How Often Do You Restart Your Game Because of Starting Position?

[Sarisin]

OK, I know the choices here are a bit subjective, but I think you get the idea.

I think I am really getting to be a purist when I play FFH now. I figure if I am going to spend hours playing a game I want to get off to a good start. And, IMO, the most important start involves the terrain for your first city.

For example, I am looking usually for the following:

1. Two or more resources within the first expansion limits of the city.
2. Built on a river (mostly for connecting to other cities, especially the second one and building the Brewery.
3. Defensible because I usually play with raging barbs.
4. A good mix of flood plains, forest, hills etc.
5. A resource that will help me get the priests, etc. for my religions like incense, gems, reagents.

If I can get 3 of these, I am usually happy and will play that starting position. However, if not, time to go back to the Main Menu and try again.

What about you?

 

[Sarisin]

Just noticed my 1-25% choice didn't appear on the poll. I'm not sure why and I don't know how to edit the poll. Sorry.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Just noticed my 1-25% choice didn't appear on the poll. I'm not sure why and I don't know how to edit the poll. Sorry.

And that would be my choice.

 

[snarko]

And that would be my choice.

Mine too. The only times I've restarted recently was playing highlands. I had mountains in my city range blocking me from reaching the other side. In one of them I had no plots in my city range that weren't one of the following three: lake, peak (4 of them) or forested (can't do much 'til bronze working. No chance for early farms). The only direction I could move was east. As far as I could see eastwards there were nothing but tundra and peaks.

It seems to me that highlands produce very unfair starting positions. I've had several like the one above, and then every once in a while I get a really good one. Like the one with two clam, three gems, sugar or some other such (forested) luxury, two floodplains and ivory. Plus a river. Ofcourse that was just too good to be true, so the game decided I should have three barrows/ruins nearby and I was killed before I could build my first warrior

 

[onedreamer]

For me it only depends on the map. In Highlands I restart seldom-often, especially if I have a starting location relying on 2-3 seafood (not uncommon) with the Sailor Dirge standing next to them from turn 1. On Balanced, Pangea or Inland Sea (the other map kinds I play) I will probably never restart. Any start there is manageable.

 

[Thennorin]

1-25% is my range, too. I don't look for perfect starts (though I'll take them if I get them!) but a crippling start ruins the opening game for me, so I restart. Given that civ is a game of cumulative economics (meaning a lousy location for your 1st city is far worse than a bad spot for, say, your 5th city), where's the fun in knowing you'll be far behind right from turn 1?

Game over, man, game over!

 

[much2much]

Until I have two gold in my starting location in multiplayer.

 

[Love]

Sometimes if i have desert all the way around me or a small island or something...

 

[woodelf]

There.

1-25% now an option.

 

[Love]

Aww, too late for me...

 

[woodelf]

Since I do a lot of playtesting I had to select Seldom, but it depends on what I'm testing.

 

[Black Whole]

I restart 25-50% of my games because I start in or near the jungle every second game! In the beginning it really cripples my economy because I can't hook up most jungle resources.

 

[Ringtailed]

The only time I restart is when my starting location is really bad. Example: playing highlands, and the game plops me down in the middle of the ice and tundra. Or, one time (I forget what map type), there was an odd configuration of mountains and water around my starting settler such that my warrior started a 12-turn walk away from my settler, there were about 3 workable land tiles in my initial location, and it would have taken 10+ turns to walk to a better location. I wish I had taken a screenshot from that game >_<

 

[Dark Russell]

The only time I'll restart is if I am in the deep arctic (I play on huge maps) or if I don't like the look of the terrain around me. I can deal with lack of resources as long as the map I am playing on (mostly around me) "looks" interesting.

 

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

I play on crowded maps, and I will rarely restart if I'm trapped in ice and tundra (<<25&#37; of all plays). At least jungle will be useful by early-mid game with sanitation; tundra and ice are not useable without High Priests of Leaves or Druids, either of which might not be an option. (I RP the civs, at least in as much as I won't adopt an inappropriate religion for units.)

 

[White Elk]

Some (1-25&#37. I would call that Seldom though. I do sometimes like the challenge of a bad start and I get my fair share of them. So I most often play the Prince difficulty. But some starts are just ridiculous. The Jungle starts being the worst. Having to beeline to Sanitation without any commerce is not a fun position to be in.

 

[BeefontheBone]

Jungle's less of a problem now that you can frequently burn it down by provoking Acheron or teching up to fireballs some time before you get sanitation.

Pretty much the only things that make me reroll are loads of desert with no hills near the floodplains and that thing where you get stuck in the tundra with a mapscript-adjusted BFC and no other city locations nearby. Always feel sorry for the AI on that one too. Oh, and teeny weeny islands.

 

[TheBladeRoden]

Only if it were impossible to move and impossible for anyone to put me out of my misery.

 

[Caradoc]

I said this somewhere else, but I like to 'preview' maps and just save the ones that look promising (about 50&#37; with Smartmap). When I want to play, I load one at random and by then I will have forgotten anything I might have seen before. I don't so much mind restarts as having to abandon a map after playing it for an hour.

 

[beorn]

I just find it depressing to play stuck in the middle of the tundra, so I restart instantly when that happens.

Once in a while, I begin more or less on top of another civ, and I avoid that.

otherwise, I just play it.