Best and Worst Starting Conditions

[Sentinali]

Could everybody describe their ideal and worst starting city conditions so that we can have an idea of a game worth playing and one worth restarting.

For me:

Ideal: Floodplain and or Cows, some hills, pref with gold, landlocked in the middle of a medium continent.


Bad: Desert/Jungle/Tundra on the coast in the corner of a contenent.

 

[knowltok]

Ideal: River!! Then a mix. Cows are awesome, a forrest or three, some hills for later, and one luxury really close by. No mountains touching the city (good spot for invaders to camp) Midas well toss in a goodie hut while I'm dreaming.

Worst: Desert, Tundra, and Jungle go without saying. Past that, too much sameness. all plains or grasslands isn't going to work long term. Same with mountains and hills.

Flood plain scares me because of diseise, but I guess if it was on the fringes and not touching the city that would be good too.

 

[eMarkM]

Of course, river is great, but don't irrigate until you're nearly out of Despotism. Cow is great, but one of those wheat stalk thingies is also great for food production. Gold is great for production/$$$ when you place a mine on it. Obviously it's nice to have a lux item off the bat like wine or something.

Starting your capitol on a coast sucks big time. You're very likely to get boxed in by other civs. That and expansion is harder since your capitol won't be centralized for maximum corruption suppression. I admit when I start a game and see I'm on a coast, I often just restart.

Also, when you look at the world map in the corner, I don't like to be near one of the poles. Too much tundra in those areas and, again, limits your expansion and more likely to get boxed in.

e

 

[Libertarian]

Actually, tundra ain't that bad in Civ3. It usually has food and resources like oil. I mean it's not the best land, but it's not the forbidden waste that it was in Civ2.

 

[dreadhead7]

I learned my lesson about flood plains when I built a city that had three flood plains squares with wheat in them. My citizens were dying od disease because they were near all those flood plains squares, and it did'n even matter that there were tons of food there; the city just wouldn't grow.

 

[donsig]

Bad: Desert/Jungle/Tundra on the coast in the corner of a contenent.

Started my first game in the NW corner of a big continent. Had room for 3 cities then had to cross the mountains. Once I got past that I had to hack through the jungle to the south - but my biggest city so far is where the jungle used to be!

I also had a lux nearby and had a very early colony.

I think the coast is ok. Corruption just has to be dealt with.

Having lots of iron in your country is a good thing - though when you start you do'n know if you have it or not!

 

[curmudgeon42]

Ugh, I just played a game in which I started in the middle of about a 15-square radius of jungle. However, as I explored I found like 5 dyes, an incense, 3 gems, 5 spices, and as I evolved techs I found horses and iron. So I decided to keep playing for some time. The jungles have been a little annoying, but I decided that it was worth it to have all those resources nearby.

 

[Gray]

One of the first games I played had what I consider to be the best starting position. Here goes:

Middle of Continent, in the middle of the map (no tundra for a while!!!). mainly grassland squares, on a river that came down out of a hill in the north with three other hills to the east (4 hills total). river went straight through the middle of my city radius, at the south-western end of city it spilt both ways (so the river touched most of the squares in the radius). there were four wine resources right beside my starting location. and finally to the south, two squares from my city radius there were horses!!!

later i also learned that there was iron and saltpeter in close proximity to this city (these were in the radii of other cities, but still close).

Worst Start!!!
Bottom of map on a small island in a desert??? square. with lots and lots of tundra to the west and an ocean to the east and south. north, there were plains, but all in all a really sucky location. especailly since my wonderful island could only really support 5 (actually 6) little cities.

These pretty much represent my ideal conditions... I prefer to start in the center of the map, on my own island of descent size--enough to support 15 to 30 cities. with lots of resources (strat and lux

 

[daffyduckmw]

Grassland with a river through it, two cows, and a wheat.

In the game I started last night I discovered a spot like this just a stone's throw from my capital. This city is going to be HUGE .

 

[Telemental]

In the first game I played, I made the mistake of building my city directly on top of a flood plain. "Looky, there's a river!" I said to my turtlish companion, Gandhi. "Help, we're dying!" said my citizens. "Alrighty," I said cheerily, and restarted the game. It sucked. After two turns of not growing or producing anything, rival civilizations came to stand outside my borders and laugh.

 

[Sam_Catchem]

The best starting points is any place with a good mix of food and shields. Flood plains aren't that bad if the are close to grass, desert or something you can start getting some shields. The only thing about the flood plains that I do not like is that it grows so fast that it is hard early on to keep them out disorder. I can deal with the disease cause you regain the pop so quickly. I love sticking my capitol on a mix of flood plain and something else...even hills. I usually follow the flood plain and try to take it all if I can.

The worst starting points are 1. Jungle (no doi!) 2. Tundra 3. Plain desert with no water nearby. I just hate note being able to pop out couple settler quickly.

 

[LKendter]

If you want a fast growing city

Irrigated flood plains with wheat. You would be amazed how fast the city grows and under depotism, how fast you can crack a whip to speed production. This city can also become your #1 source of building workers / settlers.