Gav Melville
Chieftain
Is England (without "specials") the tougest starting point possible? I don't think the AI would give anyone such a small island to start on in a customized world.
Toughest Starting Point?
- Thread starter Gav Melville
- Start date
I would think so, but it is still feasible. I did it once on Emperor, but this was 15+ years ago and I cannot remember any details.
Obviously, you need map making and you need to engage the continental AIs ASAP. The size of the island is not really a handicap - you have up to 8 land tiles to work with (two of with are on the french coast) plus excellent fishing grounds to quickly get the trade for your first techs (also note that 2 trade = 1 shield) - D-Day will be long before you run out of useful tiles. This leaves getting the 40 shields for the trireme your biggest obstacle; so essentially, you are not worse off than an ordinary land-power after having lost your chariot in the first battle.
Obviously, you need map making and you need to engage the continental AIs ASAP. The size of the island is not really a handicap - you have up to 8 land tiles to work with (two of with are on the french coast) plus excellent fishing grounds to quickly get the trade for your first techs (also note that 2 trade = 1 shield) - D-Day will be long before you run out of useful tiles. This leaves getting the 40 shields for the trireme your biggest obstacle; so essentially, you are not worse off than an ordinary land-power after having lost your chariot in the first battle.
It's a very small island so you need to build a trireme pretty quickly. Personally I don't have land starts where I lose my first chariot before I have 6 cities typically, whereas unless I'm putting a city on every tile in England I have to discover and build a trireme, then send settlers to the mainland. If I'm trying to expand to the mainland I have to deal with the fact that Europe gets covered fairly quickly with some of the French, the Germans, the Russians, and the Romans around and competing for that space. Also a nuisance is that the AI often kills some of the neighboring civs before you can meet them and trade techs.
The disadvantage is slightly bigger than having to build one trireme though, because if you want to keep building settlers on the island you need to be able to transport all of them.
England is a worse start on many subsequent real world maps though, especially Civ V where not being able to move settlers until optics is a pain, especially since that means you have to delay getting bronze/iron/animal husbandry/writing to get optics. Furthermore, England is smaller on those maps, and min-city distance is a factor.
The disadvantage is slightly bigger than having to build one trireme though, because if you want to keep building settlers on the island you need to be able to transport all of them.
England is a worse start on many subsequent real world maps though, especially Civ V where not being able to move settlers until optics is a pain, especially since that means you have to delay getting bronze/iron/animal husbandry/writing to get optics. Furthermore, England is smaller on those maps, and min-city distance is a factor.
GoldBerg
CivDosPlayer of '91
Yes, somebody should.
But nobody does?
(I'm tired of requesting Terraform keys from Dack,
always forget about how to install JCivED in Linux, et cetera...)
