Do you restart if stuck with a poor starting spot?

[sandman_civ]

I restart if no decent resources or hills around my capital (after building it). I suppose this is not a good habit for multiplayer as this done not test one's skills with a bad location. Never opened the WB.

 

[SJSerio]

I haven't played any multiplayer yet, however, I definately wouldn't restart in that case. Against the AI, all's fair! Afterall, the AI gets enoguh of an edge as it is. In that case refer to my last post.

 

[Defectiv]

I just play any position and see how far i can get, if defeat seems inevitable i might just give up and restart, but thats always quite some turns into the game. But thats rare, usually i play till the end, win or loose.
It has happened once so far (in Civ4), got a start next to a river, surrounded by jungle mostly, managed to get up to 3 cities but the barbs where real violent and kept hammering me, causing me to be busy mostly replacing lost units and guarding my few workers, disease from the floodplanes aswell as the jungles gave me head aches in my capitol, at 3 it was already without growth.
Got to jungle cutting eventually but the barbs kept comming and eventually lost two small cities to barbs and where stuck with one sick capitol and the other civs where miles ahead already, so didnt see a lot of good happening anytime soon.

 

[baboon]

I restart way too often. I was trying not to, at Prince difficulty, but instead I moved to Monarch and now I need a good start to be able to compete. My current start has sea access, a river, cow, stone, horses, I built Pyramids AND Oracle. I'm a damn cheater, I'm going to restart tonight

If the game didn't generate those Rainforests all the time , I think I shouldn't restart that much.

 

[vyapti]

I clicked No because I haven't, but am not opposed to restarting.

In Civ3, If I didn't have a start where I could spam settlers, I would ususally restart. In Civ4, I feel like I have more options because more strategies work. Having a bad start makes it harder to win, but the challenge is infinitely more fun than in Civ3, which was just a pain.

 

[RX2000]

Sometimes I restart, altho my first game playing Civ 4, I got a pretty crappy starting position. I was starting on Noble just so I could see what all had changed and everything, and to get a feel for the game.

I was near a lot of mountains and a pretty good sized desert. I thought "Well the position is horrible but since the game doesnt really count (hehe) and I'm just looking at how Civ4 is gonna be, I might as well play it."

So I kept with it and actually won a diplo victory, altho I could have had space race in a few more turns too.

The giant desert sucked, but luckily there was some other stuff that made up for it. And it has oil there when I hit the modern age!

So yea, I usually restart, but if you stick with it, it can still be a good game. Altho if you were starting on like Monarch or something it would probably be your death. But below Prince or so it should be ok.

 

[Doctor Love]

Depends on my purpose for that game. Sometimes it's very handy to test strategies on a crappy map setup so you can see how they do in less than ideal situations. So if I'm testing a strategy or trying something different, I'll play whatever I'm given.

Otherwise, if I'm playing to win, I'll restart as soon as it becomes apparant that I have little/no chance. That could because of dismal map/starting location, terrible luck with barbs, early rush by AI that cripples my empire, etc. I don't have any desire to spend time playing out what is obviously going to be a loss when I could be starting a new game that I have a chance in.

 

[CivScientist]

I'll often restart and even use the WB (carefully and in a limited fashion) but not because the location stinks. What I'm really looking for is an interesting game. If my location looks hum-ho, it's obvious I'm going to loose, or it's obvious I'm going to win I'll usually restart. I'm not looking for an advantage. I'm just looking for a non-boiler plate game. Something new and different.

 

[Thalassicus]

I only restart the really bad locations.

At first I thought I couldn't even get out of the mountains in that last one; although I've seen some pictures of locations people've had like that.

 

[civ-wrecked]

I almost never restart but that might be because I only play on pangea/lakes and temperate weather. I tried 'continent' map once but after finding out that I was on a crummy little island all by myself, I quitted.

 

[Zombie69]

I've never restarted a game at the start. Can't say it will never happen in the future, but i don't see why i would.

The more challenge, the better.

