[GS] Introduction and q about start seeds

[EcceMachina]

Hi, I'm a new member but longtime Civ addict who recently relapsed after a few years clean of Turns. My history of loving the Civilization series goes. all the way back to watching my brother play Civ 1 at the library when I was a young kid. I played up to 5 but just got 6 a few weeks ago and now that I've gotten more familiar with the mechanics I absolutely love it.

However, while I am usually the kind of player who plays a start even if i get bad land, my luck seems to. be atrocious and i've had to reroll a few starts due to having literally no resources around or spawning in an enclosed mountain ring. My computer can handle the game but it takes a looong time to load a game, so restarting is a huge chore. I don't need a absolutely pristine start, i'm wondering if theres's anywhere on this site to find/share map seeds? I tried using the search function but I got a mess.

 

[IsabelBraganca]

I usually set "balanced start" (advanced game creation). The resources are better balanced.

 

[Tuvok694]

Regarding "start positions": I must have tried every thinkable combination of game menu options but I still usually have to restart at least two or three times to get a start that looks playable. "World age" seems to have no effect at all, "legendary" start usually means lengendarily BAD, and it happens so often that I find myself on the only 3 flat green tiles between big tundra and big desert. This is so annoying.

 

[IsabelBraganca]

I like "balanced start" because usually there's horses and/or iron nearby. I usually restart my games a few times. Some civilizations like Brazil have better start than others.

 

[Tuvok694]

The mechamics for the player starting positions need to be changed. About four out of five starts are unplayable on level emperor or even higher:
- lots of desert
- lots of tundra
- very little production near the starting point (no hills)
As mentioned above in this thread, the starting options (like "balanced", "legendary" or others) seem to have almost no effect.
It's just so annoying having to start five times before I can begin a game that is not doomed to fail from turn 1.
Developers, do something about this misery, instead of implementing mostly useless gimmicks like "natural wonders picker".

 

[TCBB]

I’ve complained countless times on both here and Reddit about how poorly implemented the start biases seem to be on Civ VI.

E.G. the Inca have a Tier 3 start bias for mountains. Makes sense: they’re no fun at all if you can’t implement their nifty mountain-based strategies. Yet I literally lost count of how many re-rolls I attempted without finding any more than TWO mountains near my capital. I eventually became convinced that my game was bugged, so uninstalled it, reinstalled it – but nope. Still minimal mountains. Eventually I made my own map with the Map Editor to sort it out. Pretty desperate measure, if you ask me.

That was the worst example. But there’s also been countless times rolling as Canada or Russia with no tundra in sight, or Mali spawning in the middle of tundra, or Rome with no sources of iron at all, or Netherlands on an island devoid of rivers. It’s just not fun to play when you don’t get the opportunity to harness your Civ’s intended playstyle.

Rant over.

 

[HiRezAudio]

I’ve complained countless times on both here and Reddit about how poorly implemented the start biases seem to be on Civ VI.

E.G. the Inca have a Tier 3 start bias for mountains. Makes sense: they’re no fun at all if you can’t implement their nifty mountain-based strategies. Yet I literally lost count of how many re-rolls I attempted without finding any more than TWO mountains near my capital. I eventually became convinced that my game was bugged, so uninstalled it, reinstalled it – but nope. Still minimal mountains. Eventually I made my own map with the Map Editor to sort it out. Pretty desperate measure, if you ask me.

That was the worst example. But there’s also been countless times rolling as Canada or Russia with no tundra in sight, or Mali spawning in the middle of tundra, or Rome with no sources of iron at all, or Netherlands on an island devoid of rivers. It’s just not fun to play when you don’t get the opportunity to harness your Civ’s intended playstyle.

Rant over.

Stop using default world age & start using New instead - more mountains.

 

[comatosedragon]

One thing I have noticed (I suffer from CHRONIC re-startitis) is that if you use the menu option "Restart Game"; your chosen civ start bias WILL NOT be used. I have seen this hundreds if not thousands of times, Take Inca for example. Tier 3 Mountain bias. If you re-roll the map (as opposed to exiting to the menu and restarting), you may find yourself in solid jungle with no mountains, or any other such similar position.

I have absolutely no "proof" that it works like this, but should be easy to test. Start a game with a civ who has a strong start bias (Russia, for example). Your first start will be using his bias, and place you near tundra. If you re-roll (not exit and restart!) you will find starts in the Jungle, Desert, and other sub-optimal places. Do it like 15 or 20 times and keep notes.

Exiting out seems to be the only way to keep everyone's start-bias working correctly.

 

[TCBB]

Stop using default world age & start using New instead - more mountains.

I have over 1000 hours of Civ VI. I know how to change start settings; it still makes minimal difference, as others were commenting in reference to ‘legendary’ versus ‘balanced’ starts.

Exiting out seems to be the only way to keep everyone's start-bias working correctly.

I had never considered this. But seems like a possible explanation of the phenomenon: all it takes is one “poor” roll under your given settings, so you roll again, but this compounds the issue by wiping all your settings. Surely there must be a way to prove this?

 

[HiRezAudio]

I have over 1000 hours of Civ VI. I know how to change start settings; it still makes minimal difference, as others were commenting in reference to ‘legendary’ versus ‘balanced’ starts.

Which does indeed seem to make very little difference

I had never considered this. But seems like a possible explanation of the phenomenon: all it takes is one “poor” roll under your given settings, so you roll again, but this compounds the issue by wiping all your settings. Surely there must be a way to prove this?

Not if you restart, rather than exit to the main menu? Surely this maintains the existing settings - it seems to for me, as I often re-roll simply because I get fed up with constantly getting Tundra or Desert starts (which seems to happen much more often than not) - it really is a case of pot luck.

 

[PYITE]

Restarting doesn’t remove civs start bias. The game reloads those settings during each restart.

Balanced start only pertains to strategic resources. This definitely works well but you don’t realize it unless you play long enough to research the appropriate techs.

Hidden resources are still factored into the local fertility of a location. This is a major factor in why many starting locations look so bare turn 1. I think this should be changed because having oil and uranium near your starting location is irrelevant for so long.

New age and abundant resources are helpful in creating a higher fertility map but the maps will still leave areas way more bare than others.

If you are comfortable making minor text changes in the appropriate civilizations.Lua file then I highly recommend start bias changes based on what civ you are playing and what type of location you want. My go to start bias is plains hills and rainforest both at the highest priority of 1.
Having to many biases seems to confuse the map generator. Mali for example has tier 1 for both desert and desert hills but also has a long list of tier 5 biases for mineable resources which will many times result in a non desert start.

Also remember that your civ isn’t automatically given the first choose of location, yours might be the last to be placed so you get whatever is left.

There is a very popular mod in the workshop called cheat map editor. It lets you make in game changes to the map. You can’t change impassable tiles like mountains, volcanos and lakes but pretty much let’s you make any change you desire to terrains, features, resources and even wonders. You can enable or disable the mod for any game at anytime by making the change in the mods interface and reloading your save.

 

[Baigan]

Also remember that your civ isn’t automatically given the first choose of location, yours might be the last to be placed so you get whatever is left..

To expand on this point, the map generation script runs without regards to the civilizations playing the map. Start biases only factor in after the map is generated. The biases are used to select an applicable starting area for each civ. Also, start biases are probabilistic. Not even a tier 1 bias guarantees a start in the corresponding terrain, even if that terrain does exist on the map.

I haven't heard of a placement order, though (outside of Kupe). Are you saying that one civ is placed first, then the next, and so on? I always assumed civs were placed synchronously. I'd be interested to read a reference for that if you have one available.