Replayability versus Simplicity

First of all let me state that I 'm mr. Nobody in game design so excusme in advance if my comment is inappropriate. That said, your set up gave me the feeling of a geme itself, so why don't you throw in some simple and yet wise mechanics to set up the board, then at a given condition (say X ship deployed) players can begin the phase two where your actual game start. However beware of the extention in length that this might cause.
Ciao
Fede

The terrain placement in your description looks simple enough. Cutting it out would save a minute or two at most, so I wouldn't use setup time as an argument to cut it out. The terrain might indirectly extend the time taken to place the colonies, because people have to give more thought to the specific board layout to work out their strategy. However, I consider the time spent on this kind of analysis to be "good time" not "bad time".

I wouldn't use setup time as an argument for putting the board pieces together. If I was going to make an argument for putting the board pieces together, it would be based on physical manufacturing considerations. The odd-shaped pieces will greatly complicate your manufacturing, and all those hex corners sticking out may be prone to getting bent depending on what material it is made from.

That said, I like the idea of variable setup because it forces players to re-think their strategy at the start of the game.

I note though that the positions of the planets in your sample images are spread rather uniformly. To some extent this undermines the goal of variable setup, because it doesn't make much difference which board pieces you use nor which orientation they are placed in. Imagine if in Risk all the continents had an equal number of territories and gave an equal recruitment bonus -- the basic game would still be the same but I think that some of the tactical maneuvering decisions would become obsolete.

In your game, must each board piece have exactly 6 planets? Could some have only 4 -- or would that throw out other parts of the game balance? I was trying to come up with alternate arrangements of the planets within each board piece to get more intersting layouts, but on further looking the density of planets compared to empty space makes it hard to make layouts that don't look uniform.

I think that customizability (or variable setup) has only a minor effect on replayability. Variable setup can breathe life into an otherwise poor game design for only a few more plays than it would have otherwise received, but once players have tried a few different setups they will not keep playing unless the game itself is inherently fun/replayable. The most successful strategy games of all time (chess, go, etc) have fixed setup and almost infinite replayability.

I am not trying to argue against variable setup, just pointing out that variable setup will never turn a bad game into a good game. Nor will variable setup create interesting strategic options unless the underlying game already contains interesting strategies in a fixed setup scenario.

Finally, I don't think that variable setup is inherently better or worse than fixed setup. Some players prefer one over the other, but that has more to do with their preferred playing style. There was an article linked on bgdf just recently about different players' playing styles, which categorised players as Planners vs Intuitive. Pure Planners will normally prefer fixed setup because they enjoy analyzing the game for hours and hours before they start playing (e.g. see all the books written about chess openings). Pure Intuitive players will normally prefer variable setup because they enjoy the challenge of responding to a fresh situation as it comes along.

You can tell from my comments above that I tend towards the Intuitive side of the continuum, but I don't try to say that my way of playing is the One True Way.

Regards,
kos

In an earlier thread you were asking about your exploration/movement mechanic. One of the problems that you said players were having, was understanding why distances always expanded between two points (a real model of the universe, yes, but hard to swallow in game terms).
I would roll your Exploration mechanic into the game itself. Start with your setup as-is, and then give the players a "treaty" turn to continue expanding the map. Sort of like the NEW Axis and Allies, where nations can play but can't attack until they are 'tagged in' or their historic era of neutrality was ended.
Under this method, you still end up with a very large map, built by the players, but the map itself is part of the game/strategy and isn't just relegated to "here's how we set up". In the early turns, players are trying to explore outward into the universe and find more colonies to get resources from, while also putting distance between themselves and a particular opponent. If the treaty period ended randomly, it would add a lot of extra dynamics to the game, and more variability without hampering the overall design.

Alternatively, why not give the players a blank hex-grid, and several variably sized hex tiles. If you've played the XBox game 'Resonance of Fate' you might understand where I'm going. They start the game by playing down their Empires (a single large piece, comprised of multiple tiles) wherever they want on the map. After that, players exploring draw a shape of tiles from the bag (rather than loose, individual tiles) and lay it down so that it touches both their explorer ship, and a previously placed tile group. Sort of like a puzzle. If you can't get the tile to fit, it is lost and your ship just floats in no-man's land until you can draw a tile that fits correctly.