 

[Zombie69]

Of course, now that i see the two pictures posted above, i'm pretty sure i would restart those!

Actually, no. I would just take my settler on a ride until i found something suitable.

 

[salty]

how do you add climate types?

Just add another entry in the file CIV4ClimateInfo.xml and put an entry in the text keys file for the description tag (not necessary, you can just reuse an existing one, but obviously it won't be labeled correctly in the menu). This reduces mountains, snow caps and deserts.

I added:
<ClimateInfo>
<Type>CLIMATE_NONLAME</Type>
<Description>TXT_KEY_CLIMATE_NONLAME</Description>
<iDesertPercentChange>-10</iDesertPercentChange>
<iJungleLatitude>5</iJungleLatitude>
<iHillRange>5</iHillRange>
<iPeakPercent>15</iPeakPercent>
<fSnowLatitudeChange>-0.0</fSnowLatitudeChange>
<fTundraLatitudeChange>0.0</fTundraLatitudeChange>
<fGrassLatitudeChange>0.0</fGrassLatitudeChange>
<fDesertBottomLatitudeChange>0.0</fDesertBottomLatitudeChange>
<fDesertTopLatitudeChange>0.0</fDesertTopLatitudeChange>
<fIceLatitude>0.95</fIceLatitude>
<fRandIceLatitude>0.1</fRandIceLatitude>
</ClimateInfo>

The setting for giving jungles 1 shield/hammer is in a different file. Finding the file and location is an exercise left to the reader.

 

[Bluetooth]

There is usually no need to restart in Civ 4 even if I do now and then. The maps are very well balanced. When I restart it’s usually because I want specific starting conditions.

 

[josephstalin]

I look in World Builder, if location looks bad, if in WB it is bad, I restart.

 

[jkp1187]

Sometimes. Typically I'll restart only if I am jonesin' to play a certain type of game and the starting location doesn't bode well -- for instance I want to play a maritime strategy but I get a landlocked starting position with no ocean in sight. On the other hand, I play succession games with several friends and we NEVER restart. (Like our current game, where we ended up playing "Mongols on ice"....kind of like in that Capital One commercial, where the Mongol Horde is forced to take up other jobs at Christmas time....)

 

[Stormfalcon1970]

I restart if there's too many deserts. I frigging hate deserts! I don't mind the jungles so much. Researching iron and building a couple of workers solves that problem.

 

[abj9562]

Whenever I got a bad start I used to play games out until it was hopeless. However I finally decided it's my time and I do not want to waste it on bad starts. So now I do a quick check in WB and if at least mildly competitive I save the game. I'll save 10 games that way. Then I roll a d10 and play whatever game number comes up. Sort of washes out what I saw on the map in WB.

From the %'s in the poll. It looks like the map builder is a minor irritation with people. Personally I believe it is the hidden handicap for the computer.

 

[Stormfalcon1970]

Whenever I got a bad start I used to play games out until it was hopeless. However I finally decided it's my time and I do not want to waste it on bad starts. So now I do a quick check in WB and if at least mildly competitive I save the game. I'll save 10 games that way. Then I roll a d10 and play whatever game number comes up. Sort of washes out what I saw on the map in WB.

From the %'s in the poll. It looks like the map builder is a minor irritation with people. Personally I believe it is the hidden handicap for the computer.

Only a true RPG'er would come up with a solution like that
I use a similar techique in Neverwinter Nights myself.
Roll four sets of stats.
Roll 1d4
Start game and use DebugMode to put the new stats in
Start playing.
S'not cheating! Honest!

 

[jkp1187]

Whenever I got a bad start I used to play games out until it was hopeless. However I finally decided it's my time and I do not want to waste it on bad starts. So now I do a quick check in WB and if at least mildly competitive I save the game. I'll save 10 games that way. Then I roll a d10 and play whatever game number comes up. Sort of washes out what I saw on the map in WB.

From the %'s in the poll. It looks like the map builder is a minor irritation with people. Personally I believe it is the hidden handicap for the computer.

I like it!