Am i the only person who thinks this

Smokeybear said:

I play on King, and I play well enough not to get most of my forces wiped out to where I am desperate to build more to defend myself against someone else. If I do get that beat up, in any speed, I'm doing something stupid, or playing way over my head on a difficulty I shouldn't even be on. Since that is not an issue in my games, I stand by my previous evaluation.

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Fair enough. Difficulty matters in this sort of thing. The jump from Emperor to Immortal is almost a completely different game, not to mention King to Emperor. So, we can't really converge on our thoughts on this. I win almost all my games on Emperor. However, I rarely win on Immortal. Trust me, on Immortal, you're forced to make more mistakes since you don't have the luxury of time. And, that's where Epic makes things tougher, since one "little" mistake may cost you one game, even if you start in paradise land.

Starting position is certainly a factor, but I think it only becomes a significant, ongoing disadvantage if you don't attempt to use some of the in-game systems that are designed to help you catch up. Also, if you let an enemy civ become an end-game 'monster', then whose fault is it, really? Often, AI's will notice a growing threat, and even ask for help in going to war (with said threat); but if you stick your head in the sand, and ignore the appeals of other civs (or if you yourself are just not paying attention to global trends), you only have yourself to blame later ... after Hiawatha, Washington, etc. has taken over the entire map. A bad starting position may be challenging, but it's not necessarily an instant-loss. In fact, some of my best experiences in Civ V are with games that had very bad starting positions.

There are numerous ways to offset a bad starting position, some ways based on supplementing civ advancement, others based on supplementing the war game (which is itself, a form of 'equalizing the competition'). Alliances with city-states provide a system for circumventing resource deprivation; espionage provides a system that allow you to steal techs and rig city-state elections (which, in turn, swing needed resources back to you); religion provides a system for supplementing your civ in areas where it may be lacking (that's why there are so many beliefs to choose from); prize ships allow you to build a fleet from virtually nothing (same goes with certain UA's, like Furor Teutonicus, Barbary Corsairs, etc.); the diplomacy and economic systems allow you to manipulate other civs into warring with each other; the diplomacy and trade systems provide hideous ways to fleece the civs of their gold; etc.

I would suggest trying to play something like a 3-city culture game, where you're constantly on the defensive and are forced to "play from behind". You'll learn a lot about diplomacy, economic manipulation, and waging a defensive war.

Also, watch Maddjinn's Deity Dido LP series; he starts the game in a horrible starting position, but utilizes the game's many built-in systems to work his way to a victory. It's certainly one of the better LP's out there that showcase multiple ways of manipulating bad starting circumstances.

I hate to sound self promoting, but I just can't help it. If you are playing single player games and you want to adjust your starting advantages (or disadvantages) check out my mod (see my signature).

A couple of things:

The AI is a bit scatter-brained. Sometimes a sure-fire runaway fails to exploit it's advantage, and I've won a decent number of games where the last 20 or 30 turns I kept waiting to see a runaway get a science victory or to attack me, only to win a cultural victory and win what really should have been a loss.

Starting positions that are beneficial early on aren't always great later. I've played games where at turn 200 I had the Sistine Chapel, Alehambra (or however you spell it), and a slight tech lead, all because I got an isolated start with no one around and no need to build many units. I start thinking a cultural victory will be easy, but then one of the unseen AI's suddenly emerges as a runaway and starts outteching me significantly, and lo-and-behold, they go from several teches behind me at mid-game to finishing the Spaceship before I can fill out my 5th SP tree. (Hiawatha seems to be quite good at doing this).

Starting position is important, but isn't everything. I'd say only a few things are absolutely vital to having a workable start, and one is to have a river or two. Another is to not be completely drowning in jungle tiles. And a third is to not be wedged between two massive-expanders of AIs. Without rivers, you get no irrigation bonuses and tend to get less gold than you probably need, while being in jungle means you need to cut jungle before making farms, mines, or improving luxuries. And being between two big-time expasion civs can mean quickly having shared borders and no room to expand yourself.

Really, rivers are the most important, which is why BNW is changing rivers and adding new gold-producing systems. With rivers, I can usually stand a good chance of beating Immortal. Without rivers, even on Emperor I may struggle tremendously in the early going to just have enough gold not to lose science per turn from being in debt. Without rivers, you lose irrigation bonuses, you lose gold, you lose gardens/water mills/hydo-plants, and you lose the ability to anchor a defensive line along the river for when someone invades. Even an entirely jungle start is better than a no-rivers-at-all start, because all that jungle slows up invaders and, if you aren't too hindered in the early game, can be used to play catch up from the science bonus they give with universities.

The only time I really figure a game is won or lost early on is when it's turn 30 and I've yet to find a river that is more than two or three tiles long.

definitely; there seems to be a catch up point right around turn 100-200, but after that if your not already at the top of what you plan on doing strategy wise, your pretty much screwed.

The only impressive turn around I've ever seen in a game was when the Maya got knocked out relatively early (going so far as to lose its capital) by Greece. Eventually Napolean turned around and decided to stomp all over Greece and amass this huge empire, but along the way for what ever reason he was giving the Maya back all of their cities. Soon enough Maya were back in the game, Greece was entirely screwed, and Napolean was sitting high as a super power - until Germany and Spain decided they had enough of Napolean, invaded him, and pushed him back to the dark ages.

Maya mean while was keeping its head low, and some how came back to pummel out Germany and than Spain.

All the while I was on another continent just hanging out with Korea and Rome, all of us doing our own thing with no conflicts, no border issues, no wars or any thing.

Cissnei said:

Starting position seems to be 50% of the game and the game is decided in the first (below) 200 turns. I never saw anyone who is weak in the first ~150~ turns catch up to the civilizations who are strong. You can tell after 200 turns who will be first to achieve science, territory and culture victory (unless u do it before them).
I think they should fix the "snowball effect". In history there were many civilizations who were strongest back in their days and now they don't exist anymore or are small. In the game once you are ahead you must really let others catch up on purpose to ever fall behind. I hate it

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I've had bad early games before and then I catch up. For example, later in the game I may beeline riflemen and conquer a huge amount of territory relatively quickly. Then with all the additional cities things snowball from there.

So there is a snowball effect, but it doesn't always need to begin early. Granted, this is probably only true on emperor and below. If you are not snowballing from turn 1 on deity, then you probably have no chance of winning.

Good starts ensure highest points but victory is not certain, smaller civs can still have some chance to win with Science or Culture Victory. It's true that a civ game gets boring after 200 turns or so, honestly.

Zodan_Mir said:

Often, AI's will notice a growing threat, and even ask for help in going to war (with said threat); but if you stick your head in the sand, and ignore the appeals of other civs (or if you yourself are just not paying attention to global trends), you only have yourself to blame later ... after Hiawatha, Washington, etc. has taken over the entire map. A bad starting position may be challenging, but it's not necessarily an instant-loss. In fact, some of my best experiences in Civ V are with games that had very bad starting positions.

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Seconded. Find the runaways and form a plan to conquer them before it's too late. This is currently where the game allows a swing from a bad start to a decent win, as I just had with Alex/immortal a very bad start (seeded coastal, explored and only found a low-resource river), conquered the game leader for a turn-297 win

It is correct that a runaway is just as difficult to take out on King as Immortal. Don't let the AI become a runaway.

I agree with the main point here, though. Really, conquest needs to lead to more negatives and less positives. Unhappiness and rebellions need to become more of a managed, flexing pressure and less of a black-and-white like it has been since G&K. (The aforementioned Alex game was the first one in a year that I've had to play and win with significant unhappy stretches.) It sounds like BNW will mix this all up tho.