I hate you RNG!

Alright after restarting the umpteenth game for the umpteenth time could the "start bias" get a little tweaking?

I just did a dozen restarts to get a Poland game with 2 pasture resources.

I encounter similar frustrations trying to play as Japan wanting sea resources (forget getting atolls in the capital it's never happened for me).

Same thing with Spain and NW's. I'm not asking for one in my capital but something fairly accessible from time to time would be nice as opposed to in another civ's territory or basically belonging to a CS. My last 3 games as Assyrian, France, and now Poland all had a NW accessible to me, but across all playthroughs as Spain it's only happened twice.

To a lesser degree it occurs with the Aztecs as well, although lakes do show up after a restart or two.

I'm sure there are other examples I could think of (if I wasn't trying to explore a map right now.....and yup only finding one other city location which will be able to build a ducal stable....)

Listen, I'm not asking for an easymode start location, and it really is too late in the game for changes to this iteration of Civ. But a "tailored to selected Civ" option would be nice. You know "oh hey he selected Poland, let's make sure he has pasture resources and let's throw an extra one or two in the area". You know, cause when I select a Civ to play with I do kind of want to leverage their UA's, UB's, and UU's.... Without having to resort to using mods all the time.

I see your point, but one thing is you get more of a challenge out of a bad start. I don't usually play the start-reliant Civs (same reason as your complaint), but it'd be more fun if it was less of a gamble.

On my two games as Poland i never had pastures in the capital, but had very little effect, cus, you know, Poland.

Wait, so you restart the game every time you don't get an ideal start? What? That's basically cheating from my point of view. Learn to work a tundra start and then every start seems easy and fun

Lol, I'm not alone with this feeling when I have no marsh with Netherlands, no horses with Arabia, no hills next mountains with Inca, etc.

Tundra is better than jungle, in my opinion.

Memoryjar said:

Lol, I'm not alone with this feeling when I have no marsh with Netherlands, no horses with Arabia, no hills next mountains with Inca, etc.

Tundra is better than jungle, in my opinion.

Click to expand...

You can still build things in jungle, although it takes a while and requires bronze working. On a tundra tile all you can put is a trading post unless it's on a river or hill. That + worse output + lack of any civ abilities or buildings or bonuses (aside from + 1 faith from non forest tundra tiles) designed for it is why I think it's so bad.

Tundra start is terrible. The only thing that somehow works with Tundra is if there's also forest, so you can have deer with 3 food 2 hammer tiles. That's better than jungle start. Tundra plains with no forest however are inferior to jungle tiles, because those only provide 1 food and you can't improve them at all until guilds.

You know, I think I have a feeling that the Restart Game option that's only available on Turn 0 is flawed.

Using that to reroll a map doesn't seem to change your start bias for that map.

Could be wrong about this, but when I was playing Venice I got a tundra start with no resources around, it was horrible. Normally I'd suck it up, but Venice really needs a good capital location or they're screwed. But using the Restart Game option was no good because I kept getting more tundra starts. It was only when I exited the game and started a new one that the game gave me an area that wasn't similar to all those previous starts.

direblade99 said:

Wait, so you restart the game every time you don't get an ideal start? What? That's basically cheating from my point of view. Learn to work a tundra start and then every start seems easy and fun

Click to expand...

This is awfully assumptive.

I'm discussing start reliant civs (because playing as Spain without an accessible NW is basically playing without a UA, aka a completely vanilla Civ).

Playing as Germany, Assyria, the Huns, the Mongols (I will go get my horses there, it doesn't matter if they're in my cap or not), and plenty other civs I will just load the game up and go.

I'm discussing civs which are reliant on a specific terrain or resource group to make use of their uniques (more specifically abilities and buildings). IE I loaded up Poland with the notion I wanted to play a game with more a horseback army, changing my tech pattern to make horseback riding a priority, and wanted to really get a benefit out of their stables (both the gold and the xp). Without certain criteria being met I'd basically just be playing a Civ which gets a free policy every era, kind of boring; instead of actively, and consciously, changing my normal routine (which bad starts don't do either, I still basically play the same).

