Problems with the world generator

Kivin · Nov 26, 2012

I haven't played much Civ recently, so I don't know if this is a new issue or not...

I have quite a few bones to pick with the world generator, but two issues stand out the most:

- Even on a "Large" map, I'm spawning right next to another Civ. In two out of my three last games generated, I met my first neighbor on TURN 2! In one of those games, I was boxed in to a tiny peninsula by a super aggressive Germany who was spamming out warriors. Frigging lovely.

- Even when I have room to expand, I don't get enough luxuries. It is very rare to have more than two luxuries within 10-12 hexes of my start location, and because of point number one, they're pretty much always in contested territory. I end up having to settle towns 2 and 3 without luxuries, which obviously causes problems.

I'm playing on Pangaea Plus and Continents Plus. Selecting "Legendary Start" doesn't seem to help; it simply spams one of my two resources all over the place. I had eleven Salt and one Silver on a game a few days ago. But had to go until Renaissance without a third lux.

Donaskme · Nov 26, 2012

Kivin said:
I had eleven Salt and one Silver on a game a few days ago. But had to go until Renaissance without a third lux.

I want 11 salt. My experience is otherwise. I've had about three games over the past two weeks that had me exploring for ages before I met any civilizations on Standard size. I had several luxuries, usually three unique, by around turn 50 but nobody to sell to and going broke.

I like being really close to another civ at the start, but it doesn't happen often enough. Once I get four CB I can take their capital which spares me saving up cash for a settler, and also ends the problem of their raging warriors. Even better when they declare the war; no guilt, no diplomatic effects.

Smokeybear · Nov 26, 2012

Kivin said:
I haven't played much Civ recently, so I don't know if this is a new issue or not...

I have quite a few bones to pick with the world generator, but two issues stand out the most:

- Even on a "Large" map, I'm spawning right next to another Civ. In two out of my three last games generated, I met my first neighbor on TURN 2! In one of those games, I was boxed in to a tiny peninsula by a super aggressive Germany who was spamming out warriors. Frigging lovely.

- Even when I have room to expand, I don't get enough luxuries. It is very rare to have more than two luxuries within 10-12 hexes of my start location, and because of point number one, they're pretty much always in contested territory. I end up having to settle towns 2 and 3 without luxuries, which obviously causes problems.

I'm playing on Pangaea Plus and Continents Plus. Selecting "Legendary Start" doesn't seem to help; it simply spams one of my two resources all over the place. I had eleven Salt and one Silver on a game a few days ago. But had to go until Renaissance without a third lux.

Use the 'Restart Game' button to try new starts, if the one you get blows. Of course, you can't use it if you do even one 'next turn', which kinda makes it hard to explore around your starting area to tell if you are in a really bad spot or not. Recommend you get the 'Reseed!' mod, which has a 'show map' button to allow you to scope out your surroundings better before you decide whether or not to Restart Game. Yes, that gives you an 'unfair' knowledge of the map at the start of the game- but it's a single player game, so whatever. I still lose plenty of games to the AI, even when I use it- knowledge may be power, but unstoppable city-spamming, science-amassing runaways often trump all, regardless. Your only other option is to be 100% at the tender mercies of the map generator, as you have been. Your choice.

Kivin · Nov 26, 2012

Donaskme said:
I want 11 salt. My experience is otherwise. I've had about three games over the past two weeks that had me exploring for ages before I met any civilizations on Standard size. I had several luxuries, usually three unique, by around turn 50 but nobody to sell to and going broke.

I like being really close to another civ at the start, but it doesn't happen often enough. Once I get four CB I can take their capital which spares me saving up cash for a settler, and also ends the problem of their raging warriors. Even better when they declare the war; no guilt, no diplomatic effects.

Many of those salts were in places which weren't good for city placement, so I probably only acquired four or five of them. The rest went to my neighbors which were less scrupulous with their city placement, which bummed trade.

I don't consider myself a very strong player; I'm pretty poor. Starting next to another Civ is a death sentence in many cases. There's not a chance in hell that I could have taken Germany's 3-pop 2nd city, much less his capital. I tried, and 2 spearmen, 3 comp bowmen couldn't do enough damage to the city to even keep up with its health regen, let alone knock it down.

Kivin · Nov 26, 2012

Smokeybear said:
Use the 'Restart Game' button to try new starts, if the one you get blows. Of course, you can't use it if you do even one 'next turn', which kinda makes it hard to explore around your starting area to tell if you are in a really bad spot or not. Recommend you get the 'Reseed!' mod, which has a 'show map' button to allow you to scope out your surroundings better before you decide whether or not to Restart Game. Yes, that gives you an 'unfair' knowledge of the map at the start of the game- but it's a single player game, so whatever. I still lose plenty of games to the AI, even when I use it- knowledge may be power, but unstoppable city-spamming, science-amassing runaways often trump all, regardless. Your only other option is to be 100% at the tender mercies of the map generator, as you have been. Your choice.

