Thoughts on more varied early gameplay, the AI and large systems/playercounts

I was experimenting with a very large system depicting roughly the solar system.



I wanted to make someting more interesting concerning the start planet's choice so I made three start planets :
- The Earth, which is fairly large, has 40% water, 64 metal spots with some clusters but fairly
homogeneous overall
- Venus which is the same size as Earth but with only 38 metal sport but they are in clusters of ~10.
- Mars which has double the matal spots as Earth but is a third the size (in the pic)



I designed the planets so they give a balanced reward/challenge ratio and would give equal win chances to everybody. What do you think? (you can get the system for yourself to see on PA sys sharing)

I wanted to test that with the AI, but it seems the AI chooses whatever planet has the most metal spots... What do you think of this situation? Also, a explaination on the prisoner's dilemma because this is what it essentially boils down to. I'm looking for ways to make the AI choose better.


Also these are full planet landings, because the maps are meant to be played by large playercounts, and I think that it would be interesting to have the players think twice before spawining in the middle of that 11 metal spots clusters by fear of com boxing

Also I think it will mitigate early losses. The main problem I have no when I play with friends is that we start with 10 and by the firts 5 minutes half have lost and after the first 20 minutes, only the two or three best players are remaining and do take a good 40 minutes to finish one another.