Better start locations? Too much tundra

[sprang]

I've been wondering why I keep getting tundra starts. I HATE tundra starts.

Desert is awesome: I can get Vivariums fast, and desert gets +3f Tubers resources. Desert also gives Desert Hills, which are 1f mines! 2 desert hills = 1 titanium hill + farmed plains! (and better energy!) And deserts have flood plains. 'Nuff said.

But Tundra sucks... Forests mean you improve tiles a LOT slower. Tile improvement times in BE are longer than CiV, but it doesn't feel like the hammer return on forests has been scaled.

So I looked in the LUA for start assignments. Sure enough, it's straight from CiV, with some BE tweaks for miasma and canyons. BUT... the assumptions about early game tile returns ("fertility") don't appear to have been updated: the Plains > Tundra > Desert heirarchy is used, despite desert being better than both!

Specifically, CiV makes early-to-mid game assumptions about tile food yields, notably including Civil Service Farms. So "wet" grassland and flood plains are "4f", "dry grass" and wet plains are "3f", etc. Wet tundra is counted as "3f", Dry plains are "2f" -- and that is all still true in BE. Note that these assessments ignore whether the terrain is also a hill, and thus has NO food at all.

CiV also counts inner-ring forests double of outer-ring, and uses the presence of forests to count hammers and decide if a start needs additional hills for hammer balance.

Used in BE, these assumptions are silly. 3f tundra requires EctoPod or VertFarming, but a Tundra start will be hammer-poor, so aiming for getting a Wonder is a fools errand - so Tundra seems to require Purity.

Chopping forests was OP in CivIV and CiV, but in BE it's kinda lame. So using the presence of forests - a mediocre tile with no logging camp improvements - to give you more mediocre hills at the expense of productive grass or plains is stupid. Give a copper or silica on plains - that's a real hammer boost, not another 0f hill to get in the way.

The result is that you get tundra starts that suck, either for you or the AI. Yes, they add back some tubers for the food, but really... these starts are painful. We need a building like Vivariums for tundra that will buff tundra so it's more competitive (and an AI that builds them), or this start algorithm needs a major overhaul/update.

 

[mb2bm55]

Desert production does need to be addressed. Vivarium boosts should be negated for mines, manufactories and other food killing or terraforming improvements. The extra food applies to terrascapes. Clearly this must be an oversight.

Agree on the flood plains though. And yes, tundra, even with the balancing I mentioned, would still be the worst

 

[Aldor]

Desert production does need to be addressed. Vivarium boosts should be negated for mines, manufactories and other food killing or terraforming improvements. The extra food applies to terrascapes. Clearly this must be an oversight.

Agree on the flood plains though. And yes, tundra, even with the balancing I mentioned, would still be the worst

Yeah its strange that desert terrascapes are better than all other areas because of the vivarium. Most likely not intended.

I really hate those heavily forested starts, because every improvement takes so much longer to build there. I wouldn't mind a wonder or tech that decreases the chop time.

 

[sprang]

Desert production does need to be addressed. Vivarium boosts should be negated for mines, manufactories and other food killing or terraforming improvements. The extra food applies to terrascapes. Clearly this must be an oversight.

Agree on the flood plains though. And yes, tundra, even with the balancing I mentioned, would still be the worst

It's perverse. If you try to set the world options to Arid or Hot, you'll get very frequent tundra starts - despite there being lots of good desert and some decent plains locations.

I don't mind if Tundra is the worst terrain in the game - something should be. I just mind that the starting algorithm doesn't recognize that fact.

 

[Callonia]

Whenever I get the tundra start, I restart immediately.

I didn't travel through space for hundreds of years and leave behind an perfectly warm planet where I can walk around in shorts to set up a new camp in snowy and cold n dark place. Sometimes I think the map generator is trolling me when it gives me 30+ tundra starts in a row when all I wanted was a warm place.

 

[mb2bm55]

I haven't had many bad starts yet so I cant be one to complain. The game has only been out for a few weeks so I haven't played it religiously yet. Ironically some of my best cities have been in the tundra- but only because I received a randomly large number of resources, good river tiles and water resources. Overall, I still agree with the assessment of this thread

Another problem that I would point out is the unnecessary close placement of starting locations! I have game where large entire Islands with good resources are left unoccupied while small continents are overcrowded! This isn't C.IV where an island start is death. You're one tech away from exploring the oceans and establishing trade routes. And that's without starting tech decisions. If anything it's an advantage.

