Share your favorite Spain starts (BNW)

I love playing as Spain. I frequently reload to find maps where there are more than one natural wonder by the starting location. But it takes multiple re-starts and it's kind of time consuming. I wonder if some of you share my dilemma. In case you are like me, I am sharing a game save where I have an awesome starting location as Spain (Deity, Standard speed and size, Continents).

You will find Great Reef Barrier on the east side, about 6 turns away. And you will also find Ulruru 5 turns northwest from the initial start. Locations by these wonders lack rivers, but oh well. You are also isolated on an island with two city states. With Optics you can reach a second biggest continent with 3 AIs. In the middle of this continent, you will find Solomon's mine. With multiple reloads (yes, it's cheating sure), I manage a cultural victory by turn 185 - though, I make several mistakes toward the end.

If you have a similar or better Spain starts, please share with me

I remember getting a good start with the GBR not too far away from my capital, and snatched the Uluru and later the Rock of Gibraltar. Very good wonders for Spain, as they all give food and thus means you can worked IMMIDEATELY.

Combined with One With Nature (Spain's personal Pantheon) you can pretty much dominate early religion and spam some missionaries to wrest a hold of your area.

that 6 food 4 culture mountain + 4 deer + goddess of the hunt on plains start.

I like playing Spain....but the re-rolling to get an interesting game going can be tedious.

One of my most interesting "Spain games" involved four wonders ... Madrid started with FoY within three tiles. Barcelona was started with Petra in mind, but that didn't happen...the only "blemish" in that game.

But, then, all of a sudden about six tiles to the northwest ...a nice spot on a lake, I found KSM.... I quickly planted Seville there and was able to grab quite a few wonders as the game went on.

A bit later I explored about ten tiles to the northwest and found the GBR...and actually suitable for a nice coastal city. It was on the doorstep of Carthage, but I quickly got a city...forget the name of Spains fourth city..."Toledo"..??? ....in there. It was early enough in the game that the Reef was still a big advantage. Oh, and I eventually decimated Dido....I think I waited for Artillery....

Finally, although it was a bit removed from my main area, I found Sri Pada...a fairly good coastal city location....so a road was delayed.


That was a really rare game.... Usually with Spain if I can get two good wonders I feel the game is worth playing..... I've had the combination of Lake Victoria for Madrid and KSM for Barcelona.....that was a really "powerhouse" civ. And it was one of those games with many of the AI civs crowded all around me.... so the combination of production and growth was well rewarded.....

[Oh, yes, I almost forgot...in that game another interesting wonder eventually showed up...I can't remember what it was.... I think... "FoY"..???...but it was a long way off, though the site was OK and it was coastal ...no road needed.... It was quite the challenge, but I got settler down there through rough territory and really early Open Borders with William....the AI are so dumb about these things....a human player in those circumstances would see what the objective was and make it as difficult as possible ]

But the memories of these very unusual games kind of spoil it for the more pedestrian games that seem to be the norm for Spain.... You are always tempted to re-roll to see if you can get something more interesting.

But I try not to give up too quickly...in another game I found KSM while exploring with my first settler....it wasn't a great location, but it was OK...though not on the coast.....then not very far away, maybe ten tiles, Uluru showed up..... Although it was close...it was a struggle to get a city there and, again, not on the coast. Kyoto was already within about five tiles of Madrid and also close to Uluru and Mecca was not far away either.... But I planted a city anyway....eventually Mecca DOW'd, but I was expecting it and wiped them out...but not before Artillery.... Japan never did anything except "hate" me....so I left them alone..... They were the first to fall in my eventual cultural victory.... Despite the rather inauspicious beginning that turned out to be a fun game....

Is me again. Whenever I play as Spain, I don't always expect starting near a natural wonder. I ALWAYS make sure I have a contingency plan should the case be no wonders.

After all, you're often supposed to conquer the cities with the wonders. (As with city states, you might found a city close enough and snag the NW with a GG to avoid warmongering penalty by taking CSes)