Here is what I think is a pretty good start

[HiI'mWalt]

Here is what I think is a pretty good start if anyone else wants to play it. It has lots of salt and wheat in the starting area. Difficulty is only Emperor so you pros can probably mop up pretty quick.

Civ: Egypt
Difficulty: Emperor
Small Continents
Time Victory disabled
I guess all the other settings are standard.
BNW. No mods or DLC.

The attached save is from turn 0. The screen shots are from turns 0 and 21.

 

[loserforsale]

Eh... It's coastal, there are several granary resources and has salt, but there isn't all that much else to recommend this start. If you move onto the gold then this is an above-average start I guess, since there are good growth prospects and you can get an observatory, but I wouldn't say this is anything to shout about. There's no river, there don't seem to be many other good spots nearby, there isn't a particularly obvious pantheon choice, and many of your tiles aren't that good - tundra and plains without rivers are a bit sucky. My advice would be to settle on the gold, head into Tradition, find two or three spots which can send internal sea trade routes to Thebes, and go after a science victory. This is Emperor, so you should be able to take Fertility Rites and still get a religion before most of the AIs.

 

[bhavv]

Theres not even a river, its pretty lame tbh.

 

[joncnunn]

Plus: Best primary luxury (Salt), secondary luxury (Gold) also needs same tech which can be opened immediately (Mining), 2 Wheat & Deer will provide food as soon as a Granary is built, and the later shot confirmed there's enough Salt nearby for a faith pantheon to be worth going after.

Minus: No river within sight of the first screen shot, No fish nearby, and the mountain would delay founding by three turns (really bad to settle on Wheat), and the only hill worth settling is also three turns (The closer tundra Hill is bad due to being exactly one tile away from the coast)

Overall: The high luxaries is balanced by the flat non-river non-mountain start to about an average one.

 

[tetley]

Food-heavy start, but hammers are not great. Quality of start = food x hammers.

 

[Memoryjar]

When you have a start with 2 near salt, it means that 2 to 4 other salt are near. Mind this next time before settling your capital.

 

[Tabarnak]

What's up with the average start opinions? This start is great. Riversided starts can pass with all this good stuff around. Coastal start, you don't need other techs than mining to stay happy for a long time and it's emperor level so you can easily beeline HG(and get it faster thanks to UA).

 

[bhavv]

No its completely average. Start bias always guarantees you something similar to that, 2 luxuries, 2 food resources. Id say its below average.

 

[Tabarnak]

No its completely average. Start bias always guarantees you something similar to that, 2 luxuries, 2 food resources. Id say its below average.

You reroll too much games

 

[bhavv]

But rerolling is how you get a 'good start'. And I'm not wrong about being guaranteed 2 luxs and several food tiles in the BFC, you dont even need to reload to get that. Below average start is below average.

 

[Chum]

It's decent at first glance (river is far too powerful to call it "good" without one), but the expanded map shows absolutely nothing of value. You could possibly toss another city on the cotton to the west, but that probably circumvents any food shipments to the cap due to ice.

Really, there's just not a lot going for it.

 

[dragonxxx]

But rerolling is how you get a 'good start'. And I'm not wrong about being guaranteed 2 luxs and several food tiles in the BFC, you dont even need to reload to get that. Below average start is below average.

Yeah, but getting 2 salt + 1 gold is not same as getting 2x jungle citrus + pearls, right?

 

[Asklepios]

It is indeed, a pretty good start.

Not a start that is so amazing that its worth sharing, certainly, and not any better than someone couldn't reroll into within a dozen restarts.

But certainly, a decent example of a pretty good start.

 

[bhavv]

Fist map rolled for me for a new Pacal game:

Spoiler :

I'd call that above average.

Faith wonder too and several river + mountainside locations:

Spoiler :

 

[shaglio]

It's decent at first glance (river is far too powerful to call it "good" without one), but the expanded map shows absolutely nothing of value. You could possibly toss another city on the cotton to the west, but that probably circumvents any food shipments to the cap due to ice.

Really, there's just not a lot going for it.

The problem with judging a start from the get-go is that you won’t know until much later if there are any valuable Strategic Resources in the area –unless you use In Game Editor to reveal them – or if you’re using Sukritact’s Sami civilization and wind up claiming extra empty tiles when you found a city.