What Is Wrong With The Start Bias?

I'm serious--and apologies for being ticked off. But I have yet to get a decent start or resources. And it's been over two hours.

For example:

1) Tried to play as Arabia and got 9 jungle starts in a row. Why in the heck would Arabia have a jungle start?

2) So I said the heck with it and went as the Mongols. Tundra several times, and a few times desert. No horse anywhere.

3) England--no iron at all. What good is England without SOL?

4) So I said screw it--I will play as Aztecs--and guess what? Desert starts or tundra.

5) Incas? Desert or tundra. No hills or mountains.

6) Tried Denmark again (God only knows why) and once again no iron. I have never, ever, and I mean--ever, gotten iron playing as them.

7) After getting frustrated and fed up--I play as Rome. Good start salt and unfortunately Assyria is 7 tile away from me. No iron.

8) Tried to play as Korea (my favorite civ). Nonstop tundra starts.

I just don't get.

I have it set up for legendary start, usually play pangea, but change to continents depending upon the civ, and stuff like that.

It just seems that the start bias is screwed up. I know I can "choose" the balanced start thing, but why?

Shouldn't the civ you choose at least get a few luxuries that your unique units need?

I mean, seriously--three games I played as the Huns and I had no horses. What good are the Huns without horse archers (edit: I mean upgrading or getting horsemen)?

Sorry for the length, and the rant. I just don't understand the RNG (or whatever folks call it). It just seems to me that if I'm playing as Arabia, the Mongols, or the Huns, I should at least automatically get a few horses. Or if playing as England, Denmark, or Rome a few iron.

Or if playing as Arabia at least start near desert. Or if playing as the Aztecs at least have a few jungle tiles and not a desert start. Or if playing as Incas, at least a hill or two.

Is it just me that gets frustrated?

NOTE: Mac Version (Apple Store). Can't use Mods with that.

EDIT: Playing standard, legendary start, no mods, king

Although most of your claims are valid, and I am surprised you got so many odd starts with civs that clearly have other biases, there isn't any civ that has a bias towards a strategic resource. So no matter how bad it is, you are not guaranteed to get iron with England or Rome, Japan, etc. Sometimes you get some indirect bonus because of terrain bias, like the mongols who have a plains start bias, will probably have a better chance for horses since horses have better odds of spawning in that terrain.

Maybe it's the legendary start that messes up with the start bias?

^^I see what you are saying. But one would think that Aztecs would start in jungle, England would have iron for SOL's, etc. But it's so frustrating when you play as the Mongols or Arabia and not a single horse anywhere.
I mean, what is the point of playing a civ if you don't have at least a couple of the needed items. Seriously--I have never ever ever gotten a single iron with Denmark. Not one single time.

Their UU requires it. And I can't even get one single iron?

I'm not a coder, but I've found in my experience legendary start does seem to affect start bias. Strategic balance actually ends up being a more interesting game than legendary start imo usually, I always play it

Iron isn't that hard to find though, usually you can find at least some by your second or third city. Same with horses. Or just ally a city state that has them, you can almost always find one of those. I mean it's better to have your own but they're not THAT hard to find.

Civ. is about overcoming such problems.

I haven't had an inland start for five years until last month. I always got coastal capital for some reason. That is RNG. As germany. lol I would start in all kind of terrains as long as it was coastal.

In fact, I haven't had a grassland + River + coastal start in forever now. heck I can't even remember the last time my capital had a river capital.

You're not the only one whose start bias has gone bonkers lol

Also there is something really odd to me about the start locations from a "real world" perspective.

I'm no historian or geographer, but I don't think there was a SINGLE significant city, coastal or inland, that EVER started without a significant body of water adjacent to it.

So river or lake, I think every last starting location should have a river or lake directly by it.

Dunno, maybe the game shouldn't exactly mirror this kind of thing. But if anyone knows of a major city that ever arose without water available, the history wonk in me would like to know so I could read about it.

MechMedic130 said:

Iron isn't that hard to find though, usually you can find at least some by your second or third city. Same with horses. Or just ally a city state that has them, you can almost always find one of those. I mean it's better to have your own but they're not THAT hard to find.

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Yes--sometimes you can find maybe an iron yield of 2 or something, but I've had games where there wasn't any iron anywhere. And games without a single horse. Or if there is, a warmonger AI has it, and they don't want to trade it. And when I've had to trade for it before, I end up getting backstabbed and my units that use iron are then at 50 percent efficiency.

docbud said:

Is it just me that gets frustrated?

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I have never had such a bad run of luck as you describe. But it is a starting “bias” and not a guarantee.

NOTE: Mac Version (Apple Store). Can't use Mods with that.

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Oops, that was my first guess as to where a problem might be.

