Dutch on Desert?

[legalizefreedom]

I'm having a hard time getting a decent starting roll for the Netherlands. They always seem to land very near a large desert. I don't think this has any basis in reality. Is this just a way to balance the polder?

Just to satisfy my suspicions, I rolled about a half dozen and there is definitely a pattern. I'm thinking I may need to try an epic start location just to get something halfway good with them. Not only does this impact the capital, but severely limits 2nd and 3rd city location. It's crippling.

 

[Leyrann]

I've started several games with the Netherlands, never got a desert start... I think I have had 4 or 5 Netherland starts if I exclude my TSL Earth game (which of course isn't representative).

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

I'm having a hard time getting a decent starting roll for the Netherlands. They always seem to land very near a large desert. I don't think this has any basis in reality. Is this just a way to balance the polder?

Just to satisfy my suspicions, I rolled about a half dozen and there is definitely a pattern. I'm thinking I may need to try an epic start location just to get something halfway good with them. Not only does this impact the capital, but severely limits 2nd and 3rd city location. It's crippling.

Maybe it has to do with the other civs that are in the game pushing you near desert? I would suggest to try start a new game from main menu and see if that helps, rather than restart directly from within the game. That as far as I know keeps the same civs in the game. If you were already restarting from main menu, then possibly it is bad luck?

 

[AlannaT]

As you can read here and here Netherlands should have no start bias for desert.
So your rolls are either bad luck or the result of map choice and/or AI civs like others suggested.

 

[legalizefreedom]

I only used the restart button once out of the half dozen times I tried just to see if it would make any difference.

I should be clear. I'm not actually on desert, but in almost all cases a large desert starts 4-5 tiles away from the cap and on multiple occasions it picked up on the other side of me as well. Very strange.

If I'm understanding correctly, the cause could be the civs that spawn near me. So I could have a neighbor on either side that have desert bias and get hemmed in. What about city states? Do they have terrain bias also? In the game that ended up to be the most playable, the large desert north of me was only populated by a city state. The one below could have been a civ.

 

[Leyrann]

So I could have a neighbor on either side that have desert bias and get hemmed in.

Map is spawned first, civilizations are assigned starting locations after.

 

[AlannaT]

AFAIK the first step after map generation is to assign starting locations to all civs and then the city states are placed in the "holes" left over.

Ideally each civ has a starting locations that respects its start bias(es), has fresh water, has enough food, has several luxury resources and bonus resources nearby, and is far enough away from all other civs. Additionally all civs are ideally evenly distributed over the map.

But this does not always work in praxis. If for example none of the civs in your game have a desert or tundra bias those regions will of course stay empty. If some of the civs have a higher ranked start bias or a very specific one they might "snatch" a good starting spot from your civ because alternative river spots for the Dutch are just about everywhere.

If you modified the map settings you might reinforce this problem: Hot temperature -> more deserts -> higher probability of starting with a desert next door. Lower Higher sea level -> less land -> less starting possibilities -> higher probability of a not ideal start.

 

[Mojo85]

I’ve been sandwiched between desert and tundra on more games I care to admit, it’s infuriating sometimes when it happens 3-4 times in a row.

 

[SxSnts9]

AFAIK the first step after map generation is to assign starting locations to all civs and then the city states are placed in the "holes" left over.

Ideally each civ has a starting locations that respects its start bias(es), has fresh water, has enough food, has several luxury resources and bonus resources nearby, and is far enough away from all other civs. Additionally all civs are ideally evenly distributed over the map.

But this does not always work in praxis. If for example none of the civs in your game have a desert or tundra bias those regions will of course stay empty. If some of the civs have a higher ranked start bias or a very specific one they might "snatch" a good starting spot from your civ because alternative river spots for the Dutch are just about everywhere.

If you modified the map settings you might reinforce this problem: Hot temperature -> more deserts -> higher probability of starting with a desert next door. Lower sea level -> less land -> less starting possibilities -> higher probability of a not ideal start.

Just one thing...wouldn't lower sea level = more land? I've always took that to mean the ocean would be lower so there is more land above 'sea level' aka more usable land. So lower sea level should give you more chance of better land for all civs on the map.

 

[AlannaT]

Just one thing...wouldn't lower sea level = more land? I've always took that to mean the ocean would be lower so there is more land above 'sea level' aka more usable land. So lower sea level should give you more chance of better land for all civs on the map.

You are absolutely correct. Got it the wrong way around in my above post (and will edit).

 

[legalizefreedom]

These attempts were all on the same map setup. Huge and standard / default everything else.

I've read about some map generation issues with huge maps, so maybe I'll try standard a few times to see what happens.

 

[PYITE]

Standard map setting is 25% desert.
You can reduce it by changing the value in the terrains file with a simple text edit.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Some screens to illustrate.

Two at 100 turns on the most playable huge setup and one on a standard size start.

The point of this is not that I'm surprised to find desert, or even desert near the Dutch, it's that it is very consistent.

Roll one yourself or look at any of the LPs on YouTube. They all have some level of desert just in range of the cap.

 

[Futumch]

The only game I have had with the Dutch in it so far (I was playing Scotland) Amsterdam was on desert river floodplain. It's not a particularly good sample size to test your desert bias theory though.

I suppose what you could look at is altering the starting bias for the Dutch to exclude desert, that might be worth a shot. I'm not sure, I'm just brainstorming.

 

[legalizefreedom]

So I says to myself, I'll show you Dutch desert curse. I'll do a Legendary Start. We'll see who laughs last...