Great starting location

[Doug Piranha]

I thought I'd share this, since I think it's the best start I've ever seen. Not only is there a really good spot for a capital (hint: don't settle without moving!), but the surrounding terrain is very good. Details: tiny tectonics map, 30% water, no ice, 6 AIs, Monarch difficulty, normal speed, all victories enabled, no tech trading, no vassals, aggressive AI.

Spoiler :

 

[mimic]

Shame you weren't kuriotates

 

[Merddyn]

... Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. I've had notably better before. Actually, I'd personally consider that an average start, considering you'll be starving to death without farms.

 

[Doug Piranha]

... Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

Not in the slightest. The spot where the settler is sitting is lacking in food, but moving to the west will pick up corn. And is that a unique feature sign poking out of the fog to the west ?

 

[Merddyn]

Yes, but one to the west also deprives you of two silks and the yield bonus of the gold... Not worth the trade in my book.

 

[Onionsoilder]

That... is not really that great. Severely lacking in food, as others have mentioned. Hammers are decent, but the only great thing that place has is a lot of commerce, which flatland agristocracy could match.

Once I got:

Three Pig
Two Corn
Incense
Gold
Marble
Copper

Another time:

Two Sheep
Three Marble(I settled on one of them, giving me 3 on the city tile)
Bronze
Wheat

Both of those are much better then what you have there.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Yeah.. not enough food and half your riverside farm property is hill. I'd go one north to try and get the most out of the cow and corn in your initial city and then Agriculture>Animal Handling>Crafting>Mining so you can farm the rest of the land. Looks like a fair city spot south of the main on the coast 1 east of the gems, but you'll need to expand north and northeast before that because the AI is def lurking in that darkness. Northwest and due east look like they could hold more resources.

Yeah that's a feature, but unless it's Yggdrasil I'd hold that off for city 3 or 4. I'd love to see how the map expands!

Oh, and once I got three deer in forest, wine, and pigs in my fat cross. Mushrooms spawned soon after on one of the hills and then copper was discovered later on... that was a rockin city.

 

[Worm4life]

Here's the best I've ever seen. Didn't have a screen shot from the first turn, but you can get the idea.



2 pigs, 2 cows, 1 wine, 1 silk, with another wine resource within border but outside of yield range.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

is that ErebusContinent? it's pretty common to have stuff like that, it adds resources to your starting locations if you don't have much territory all for yourself. doesn't seem to scale very well with mapsize though.

 

[Thrar]

What the original post lacked in food, this one appears to lack in hammers, though. Also the river is rather short, not good for overall commerce.
It's a pretty good GP farm, imo, but not an overall great location.

 

[Fafnir13]

Bah, he can make up for it with specialists and the ability to get out settlers fairly quickly. Those settlers can then run off and make the real production hives.
For me, I always like some floodplains at me start. Pseudo farms with a nice dash of commerce that make excellent places for towns to grow. Half flood plains, half hills is my personal ideal, but I rarely get it.

 

[zup]

I personally love Yggdrasil, in a forest. But it is not something I cannot do without. I prefer to get some high commerce resources in my capital so I can avoid cottages, which take forever to grow.

But until you see standing stones in your capital in Orbis, you have not really seen 'auto-win'.

 

[Doug Piranha]

Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Normally, using Turinturambar's Better economic AI, I am just about even with the AIs at Monarch difficulty. In this game, I've been cruising:

Spoiler Turn 124 :

Spoiler Turn 176 :

 

[Nefelia]

I would have moved the capital city one more tile to the West, but your city layout for the first two cities is pretty much what I would have done. Those who don't see it as a great start arent taking into consideration the fact that with one Gold and two Gems, you can have a great early economy with two cities, Agriculture, and Mining.