Restarts and starting tiles on Emperor+

[Vorlath]

I'm finding King a little too easy of late, but Emperor is quite the leap for me. If I don't have a starting tile of (or two), then I find it impossible to get a good enough start. I have had a win already in Emperor, but I had a map where everyone had very low production and essentially wasted resources on new cities that ended up being worthless.

As far as starting tiles go, is this normal? Does anyone have ways around low yield tiles? Or is this just another obstacle in getting a good game going?

I also keep getting rushed by Mohawk Warriors. Should I chop down all my forests? I kind of like having some extra 's in my city, but it seems I might be able to do without and use mines and hills exclusively for that.

 

[joncnunn]

It's normal to have a set of criteria that if you don't meet results in a reroll, many players do.

Mine is different, I just want a map where my capital will be founded on a river.

Getting rushed by Mohawk Warriors is unusual. Not sure which civ off hand that's the UU of.
But getting attacked early by your closest neighbor is normal.

 

[Soronery]

IMO, starting locations are incredibly unbalanced. With that said, on emperor you should have no difficulty in most starting locations.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

i reroll starting locations too. not really uncommon. when i was learning the game (still am really) i would even spend 10 turns just scouting my surroundings with settlers and the warrior to see who was there then restarting from the same start. i dont do that anymore. i'm also at Emperor and ive found i pretty much have to go with archery early just for the guaranteed DOW from my neighbor after i settle my first expansion city.

 

[rondo]

I'd say rather than re-roll, just spend 3-4 more turns on relocating your initial settler. Unless its a one city challenge, you probably can find decent production to muster up a early military.

 

[Soronery]

3-4 turns is pretty bad...
IMO just reroll

 

[Vorlath]

Won my second game on Emperor. I'm actually using a three city strategy I posted here a while back. I'm finding that beyond the starting location requirement, it's near impossible to win if you don't take over at least 2-3 cities before turn 150 or so. Not only is there already pop there, but there are also tile improvements and buildings all ready for you to use. But it's the initial rush early on that's the worst.

I'm going to continue rerolling until I get the hang of the initial rush. Relocating doesn't always work when there's nothing around that's better.

 

[Wargizmo]

I always try and play out a bad starting spot, sometimes you can get lucky with runes and who spawns next to you and it's not that big of a deal, other times you fight back from a bad start and end up having a great game. The most important thing to do is adapt your strategy to the start you have, a build that depends on specific tiles can be very strong but it's great to have a more conservative build in your playbook so you don't have to reroll and feel like you're cheating (that's kind of how I feel anyway).

 

[TPQ]

I'm finding King a little too easy of late, but Emperor is quite the leap for me. If I don't have a starting tile of (or two), then I find it impossible to get a good enough start. I have had a win already in Emperor, but I had a map where everyone had very low production and essentially wasted resources on new cities that ended up being worthless.

As far as starting tiles go, is this normal? Does anyone have ways around low yield tiles? Or is this just another obstacle in getting a good game going?

I also keep getting rushed by Mohawk Warriors. Should I chop down all my forests? I kind of like having some extra 's in my city, but it seems I might be able to do without and use mines and hills exclusively for that.

I personally only re-roll (oh, for the days of the regenerate map button ) if I start with no luxuries, or in tundra. Early lux sales are so important, if I start with none at all in view, I do re-roll. Equally, a tundra start is quite hard. I don't re-roll tundra if I play as Russia, as you have to expect a tundra start with them, but otherwise I do.

Best advice for dealing with early rushes is to have several archers ready to defend. Even against Mohawks they can make the difference, but an early Mohawk rush is pretty tough to defend against if you don't have at least pikes to get in their way.

If you see Hiawatha near by, try bribing somebody to attack him, or him to attack somebody. It'll usually waste a lot of his units and buy you some time to build up your defenses. Persian Immortals are also tough to defend against early on, so same goes for them.

I tend not to chop forests unless it's for an important wonder. Otherwise I find keeping them around for mid to late game production is more beneficial. Of course, if you get stomped early because you didn't have enough units, mid to late game production won't help you, so it's sometimes best to chop for units. I usually chop some forests and keep the majority, but it depends on your circumstances. Rule-of-thumb is keep most forests if you can imo.

 

[NotSure]

Just my opinion, but I think most players can win any start up to immortal. I believe a good player can win a substandard start on immortal and a great player can win with just about any civ and required VC on any deity map.

I'm not trying to instigate and I'm not implying anything about about anyone's skill level, including mine. I'm just saying I've seen a lot of average players win easily or while playing odd strategies all the way through emperor. I don't think re-rolls are necessary for these difficulties. Of course if it makes the game more fun, roll away.

 

[chazzycat]

Just my opinion, but I think most players can win any start up to immortal. I believe a good player can win a substandard start on immortal and a great player can win with just about any civ and required VC on any deity map.

I'm not trying to instigate and I'm not implying anything about about anyone's skill level, including mine. I'm just saying I've seen a lot of average players win easily or while playing odd strategies all the way through emperor. I don't think re-rolls are necessary for these difficulties. Of course if it makes the game more fun, roll away.

I agree with this sentiment for the most part. Maybe not the deity part, but on immortal at least, substandard starts are pretty winnable.

 

[NotSure]

Well, the only reason I said that about deity is because of some of the infamous DaveMcW stunts. It's probably overstated, but I did use the words "just about."