Map Regeneration, how about you?

I seem to have a problem with this. I do it too much and sometimes it feels like I'm cheating. I'll regenerate the map until it's more fitting to my liking. If I see Tundra/Desert/Ice I regen the map.

If there is a resource I don't like I regen the map. I even regen the map when my starting city is coastal just because I hate having to pump out three boats for my food instead of one worker.

Anyone else do this, or do you just accept the map your dealt?

Razzlesnaff said:

I seem to have a problem with this. I do it too much and sometimes it feels like I'm cheating. I'll regenerate the map until it's more fitting to my liking. If I see Tundra/Desert/Ice I regen the map.

If there is a resource I don't like I regen the map. I even regen the map when my starting city is coastal just because I hate having to pump out three boats for my food instead of one worker.

Anyone else do this, or do you just accept the map your dealt?

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I NEVER regenerate. You dont know from the start how the map will turn out. There might be metals in them hills. I consider regenerating "cheating", but I dont care if anyone else does it in single player

Razzlesnaff said:

I seem to have a problem with this. I do it too much and sometimes it feels like I'm cheating. I'll regenerate the map until it's more fitting to my liking. If I see Tundra/Desert/Ice I regen the map.

If there is a resource I don't like I regen the map. I even regen the map when my starting city is coastal just because I hate having to pump out three boats for my food instead of one worker.

Anyone else do this, or do you just accept the map your dealt?

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I like this topic. I always play on huge maps, I will regenerate like 1-10 times and just pick the best map that comes up. I just really hate being on an Island without any neighbours, it ruins my fun. With the amount of time it takes to play a game its not worth having a crummy map that can not give you all aspects of Civ.

joasoze said:

I NEVER regenerate. You dont know from the start how the map will turn out. There might be metals in them hills. I consider regenerating "cheating", but I dont care if anyone else does it in single player

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I find it tedious going after the oil and aluminum constantly in the later era when its not in your boarders. Ive done that so many times that i just can not do it anymore. I will regenerate until i have those resources close to me, maybe im getting lazy with civ.

The game is about having fun. If I have a start which does not seem fun, I regenerate.

Doubtless there are advanced players who could start on a map made up solely of desert and tundra and pull off a win. I'm not one of them. I don't regen at the start of a game but I will start a new game if it appears that I'm going to be in an uphill struggle. Having no horses when your UU is requires them is one of those times. No iron and no copper is another.

I'll restart a game if there are no metals/horses/elephant anywhere near me.

I'll regenerate a map if there is no food or hills at all in the region. I've tried to continue games like this far too many times and it never ends well for me.

I love this idea of "cheating" in a single player game. There is no such thing. For someone to cheat, someone else must be cheated. The AI doesn't have any clue that they are being "cheated". So who really cares? Multiplayer, of course, is a different story.

Whoa dude, coastal starts rock. If your first build is a work boat, you're in good shape, especially if it's right on the coast. Because you get commerce for seafood resources, which can shave turns off of early research. You can and should always move the capital later. I recommend not building three workboats, just build one, then start building worker, worker, settler. If the city really needs food later, build the other workboats later. The workboat is a neat little trick, because it will settle a food resource once built, and allows the city to grow while building.

What would be considered a resource you don't like? I've never found a resource I didn't like.

Now, tundra and desert are a different story. That might make me regenerate, but I have had nice tundra cities, if you can get a deer, a couple of mountains, maybe some seafood.

I'll often regen until I get a map that I "like". Depends on the game. Sometimes, I decide, "I want a game where I can get an awesome GP farm", so I regen until my cap has 4+ good food resources. Sometimes I want an early chariot rush (ie. playing Egyptians), then I'll often regen until I get a map with lots of open land in my BFC (since often they'll shove on horses in there).

I'll usually regen if there are too many plains tiles, or if I see tundra or desert near me. Some games I'll decide beforehand "Damn, I have an urge to build wonders. Let's regen until I get stone or marble." Some games I'll be like, "Stone, again? Gah, don't tempt me to build the pyramids..."

Is it cheating? I don't care. I'm playing a game to have fun. If I get a crappy start and get bored of the game, then I'll quit and start a new one. I might miss out on a fantastic start, but oh well.

I haven't regenerated yet. I don't think it's cheating per se, but I prefer to solve challenging maps rather than the easy ones.

If I'm surrounded by desert or tundra/ice or even just have alot of it around me I'll restart. Usually I'll scout around a little bit to see if it gets better, but usually it doesn't and I'll restart.

I've stuck it out for awhile in games where I ended up without bronze, iron, horses, elephants and beelined rifiling but those are often not real fun games.

Also hate isolated starts. No fun for me to sit and press enter a bunch of times in a row...

Isolation Starts will get a Do-over. I will get a third party to check the WB for me if I think I might be isolated.

A flood of calendar resources in my capitol is not one of my favorites, but I will usually play through.

With my map settings (see Sig) I get a lot of challenging starts and it makes me react to the map as to what type of economy I have, but in the end it is about having fun and I see nothing wrong with regenerating if I am not having any fun with the map.

I'm having most fun with settings that hide from me whether I have an easy or a hard game ahead of me (RandomScriptMap, random climate and sea level). From my experience, the worse the overall quality of the land, the easier the game since the AI seems a little incompetent if there is a lack of cottageable land... so a seemingly mediocre start might actually result in a game that borders on being too easy.

