Is totally random the ultimate challenge?

[digitalprimate]

Has anyone ever set all beginning settings - land mass, land type, Earth's age, civs - to all random? I just tried it on Monarch and died long and unseemly death. By the time I had some clue as to what kind of world I inhabited, I was so far behind in tech and military that it was nearly pointless (I was on spearmen and swordsmen while the other civs seemd to have an endless supply of knights and mustketmen). I didn't get a single wonder built. Mind you I'm no expert, but I almost always win on anything Monarch level or below no matter how badly I do in the initial land grab or tech trading.

I never got a full world map while I was playing, but from what I could see afterwards it had a warm climate, very young terrain, and consisted of at least four good size islands with a bunch of smaller islands.

So...how would all of you handle this situation? For example, if you find yourself on a young world, it'll be hard to find horses and other grassland/plains resources - so do you abandon these units altogether?. Do you go for the GL or the Lighthouse?

Just wondering.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I don't think setting those settings to random has a huge impact on difficulty (unless you get a civ you really hate). I always send out some scouts (or other cheap units) to explore and find out what kind of landmass I'm on. Barbarians on random isn't much, because I learn to deal with them regardless of how many there are.

What would be really cool is if you could set the difficulty level and map size to random. You never know if you can build the first wonders or not, or how prepared the enemy is in the early stages of the game. Most strategies depend on what difficulty level your playing and the map size.

I think it would be funny to see someone like me (who only plays huge maps) to be stuck on a tiny map, or an island map (when I only play on pangea maps). Same goes for someone who plays small maps, and gets put on a Huge map.

 

[BillChin]

My starting conditions are usually: random map type, standard size map, random barbs, emperor difficulty. Rarely do I decide what temperature or what age my particular map is. It does not really make much difference once the game is started. I play out every game start. I like the variety and uncertainty.

Large and huge maps tend to be easier to win, though more time consuming. After map size, starting terrain and early neighbors make a huge difference, as much as the difficulty level.

A player can get more intelligent feedback when they play a common game such as the Game of the Month. Isolation games are hard to analyze without someone else playing through the same start, and no one has time to do that for a huge map. With GOTM, a player can see how 50+ other players handled the same start, and the same challenges.

The March GOTM is Monarch difficulty, Americans on a small map. Only a handful of players have a shot at a high score, for most players it is for fun only. Virtually everyone who participates learns something. The GOTM gets me to play games on different starting conditions than I might choose myself and I learn a lot in the process.

I encourage everyone to participate, whether they believe they are good enough to have a chance at a top score, or they are a novice just learning the game. There is no downside.

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ3gotm/civ3gotm05.shtml