All Jungle Start: A Non-starter?

[Light Cleric]

Ehh, I suppose. I'm not really partial to the Pyramids because I think there is something to be said for getting an early worker and start working/selling the luxury resources. That and I generally don't beeline Masonry unless I have multiple things that require it.

It's a pretty situational build for me. If I'm only building a few cities and won't need many Workers then I don't bother with it because then I just end up with excess Workers and wasted hammers, but in the few instances I go wide then I find it much more useful.

In this instance, I determined it would take at least three turns for my settler to get anywhere near production tiles. If I had gone anywhere but due NE, it would have taken even longer than that.

I settled in place, hoping to pop a second settler once I found a stong position for a second city. I didn't want to waste culture, science, and potential faith on a fool's errand. I didn't think of moving to settle on the luxury, though...

I'll have to post some pictures of the start when I can get around to it. This game was already going to be tough for me, but the start really killed my inital strategy with Japan.

If you can save 10 turns in the long run by taking 2-3 to move your capital, it's not at all a bad idea. Like you said I can't see your start specifically so I can't say a whole lot.

 

[pilot00]

IMHO jungle starts are OP. At first you don't need create farms and go full tradition. If you take the sacred path and beeline to get trading posts and education you become a scientific/cultural powerhouse. By the time you research fertilizers you can chop down some tiles to get some farms but IMHO its not worth it. The only jungle tiles I would chop down would be lux and hills to get some production. Its like a different incarnation of Petra but instead of faith from folklore you get culture and instead of production you get science.

 

[BrokTheFanatic]

It depends on the difficulty level and your civ. Random civ on Diety or immortal, I'd restart. The lack of production would men doom. But Iroq, Baby, Korea, maybe could make it work. Now on King, production is not as necessary so almost any civ could turn such a start into a scientific powerhouse.

But personally I like production so I'd restart anyways.

 

[pilot00]

It depends on the difficulty level and your civ. Random civ on Diety or immortal, I'd restart. The lack of production would men doom. But Iroq, Baby, Korea, maybe could make it work. Now on King, production is not as necessary so almost any civ could turn such a start into a scientific powerhouse.

But personally I like production so I'd restart anyways.

There are hilly jungles which can be cut down and mined you know
But yes on principle I agree its difficulty dependent with a hard on for Petra starts

 

[civ54lyfe]

I love when it does work but more often than not i will get my butt stomped b/c of the slow hammers. that and when all the land is jungle, then your workers really have 2 top priorities: 1)clear hammer tiles; improve if you have the time and 2) clear the outer ring of jungle to prepare the kill zone for the AI invading army that will surely be coming.

 

[tnick777]

Jungle+Trading post and some specific policies/beliefs = huge science, gold, food, culture, and natural defense.

If I have the patience in the early game before roads I can deal.

 

[Unresolved]

Jungle+Trading post and some specific policies/beliefs = huge science, gold, food, culture, and natural defense.

If I have the patience in the early game before roads I can deal.

It's not really huge food unless you have several banana resources. They're essentially a grassland tile that you can't build farms on. This will greatly hamper your population growth since most of your tiles will only have 2 food. But the research on jungle tiles is very nice. Not something I'd want for my capital though since it has low production and is slow to begin the game with.

 

[Granty555]

Only usually keep them if either:-

a) I'm messing around on a lower level than Emp.
b) There is a good spot close by where I can make a production 2nd city.
c) I'm the Montster (Rawr!)

 

[Walter R]

Hell I reroll quite a bit, it's a game; maybe as high as 10% time? Perhaps when I'm struggling to alleviate the boredom of winning every game on Deity without trying I'll relish a truly awful start - but until then...