Bad start (early game)- keep playing or restart?

[Basajaun]

I restart if the civ Im playing has bonuses towards certain terrain or features, and didnt find any of those in my surrounding area. Like, spawning in the middle of a continent with Gitarja, no thanks. Or if its one of those starts where the city is already food deprived at 2pop. I know I can turn that around,but its just a slog. If Im playing a civ that has bonuses for religion I might still do it and choose food boosting beliefs but its a rare chance.

I hate restarting and for years I would endless play through till the end.
These days I tend to play up till about turn 150 and usually that is enough.
Sometimes I get starts like this and I think why bother?
Restart at turn 36 but saving the game just incase I get itchy to mess with it more.
Pangaea Standard Deity Map.
All Standard Settings with Low Sea.
All Random Civs.
Tell us if you would play this game or restart?

View attachment 587653

Considering this is Peter, it looks like a nice start, you dont have to worry about barbs in your capital, and you have several spots for max adj Lavras with dance of the aurora. Except for 1 coastal by Preslav, you can settle pretty much all the rest by river. Get work ethic and gurdwaras and you have industrial age levels of production and food in classical era.
If you are playing apocalypse or disasters on high you might have to do a lot of repairing but the production and faith from those +7 and up Lavras is a serious thing

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Considering this is Peter, it looks like a nice start, you dont have to worry about barbs in your capital, and you have several spots for max adj Lavras with dance of the aurora. Except for 1 coastal by Preslav, you can settle pretty much all the rest by river. Get work ethic and gurdwaras and you have industrial age levels of production and food in classical era.
If you are playing apocalypse or disasters on high you might have to do a lot of repairing but the production and faith from those +7 and up Lavras is a serious thing

You guys just play better.
Nice Start?
I already killed two barb camps so I got lucky not getting swarmed.
Bah lol.

EDIT: After looking at it some more I agree with @EgonSpengler as you just war it up with the CS and take it down hopefully before meeting another Civ. After that happens I'm sure the game will snowball back into easy mode.

 

[Basajaun]

You guys just play better.
Nice Start?
I already killed two barb camps so I got lucky not getting swarmed.
Bah lol.

Not a chance, its just Peter pairs super well with tundra, and you have lots of that there. He builds the holy sites super fast, and if he has acces to tundra on the capital he pretty much can choose the pantheon he prefers.
You are going to have bunch of cities with low pop at the start so you might want to catch Magnus to avoid the -1pop from training settlers, but that screenshot screams monumentality golden age and mega expansion. Then build up those Lavras, evangelize, and get the extra food. Then all those 2-3 pop cities are going to shoot up really fast.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Nice Breakdown.
I think it would be difficult to take that military city state.
I suppose you'd have to go naval but like I say this is a Pangaea Map.
That CS has one tile to attack from unless you go around the mountain and its Military with Walls.
I'm not saying you or better players couldn't do it but that start is a lot of work and very slow/ugly.
I guess you can swim some settlers to land eventually or hike around the mountain etc etc.
The capital is ungodly as well with poor food.
So you are saying you'd play that out eh?

It looks like an interesting challenge. If there are hills in the ring 2 hexes out from Preslav, you can position enough Archers to take it. You can put a 3rd city in the hex where the Barbarian Scout is standing. It will be squeezed for land, but you can build a +2 Campus there (+3, if you put another district, probably a Lavra, next to it), up against the mountains. I think Preslav will be able to build a nice Campus and/or Lavra, too.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Not a chance, its just Peter pairs super well with tundra, and you have lots of that there. He builds the holy sites super fast, and if he has acces to tundra on the capital he pretty much can choose the pantheon he prefers.
You are going to have bunch of cities with low pop at the start so you might want to catch Magnus to avoid the -1pop from training settlers, but that screenshot screams monumentality golden age and mega expansion. Then build up those Lavras, evangelize, and get the extra food. Then all those 2-3 pop cities are going to shoot up really fast.

Well Said.
I think the game goes smoother once you kill that CS.
I'm just not as die hard as I used to be.
Easier to just reroll lol.

It looks like an interesting challenge. If there are hills in the ring 2 hexes out from Preslav, you can position enough Archers to take it. You can put a 3rd city in the hex where the Barbarian Scout is standing. It will be squeezed for land, but you can build a +2 Campus there (+3, if you put another district, probably a Lavra, next to it), up against the mountains. I think Preslav will be able to build a nice Campus and/or Lavra, too.

Yeah... I see it more now.
You just have to jump all over that CS and go from there.
Thanks for the input fellow Civ'ers!!

 

[nauberry]

For me it is a little complicated. I usually aim for fitting starts for the civs I play. If I play with Norway, I don't want to be next to jungle, or desert, and while playing with Nubia, I want to be on desert. I also usually restart If I spawn next to a natural wonder, as usually they allow for too easy snowballs (depends on the wonder though).

