Epiphany And Its Rewards

[thelibra]

So I come home to the wife putting the boy in my arms and saying she needs to run errands for a few hours, and I'm thinking "Sweet!!! A few hours of Civ4, come to poppa!". I settle down, and boy in one hand, mouse in the other, I carefully consider my strategy, who I want to play (Zara), what I aim to achieve (Technical/Cultural Superiority), how I aim to achieve it, and then begin the game.

Bleh!!! I start on the far south end of a continent, with friggin' ice, tundra, no hills, and a couple of mountains. I suppose the game thought I'd be happy with the crab they supplied me with, despite the fact I don't have fishing. Seriously, flat tundra, ice, and mountains, and one stinkin' crab.

No way. It's time to regen the map.

Jungle? They stuck me in the middle of a jungle? I haven't got a single usable square, and my health is for crap. My entire fat cross is filled with jungle! What the hell is this? Is that a hill? I've got one hill? Do I even have fresh water, because I can't see for all the dang jungle! I could chop it down once I research iron in about 75 turns (thanks to there being nothing but a stupid banana nearby).

Regen...

A desert?!?! Really? I've got spices, a one-square long river, a flood plain, and a hill, and the rest is desert! I don't even have a fish now. My fat cross will net me a one-hammer one-food hill, and a silk. That's fantastic!

Regen...

Oh, this looks nice, gold, gold, silver, gems. Holy crap! I'm going to be r--oh no. There's no food? No fresh water? The only food producing tiles I have give 1 food and are no where near water? Come on! Maaaaaaaan...

Regen...

Regen...

Regen...

At this point, nothing is making me happy. My mood gets worse and worse, and every land seems unworkable. I don't even bother founding a city to see what my fat cross will yield, just a mere glance at the screen before clicking the regen button.

The wife comes home. It's time for dinner. The boy needs changing. There's stuff to do. My play time is over for the night, and I haven't even founded a city.

I sleep uneasily, pondering what the hell happened to three hours? Why didn't I get anything done even in the imaginary world of Civ? What was it I wanted out of those starting tiles that made me regen all frickin' night? And what's holding me back from making the jump from Prince to Monarch as a player?

I have an epiphany. I realize the problem was in getting my heart set on a specific leader, a specific strategy, and my unwillingness to adapt to a new and unexpected situation. I can only win to a point, with a certain strategy, because it's all I know. I fail to defeat other civs at higher levels because I have not bothered to even play them to learn their ways and anticipate their needs before they do.

I realize that achieving that vital next level in Civ4 hinges upon knowing what any one civ would do, based upon their placement on the land, and that takes practice and experience. It takes knowing how Leader X might react differently to being landlocked versus being on an island, or surrounded by hills. To do that, I must accept any terrain, any civ, any start techs and traits, and learn how to play them as best I can.

I awake about half an hour before the alarm. Long enough to boot up the machine, start a new civ, and get in a few turns.

What the hell, aside from the size of the world (standard), I leave everything random. Random leader, random terrain, random sea level, etc... Prince, Normal Speed... I begin the game.

Julius Caesar. Nice start. I'm on a peninsula, where my entire fat cross is either riverside property, coastal squares, I've got 4 good production mountains, and 3 crabs sitting in my starting 9. Life is good. I send out my warrior to explore the rest of the land.

It's a long, thin snaky bit of land, consisting of Desert. Desert. Desert. Mountain. Desert. Desert. One-square river with one-flood plain and no fish. Desert. Desert.... that's it. No other land resources. No other sources of fresh water. It's an island.

But in the distance I can see one shoreline I can reach by galley. I dilligently create a settler and warrior, load 'em in the Trireme, and send them around, getting to the island in the last few minutes before it's time to get ready for work...

It's a one-square desert island. With no fish, no trees, no fresh water, no mountain. And there's no other shoreline in sight. I won't have the ability to cross the sea until Astronomy, and I'm stuck with one bloody city.

On my tiny, isolated desert island, I raise my fists to the sky and shout, NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

 

[Indiansmoke]

Brilliantly described!!!

I have been in the same chair of agony a few times myself....clock is ticking and regenerate is having a laugh at me!!!

Although I must say..isolated with land for only 1 city!!!!! The machine has not been so cruel at me yet!!

 

[46852]

I admit I'm a victim of the everlasting mapregen syndrome too... I'm always wondering why the heck am I wasting time to start new games, as the enjoyment comes from the evolution in the game itself, not from the starting of new games and checking how good start it'd be or wouldn't be. Guess I'm just weak.

