Godly Starts

[SirPepsi]

I thought it would be interesting to begin a discussion on the best of the best, so to speak. Considering many players are new to CiV and many more are veterans, I thought it would be appropriate for the community to share its experiences regarding stellar starting locations and subsequently spectacular games.

I also feel this thread can be a place where older members share advice on managing great and not-so-great starts for newer or struggling CiVvers.

I'll start:

Recently, I bought and downloaded the remaining CiV Civilization DLC packs (Babylon, Korea, Polynesia, Denmark) as I'd not done so before. I rolled a game as Babylon (Emperor, Standard, Standard, Continents, No Barbs, Policy Saving, etc.) and was greeted with the most gorgeous sight I've ever seen CiV-wise:

 

[HiroProtagonist]

Currently playing this one. It's someone else's roll so I'll link to their thread rather than directly to the save game.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=508640

Great start, the only downsides for me are

• Standard speed - I prefer epic
• Quick combat - just not used to it. Through me off at first, thought my CB was broken
• Emperor difficulty - Not really a downside given the strength of the start. Just that I'm used to King

 

[NoOneImportant]

I've played this one quite a while ago, so unfortunately I don't have the initial save, but I'm pretty sure that's the best start I've ever had with Standard resource quantity. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was a pretty good investment, especially combined with the Stone Circles pantheon!

 

[joshua43214]

Do I get to consider myself an "older member?"

I would not consider either SirPepsi or NoOneImportant's starts godly.

SirPepsi's would be about godly if it was grassland instead of plains, and if both wheat where on the river, otherwise it is an fantastic start.

NoOneImportant's start is actually average imo. It has a depressing lack of hammers and no super foods at all. It will grow nicely at first, but not get huge easily so it will struggle near the end to make anything. I would actually consider sending a hammer caravan in, but I really do like grassland quarries.

Imo, a Godly start has just that right combo of food and production. So something like hill/river/grassland with 2 wheats on the river, some salt, no calendar lux's , no more than 2 hills in the 1ring, and plenty of hill in the 3ring and some in the 2ring. The neighborhood itself should not have a ton of "filler" junk like stone because that often indicates a lack of strategic resources.

 

[NoOneImportant]

Then I suppose I just have bad luck.
And a truly godly start is Spain with a few NWs around, I think.

 

[FrostK]

I agree with Josh - this start is not bad, of course, but not perfect. Also when you see that you are on island and your cap is not near sea... it is very sad.

Today I got pretty start for Venice with 4 sea resources, mountain, river, deer and 2 salts. I thought it is perfect, but then Korea entered Renissanse at 90 turn and Industrial at 130 turn building all my science wonders.
Start in desert can also be tricky if you miss both Petra and desert forklore.

Only salt and wheat, only salt and whet are reliable. Once I had 6. Was happy.

 

[kb27787]

Dunno about you guys (you might think the inland sea sucks and your only sea trading partner would be the CS bottom right of the screen) but 15 (16 if you count the coal taken by the CS before I knew it was there) resources in the workable range for a capitol is my best record yet.
3 deer tiles, 1 wheat, 2 horses, 1 sheep, 1 gold, 1 marble, 3 whales and 3 fish (if I had known it was there before industrial, 1 coal)

 

[SirPepsi]

KB, how in the world did you work your way up to something like that? I'm awestruck.

To respond to Joshua - yes, when I found I was alone and there were only spaces for 2 additional decent cities I was disappointed, but what are you gonna do?

@Hiro, you can switch off QC and QM on the options menu ingame.

 

[Fish Man]

Dunno about you guys (you might think the inland sea sucks and your only sea trading partner would be the CS bottom right of the screen) but 15 (16 if you count the coal taken by the CS before I knew it was there) resources in the workable range for a capitol is my best record yet.
3 deer tiles, 1 wheat, 2 horses, 1 sheep, 1 gold, 1 marble, 3 whales and 3 fish (if I had known it was there before industrial, 1 coal)

That might be the best city ever, but it still doesn't beat my godly OCC as Netherlands in terms of science. Though I must admit, you're close.

Also just realized: we have exactly the same happiness.

 

[Lord Katana]

@undefeatable....
Do i count correctly that you have 13 GS plots? How the heck did you do that (considering that you probably also got to have gotten some other GP).
Please elaborate

 

[kb27787]

That might be the best city ever, but it still doesn't beat my godly OCC as Netherlands in terms of science. Though I must admit, you're close.

Also just realized: we have exactly the same happiness.

actually it does... (you probably forgot the 10% bonus from rationalism which makes 1060 + 106 = 1166 science > 1145 )
Now if only it were next to a mountain ...

and to answer the last question, these were made on a runaway game, immortal pangaea, standard. (I refused to win DV and abstained because I wanted CV) 2 GS from Hubble as well as one from International Space Station as well as three from faith purchases (and I'm not sure if CS allies gave me one or two) were all planted. (I didn't have a GE or GM born until Atomic Era ) but Korea's science can get out of hand sometimes esp. they get insane bonuses from both specialists and special tile improvements. (I wanted CV that's why I planted them so the +2 culture from WC would be added into tourism, otherwise if I had bulbed them instead... well... SV is boring as Korea anyway)

You see me building MP despite having no uranium just cuz I ran outta things to build
and if anyone was wondering, no, this is NOT "legendary start" (as you can see I spawn with the standard 3 lux copy + 1 each of other lux where as LS would give me 6 or so lux copies) and the setting was not cooked. I was simply fortunate that my peninsula's resources were all condensed into one spot thanks to terrain and CS

 

[Fish Man]

actually it does... (you probably forgot the 10% bonus from rationalism which makes 1060 + 106 = 1166 science > 1145 )
Now if only it were next to a mountain ...