Coupled with the fact work comprises 14 hours of my day everyday for 2 weeks at a stretch. Civ time is precious (as I've still got other things to do, you know eating and sleeping), and I'm not going to waste it on a game that, on the odd time that I do have a specific game in mind, that isn't what I'm looking for.

If I wanted easy mode starts EVERY time, I'd use mods, in fact within the very post I believe it says (not verbatim) "I'd rather not". So get off your high horse.

Now excuse me Monty is knocking on my door (with quite an impressive entourage I see! I've set out a very lovely reception for him)

What is RNG??

random number generator

I think the main point of my "complaint" is being lost.

Usually I'm a "random Civ/random map" kinda guy. Load the game up and play. However when selecting a specific Civ I want their advantage (ie playing a huge map with Askia while turning on raging barbs in order to constantly pillage encampments while rush buying everything. Or playing as Venice with extra CS in game to leverage extra trade routes). As you can see, I can tweak the game, in the provided options, for many civs in order to do so. For some civs it cannot be done without mods (doesn't really give a bonus to building a bazaar when you already have 3-4 sugars as it would if you have 2-3 different luxury resources instead).

I'm asking for an option in the advanced start up screen akin to "play to Civ's strength" so I don't have to start a Spain game, explore for 100 turns (I play marathon), find no NW even in the outlying areas of where I'd build a city, and restart to repeat this same process again (most likely multiple times).

Winning the game isn't hard, that's not what this is about, it's about fun and playing a game without having to turn on mods and literally feeling like a cheater.

Dgodus said:

I'm asking for an option in the advanced start up screen akin to "play to Civ's strength" so I don't have to start a Spain game, explore for 100 turns (I play marathon), find no NW even in the outlying areas of where I'd build a city, and restart to repeat this same process again (most likely multiple times).

Click to expand...

I think any opposition is partly because... well, you're not limited to your start. True, for some civilizations, (like Spain), they're highly situational on the start because they do pretty much make or break the game- but those niche cases also see such a boon that it is so very deterministic. For other civs, the answer can be as simple as a settler. If I get Netherlands with no marsh/flood plains, or Russia with no Horses/Iron, or Poland with no Sheep/Cattle/Horses on my start, my general thought isn't "well, this is crap, need to restart... but rather "now I know exactly what to look for when settling my 2nd/3rd/4th city." Settling and building a city to a UA/UB is just as valid for picking satellite city locations as the luxury diversity that people without those UAs and UBs use to choose their locations.

While I do feel the case of playing 100+ turns and finding you're completely barren of opportunity to use a unique can be a valid case for restarting, the general diversity on maps says that it shouldn't be rare enough to force a chain of restarts: often, unless there's very bad luck, the opportunities are there, and several players throw their hands up and give up before they ever see them or try for them. I'm not saying your case is like that, but that mindset *has* been seen often, and why some of us who stick out "bad starts" to see the full potential get a little salty and skeptical that people are jumping the gun at restarts.

Once the RNG gave AI Netherlands a PERFECT desert start. Hills, flood plains, and he went for desert folklore. Start bias was on. There was no grass near him whatsoever.

I guess the game got angry or something...

SalemSage said:

You know, I think I have a feeling that the Restart Game option that's only available on Turn 0 is flawed.

Using that to reroll a map doesn't seem to change your start bias for that map.

Click to expand...

I think the same thing. I was trying to play as Egypt last week and I kept getting placed in a jungle. Even after re-rolls at turn 0.

So now I exit to the main menu and then hit "play" from there and it seems to work better.

I have to go along with the OP here.

If I chose a particular civ, I want to be able to take advantage of that civs strengths. In my opinion, Mongolia and Arabia should never start with no horses in the cap, Japan should always get fish at the very least (I mean what good is a coastal bias if you get a vast expanse of water?), the Inca should always get hills/mountains, the Aztecs should always get lakes, etc.

Cpt Oblivious said:

I think any opposition is partly because... well, you're not limited to your start. True, for some civilizations, (like Spain), they're highly situational on the start because they do pretty much make or break the game- but those niche cases also see such a boon that it is so very deterministic. For other civs, the answer can be as simple as a settler. If I get Netherlands with no marsh/flood plains, or Russia with no Horses/Iron, or Poland with no Sheep/Cattle/Horses on my start, my general thought isn't "well, this is crap, need to restart... but rather "now I know exactly what to look for when settling my 2nd/3rd/4th city." Settling and building a city to a UA/UB is just as valid for picking satellite city locations as the luxury diversity that people without those UAs and UBs use to choose their locations.