 

[comatosedragon]

You must of missed where I listed what I options I play I under.
I pretty have always played on the same settings since Civ VI came out.
Deity Pangaea All Standard Settings Low Sea All Random Civs No Game Modes.
It is literally listed in my two above posts.
I wasn't asking advice.
I was stating what I do or did and asked if people would play the first map out?
Thanks though.

I apologize, I guess context can not be clear with emojis.
I was 100% agreeing with you, trying to say "you are preaching the truth" I guess.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I apologize, I guess context can not be clear with emojis.
I was 100% agreeing with you, trying to say "you are preaching the truth" I guess.

lol... no its my fault.
I had to edit my wise remarks as I was reading your signature confusing it with your post thinking it coincided with my post lol.
Total Fluke!

 

[Basajaun]

Well Said.
I think the game goes smoother once you kill that CS.
I'm just not as die hard as I used to be.
Easier to just reroll lol.

Maybe... but considering its location, you need at least 3 land units and a ship to put it under siege. And having walls... Im not sure its feasible in a reasonable amount of turrns in the very early game. With the extra territory you get upon settling with Peter you will take the best tiles anyway. I wouldnt bother at least until after classical when I have half a dozen lavras pumping out their thing.
Unless somehow you get to swords and battering rams, then perhaps you can do it sooner without so much investment

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Maybe... but considering its location, you need at least 3 land units and a ship to put it under siege. And having walls... Im not sure its feasible in a reasonable amount of turrns in the very early game. With the extra territory you get upon settling with Peter you will take the best tiles anyway. I wouldnt bother at least until after classical when I have half a dozen lavras pumping out their thing.
Unless somehow you get to swords and battering rams, then perhaps you can do it sooner without so much investment

Hmmm.
Its all around difficult I mean you don't have enough culture to get to PP fast enough.
Not enough food to grow and pump out settlers.
If you don't take out the CS I guess you just go and meet a couple AI and abuse trade.
Grow from that and expand like you suggest.
The start is a win but goodness its a headache lol.

 

[Qwan]

While I abandon a lot of my games, I don't use the restart button, I create a new game. I rarely abandon on turn 1. I will abandon if it's hopeless, like my capitol is taken or about to be taken, early game. Although, it has been extremely satisfying to have your capitol and only city about to be taken, to turn that around and take all their cities. Once I did it with Moksha with Laying On of Hands (all my units healed fully if I didn't use them that turn). Another time I did it with Victor with Garrison Commander (defending units got +5 strength).

I have also abandoned games when I was winning, and because the game had gotten boring, and I didn't want to grind out all the turns just to get the Win screen. That was before [GS]; now the late game is more interesting.

I also abandon games because I become unhappy with something I did (or didn't do). Like that wonder I was really counting on, that an AI finished a few turns before I would have, and I should have been more aggressive in finishing. Or realizing that instead of one long war, I should have broken the war into pieces, because now I have so much war weariness that it will take ~100 turns to recover. These are games where I realize how I should have played better, and I prefer to play better in a new game, rather than salvage the current game.

Lastly, sometimes I abandon games because an update changes too many things.

 

[Basajaun]

Hmmm.
Its all around difficult I mean you don't have enough culture to get to PP fast enough.
Not enough food to grow and pump out settlers.
If you don't take out the CS I guess you just go and meet a couple AI and abuse trade.
Grow from that and expand like you suggest.
The start is a win but goodness its a headache lol.

It is kind of a slow start yes, you cant really build other districts because of low pop until later on, but once you found the religion, it all starts going into overdrive. I tried a game like this when Work Ethic belief was implemented. Took Peter and had a bunch of Tundra, and cut a whole 50 turns against my previous SV with him (epic speed, 330vs380).
At around T150 my capital was 5 pop still I think but half my continent was yellow and there was no more space to fill, with a lot of 1-3pop cities, but all of them with insane amount of production for their size. Granary-Watermill builds, faith purchase Gurdwaras because I was doing enough faith to buy a settler every turn when I couldnt fit them anymore, and by T250 already building spaceports in 15-20pop cities. (With a lot of wonders built along the way thanks to the hammers while I waited for the cities grow to build more districts).
Also, St Basils Cathedral. With that Tundra...oh yes, Im having dirty thougts about it.

 

[beorn]

I re-start if I get a starting location I do not like, particularly in a maze of mountains. It's not that it's disadvantageous, just really weird, and I have played that particular weird situation too many times already. And it is tedious, with ridiculous traffic jams.

 

[Karmah]

no rules , only my mood
Sometimes I play with a story in my mind using a synergie and a very poor start will ruin my fun. Sometimes I don't expect anything and if the start is bad , I'm up for the challenge.

And therefore I can't vote no option match

 

[Leucarum]

no rules , only my mood

I can agree with this. Having played far too much Civ, if a game doesn't look like it's going to be fun I'm not going to play it through to completion anyway so I might as well restart.

That said, what counts as fun for me varies by mood. Trying to recover from a super-hard position can be as much fun as finding a weird starting location...

 

[Abaxial]

If the map doesn't look like fun I roll a new one. I'm not a masochist.