 

[Bezurn]

Tundra starts are indeed a challenge to get started off. Usually in previous Civ games, when you get these starts it leaves you with a message "Maybe your neighbor's land is better? Maybe I should move there

Given the amount of copy and paste that was done from Civ 5 it is not surprising that the starting location script hasn't been updated to reflect the various new game mechanics and buildings for various terrain tiles and features.

There is one tile improvement that you can use on forests though, and that is the Biowell. At 3f/1h/1e makes for a nice versatile tile to grow a city or turn other less than favorable terrain nearby into some specialists. I think desert should suffer some further negative modifications, perhaps -1 hammer on hills. For tundra either a new unique tile improvement could be introduced for it, or existing ones tweaked to get a benefit, say academy (+1F) and array (+1P), that would make tundra be more competitive and not so undesirable land.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Got a good game going with a tundra start.
Always War(Apollo)-No Free Techs

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=538589

I play it a little each day and post the results

 

[Manannan]

Between the frequent abundance of tubers and firaxite on tundra, the various tile improvements that can make any location excellent, and the building that gives tundra extra energy I don't buy that tundra starts are that bad. They aren't optimal starts, but do you really need that in this game? It's easy enough as is, at least tundra slowing down your early growth a bit puts some challenge back in the game.

 

[Serenya]

Another problem that I would point out is the unnecessary close placement of starting locations! I have game where large entire Islands with good resources are left unoccupied while small continents are overcrowded! This isn't C.IV where an island start is death. You're one tech away from exploring the oceans and establishing trade routes. And that's without starting tech decisions. If anything it's an advantage.

My favorite is my current game -- not only are there 4 stations and 3 civs on my island, which is already sad. Staggered starts means a civ plopped his capitol down next to my Outpost and then whined that I was building in his territory! I promptly surrounded him and flipped his city with espionage, because that's my idea of fun but seriously. Why the heck does the game even do that?

 

[sprang]

There is one tile improvement that you can use on forests though, and that is the Biowell. At 3f/1h/1e makes for a nice versatile tile to grow a city or turn other less than favorable terrain nearby into some specialists. I think desert should suffer some further negative modifications, perhaps -1 hammer on hills. For tundra either a new unique tile improvement could be introduced for it, or existing ones tweaked to get a benefit, say academy (+1F) and array (+1P), that would make tundra be more competitive and not so undesirable land.

The maddening thing is that basic tundra isn't actually any worse than basic desert! With Mass Digester and Vivarium, they are identical... except Desert terrascapes get that extra food.

The difference is the other tiles. Desert 1f hills are better than tundra hills, and desert rivers are MUCH better than tundra rivers. Not sure how to balance that out without making tundra into just "ugly plains".

 

[Xenotitan]

Vivarium also comes sooner than mass digester, and you can build farms on flat riverless desert but not flat riverless tundra.

 

[Callonia]

Vivarium also comes sooner than mass digester, and you can build farms on flat riverless desert but not flat riverless tundra.

Historically, frozen ground is kinda harder to dig through compared to desert soil.

 

[kirbdog]

Vivarium also comes sooner than mass digester, and you can build farms on flat riverless desert but not flat riverless tundra.

This is the problem with the tundra start. If we're going to have them, the tech for dealing with tundra could be cheaper. It still would be a weak start, but at least you could have more fun playing it out if you wanted to.

 

[Bezurn]

The maddening thing is that basic tundra isn't actually any worse than basic desert! With Mass Digester and Vivarium, they are identical... except Desert terrascapes get that extra food.

The difference is the other tiles. Desert 1f hills are better than tundra hills, and desert rivers are MUCH better than tundra rivers. Not sure how to balance that out without making tundra into just "ugly plains".

I don't think you need to make tundra "ugly plains" I think that desert balance needs to be reigned in to make both desert and tundra comparable yet unique enough. I am fine with desert being habitable earlier. Tundra starts will be tundra starts. Either you play from behind and bee-line the mass digesters and biowells to enhance your land, or you settle / invade more favorable climate for your future cities.