While I do feel the case of playing 100+ turns and finding you're completely barren of opportunity to use a unique can be a valid case for restarting, the general diversity on maps says that it shouldn't be rare enough to force a chain of restarts: often, unless there's very bad luck, the opportunities are there, and several players throw their hands up and give up before they ever see them or try for them. I'm not saying your case is like that, but that mindset *has* been seen often, and why some of us who stick out "bad starts" to see the full potential get a little salty and skeptical that people are jumping the gun at restarts.

Click to expand...

Your position, although assumptive, was valid with regards only to original post. Once I further specified this isn't about overall good start/bad start debate and that predominantly I play random/random games with the first start location I'm given this argument becomes moot.

To make it clearer. On the difficulty I play it would be fairly easy to win as a fully vanilla Civ (ie no UA, UB, UU, or UI). But what would be the fun in that. As I said, most of the time I'm clicking random/random (or random/earth map); however sometimes I want a specific "flavor" if you will. So I'll select say the Ottomans or England and obviously in that instance I'm also selecting an archi map to leverage their naval power.

This is about "flavor". If you go to the advanced setup screen you will find many "flavor" options ie raging barbs, complete kills, no city razing, disable start bias (which only affects terrain, not resources), or random personalities. What I am suggesting and asking for is another "flavor" option in line with those. An option to select which would script a map tailored towards the selected Civ AND the AI civs in the game as well.

For example: my current Poland game (some after restarts, some reroll after some initial exploring) contains 10 pastures within my 3 cities; this is actually pretty freakin awesome and more than I required (AH spawned 5 horses!! 2 would have been sufficient). Capitol had 2 cattle, another city spot had 2 sheep and there were 2 other sheep available depending on where horses and iron popped. This is perfect, knowing I'd probably get 2 horses in those areas being garunteed 5 pastures was exactly what I was looking for. It's not game breaking, it's just nice (having 5 horses spawn really did put me on the path to dominance though and is provided a wicked boost to all 3 cities instead of just 2 which would have satiated me).

So the "you should play your bad starts" cries need to stop. Why? Because I do more often than not. But sometimes I want to play a specific Civ using the advantages their meant to have. It should be a selectable option. Not something game breaking, something within the lines of "equality" that is tailored to that Civ (such as a NW within 15 tiles of Spain's start location, or a diverse selection of luxury resources within 20 tiles of arabia's start as opposed to an abundance of one or two - to leverage the bazaar UB's special feature).

This isn't about winning, as winning is easy, it's about flavor


Again, I've limited Civ time because of schedule, as Spain I'll explore for that NW, howeve as Poland (or japan) I want to see it in my start location as time is a factor (I only enjoy marathon games, I'd sooner play age of empires than a standard speed Civ).

Dgodus said:

So the "you should play your bad starts" cries need to stop.

Click to expand...

^^
QFT

My Steam window says 2888 hours played. I have paid my dues to bad starts, I feel no compulsion what so ever to stick out a start where I am stuck up in the snow surrounded by tundra - been there, done that.

Does anyone here restart their maps alot not because they get a bad start, but because they much prefer a start which plays to the strengths of the Civ they are playing?

For example I feel if I play a game with the Dutch without a fair few nice looking polders around my empire that the game feels kinda flat. Same with Aztecs and having no rivers/lakes.

joshua43214 said:

^^
QFT

My Steam window says 2888 hours played. I have paid my dues to bad starts, I feel no compulsion what so ever to stick out a start where I am stuck up in the snow surrounded by tundra - been there, done that.

Click to expand...

I think this is a perfectly fair point. As has been said in other posts, if it's just your game (not GOTM or whatever) it is entirely up to you how you wish to play - I certainly don't want to jump on some kind of 'moral' bandwagon. And anyway I've benefitted directly from some of your posts and I didn't consider that cheating!