and to answer the last question, these were made on a runaway game, immortal pangaea, standard. (I refused to win DV and abstained because I wanted CV) 2 GS from Hubble as well as one from International Space Station as well as three from faith purchases (and I'm not sure if CS allies gave me one or two) were all planted. (I didn't have a GE or GM born until Atomic Era ) but Korea's science can get out of hand sometimes esp. they get insane bonuses from both specialists and special tile improvements. (I wanted CV that's why I planted them so the +2 culture from WC would be added into tourism, otherwise if I had bulbed them instead... well... SV is boring as Korea anyway)

You see me building MP despite having no uranium just cuz I ran outta things to build
and if anyone was wondering, no, this is NOT "legendary start" (as you can see I spawn with the standard 3 lux copy + 1 each of other lux where as LS would give me 6 or so lux copies) and the setting was not cooked. I was simply fortunate that my peninsula's resources were all condensed into one spot thanks to terrain and CS

Keep in mind, though, that I wasn't running any specialists AT ALL and thanks to the lack of OPfood trade routes my pop is 11 lower than yours. Also, this start wasn't cooked/legendary start; I just rerolled once after a crappy jungle start. As for 13 academies, I went ahead and hogged ALL science-related wonders as well as built about 1/2 of all total wonders since I ran out of things to build. This was on prince, btw.

What difficulty was your map on? Can you by any chance post the start save? With a start like this you could've easily achieved sub-t200 SV.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

I had one just like undefeatable's, but all those grass hills were desert and I built petra. Lost the 4000 bc initial, not that it matters anymore, was back in G+K.

 

[kb27787]

Keep in mind, though, that I wasn't running any specialists AT ALL and thanks to the lack of OPfood trade routes my pop is 11 lower than yours. Also, this start wasn't cooked/legendary start; I just rerolled once after a crappy jungle start. As for 13 academies, I went ahead and hogged ALL science-related wonders as well as built about 1/2 of all total wonders since I ran out of things to build. This was on prince, btw.

What difficulty was your map on? Can you by any chance post the start save? With a start like this you could've easily achieved sub-t200 SV.

unfortunately I don't have the save... (although it's immortal Pangaea like I said... I always play Pangaea and this was from before my deity days) and I wanted CV this picture was maybe from a month or so ago? I don't remember anymore.
The original thread wasn't about science anyway (besides your city has observatory), it's about the best start you've got... (my capitol had 16 resources in the 3 workable rings, which is a record for me, so I just HAD to take the screenshot at that time)

Edit: YAY for recycle bin I don't have the starting save but I do have the winning save. I can post it and the map! Just lemme find out how.
Edit again: I've posted the save when the shot was taken and also the map (anyone interested can play the map, just reduce the number of CS to prevent CS from spawning in the way/not spawning or keep rolling until you get the position) Unfortunately I never thought of saving at turn 1. Surprisingly I didn't even finish Aesthetics maybe I was just dicking around.

 

[SirPepsi]

Thanks for the save - I might try it later in the week. To speak of wonderful starts, I'm able to win on "higher" levels, but my times are unacceptable - any way to improve this. For SV, I get NC at T60 or T70, hit Education by T110, and hit ST at 170, but I can't get to Plastics until T220 or so, and then it takes me ~100 turns to get through everything else

 

[Keirador]

I'm surprised none of these are mountain-adjacent. I wouldn't consider any start "godly" if you couldn't build an Observatory in your capital. Not to say these aren't good starts, "godly" just implies perfect to me and a perfect start enables the Observatory.

Speaking of which, this Deity game as the Maya was basically broken, not just because of the start location but because of my other city locations. FIVE cities were able to be built on freshwater, mountain adjacent (the four cities in the screenshot plus another city founded right where the cursor is). Ethiopia, which had a more powerful military than me during the entire game, threw hundreds of units to die in the choke point at Chichen Itza. Oh, and Songhai never once attempted expansion after it lost a short early war to me, which was the biggest gamebreaker, because he could have had two of those great city spots.

 

[kb27787]

Thanks for the save - I might try it later in the week. To speak of wonderful starts, I'm able to win on "higher" levels, but my times are unacceptable - any way to improve this. For SV, I get NC at T60 or T70, hit Education by T110, and hit ST at 170, but I can't get to Plastics until T220 or so, and then it takes me ~100 turns to get through everything else

hey, a win on deity is a win on deity regardless of time.
(to me it's not time that counts, but type: for standard maps DoV > CV > SV > DV) is how I see it

 

[Fish Man]

Thanks for the save - I might try it later in the week. To speak of wonderful starts, I'm able to win on "higher" levels, but my times are unacceptable - any way to improve this. For SV, I get NC at T60 or T70, hit Education by T110, and hit ST at 170, but I can't get to Plastics until T220 or so, and then it takes me ~100 turns to get through everything else

Same here! I have EXACTLY the same problem? I only get ST by late t180's and plastics t220's, and only by using Oxford+Rationalism finisher. Even if I could shave off 10 turns, how do I manage to research the rest of the tree in 40 turns?

 

[joshua43214]

Same here! I have EXACTLY the same problem? I only get ST by late t180's and plastics t220's, and only by using Oxford+Rationalism finisher. Even if I could shave off 10 turns, how do I manage to research the rest of the tree in 40 turns?

It is easiest on deity, and doable on immortal. You sign a round of RA's at the end of industrial before every one takes ideologies, and another round in modern with who ever you can, combine that with a bunch of GS's and you get a very fast win. The economy on immortal is good enough to get the RA's you just end up pretty far ahead. You will get more AI's in the same era in deity.

Just do your best to hit 1000bpt and save your GS's and bulb your way up.

 

[Buccaneer]

That assumes 1) that you have more than 2 DoF and 2) those friends have money when the rounds start.