Did you experiment with disabling start bias? In any case, double check your setting under advance setup -- and start your next game from the advance setup screen. The settings there sometimes carry over to your next session -- even though there is no indication whatsoever that this is the case.

Playing standard, legendary start, no mods, king

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Try “strategic balance” instead of “legendary” for fewer frustrations.

docbud said:

...but I've had games where there wasn't any iron anywhere. And games without a single horse.

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That was almost certainly not literally true. If it ever is, post the save game file!

It is not that uncommon to have no iron or no horses that you can settle. But on a standard size map there will be several plots of each resource. They might all be with CS, or there might be none on your starting continent. The same thing happens with other strategic resources, but with horses and iron, the situation can be particularly painful!

sunbeam said:

I'm no historian or geographer, but I don't think there was a SINGLE significant city, coastal or inland, that EVER started without a significant body of water adjacent to it... But if anyone knows of a major city that ever arose without water available, the history wonk in me would like to know so I could read about it.

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I want to recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel if you have not already read it. I came across that book after starting to play Civ5, and one of the first things that came to my mind while reading it was how screwed over it would be to spawn in the “New World” with no iron and no horses!

Thanks for the advice, beetle.

And yeah--saying there are no horses or iron "anywhere" is an exaggeration. I will find it later on on another continent, but by the time I get over there, I no longer need the iron.

The next game I will double-check my advanced set-up and start from that.

And yes, I know it's just a "bias," but it just gets frustrating when I start a game as the Aztecs and the first half-dozen rolls have me in either tundra or desert.

Side note, England's great even without SOTL, longbows are also a great UU, one of the best in the game

Does the longbow automatically upgrade into a 2-range gatling gun too? If so that makes them a tad more useful for long-term war as well, not to mention the 3-range in their prime. I often play my maps a bit bigger then standard and I think the lack of iron/horses is a problem for worlds with less land. I usually get much better distribution on Pangaea, Large Continents, or on a larger world of any type (large/huge). Don't know the math for starting bias but did you explore with Aztecs? I often find even if I didn't start right next to jungle it is at least nearby with them. But it isn't always in view. I've never tried the legendary start but it might override stuff like bias as well.

Longbows are great, I admit that.

I'll try turning off legendary start and use the strategic balance.

docbud said:

...but it just gets frustrating when I start a game as the Aztecs and the first half-dozen rolls have me in either tundra or desert.

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As much as people rave about the Aztecs being great, I feel like they are one of the most disadvantaged! Their starting bias, jungle, (1) is the worst one, (2) of only trivial utility to the UU, (3) irrelevant to the UA, (4) neutral or even counterproductive to the UB. Every single other civ gets some synergy from their starting bias. Aztec is the only civ where the starting bias is an explicit handicap!

Adding insult to injury, contrast the Aztecs with every other civs that has a UB. All the other UB either have no terrain prerequisite, lifts the terrain prerequisite, or at the very least has a tuned starting bias (e.g., Carthage and Harbors). What Aztec needs (and deserves) is a fresh water bias -- but Civ5 does not have that.

^^I agree that the Aztecs are the most disadvantaged. And the jungle start really hurts early game. The only time I play them is when I want to go on a killing spree (raging barbs turned on), and DOW everyone when I meet them.

there is a small synergy with the woodsman promo on their jaguar warriors. I love playing guerilla warfare with my 2-move jags in a jungle/forest battle. However, this is small.

I personally love jungle but it's better near your 3rd city or further. You want 2 good growing cities for sure. However, jungles aren't so bad anymore now that you see cocoa in them so often. My last Aztec game there was like 5 cocoa in my jungle and it is a 3 food tile with gold even before you clear it. That plus bananas is a great food source, and if you can pick up sacred path it can mean a lot of early culture and later loads of science if you find areas to keep it. Jungle is interesting but it does hurt you some games, esp. if you roll a pure jungle start. It's better to have your Aztec capital be on the edge of a jungle--starting in the middle of it can be rough.

The Aztecs are my all time favorite civ personally, I find jungle starts usually give great early growth and I always have enough hammers to pass, probably because I play strategic balance. They have massive growth, though, and I love barb farming with them.

England with no Iron, you say? Before the Empire came Agincourt. Build a Longbow army and acquire Iron.

You're not alone - my start bias seems to be on the blink.

I play as England most of the time, and recently I have had a spate of offered start locations nowhere near the coast. I hardly ever used 'restart game' in the past but it has become quite common of late. No idea what's happening.

As to the iron debate:
I select 'strategic balance' because I know then that there will be some iron near my capital; but the resource that really bugs me is coal. Have the Devs never heard of the industrial revolution? Many games I have no access to coal anywhere near my primary cities whilst Athens et al all have coal just lying around! When I hit Industrial era and have to lose my lovely longbows, I want the compensation of factories!