The problem is really the Vivarium, not the terrain or terrascapes I think. Compared to the Mass Digester it costs ~ 1/10th beakers to unlock, adds an additional 2 food for free on top of the terrain yield changes, and costs less than half the production cost to build. While the Mass Digester offers 4 grower specialist, which don't really help a city grow that much because they only produce enough food to feed themselves. Unless you take virtues that grant specialist extra benefits then they give ~1 science for -1 health before population virtues are taken into account. On top of this inequality, the Vivarium gives either an additional +1 science or +1 free food via quest reward. The Mass Digester grants either +1 production or +1 energy

It is a problem to an extent that farms can be planted on just any old desert tile as well. You need to use biowells to get the same amount of growth out of tundra, and farms have some techs that can really increase the yields of all types of a city compared to a biowell. Farms build far quicker than biowells and are unlocked earlier.

Desert hills are better than all other terrain hills. Either grassland and plains hills should be given 1 food base, or the vivarium should only effect flat desert tiles

Desert rivers are better than all other terrain rivers. If floodplains could be decoupled from deserts only and granted to any terrain type sprinkled around rivers around the map that would be a more interesting way of creating unique maps.

 

[sprang]

I don't think you need to make tundra "ugly plains" I think that desert balance needs to be reigned in to make both desert and tundra comparable yet unique enough. I am fine with desert being habitable earlier. Tundra starts will be tundra starts. Either you play from behind and bee-line the mass digesters and biowells to enhance your land, or you settle / invade more favorable climate for your future cities.

The problem is really the Vivarium, not the terrain or terrascapes I think. Compared to the Mass Digester it costs ~ 1/10th beakers to unlock, adds an additional 2 food for free on top of the terrain yield changes, and costs less than half the production cost to build. While the Mass Digester offers 4 grower specialist, which don't really help a city grow that much because they only produce enough food to feed themselves. Unless you take virtues that grant specialist extra benefits then they give ~1 science for -1 health before population virtues are taken into account. On top of this inequality, the Vivarium gives either an additional +1 science or +1 free food via quest reward. The Mass Digester grants either +1 production or +1 energy

It is a problem to an extent that farms can be planted on just any old desert tile as well. You need to use biowells to get the same amount of growth out of tundra, and farms have some techs that can really increase the yields of all types of a city compared to a biowell. Farms build far quicker than biowells and are unlocked earlier.

Desert hills are better than all other terrain hills. Either grassland and plains hills should be given 1 food base, or the vivarium should only effect flat desert tiles

Desert rivers are better than all other terrain rivers. If floodplains could be decoupled from deserts only and granted to any terrain type sprinkled around rivers around the map that would be a more interesting way of creating unique maps.

Looking at the XML, there does not appear to be a function that would grant a bonus to ONLY flat desert. You can give TerrainYieldChange or FeatureYieldChange or Resource Yield Change. Vivariums give +1F to all desert - including FLOOD_PLAINS. It's only because Vivariums have a second -1F for FLOOD_PLAINS that they appear to leave FP unaffected. Any buff to hills would affect all hills; there is no way to isolate and target a bonus to a specific combination of terrain-resource-feature, like just grassland-hills, or just tundra-forests, or just desert-flat-oil.

Yes, as much as I like Desert Hills - and who doesn't? - they are OP in the game context. Civ has always had a few fundamental rules for yields, based on pop growth mechanics. An improved, early-game, non-resource tile should never give more than 3 food+production. Desert hills break that rule. An improved mid-game non-resource tile should not give +2F, +2P. Such a tile is too balanced, gives "free production" (i.e., no direct pop growth penalty), and thus greatly reduces game complexity.

I'm not sure that Desert farms are a problem, because if you have deserts you probably have Flood Plains nearby. Put the farms on flood plains and generators on the deserts. Vivarium makes those generators not bad, and you're going to work your desert hills first anyway.

Still, the problem with Tundra isn't that it's bad. The problem is that the start-picking algorithm thinks that its much better in BE than deserts than it is.

Except from a modder's perspective, adjusting tile yields or buildings is much easier than fixing that algorithm.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Isn't it possible to just change the value given to each tile in AssignStartingPlots.lua to have more desert start and less tundra?