Are you restarting often when the map doesn't seem so great ?

Personnally I should do it more often, instead of quitting. I'm a small type, when i start a game it's for good, I can even stand the loading times, and then i'm exploring a bit like everybody else. But, I'm paying attention to resources other than my first city ones only when i'm starting to build my first settler. And, when I'm figuring out : "well, there doesn't seem to be enough resources near my capital", I can't prevent to blame the game for the delusionned involvement. And then I quit, because it's a surprise every time. Indeed, when i start a game i'm like "cool, I will start anew and see what little nice resources I can get" among other things. I'm like "this time i will pay attention to luxuries and settle right near them", but then when I see there's NO luxuries I'm like crying for good. However, there are definitely some good starts.

That's why I wish developers, instead of wasting our time and involvement, let us start near enough resources EVERYTIME, just because they are so much important. It's a little like starting without iron in vanilla, it's highly frustrating and ... wasting. But do the developers know the importance, the cruciality of luxuries in their own game ?

Well, it grinds my gears when I get a heavy plains start and absolutely no horses but meh, it's manageable. I do restart when the start bias doesn't work out. I've been playing Brazil recently trying to get a feel for them, and it's all kinds of wrong not to have a single jungle tile around. Or I play Morocco and there's no deserts or I play Dutch and there's not a single marsh around. Other than that, I don't really restart/reroll much

Yep, I restart until I at least get some production tiles, or a river. Monotypic plains or jungle are no good as well. If you are placed right between Attila and Monty in close confines, might as well restart.

I've only restarted once or twice. I look at unspectacular starts as a learning opportunity.

A.J.K. said:

I've only restarted once or twice. I look at unspectacular starts as a learning opportunity.

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Precisely, there'no learning in lacking something you need absolutely...

OP, have you tried experimenting with the balanced resources or legendary start options to see if those are more your style?

I have been happy to play through whatever I am dealt. It seems to me to be the rare game that does not have three or four very good expo spots. I do very much dislike not having easy access to horses or iron when I am playing a civ with early era UU, as that feels like a nasty trick and the game is less fun. I don’t mind later game challenges to get coal or uranium.

I restart only for experimentation/challenge purposes. For example, I deliberately look for an unfavorable start just to see how far I can go, and perhaps if I can overcome it with a social policy, etc.

Often, I'm tired of starting in jungles three out of every four times.

I never restart. I live with what I get. makes for some interesting games.

I restart when a map lies to me. Small Continents Plus is a perfect example, making them huge Pangaea around 1/3 times I play the map.

Since I've been doing things like trying to complete the Honor tree on immortal I've been doing it quite a lot. Lately I have been aiming for a good inland starting location, just to spite the deity experts whose formulas always involve internal cargo ships.

I never restart these days. But I play on Emperor, so if I upped the difficulty to Deity it might be a different story.

I'm addicted to restarting in single-player. I don't want to play Hiawatha with almost no forest tiles
for example or on the very edge of map when nothing interesting happens.

On the other hand I hardly ever restart in multi

I remember playing as Vikings on Huge Earth map. I always ended up in Australia, no matter how many times that I would try. Damn the randomess of this game...

Naokaukodem said:

Precisely, there'no learning in lacking something you need absolutely...

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But what do you require absolutely ? My requirements change game to game. Some games I may want natural wonders. Other games I may want a desert start. Other times I give the map a chance to lure me in. To your initial question, I quit quite a bit if the map doesn't draw me in.

As others have said, there are times where I enjoy the challenge of not having a resource. Yes it can be frustrating initially, but more often than not it adds a bit of randomness to the story, which keeps it interesting to me.

I think one of the biggest things they can do is to drive home the impact a lack of resources has on each civilization. It often times helps explain why one civ had better success than another from era to era. Why isn't the United States bringing more than 4 bombers against me ? They have no oil and are dependent upon city states for their limited supply. Wonderful! Why haven't China selected Order yet ? No coal!

Resource scarcity plays a role in the game, the immersion factor for me would increase if they made this more visible in the narrative.

But do the developers know the importance, the cruciality of luxuries in their own game ?

