Coastal start in histographic games?

[bluejay]

I'm generating maps for a huge (therefore time-consuming) histographic game. One of the War Academy articles on starting strategy suggests that it's worth moving the initial settler 1 tile to a coastal tile. I haven't seen any other discussion of this.

(SirPleb's milking article shows that coastal cities are good later on, but doesn't address the starting city.)

What has been your experience? Or preference? And is it different for histographic than for other HOF games?

 

[EMan]

2 cents worth:

It may be worth moving a settler one square..........IF you are simply trying to Win the game!

You, however are trying for a BIG Score!....And, you're using MapFinder!

Normally the best starting positions from MapFinder have the Settler inland (unless you're Seafaring)...........And, you don't want to waste time moving it if you don't have to!

Coastal squares early on are not good because they only give one food and no shields!.............That's why Grassland Cows are so desirable in MF starting positions!

 

[superslug]

As usual, EMan is on the money. Coastal starts are bad.

In addition to what he mentions, I'd like to point out that roughly half of your low distance corruption area would be sitting in water.

On the other hand, I don't like to start very far inwards, as it requires much more exploration and the patches of grassland don't seem big.

Personally, my favorite starting locations are the northern corners of the maps. Near tundra areas seem to have the best swaths of grassland, although the northern ones seem better than the southern. Another reason I like corners is that it's obvious that exploration and settling should take place in only two general directions (south and east/west).

You can of course always download the 4000bc from HOF ranked milk runs and see their start locations.

 

[Own]

The capital doesn't increase your pop without using land more than anyother city, and one out of 512 doesn't matter.

 

[a space oddity]

[...] Another reason I like corners is that it's obvious that exploration and settling should take place in only two general directions (south and east/west).[...]

Those kind of starts are also good for conquering, since your borders can be kept of limited length.

The only downside is that I tend to build cities on the tundra at first, the more dom tiles the better in the beginning. Those cities need to be abandoned later , and it always hurts to do that to any of the early cities.