I will have to consider the mod (though, as you said, it's not really optimal) however, I ALWAYS give a map a chance. I have been pleasantly surprised before, I just can't remember the last time :sad:

Smokeybear · Nov 26, 2012

Kivin said:
I will have to consider the mod (though, as you said, it's not really optimal) however, I ALWAYS give a map a chance. I have been pleasantly surprised before, I just can't remember the last time

There are great CiV players who can take any random start on the highest difficulty levels, and find a way to eke out a victory from it. Then there are the rest of us :lol:

I play for fun and like fun games where I at least have a chance- not a seemingly endless stream of hopeless ones.

Donaskme · Nov 26, 2012

Kivin said:
I tried, and 2 spearmen, 3 comp bowmen couldn't do enough damage to the city to even keep up with its health regen, let alone knock it down.

Yeah, you need to take it down earlier, if they have walls and/or a powerful unit inside it gets tough.

I usually go in with 4-5 CB and whatever craptastic warrior I have around from the beginning. Ideally, you have positioned your CB so that upon declaring, they move in one square and fire on that turn. Then you run your warrior to the gates, hunker down, and kick the door in on the next turn.

This is usually around turn 60 or 70 ... the other guy usually declares around 50-ish, so you have to be well-experienced with cashing out your neighbors and getting those CB up fast.

Kivin said:
I ALWAYS give a map a chance.

I don't. I probably restart three to five times every new game. Stupid thing puts me one tile away from an empty coast, or puts Inca in the middle of a flat plains, or some other dumb thing.

Kivin · Nov 26, 2012

Donaskme said:
Yeah, you need to take it down earlier, if they have walls and/or a powerful unit inside it gets tough.

I usually go in with 4-5 CB and whatever craptastic warrior I have around from the beginning. Ideally, you have positioned your CB so that upon declaring, they move in one square and fire on that turn. Then you run your warrior to the gates, hunker down, and kick the door in on the next turn.

This is usually around turn 60 or 70 ... the other guy usually declares around 50-ish, so you have to be well-experienced with cashing out your neighbors and getting those CB up fast.

I don't. I probably restart three to five times every new game. Stupid thing puts me one tile away from an empty coast, or puts Inca in the middle of a flat plains, or some other dumb thing.

They had no garrison, just a lot of warriors outside. No walls, no improvements at all. The city had 7 strength.

Donaskme · Nov 26, 2012

Kivin said:
They had no garrison, just a lot of warriors outside. No walls, no improvements at all. The city had 7 strength.

You should be able to take that down with 5 plain old archers and a warrior.

Browd · Nov 26, 2012

But first take out their warriors before your units get into range of the city. When you assault the city, you want as empty a killing field as possible.

Smokeybear · Nov 26, 2012

Browd said:
But first take out their warriors before your units get into range of the city. When you assault the city, you want as empty a killing field as possible.

Yep. If you have the city plus other units plinking at you while you're trying to take it out, that's usually a recipe for failure. Unless you have a huge overwhelming force with lots of reserves to jump in and replace the wounded (not very likely early on), you want to get rid of all their pesky defensive units first (except the one they'll likely keep garrisoned in the city, of course), so you can heal up your attackers to full health before you have to rush the city with them. Moving wounded units into range of the city itself is usually death for them.

seancolorado · Nov 26, 2012

Kivin said:
I'm playing on Pangaea Plus and Continents Plus. Selecting "Legendary Start" doesn't seem to help; it simply spams one of my two resources all over the place. I had eleven Salt and one Silver on a game a few days ago. But had to go until Renaissance without a third lux.

I always imagined legendary start to give you an extra lux resource but instead (unless I've just been unlucky) it just gives you a whole lot of the same resource. I don't like that, even if it ensures a strong city.

As for your gripes, if my neighbor is uncomfortably close I just take him out. If I want to play peaceful then I'll (sometimes) just lessen the # of civs and city-states per map size to give me a little more breathing room at the start.

Hustapha Thool · Nov 26, 2012

Kivin said:
I had eleven Salt and one Silver on a game a few days ago. But had to go until Renaissance without a third lux.

If I had a map with eleven salt in my first cities three rings, even first two cities, I would just restart the map and declare a win! Holy smokes! :eek:

If you play huge maps you will get a lot of the feeling, where the heck are the diverse resources, sometimes they are just not there and you have to seek them at a large distance. use it as a challenge.

Problems with the world generator

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Kivin

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Donaskme

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Kivin

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Donaskme

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Smokeybear

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seancolorado

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Hustapha Thool

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