Worst Starts Thread

Hey there.

I want to see some of your most horrible starts, and maybe even a save game so I can play them.

Whether it's an isolated start, or a tundra start, I want to see them.

Pretty basic, nothing else.

Begin.

Worst start I've ever gotten, is on a Highlands map. Save not available, but I can attach several of those starts if wanted because the current Gauntlet is on Highlands, and starts like that come along about every 100 maps.

Also have a look at pages 8-9 of this thread.

That city spot has potential, but starting like this, idk. You can't rush, and you are forced to get sailing up early so you can go onto the mainland.

I find that a lot of the starts that look terrible at first glance, in fact aren't so bad, and I've done pretty well on some when I persevered.

That's true.

I remember one time having a start on the coast, but with only fish resource in the BFC, four forests and a couple hills. It was mostly tundra, with some plains. I was going to quit, but I decided to explore around, and found out that there were better lands up north. Also, once I got the respective techs, I realized that I had both copper and iron in the BFC, so that allowed me to conquer my way to good land.

I think the worst start I ever had was on tectonics, earthlike with a cold climate. I spawned way up north in Siberia, with a fur and deer in my BFC, some hills and the rest is tundra. The land around me was also mostly tundra, with some deer resources here and there. There was a lot of copper around, but what's the point when you can't whip any units?

Sanguivorant said:

That city spot has potential, but starting like this, idk. You can't rush, and you are forced to get sailing up early so you can go onto the mainland.

Click to expand...

rbj2001 said:

I find that a lot of the starts that look terrible at first glance, in fact aren't so bad, and I've done pretty well on some when I persevered.

Click to expand...

If you two can beat Deity with such a start, you'll have my highest respect.

...there was this one time I tried to play as HC on Earth18...

TheMulattoMaker said:

...there was this one time I tried to play as HC on Earth18...

Click to expand...

Oh yeah. I've played that one several times, only on Noble difficulty though.

The Inca have a unique situation, because they get a continent all to themselves, but they can't really access it until they research sailing. If you play your first hundred turns right though, space/time/culture victories are possible. Regardless, this is what you need to do:

-Quickly tech masonry and build Great Wall
-Then, tech sailing and get a sailboat right away.
-After a certain pop (Can't remember, would have to reattempt this one), keep training settlers and transporting them to the other parts of the continent. Greater emphasis should be made on settling the coasts. The Great Wall ability means that you can completely neglect your military for a while. Get at least five other coastal cities in South America.
-You need iron working eventually to make use of the grasslands under that jungle.


Several goals you should have in mind:
-Make sure your borders cover the south american border, so that no one else can settle in south america.
-Train at least 20 workers to clear the jungle.


The start will be slow, but after around 1400 A.D, your tech rate should be sky high from all the cottages you should be working. You could probably discover optics before Old World civs.

I would say that the worst starting point in 18-civ Earth would be the Americans. The Aztecs are just very aggressive.

Seraiel said:

If you two can beat Deity with such a start, you'll have my highest respect.

Click to expand...

But deity isn't supposed to be beatable all the time. A start with that many sea foods is definitely able to get strong momentum for whips and a specialist farm, plus there are also two hills available for production.

A bad start shouldn't be defined as a start which cant beat deity.

I would say that the worst starting point in 18-civ Earth would be the Americans. The Aztecs are just very aggressive.

Click to expand...

The start itself isn't all that bad. Just take an aggressive position against Monty. The real reason it's so difficult to start as Roosy is because you'll have no one to trade tech with until Optics (HC is too weak on this map and Monty will be killed or weak and unwilling to trade any way).

The worst starts based purely on land on Earth18 IMO are Mali, Arabia, and the Mongols (although Arabia can expand onto decent land and TMIT showed that a Mongol win is indeed achievable).

Japan is also pretty difficult. Unless you conquer China, it will be hard to start on the right foot.

I haven't tried but it seems like Japan would be a tough game. But you could go for TGL and settle those South Pacific island chains. The actual land you start with isn't half bad, either. But Mansa Musa has the A#1 worst start on the map and, possibly, that I've ever seen . Now you've piqued my interest. I might try an Earth18 Japan start this weekend.

bhavv said:

But deity isn't supposed to be beatable all the time. A start with that many sea foods is definitely able to get strong momentum for whips and a specialist farm, plus there are also two hills available for production.

A bad start shouldn't be defined as a start which cant beat deity.

Click to expand...

I don't believe any start is unbeatable on deity (assuming pangaea/continents/fractal/standard size). Otherwise there would be an "unbeatable" challenging save game floating around the forums. Seraiel's map might be unbeatable, although we'd have to see more of the surrounding territory and have the save game to be sure. It's highlands script though anyways.

The point is if you did find a start that no one here could beat on deity, it would of course be an insanely bad start.

Shaka to your North, Tokugawa to your East, Montezuma to your West (and a really fat Suryavarman just behind him), and a mediocre piece of coast to your south. (Huge sized Big-and-Small map).

Fight a 2000 year long 2-3 way war, then find out someone (Mansa? ) is happily binge-drinking his beakers in the Industrial/Modern Era while you're still running around with your supposedly-brand-new rifleman and calvary.

drewisfat said:

I don't believe any start is unbeatable on deity (assuming pangaea/continents/fractal/standard size). Otherwise there would be an "unbeatable" challenging save game floating around the forums. Seraiel's map might be unbeatable, although we'd have to see more of the surrounding territory and have the save game to be sure. It's highlands script though anyways.

The point is if you did find a start that no one here could beat on deity, it would of course be an insanely bad start.

Click to expand...

There is a save someone posted that was unbeatable, at 4000BC... but he had already settled in place. He was in the middle of a ~3x3 island, and by settling in the middle there was no coastal access and no place to put a second city. OCC was not selected either, so it was a OCC without the upside and no ability to go on an offensive war or find people to trade with. Completely unbeatable.

There are some map scripts where if you place too many civs on the map, some of them start in a tiny workable area in the middle of vast ice / glacier fields, with the nearest civs and settleable land much too far away to afford to grab.

blitzkrieg1980 said:

I haven't tried but it seems like Japan would be a tough game. But you could go for TGL and settle those South Pacific island chains. The actual land you start with isn't half bad, either. But Mansa Musa has the A#1 worst start on the map and, possibly, that I've ever seen . Now you've piqued my interest. I might try an Earth18 Japan start this weekend.

Click to expand...

Make sure you tell me how it goes.

I have tried it before. What I did was quickly tech bronze working, then sailing. I then whipped several axemen and a couple of galleys, and first settled Korea, which was the landing zone for my mission. I rushed China with a couple axemen (10, I think?), and managed to get most of mainland China. From there, I kind of stopped playing, I'm not sure why.

ThorHammerz said:

Shaka to your North, Tokugawa to your East, Montezuma to your West (and a really fat Suryavarman just behind him), and a mediocre piece of coast to your south. (Huge sized Big-and-Small map).

Fight a 2000 year long 2-3 way war, then find out someone (Mansa? ) is happily binge-drinking his beakers in the Industrial/Modern Era while you're still running around with your supposedly-brand-new rifleman and calvary.

Click to expand...

Shaka will chase you from anywhere, it doesn't matter if you are two continents away. That was precisely what happened in the first game I ever played.

But yeah, it does suck when you start close to some aggressive neighbors.

Here's an old game on Immortal. Link.

What a horrible start, how is this even possible to win?

1 tile off coast and not irrigated corn? As the score-chart shows you're already far behind. GG.