoN).  Once to get Double Godlike (post CoN, but disabled).*  And once for a game between me and a friend where we both started with 4 planets (cheats are on, too, but we haven't used them).

*And I didn't even need all of those special ships.  Tanks + More Tanks + Siege Starships was pretty much all I needed (though I used Riot 2s to lock down the warp points, hehe, permastun**).

**Paralysis tops out at 3 minutes, found that out in the third mentioned game.  When I did the double-godlike I only used 6 Riot 2s on each wormhole and the RCT got 30% of my kills (I suspect the other 11% gotten by the Riots was all Frigates).

[Laelia]

I've only done one map with a multi-planet start.  It was an 80 planet map, with two people each starting with two planets vs. a zenith descendant and an assassin.  It wasn't bad, but I prefer single planet.  This was a game back before the new guard posts and in the time when orbital command stations only had a few hit points.  What we ended up doing was just enough planets that we had a few good bottleneck points, then we took our 36 raid starships out by themselves and wrecked half the galaxy.

[Ozymandiaz]

Although I've almost always started with one planet, I don't see any reason not to start with more and, if that makes the game too easy, cranking up some other settings to increase the difficulty...

The option is there, and if you think it makes the game more fun, more power to you!

[Tyladhras]

I generally start with two planets in any solo game or just one in any multiplayer game (as the game I believe is intended to be played).  In solo, I just find the single planet's ship cap far too restrictive to effectively resist two AIs.

[Mánagarmr]

I get the distinct impression that multi planet starts, at least at present, make the game massively easier. Consequently, I avoid them like the plague.

This for me as well.