Galaxy Setup(Where are we?)
A number of these, unlike most of the later ones, I'm going to choose myself for reasons listed below.
Galaxy Size: Ranges from Tiny(175 stars) to Huge(1000 stars). We'll be going Huge here because, well, that's the point of an epic galactic struggle IMO. In a small galaxy the 'epic' wouldn't really be there.
Galaxy Shape: Spiral(2 arms), Spiral(4 arms), Elliptical, Ring. The main difference here is the amount of 'dark space'. No matter what form of FTL travel one uses, there is a limit to the range on it. Elliptical is the most homegeneous and the most likely to end up with potential conflicts and/or allies on all sides; a Ring galaxy presents much higher likelihood of being boxed in and having limited travel options. The Spiral galaxies are in the middle of the spectrum, with more dark space in a 2-arm system than in the 4-arm systems due to the spacing.
AI Empires: Approx. 1 per 30 stars in the default, 32 for a huge galaxy. This is the number of empires capable of FTL travel at game start, there will also be less advanced races created, some of which will eventually discover FTL during the course of the game. More AIs means a shorter exploration phase before conflict is forced upon us; fewer would result in the opposite.
Advanced AI Starts: Approx. one per 125 stars, or one-quarter of the total number of AI empires is the default; 8 in other words for our huge galaxy. These civs have a better starting position, but no permanent bonuses such as faster research or lowered costs, etc. It's a 'head start' setting. This is essentially a way to tune the difficulty, esp. early on; by default we start on par with most of the galaxy, but a higher setting here could make us a weaker member of the 'young races'.
FTL Method: There are three available methods: Warp, Hyperlane, Wormhole. We'll be allowing all three, as I think potential interactions between them is more interesting than limiting things to one particular method. Each has it's own strengths and weaknesses, which will be covered later.
Ironman Mode: Disallows going backwards to an earlier save. This will be off, in case I screw up. It would be quite aggravating to do something really stupid due to a mouseslip or whatever. Doing something stupid due to me just making a bad choice(or somebody with a character giving a suboptimal order) is of course just part of the fun.
Difficulty: It has been announced that there will be a few difficulty levels, Normal, Hard, and Insane. We'll be doing normal, partly because I want people to be free to make 'in-character' decisions if they choose without the risk of necessarily destroying the chance of success. As is often the case, the higher difficulty levels don't give the AI access to better algorithms/choices at least for the most part, but just give them artificial buffs. If things look too easy for us at first, don't panic -- the game has built-in mechanisms to challenge the player in this event. Not saying any more than that about the ones I know about
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Voting Options
Anyone wishing to participate should choose one of each.
Galaxy Size: Spiral(2 Arms), Spiral(4 arms), Ellipitical, Ring, or Random.
AI Empires: Very Sparse, Sparse, Standard, Dense, Very Dense, or Random. Listed from lowest to highest amount of AI Empire opponents. For Random I'll have half the standard amount as the low end, double the standard amount as the high end.
Advanced AI Starts: Same options -- Very Few, Few, Standard, Many, Very Many, Random.
That'll do it for today, tomorrow we'll narrow the focus from the galactic surroundings to the specific species that we will choose to be.