 

[thelibra]

It's rough. I mean, I don't personally have any ethical or moral problem regenning a game if I'm the sole human player and I don't like the layout. After all, if you're going to invest hours and hours into a single round of a game, why not demand the best spot?

But I think that's the mentality that's been holding me back. Plus if I ever want to play against someone, I need to learn that a card laid is a card played. Even still... only one possible city until Astronomy? Please...

I'm not deterred though. I'm going to start a new game tonight, and the only "restart" I'm going to allow myself is similar circumstances.

 

[Zongo]

Guess I'm just weak.

You are not alone... If there would be a physical regen button, it would be worn out on my keyboard since ages.

I also do the "sneak preview" thing: 5 turn of exploration followed by a quick reload, to make sure that I will not spend the rest of the game with the atrocious consciousness that I could have built my capital 1 tile left and achieved some sort of mutual optimal placement of cities...

 

[nightbringerggz]

Honestly, map generation is my biggest gripe with this game. I'm just not happy with the fact that you can (and often are) started in an area that's basically worthless. While it might be "realistic" that some civs settle in better area than other civs, it's not in the least bit fun. It's also terribly game unbalancing.

This being a game, I feel that every player should have a roughly equal start (maybe determined by Food and Production values of the land with out bonuses and without improvements?) and then be assigned a random 3-4 bonuses, 1 of which is guaranteed to be a food bonus. This would give you a strong start, but everybody else would have a strong start as well.

Now it can be argued that any start is winnable, but honestly, I consider several of the victory conditions are rather boring, and would rather reroll than spend 5 or more hours building buildings and hitting the next turn button.

 

[Soneji]

This used to be my bug bear.

I too have spent hours, literally, regening and not finding anything I would want to play.

I think you have to have a little faith in your own ability as a human to battle through the problems. With Warlords, I almost gave up on the game entirely. I was so so sick fed up of constant consecutive starts in the Polar Regions, as if a couple of crab is going to make good the problems of crap land.

It does seem better with BtS, starting locations that is. I love to settle flood plains, however in general if it looks ok (couple of food resources) I will play it.

I used to have problems with my economy in my game for example, so I used to never play a map unless starting location had a couple of gold… etc. That is very limiting, so instead I looked at how my strategy would have a larger impact (which it did). I believe now that I can overcome any resource shortage in the game. Don’t find any bronze? Straight for IW, no Iron? Go settle for some. I’ve played successfully through without having horse for example, not easy nor nice but certainly do’able.

I think the phrase, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ would be wise here. I’ve had games that looked a very dull / lacking start, that actually transpired to be some of my toughest yet enthralling games to date.

 

[LemonJello]

I used to be a regen addict with earlier versions, but I'd actually play until at least iron working and then decide, "nah, don't like this, let's restart." Why? Now I try to just go with what I'm dealt and see how the game develops. Sure, I seem to lose a lot more (not that I won a whole lot, but that's a different kettle of fish) but I try new strategies and tactics just to see what happens.

 

[thelibra]

See, I figure if I can force myself to play any civ, in any terrain, even if I lose the game, I can learn some strategies that will apply to later games.

If I learn how to create a successful Capital with negligable resources and crap placement, then along the way, next game, I'll have already learned how to make a successful colony out of less than optimal space, which would come in very handy in the event of a land pinch or a ghetto worldgen.

And if I have to learn how to survive those conditions without my favorite traits, it forces me to learn how to best use the other traits to survive each situation.

 

[Cytral]

I try not to regen. my map

BUT if my starting position is surrounded by desert/tundra I will do it.

 

[Bushface]

Unfortunately, it's not only at the start that the game can louse you up. See my thread "Holy Impossible !"

 

[Jaybe]

I've never regen'ed my map, in fact I don't even know how to do it. My position is that with your starting units, YOU CANNOT SEE ENOUGH of the lay of the land to determine how good your surrounding area (including neighboring cities) will be.

Then again, I play huge marathon games.

For you single-player regen'ers, you could always go into your GameInfo\CIV4HandicapInfo.xml file and change "iStartingLocPercent" to a lower number for the level(s) you play at. It determines when you will be placed (e.g., 50 would mean that half the other civs would be placed before you are, so they get better locations).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Sounds like an Ideal game, get a fog buster or two and beeline Astronomy+Civil Service (found that other city and get Lighthouse to make it pure commerce)

Use Rome's Forum to make it a city of lightbulbing Great People, and use your cheap courthouses to span an empire the sun doesn't set on.
(or get Chemistry and get plentiful Great Generals by pirating all the other empires)

so you get to use Rome's UB instead of UU

 

[Veritass]

I prefer to play as random a game as possible, including random leaders, the "shuffle" map script with random sizes, climates, etc. This makes it much more interesting than if you know you are on a small map with exactly three civs.