Iranon said:

I'm having most fun with settings that hide from me whether I have an easy or a hard game ahead of me (RandomScriptMap, random climate and sea level). From my experience, the worse the overall quality of the land, the easier the game since the AI seems a little incompetent if there is a lack of cottageable land... so a seemingly mediocre start might actually result in a game that borders on being too easy.

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I don't really get this. Do you play maps where the land is basically the same everywhere? A crappy start for the human player doesn't mean the AI all start off crappy as well. If a far off group of AIs start off with stellar land and you start off crappy, I hardly see the game as going easily (unless you're playing under your level)

I never regenerate a map, since I don't know enough about my surroundings to do so. By the time I know enough, I can't regenerate, so I tend to make the best with what I'm given, though I restart a lot of games if they aren't going well for me (usually medieval era when the AI starts getting hungry for my land if I can't defend myself, or industrial era if I'm too far behind in tech)

In regards to your SP you have two choices - Regenerate until you get a spot you like or simply open WB and make the adjustments yourself (this will save you a lot of time).

Most games I play these days are from the forum so there is zero regeneration, obviously. However, when I play my own game I'll simply open up WB and adjust my Capital to what I consider an average start - No gems, No gold, No silver (all too powerful) - I'll ensure I have at least +5F surplus with 3 improved tiles - I'll ensure I have at least 9H including my founding tile. The rest of the map will never be touched. The reasoning behind this? Save yourself the time of regenerating until whatever your looking for is reached.

I rarely regenerate a map; maybe one in 50 games. I play lots of games though, only about half of them past 500 A.D., as I like experiencing the early game most: the struggle for survival against the ruthless barbarian hordes, the sinking feeling as a mob of Incan warriors rush your archers, the desperate search for farmland, iron, and horses, it's fun whether or not I have a good start.

If the resources aren't there, the struggle takes on new meaning and victory is sweeter. If the resources are abundant, then we pick up our swords and go crazy!

But if someone's taking months to finish a game or only plays a game a month, I can understand just regenerating until one gets a great start and goes to the forum to report how easy Civ is and why does anyone have a hard time, you just get your iron, mine your gold, train some horsemen and victory. A game a month is pretty long to play a difficult start - if you're not into the "survival of the fittest" or "you're going to have to earn this one, Caesar" mindset. I'd probably restart more often too in that case.

@ blitzkrieg1980: Sure, I've had a fair number of games where I thought I had recovered nicely from a bad start only to encounter a monster AI on another continent later and losing horribly. Still, a surprising number of games are salvageable... and not knowing whether some problems are specific to you or apply to all keeps the motivation to play it out:

Many deserts around... did I get unlucky or is it a particulary harsh Arid map and this is the norm? Starting isolated... did I get unlucky or is it a high sea level map? Very little land to expand into and being boxed in ridicuously early... is this Terra and is there a lovely continent for me alone if I play my cards right?

If you aren't the only one with bad land, you often have the choice between eating those who were even more shafted one by one or stirring up a multi-party war against soemone with good land and scavenging cities with an inferior military.
The AIs suck at tactics in general and striking a decent balance between siege and cleanup units in particular. This means allies will often soften up a city to the point where you can take it with units one era out of date, and with nice wonders/settled GPs/shrines this might give you the mass to compete directly again.

The AI isn't very good at leveraging its advantages, so getting to one breaking point is often enough: Some mercilessly leveraged early wonder to give me an edge? Nope. No-casualty medieval war where AIs will happily suicide their stack against a castle and fall over? Nope. Bloodbath with a monopoly on a beelined Renaissance unit? Nope. Chance to break the game in half with corporations? Nope. Is the tech leader hoping to reach the future era without getting military past rifles, falling to Industrial/early Modern warfare? Nope. Will things get better if I start throwing nukes around? If not, it'll make me feel better about losing...

Then there's desperation strategies ('I don't care about anything but managing diplomacy and gaining control of the Apostolic Palace/UN one way or the other') and hiding behind giants... with high-level bonuses a vassal/permanent ally can become a force to be reckoned with if you pamper them.

I regenerate maps until the elitists start to cry and then I go play something else


For HoF I'll have to regen alot, not because I have a perfect strategy that requires a particular type of map and I have to regen a lot to find that one perfect start, but because I have a risky strategy that works on pretty much any start (under the right map conditions) but has a high chance of failure.
But that's part of the fun for me so it's ok.


For solo fun games I like to set everything on random these days. But without someone to compete against I usually get bored by the middle ages.
I think the aspect of civ I enjoy the most is exploring new land and thinking "hey I could build an awesome GP farm/hammer city/cottage city there" which is a whole lot more fun than actually doing it.

Razzlesnaff said:

I seem to have a problem with this. I do it too much and sometimes it feels like I'm cheating. I'll regenerate the map until it's more fitting to my liking. If I see Tundra/Desert/Ice I regen the map.

If there is a resource I don't like I regen the map. I even regen the map when my starting city is coastal just because I hate having to pump out three boats for my food instead of one worker.

Anyone else do this, or do you just accept the map your dealt?

Click to expand...

It's your decision. I don't have a problem if people do this. Now, worldbuilder, that's different ....