Fog, fog, fog: Peninsulas or deep inland starts

[frob2900]

I've noticed that I personally prefer starting on peninsulas or narrower bands of land in order to simplify fogbusting. Of course, this (generally) leads to less choice city cites than starting deep inland but has the advantage of speeding up early expansion quite a lot due to the lessened need for early warrior spam.

On raging barbarians I've noticed that peninsular civilizations generally do much, much better than the poor suckers being pillaged from all sides by barbarian hordes.

Later in the game, peninsula starts on pangea or continents with a bunch of civs on each continent often puts you at a larger distance from potential targets, wheras inland empires often end up bordering two or even three AIs at once.

What's the general consensus on start locations; do you feel like a peninsula start is an advantage or a disadvantage?

As a related aside, does anyone use the sea early on for invasions on pangea? I always, always march my axes overland, but I've been thinking about trying out a coastal hugging game with the vikings...

 

[InvisibleStalke]

If I can seal off a large space of land with culture and settle it at my leisure I like a penisular start - but I don't like starting down one end of a narrow peninsular. All your cities end up progressively further away and you get boxed in too easily. My ideal is something like my own isolated continent except it has a chokepoint connecting it to the mainland.

I've tried sea hugging but it isn't worth it. By the time you build enough galleys to carry any kind of force your axes could have taken the first couple of cities and there simply aren't enough coastal cities for it to matter.

 

[cabert]

some peninsulas are really hard to get out of.
the 2 most famous ones are
1) the desert peninsula
You start on the coast, with loads of seafood but almost no workable land tiles. Everything outside your fat cross is desert.
You need to move at least 10 tiles away to find something worth settling into.
If an AI starts near the end of your peninsula, you may be boxed in, with no real settling option

2) The iceball peninsula
You start in the polar circle. Your initial fat cross is OK, but all the land around is ice. Of course there are furs and silver and whales, but no food in sight. You need to find metals to play it "conanlike" and leave this iceball.

 

[LucyDuke]

What's the general consensus on start locations; do you feel like a peninsula start is an advantage or a disadvantage?

Same answer for nearly everything around here: it depends how you play it. If you're boxed in, it can be a huge problem. If you can box somebody out, it can be really great. If you're on an isthmus (and financial!), even better. I guess I'd say that all other factors being equal, it does ease the fogbusting, and guide the exploration.

As a related aside, does anyone use the sea early on for invasions on pangea? I always, always march my axes overland, but I've been thinking about trying out a coastal hugging game with the vikings...

As the Vikings, that could be killer. Between the Berserkers and the Trading Posts, it could pay off very nicely. If it were anyone but Ragnar, though... I wouldn't bother.

 

[Jorunkun]

The fogbusting advantage is countered by the fact that peninsula starts limit early contact with other civs and limit your strategy options, forcing you to quickly attack the civ that is boxing you in.

However, I've had some of my most successful early wars starting from a boxed-in position. Partially, because the start left me with no other choice but devote all my ressources to this war. But also because peninsulas are very easy to secure (minimal borders) and move your troops out of (unidirectional supply-chain), making for a very focused fight.