I would recommend regeneration as a strategy to help you move up a level of difficulty. If you are having a hard time moving from noble to prince, then go ahead and regenerate the map to make sure you get a good start.

FYI: to regenerate the map, you have to be in turn 1. If you hit <escape> to bring up the game menu, one of the options will be to regenerate the map.

 

[Arlborn]

Honestly, map generation is my biggest gripe with this game. I'm just not happy with the fact that you can (and often are) started in an area that's basically worthless. While it might be "realistic" that some civs settle in better area than other civs, it's not in the least bit fun. It's also terribly game unbalancing.

This being a game, I feel that every player should have a roughly equal start (maybe determined by Food and Production values of the land with out bonuses and without improvements?) and then be assigned a random 3-4 bonuses, 1 of which is guaranteed to be a food bonus. This would give you a strong start, but everybody else would have a strong start as well.

Now it can be argued that any start is winnable, but honestly, I consider several of the victory conditions are rather boring, and would rather reroll than spend 5 or more hours building buildings and hitting the next turn button.

custom game > resources > balanced.


I sympathize with the OP, even though I don't regen much. Specially because my motto is: bad starting position equals hidden resources!

 

[thelibra]

Unfortunately, it's not only at the start that the game can louse you up. See my thread "Holy Impossible !"

I actually read it just yesterday. Bwahahahhahaha... Man that was a sucky situation. I think that's probably something that needs a patch.

Sounds like an Ideal game, get a fog buster or two and beeline Astronomy+Civil Service (found that other city and get Lighthouse to make it pure commerce)

What, you mean beeline Astronomy with one city???

I can't fogbuster anything else. I've circled the entirety of my island and its satellite island, and there's no where else for my little galley to go. The only other place I could found a city I'd have all but one of my fat cross tiles in desert.

Surely you can't expect my civilization to be remotely competitive with ONE city by the time I've researched Astronomy? That's like, 1AD+ tech.

 

[VLGoldenJew]

Brutal! Totally know the feeling. And hilarious with the island.

Has anyone else also noticed that the best games always seem to come when you have a deadline to be somewhere? If i have a whole day to play Civ, I can restart 50 times, but if I have work, errands, or whatever, "Just one more turn" syndrome sets in hard.

 

[thelibra]

Brutal! Totally know the feeling. And hilarious with the island.

Has anyone else also noticed that the best games always seem to come when you have a deadline to be somewhere? If i have a whole day to play Civ, I can restart 50 times, but if I have work, errands, or whatever, "Just one more turn" syndrome sets in hard.

With me, what happens is, ALWAYS, right before I launch my massive invasion force to take out Neighbor X, the wife says I have to go do something else. ALWAYS. In the entire time I've known her, even with Civ3, I have never been able to actually launch an invasion and start the first attack without there magically being somewhere else I suddenly have to be.

ME: "But honey, I'm right about to invade England! I've been planning this for hours, and my plans are finally coming to fruition. Three more turns and my ships will land on their shores, and I can march to the capital and cleave their nation in twain! Come on! Five more minutes!!!"

HER: "I'M GOING INTO LABOR!!!"

Arrrgghghhhh.... as usual, she wins.

 

[Veritass]

Has anyone else also noticed that the best games always seem to come when you have a deadline to be somewhere? If i have a whole day to play Civ, I can restart 50 times, but if I have work, errands, or whatever, "Just one more turn" syndrome sets in hard.

Absolutely! What better mechanism to put off what you don't want to do? Gee, I could have lifted weights for an hour instead of just a half hour if Napoleon hadn't attacked. Well, at least it wasn't my fault.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

The thing is that even if you see crap land at the start 75% of the time, half of those starts probably had a horde of resources that hadn't been shown yet. I didn't even know there was a map regen button until I started posting on the forums. I've had some really, really, really bad starts. The mostly forest, 2 hills, 1 tile fresh water, no lux resources is a killer. However, I recall having both bronze and iron appear in the fat cross, horses were there, gold popped on one of the hills later in the game, and oil appeared quite close to the fat cross. After all was said and done, this was my major unit producing city. I ended up taking over the entire continent before the renaissance. It was a good game. Sometimes holding the cards you're dealt and waiting for the river is better than demanding the best flop.