The Awesome Starts Collection

[Quibblesome]

Why no share east most fish and clam with a city to the right? All that seafood is far too much for one city isn't it?

[TheWilltoAct]

Originally Posted by Seraiel

Dreamstarts in my taste are still the ones posted by Kaitzilla with the quintuple Gold dual wet Corn, because that start has everything, the coastal 4 Gold riverside start I posted in on page 1, and the 7 riverside Gems dual Food start I've posted for Ramesess.

Originally Posted by bhavv

Well yes, but we dont all keep mapfinder generating maps for several months to find such maps

Hello perspective, my old friend.

[Seraiel]

The thing is not even that mapfinder has to run a whole month I found out, the difference is the map size. Huge maps have larger clumps of ressources, something like 5 Gold I think is not even possible on standard size.

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by Seraiel

The thing is not even that mapfinder has to run a whole month I found out, the difference is the map size. Huge maps have larger clumps of ressources, something like 5 Gold I think is not even possible on standard size.

Realize this, you slowly kill your computer. I used to abuse mapfinder, long stretches of time. And by the time, I noticed my computer went less effective...even after a formatting. So, beware.

[Pangaea]

Originally Posted by Seraiel

Dreamstarts in my taste are still the ones posted by Kaitzilla with the quintuple Gold dual wet Corn, because that start has everything, the coastal 4 Gold riverside start I posted in on page 1, and the 7 riverside Gems dual Food start I've posted for Ramesess.

Originally Posted by Seraiel

The thing is not even that mapfinder has to run a whole month I found out, the difference is the map size. Huge maps have larger clumps of ressources, something like 5 Gold I think is not even possible on standard size.

Then this start must be pretty darn amazing. Posted it another great start thread, but with this one bumped, I'm putting it here too.

The settings aren't so advanced, but maybe somebody will give it a whirl anyway.

Fractal
Noble
Normal speed
Standard map
No huts or events.

Randomly selected civ is Darius I.

Spoiler:

The land beyond isn't the best, though there is a good production site SW of capital, and a 3 floodplains and horse site to the west. Cracking capital though!

There is dry corn accessible if you settle on the gold 1S, but not sure it's worth it. Food isn't really an issue there anyway, with the floodplains.

Gotta love the wee circle though.....

Had already uploaded it, so got a message about that when trying, but hopefully this link works: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attach...8&d=1339425384
It's from this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpo...7&postcount=28

[TheWilltoAct]

SIP, and await the day you can finally catch that whale!

[bhavv]

Originally Posted by Quibblesome

Why no share east most fish and clam with a city to the right? All that seafood is far too much for one city isn't it?

Sharing is very valid at the start of the game when all that food is too much. Later on when running caste system + HR, you can never have too much food. Work all 6 fish, and assign every extra citizen to a Merchant or Scientist depending on what you want (I'd be doing Merchants on top of the GLH in that capital, settle every great merchant for even more food, make an uber wall street city.

Food > Production > Commerce for the Capital. Always.

[Seraiel]

The start above is insane. Would have settled 1S anyway because settling on riverside FIN Gold is 1337.

[Seraiel]

Originally Posted by Tachywaxon

Realize this, you slowly kill your computer. I used to abuse mapfinder, long stretches of time. And by the time, I noticed my computer went less effective...even after a formatting. So, beware.

Interesting. I have noticed that my computer became slower, but thought it was because of the heat in the summer and my Processor and Graphic Cards reducing they frequence.

But there is nothing that cannot be fixed, not with DELL NBD Service .

[kazapp]

Originally Posted by Seraiel

[*]All Fish are on Oceon Tiles.

I actually like ocean seafood - they're safe from pesky barb galleys.

I wish Civ IV Barbarians were less of a chore to manage (meaning that they very rarely present an interesting threat and most of the time feels like stomping out wombats. I much rather like that they would gang up and form mini-stacks unless taken care of, so that you would actually be motivated to fight them, and the "barbarian wars" would feel less like cleaning your room...)

[Pangaea]

Originally Posted by Seraiel

The start above is insane. Would have settled 1S anyway because settling on riverside FIN Gold is 1337.

I quite fancy the +9 from the tile though. Just unreal

Not finished the game either, but probably should. It was one of the games where I played about 100 turns. That capital should be rather decent with Bureaucracy

Heck, it might even be better long-term to actually settle on the gold 1S and cottage the floodplains. But having sent the warrior down to that gold and seen 4 goldbars instead of 2, I saw no particular reason to NOT settle in place

[Choggy]

@Pangaea.

That is just the sickest start I think I've ever seen, particularly as it's Darius who is one of the best civs in the game! Definitely settle 1 south like Seraiel said, and once the gold has been hooked up the floodplains could be cottaged. Those riverside grasshills are also crying out for windmills later on in the game, oh my...