Click to expand...

I hope they know that diversity in maps helps immensely with replay value as each users "requirements" may change from game to game. The fact they have options such as "abundant resources" and "strategic balance" indicates they understand the importance in providing different experiences to their broad user base.

I think you might like this mod:

http://www.picknmixmods.com/mods/7a1dd394-09eb-41dd-85ae-2f01fbcbf57a/mod.html

It lets you switch between (some) available starting locations. The only issue with this mod is that the minimap fails to cover the previously seen starting locations with fog of war, but the issue goes away once you load a saved game. So I always save and reload immediately after I found my 1st city.

whyidie said:

But what do you require absolutely ? My requirements change game to game. Some games I may want natural wonders.

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I don't think I've ever not wanted a natural wonder at my starting location, but I've never had one. AFAIK the standard map generator wont put one within 7 tiles of the human's starting location.

whyidie said:

Resource scarcity plays a role in the game, the immersion factor for me would increase if they made this more visible in the narrative.

I hope they know that diversity in maps helps immensely with replay value as each users "requirements" may change from game to game. The fact they have options such as "abundant resources" and "strategic balance" indicates they understand the importance in providing different experiences to their broad user base.

Click to expand...

Resource scarcity is something the majority of the player base hates. Firaxis seems to appreciate this and put little effort into that side of the game, consequently the economics of the game are braindead. All resources are of equal value regardless of scarcity (or utility) until the AI crosses certain thresholds, at which point they become valueless. I like to swap my useless excess resources for all the AIs' uranium. It makes me feel safer.

qemist said:

I don't think I've ever not wanted a natural wonder at my starting location, but I've never had one. AFAIK the standard map generator wont put one within 7 tiles of the human's starting location.

Click to expand...

Want vs require. Sometimes when I play as Spain, I will not play the map if I do not have at least one Natural Wonder close by. Other times, its a nice to have.

qemist said:

Resource scarcity is something the majority of the player base hates. Firaxis seems to appreciate this and put little effort into that side of the game, consequently the economics of the game are braindead.

Click to expand...

Nice summation. The root of many of the games evils.

As for the player base...Good software is like art to the customer. They'll know it when they use it. Woe to those who produce exactly what they ask for.

my answer depends on which of my multiple personalities you're addressing:

1.) usually I restart only if things look really dismal; I'm up for a challenge but don't like to fight losing battles, particularly with this game's time investment. This rarely/never is due to lack of luxury diversity, although the ceiling is lower there's other options. Has more to do with things like:
-being in wide open terrain with Alex, Attila, Genghis and Shaka all having capitals within 10 hexes of mine. I've played through this successfully w/ 3 of these guys near me but was able to tuck myself in a corner of the map, but not wide-open
-being in the the middle of wide open terrain and having ALL neighbors forward-settling me. It's fine if I get beat to the best option, I'll take the second option or even the third option. But if they take all of the options there's still one available.. the reset button.

2.) usually I'm flexible with adapting to the changing atmosphere of the game; that basically is the only reason to improve your gameplay in a TBS game. There are times, though, when I start jonesing to play a particular game. Not necessarily a particular victory condition or leader, but a particular strategy. Examples might be DF/pilgrimage/holy warriors game, or an infrastructure-only domination game with militaristic CS units only. Sometimes, the hypothalamus wants what the hypothalamus wants.

My favorite Civ is Venice, so if I don't get a good starting location I'll usually restart. I figure it's the only one I'm going to get so I might as well make the most of it. In my most recent game I was playing a Large Islands map, thought I had a pretty solid start (river, coastal, adjacent desert tile, one gold and tons of copper spots) so I thought "Oh awesome! I have good resources, and I might be able to get either Petra or Colossus or maybe even both!" since I was playing on Emperor. I got beat to both Petra and Colossus (though I did get Great Lighthouse at least), but the absolute worst thing is I was almost completely isolated. I had one city state to trade with and that was it for trade routes until I got to compass. Completely gimped my early game play. I had an island with 3 city states just out of sea route range. Drove me bonkers.

So even when you think you have a good start location, it may not be all it's cracked up to be once you really get into it.