How do you deal with low production starts?

Adder

Chieftain
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Nov 22, 2005
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Really, I just had a game where I started coastal with some flood plains a single hill and 1 forest. The rest of the tiles where either jungle or grassland and 2 plains.
I had 0 production resources nearby having only dyes and a whale. Needless to say production never really took off.

What do you do when you receive such a start? should I have wandered with my settler for something better? Focus on engineers to settle those for some extra production?
 
Liberty settler and expand, use the finisher GE for national college. Then farm farm farm and grow grow grow. No world wonder for you though. Maybe an late wonder if you get the tech lead.
 
Civ is a broken, luck-based game where they aren't meaningful trade-offs when it comes to land. The guy with Salt or stone or whatever will have a significant advantage over you. It's the biggest flaw in the game. Like, you have no realistic strategic advantage when you start with no production and tons of jungle. Someone with a grassland river spamming farms in 6 turns instead of 13 will out-produce your science with his eyes closed and he has access to cows, horses, stone, etc.

Do you go Liberty and hope to get Pyramids? Yeah, sure, go for it. It's that or nothing. Still, will you ever beat someone else to Pyramids? Basically no. So yeah, have fun with that. You rolled a 1 and now your game is going to suck. Have fun with that.
 
:lol: before you re-roll... try wandering a bit.. (don't wander "around", just go in one direction)...
Usually the AI has much better lands and maybe you can grab some :p but make sure to settle in in such a way the city is hard to take.

But if you MUST settle in place on the first turn (if somehow it helps you sleep at night) beeline mining, steal workers and use forest chop to get your first settler out... (at this point, give up on your capitol producing anything and just grow it) then hopefully your 2nd city might have better production.
 
:lol: before you re-roll... try wandering a bit.. (don't wander "around", just go in one direction)...
Usually the AI has much better lands and maybe you can grab some :p but make sure to settle in in such a way the city is hard to take.

But if you MUST settle in place on the first turn (if somehow it helps you sleep at night) beeline mining, steal workers and use forest chop to get your first settler out... (at this point, give up on your capitol producing anything and just grow it) then hopefully your 2nd city might have better production.

Except when it's jungle and you need Bronze Working and Calendar just so you can improve that dumb Citrus so that you can actually expand so you spend 13 turns or whatever improving it and then have to wait another 13 just to improve a mine which takes 4 turns to walk to. Did I mention that it's already turn 60?

Yeah, jungle starts are just SO MUCH FUN. It's like the dumbest thing in the world to get stuck in a jungle. You're drawing stone dead against a competent group of opponents.
 
Except when it's jungle and you need Bronze Working and Calendar just so you can improve that dumb Citrus so that you can actually expand so you spend 13 turns or whatever improving it and then have to wait another 13 just to improve a mine which takes 4 turns to walk to. Did I mention that it's already turn 60?

Yeah, jungle starts are just SO MUCH FUN. It's like the dumbest thing in the world to get stuck in a jungle. You're drawing stone dead against a competent group of opponents.

I have to agree :lol: (well he did say he had forest but...)
Jungles are great tiles for satellite cities, but being forced to settler your initial capitol there is just gg (for your opponents), maybe the devs can come up with something to remedy this in the fall patch... (like code jungle starts such as they almost always have naked hills) for this reason though Brazil AI sucks at the moment in most games :lol: you see him want to go for wonders... and then you realize he doesn't have a single mine, esp. hilarious when he spawns coastal.
 
Really, I just had a game where I started coastal with some flood plains a single hill and 1 forest. The rest of the tiles where either jungle or grassland and 2 plains.
I had 0 production resources nearby having only dyes and a whale. Needless to say production never really took off.

What do you do when you receive such a start? should I have wandered with my settler for something better? Focus on engineers to settle those for some extra production?

Flood plains, single hill, coastal, forest. Sounds Ok, actually. It's not like you'll be working more than 1 mine before turn 100 anyway. Hammer cargo ships can help with initial production, then you'll probably find horses/iron/coal/aluminium/oil/uranium. Not to mention workshop, ironwork and other minor enhancing buildings. Gradually, you'll be alright. Not as fast, but since you're coastal, you have lots of options.

Some starts require a little more thinking than others.

