Best and worst start locations on standard earth?

I used to think that it was the isolated south america, but recently I played a poland deity in which I started in central china, with a desert basin to my west. It was great, since my cities were walled off by mountains and city states, and I had 5 cities with about 3 units defense with no one threatening to take me, ghandi was north of the mountain range and the next closest was england in the middle east.

The middle east is actually a really good start too, a ton of flood plains covered by sugar.


The worst start by far I think is alaska, full tundra and even though sometime's there's salt, it's hard to get out of that place. One time, I even spawned on a tile that was blocked off from the mainland by a mountain.


Any experiences?

Starting in Europe and eastern Asia has always been bad for me. India and Southeast Asia starts are tough too. Starting in China of the middle east is the best. I had a game as Hiawatha where I started in the middle east when I was not as experienced in the game and figure I would be stomped from all sides. I had a fabulous game. I got lucky and got the Great Wall and blocked off all land access through the region. No one messed with me much and those that did got no where before I left the planet for space...

I've always been fond of EU starts. Normally you start in the german area, so you automatically wall off space for at least 1 and maybe 2 more cities without even trying. You normally get enough space to the east for another city, but if you're slow, there's fertile ground for at least 1 more city up north in Sweden/Scandanavia. Britain is always there for expansion if you need it too, as is North Africa if no one else beats you there.

In addition, you have your back to the water, so all you need to do is wall off a front in Russia and you should be protected.

Australia would be the best start because there is room for at least 5 cities. It is also quite easy to find people, get a trireme and send it through the Indonesian Islands.

However, no one ever starts there, so South America is the best because you can meet the North Americans but they don't compete with you because there is a mountain in the way. One game, two AI players on North and South America never met until the World Congress was founded. (I checked this using the Cultural Influence thing.

Do they have a world map with realistic starting location or is this mod only? I was always fond of playing world map in civ4.

If you check the steam workshop, there are many decent maps of the type you're looking forward called true start locations, or TSL. Most of them are fairly large and well set up.

I played a Siam game on Emperor with an isolated South America start. Easy diplomatic victory, could've gone science with all the jungle but I wanted the darkhorse achievement. If I had wanted to be more aggressive, I could've easily taken over North America (was Huge with 12 civs) which was owned mostly by Persia who started around Oklahoma, USA and the Spanish, who really hadn't quite moved out of Alaska and Western Canada.

I feel like I didn't really have a chance at cultural for a few reasons:

- There was no coastal route near Greenland to the rest of the world, so I didn't meet most of the civs until world congress.
- The typical lack of production in jungle starts in combination with my difficulty meant I would've really had to beeline the culture wonders at the expense of my economy to have picked any of them up.
- I didn't get lucky with faith ruins, so I had no shot at the Sacred Path pantheon (or whichever is +1 from jungle tiles)


I would say an iso SA start would work for a Science/Diplo VC, but would hamper the other two, whereas a North African start puts you in a good position for all conditions assuming you play properly.

I've never actually spawned in the middle of Europe, but that land looks pretty good if you can secure enough of it without pissing everyone else off.

Best start is probably either North America or the Nile River corridor. Either way there tends to be space to expand and plenty of food about.

Worst starts:
- One of the Pacific Islands (excluding New Guinea, New Zealand & Australia)
- Greenland
- Surrounded by the Himalayas
- The Ascension, Faroe, Shetland & Falkland Islands
- Surrounded by the Tibetan Plateaus
- Antarctica
- Great Victoria Desert
- Sahara Desert
- Under the sea
- Atacama desert surrounded by the Andes

Best starts:
- Mesopotamia
- Indus Valley
- Nile Valley
- The Amazon Rainforest
- The Congo Basin
- Mississippi Valley
- Yangtze Valley
- North European Plain
- Indochina
- Malay & Japanese Archipelago

cpm4001 said:

Best start is probably either North America or the Nile River corridor. Either way there tends to be space to expand and plenty of food about.

Click to expand...

The thing with the nile river area is that there's going to be a lot of people wanting your land. There's going to be someone starting in southern/central africa pushing up, and normally the civ starting in Europe and a civ starting in Iranish territory pushing down.

otaman1 said:

Best starts:
- Mesopotamia
- Indus Valley
- Nile Valley
- The Amazon Rainforest
- The Congo Basin
- Mississippi Valley
- Yangtze Valley
- North European Plain
- Indochina
- Malay & Japanese Archipelago

Click to expand...

Most of which were early centres of civilization irl .

I love that one tile that separates the Saudi golf (spl? Proper name?) and the body of water (mediteranian?) that connects it to the Atlantic. Favorite spot for a city. Nice expansion both ways, and plenty of action.

Also like the indo china region for settling the archipelagos.

Anywheres in between on that coast is fine by me as well.

Europe works too.

Dislike Russian lands and the Americas.

If you start in central/northern russia it's nearly impossible to find a way out. Even if you do settle a tundra port, it might be blocked off from the rest of the ocean by ice.

For those in favor of TSL world maps, you're welcome to try the map in my sig. It has the advantage of not taxing your computer too much, even though the continents are the same size or bigger than on a Large map. This is achieved through cutting the world's oceans down to almost nothing -- a good thing in the current state of Civ V, given the abysmal movement rate of ships and embarked units.

Although it kills my heart to even think of this, having perfected the starting locations pain-stakingly, you might play with random start locations on my map if you deleted the start locations with the World Builder. Or just left 'Load Scenario' unchecked in the setup screen (not sure if that's what it does but I'd imagine so).

Dgodus said:

I love that one tile that separates the Saudi golf (spl? Proper name?) and the body of water (mediteranian?) that connects it to the Atlantic. Favorite spot for a city. Nice expansion both ways, and plenty of action.

Also like the indo china region for settling the archipelagos.

Anywheres in between on that coast is fine by me as well.

Europe works too.

Dislike Russian lands and the Americas.

Click to expand...

Do you mean Suez? The little tuft of land bridging the Nile Delta and the Sinai Desert, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea?

Workman said:

Do you mean Suez? The little tuft of land bridging the Nile Delta and the Sinai Desert, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea?

Click to expand...

I forgot about the Suez. Is the Mediterranean and the red sea separated by just 1 tile? A city there would serve as an awesome port to ship through.

Greizer85 said:

Although it kills my heart to even think of this, having perfected the starting locations pain-stakingly, you might play with random start locations on my map if you deleted the start locations with the World Builder. Or just left 'Load Scenario' unchecked in the setup screen (not sure if that's what it does but I'd imagine so).

Click to expand...

Yep, you can indeed uncheck load scenario and then you get random spawns. Also means you can pick the AI you want, and you can set the speed you want without opening up the Scenario editor. By the way, I love your map! ^_^

There's nothing I hate more than being surrounded by potential enemies from all sides, so my favorite places to spawn are Europe, southeast Asia and southern Africa.

Dislike the Americas though, even on large maps I often find its just 2 civs there. The middle is so narrow that warmongering is difficult so you are force to just play a very dull game with just one known civ for the first half of the game. Also north is full of tundra and south is pure jungle.