Is this even possible without some kind of mod?

So there I was playing a multiplayer game as China. Settings were Immortal, Standard Size, Standard Resources, Domination Victory only. And I noticed that someone chose to play Spain. *weird* I thought. It wasn't long before I discovered they were on another continent, so I focused on conquering mine and didn't really think much more about it. Until...

By midgame I discovered that Spain had started the game with Lake Victoria, 2 wheat, 3 stone and 2 wine within the capital radius, and founded its 2nd City right next to King Solomon's Mines, 3 wheat, iron, coal, 2 stone. Its THIRD city was founded next to the Fountain of Youth AND Mount Kilimanjaro, 3 wheat and 3 stone. Obviously Spain had an empire of six cities by turn ten or so and just whomped everyone at every turn throughout the rest of the game.

My question is... is this even possible without mods? I've never seen a start like that in my life... as ANY civ. It really wasn't much fun to read that Spain built every wonder in the game and beat every other civ down at a leisurely pace (meaning actually just chilling out for a while to make sure he could build every wonder in the game before finally coming after ME, specifically with something like 60 XCom Squads...) resting on that frankly obscene starting advantage.

Mods don't work in MP as far as I'm aware.

wait what? That's like winning in Lotto as Spain

Lunco said:

Mods don't work in MP as far as I'm aware.

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Yes they do, after applying a mod the menu has an mp option.

Exactly. Hopefully I'll never see such a thing again. I wouldn't even want that to happen whilst playing as Spain.

I think that mods work in multi (though I don't play it myself), but for that to be true, every player has to use the same ones.
Then again, I don't think this is just an accident. Logically thinking, Spain would be a bad choice in multi, because the rest of the players would purposely settle next to NWs just to prevent them from getting OP bonuses. Additionally, I suspect there is some kind of coding that prevents Natural Wonders from being too close to each other, and some of those you mentioned (specifically King Solomon's Mines and Fountain of Youth) are very rare.
I suppose that player found some way to cheat, though there is a tiny chance it was just pure luck... or more like unbelievable luck.

crawf0rd said:

Yes they do, after applying a mod the menu has an mp option.

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The MP option is not doing anything ATM (except bringing you back to the standard MP menu).

Gedemon said:

The MP option is not doing anything ATM (except bringing you back to the standard MP menu).

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I retract my previous statement. Thanks for this correction.

Best Spain start I ever got was three natural wonders within 20 tiles.

The only thing I can think of is luck and sea level. Natural wonders get spread out normally. A high sea level would mean most of the natural wonders (except for the great barrier reef, krakatoa, and sometimes the rock of gibratar) would get crammed into a smaller space?

And there's obviously luck. The only better natural wonder for Spain to find would be El Dorado.

I didn't even know it was possible to have a natural wonder within the radius of my starting tile. I guess I need to start rerolling maps more often!

NoOneImportant said:

ILogically thinking, Spain would be a bad choice in multi, because the rest of the players would purposely settle next to NWs just to prevent them from getting OP bonuses. .

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Don't play much MP do you? Spain is super strong in MP. almost to the point of ban.

I have never seen the Fountain of Youth and I have seen King Solomons Mine once (I wondered what the devil it was). So, it seems a huge slice of luck...

Just as an aside- in multi player, do you agree on the use of "enhancements" and game size etc before the game?