(like code jungle starts such as they almost always have naked hills)

35 hammers for chopping one ;)
 
Of course there is a way to play jungle, just no one likes doing it.
 
I'm quite sure the game is designed to have a heavy random element to it for flavor reasons. In the real world, Civs flourish in grassy riversides, not deep in the jungle. Religion, too, seems to be designed this way with early-game faith being heavily influenced by natural wonders and pantheons.

You either find enjoyment in dealing with the start you are given, or you re-roll until you get your perfect desert, river, mountain, coastal next to Barrier Reef with Spain start.

If I were to start with very low production and want to stick it out, I'd go with Liberty and hit up workshops before universities. Once you hit mid-game with Secularism, you can work engineer slots for the 2hammer/2science.
 
....In the real world, Civs flourish in grassy riversides, not deep in the jungle. ....

You mean like the Olmec and Maya civilizations in mesoamerica?

Perhaps if the Civ designers did a close study of those 2 civs, they'd be able to fix jungle starts.:mischief:
 
You mean like the Olmec and Maya civilizations in mesoamerica?

Olmec and Maya did an impressive job improving their jungle, but they still fell an age behind the tech leaders and got wiped out.
 
So when can we expect them fixing the bug where when you chop a jungle tile you would not get any production bonus?

I actually think it should give the same amount as chopping a forest, but take 50% longer (not 200% or whatever it is currently without even giving anything).

I'd also accept a dev coming here and posting one good reason why not.
 
I agree on that. I was totally confused when I chopped a jungle and got no production. Timber is timber, and whilst i don't have figures I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of worlds timber production now came from rainforests rather then forests. Taking a bit more time to chop would be fair, but they should provide production (and it should be near or on par with forest chop production).

And to be honest, I think that would fix much of the problems with Jungle. I really like them to be honest and can be some of the best tiles end game but the do stunt too much early. The production bonus from chopping would give them better starts, but at the same time you lose the jungle, so you lose the late game benefit. It means you have to make a decision, and having to make choices is good.

However, as Dave quite aptly put, even those that adapted best well well behind on tech and then wiped out. It was a disadvantage
 
I build some lumbermill if there are at least forests. If there are no hill, no forests, tough luck, I move a bit to see if there is something to save the day.... If not, I go liberty and feed a secondary city to make it a good production city.
 
Olmec and Maya did an impressive job improving their jungle, but they still fell an age behind the tech leaders and got wiped out.

Climate change (drought) seems to have destroyed the Maya civilization. Someone else had already built Petra, I guess. :)
 
Go liberty for that early production bonus. And when you finish the tree you get to choose a free GP, pick an enginer and have him construct a manufactory. Tech to metal casting to start building workshops. Your free settler should already have founded a city in a place with good production by now and once your workshops are done he can send some hammers to the capital.

Starting in the jungle is tough, and so it should be. But there is a lot of benefits once you get your university and when you can start building trading posts. If you get to pick a pantheon, pick Scared path, +1 culture per worked jungle tile. Build trading posts where ever you can in the jungle and make sure to choose Rationalism asap to get down to Free thought to get +1 science from every trading post.

So with Sacred path, a university and Free thought SP every worked jungle tile will provide food, science, culture and gold. How much of each depends on what else you have researched. But I have had a couple of jungle starts where I have gone from lagging behind in to turning out to be a power house later on.
 
Playing as the Mayan must be rather powerful if you end up in a jungle. Since with a jungle start you dont have to worry about food you can focus on first building the really important stuff to eventually get a lead

So research Pottery - Writing - Calender - Mining - Masonry (get your free worker from liberty) - Calender - Philisophy - Drama and Poetry - Theology (get your free GP and pick an engineer for a manufactory)

And build Monument - Pyramid (UB)- Library - Pyramids (wonder, that extra improvement speed and those extra workers could have a big difference in the jungle) - NC

Pick sacred path as pantheon.

Should be possible to do, and the pyramids is something I usually can get even if the production is slow at first. A free GP from finishing the liberty tree will also provide an extra GE for another manufatory or a wonder or perhaps a science academy).

It is easy to turtle up in the jungle as well, if not Monty is sharing jungle with you.

I will try this after work today. :)
 
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