[kazapp]

Originally Posted by Pangaea

There is dry corn accessible if you settle on the gold 1S, but not sure it's worth it. Food isn't really an issue there anyway, with the floodplains.

Does anyone have a screenshot with a wee bit more land revealed?

Personally I dislike settling one square from the coast: it looks like settling 1SE would fulfil two major points: 1) be coastal 2) have freshwater while still 3) keeping the pigs and 4) that promised corn (in the darkness).

After all Food is way more important than Production and Commerce for your starting capital: with wet Pigs and dry Corn and two flood plains you can actually achieve the population you need to work those gold mines... You can never have too much food (as opposed to flood plains which provide less food than you'd think with all the disease)

Spoiler:

The land beyond isn't the best, though there is a good production site SW of capital, and a 3 floodplains and horse site to the west. Cracking capital though!

Easy Horses? For the Persians? This start truly is precious - getting to build perhaps the best rush unit of all (the archer-busting Immortals) is more or less equal to a successful rush - congrats: you didn't just get an amazing start, you got (at least) two cities and the space for two civs!

Assuming we aren't isolated (which would indeed put a damper on the entire start's evaluation) which neighbors do we have close by? Perhaps an Indian Holy City Buddist capital? Perhaps a French capital overflowing with newly-built Wonders? Perhaps "only" the Portuguese and Korean capitals defended by a single Archer each!?!

[Pangaea]

Here is a bit more land, from about 3000 BC.



The immediate nearlying land isn't fantastic, and the horses aren't THAT close, but it's in a good site with enough food, and nearby a very juicy capital (GPP?). There is also a good production site to the SW. Actually, this sounds bloody GREAT

Spoiler:

Spain is the juicy food-capital partially hidden in the western mist, so you're practically guaranteed a religion too. Suleiman is south-east of the desert in the picture. The others are Mansa Musa, Fredrick, Charlemagne and Lincoln. If I recall correctly there was also iron just outside the capital to the NW.

Spoiler:

on a stick! Just checked Isabella's Madrid a bit more thoroughly. It has direct access to four corns, three of them wet pre-CS, and 15 rivered tiles. IT has GPP written ALL over it. Would also be a good place ofc, but with that much food.... Bloody hell.

Recall from a different thread I read, that it's possible to change the difficulty. Think that should work if you first open the save in WorldBuilder and then, open the WB file in Notepad. Then change the difficulty in there. Tried to open the file directly in Notepad and that was just a lot of funny-looking characters, but don't want to WB it and reveal the entire map and resources and such. But if you zoom way in and do it quickly it shouldn't spoil too much. I suppose most readers in here aren't too interested in a Noble game

Think I'll have to try out this one from the start again, now when I know how incredibly special it is - and now I'll actually settle 1S to gain access to the wheat. Would 'gain' three desert tiles actually, but maybe it would still be worth it given better food and cottaging of floodplains? If only there had been some rivers there with more grass.

[PeteJ]

Well I'm not a noble player but I couldn't resist a start like this. I managed to pull off both a CS slingshot plus a mini HA rush to take Izzy's cities. Early tech path was AH>mining>BW>Wheel>writing>math>HBR>archery>myst>m ed>priest>COL>pottery and I was able to nab CS with the oracle in 1240bc.

Some pictures:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

[Choggy]

@PeteJ

Spoiler:

1240BC Civ Service at Noble is pretty quick...the fact you were able to Oracle it (and therefore self-tech CoL and Maths) whilst HA rushing Izzy just shows how good this start is.

Also, looking at the BFC of Persepolis confirms what I suspected, the site 1S of the start (where you settled) is definitely the best spot, the wheat means both riverside hills are available with food to spare for the other grassland hills. That is going to be a beast of a capital city under bureaucracy.

[Killroyan]

I am running a game now and the AI has just one of these incredible starts. 2 corns, gems, iron, 2 sugar, bananas, on a river and enough hills and forest to help around.

[Qwernt]

Originally Posted by PeteJ

Well I'm not a noble player but I couldn't resist a start like this. I managed to pull off both a CS slingshot plus a mini HA rush to take Izzy's cities. Early tech path was AH>mining>BW>Wheel>writing>math>HBR>archery>myst>m ed>priest>COL>pottery and I was able to nab CS with the oracle in 1240bc.

I didn't get CS quite that early, but I have never played a map before where I could tech HBR faster than I could get a settler by horses and a road there in order to build chariots (immortals). I am shocked by how much of a difference settling on the gold vs by the gold made.

[vranasm]

well this start screams to me "Bc domination" but not sure I have the skillz...

775 BC 2 AI's to go (both 3 cities) me 10 cities

[Tachywaxon]

Originally Posted by PeteJ

Well I'm not a noble player

Everyone who handles well EMP+ is definitely a noble player.