So I've got a game scheduled at my house this weekend and it looks like it will be 5 players. I've read up on some preset maps for this scenario, but I was hoping for some personal experience from posters here.

How does the 5-player map in the standard rules work out during actual play? It looks very tough for the player in the 5 spot. Also, why doesn't that map have 3 and 4 just rotated counter-clockwise one hex? This would make the 5 position even with the others in the outer rim, and only the 4 would have three open spaces on either side. Or would that give too much of an advantage to the 4 position?

My group likes setting up the map as per the 4 or 6 player rules, taking turns placing, so I've come up with another solution. The FFG provided preset 5-player map is essentially the 6-player map with a slice cutout, then preset wormholes and planets to balance everything. I have two ideas to work without this mess.

1 - essentially pretend the map is warped over the missing slice. Play as if those hexes touch without using the wormhole counters, maybe use a couple pieces of string just as a visual reminder. Then we can place hexes similar to the normal placement rules, probably take out a a red-bordered hex or two and a blank hex before dealing out hexes, and use wormholes as normal.

2 - instead of just pretending the map touches on that missing side, I've photocopied Mecatol Rex and made a pentagon version! This will mean slight gaps all around the map, but everything will line up properly. Then place hexes as in #1. Right now this is what I'm leaning towards us doing.

3 - do 1 or 2, but place red-bordered hexes as in the preset map and only have the players place normal systems.

Would love to hear from more experienced players, this is only the 3rd game for anyone in our group. Thanks!

We currently only have three players, but our earlier games consisted of five, and it was usually myself in the hotseat. However, I still won my fair share of games. Granted, I had to knock a few heads around and fight for my space, but that helped to break our group away from the 'pie' mentality. I've never really found it to be that big of a setback. It's still a setback nonetheless, but not necessarily a crippling one. It all depends on your group's playing style really. You might just want to try playing it out first and see how it goes. Then if it turns out to be a problem, you'll be able to witness the problem firsthand and have a better grasp on now to fix it.

We are going to have a five-player as well this weekend. We have tried the "insert" a couple of times, but two things seem to annoy us: 1) Even though we have made a visual to make it easy to see the connections, it is still not the same and we have seen plenty of times where the two players next to the doesn't really interact as they otherwise would. 2) It takes away 6 tiles from the board.

Instead, we are going to try the shrewd galaxy this time, moving the positions a little, so that every one has 2/3 except one that has 3/3 distance to opponents and then rewarding the 4 with worse positions a bonus Action card from the start of the game. We were hesitant to give out the extra resources, as many of the races can really Tech jump on turn 1 with just one more trade good (if you use the variant strategy cards which potentially gives each player two trade goods at the beginning of the game).

Perhaps the bonus should be larger, but we didn't want to overdo it right from the start and some action cards are really powerful and can easily give a head start in turn 1.

edderkoppen said:

We ended up doing this. Worked out very well and seemed pretty balanced. I also helped out that the wormholes seemed to be placed in "fair" spots.