How common is...

it for players, specifically the experts writing all of these amazing guides, to reroll maps for ideal starts? I personally have always played civ(started playing civ on play station back in 1999) with random civs and random maps. And I don't quit unless I have no way to win the game. I've always looked at restarting for better results to be cheating.

I've seen people post advice for winning on immortal and deity that included rerolling maps until you get a great start. That's not good advice, thats saying game the game to get an advantage. Its also inferring that players can't beat higher level AI without using cheesy tactics.

And to further clarify I guess the heart of what I'm getting at is:

to win on Immortal and Deity, how necessary is it to get your start just right?.

Funny... question I just posted is pretty much the same... by my results at Immortal, I would guess that awsome starting map is a must. In Immortal, AI stats with 2 settlers, 2 Warriors, 1 Scoot, 5 (maybe even 6) Techs and they almost produce at double rate you do...

Again, I might be horrible Immortal player, but my experience yet tells me that being more clever than the AI is simply not enough to overcome that kick starter they get.

I re-roll a lot at Deity, but not so much at Immortal.

Like I said in the other, similar, topic, re-rolling is not needed, however there are certain exceptions, like picking Brazil and there's no jungle anywhere, picking Morocco/Arabia and you rolled a grassland start, no desert in miles, picking Genghis and there's not a single horse to be seen (not really that much of an issue), picking Incas and there's no mountains/hills around etc etc. Everything else is very manageable even on higher difficulty.

Except rolling next to Attila, that one is I'd assume, bad news

Sometimes I feel guilty re-rolling for good maps because I believe a good player can make any start fantastic. What most of these guys are rolling for are what I call "early bloomer" starts. While this is great most of the time, you can get away with "late blooming", especially with civs that specialize in this (i.e. Brazil).

i dont reroll as its time consuming
for me its better to play a lower difficulty than do that
i also dont use cheesy tactics like stealing workers or trading open borders to everyone etc

i think though immortal/deity + a good start makes for a more interesting (tense) game than just a lower difficulty + an ordinary start.

I re-roll if I find the start to look boring, and I don't feel bad about it at all. I only have so much time to play, why should I play a start I dislike? I mean, plain starts ... ugh!

kaspergm said:

I re-roll if I find the start to look boring, and I don't feel bad about it at all. I only have so much time to play, why should I play a start I dislike? I mean, plain starts ... ugh!

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly...I'm not playing to impress anyone so I have zero problems rerolling a dreadful start.I guess if I had more time to play I would try these starts but it's quite an investment of my time so playing what appears to be a more fun start is more valuable to me.

I re-roll because I don't want to waste any time playing a map I find boring.

I don't reroll for two reasons:

Firstly, I don't mind losing. Its entirely possible I'll start a Deity or Immortal game, get a bad start location, find I'm hemmed in, and then get killed. On the other hand, I might succeed despite that start, and the victory will feel even greater.

Second, its hard to read the luck of your first 50 turns off the first turn.
The last game I played, I had a start that had way too much desert, but an Oasis and some Spices. On the upside, it was a river start and on a hill, with some nearby forest for chopping.
Kicked off, and within 2 turns my exploring unit found a ruins, and I popped Pottery. I thought "why not" and abandoned my scout build for a Shrine. Next up, my explorer met a Religious state who gave me 8 faith. Next up, a culture boost. Meanwhile a Faith Wonder had been found, and I knew where my next city was going.
I hit first Pantheon, got Desert Folklore, and had enough of a start to get Petra as well. I only got to three cities, because I was hemmed in by City States and in the centre of a Pangaea continent, but managed to get Itinerant Preachers too. A religion spam game followed, with 100gp landing for every conversion, and suddenly I had piles and piles of gold. A pan-continental religion, out of an Immortal game with a "weak" start, led me straight to 3-city Tradition tall, with a splash of Piety before going to Rationalism, then getting all the Freedom I wanted, then back to Piety to get a Reformation Belief (and while the good ones were gone, the diplomacy boost from active city state trade routes proved very useful). Somewhere in the late game I got the opportunity to flip into offence, and in the last hundred turns of the game I went from 3 cities to eighteen, with ample happiness just seeming to come out of nowhere, and a late domination victory.

I felt happier with that win by far than the ones where I get a strong start, CB rush, go to Artillery and finish the job in early Industial Era. I may have finished the job with Rocket Artillery, but I finished it nonetheless, and it was a great game.

I don't like jungle and even though I'm trying to I usually re-roll a heavy jungle start. My thinking is compounded from a recent game where I started on mostly grassland jungle and the only source of production was a single cattle tile, and that was me moving for 3 turns.

Worker Stealing
I consider this to be an essential tactic, especially on Deity. There are consequences, however. DOW 2 CS and they don't give you their welcome gifts, DOW too many civs and they might gang up on you, you can loose your starting warrior....