Mountains

[Rob Airdrie]

Hi everyone. I'm trying to pay a game as Pachacuti from Maya to Inca but though I can get a few mountains on the start very few with rough terrain adjacent and extremely rare to get mountain ranges - especially nice long ones like I used to get in Civ VI. Does anybody have recommendations for map settings to help get them? Thanks

 

[evonannoredars]

I played a Pachacuti mountain-themed game pretty recently and yeah, took a lot of restarts to spawn near a big mountain range. I feel like continent map types tend to have more mountain ranges than fractal. I don't think there currently are any antiquity civs with a mountain start bias either, which would help with getting mountains.

That being said, there usually are some mountain ranges somewhere - you might just have to expand/conquer further away from where you start to later make use of them. Rough adjacent to mountains is annoyingly tricky to find even with Pachacuti.

 

[chazzycat]

Yeah I am finding Inca to be pretty underwhelming mostly due to the maps not co-operating. Even if you do get enough mountains, it doesn't seem very common to have rough terrain with no resources adjacent.

Seems like part of the issue is due to the fact that we have zero antiquity civs with mountain start bias.

 

[Rob Airdrie]

Thank you both

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Civ VII has the same Start Bias = No Bias problem that both Civ V and Civ VI had, made worse by the fact that the game seems to only consider the Leader's Start Bias, not the Civ's.

That means a great many starts will be in Tundra, because that seems to be the Bias for every European Leader, including Charlemagne, Napoleon, Machiavelli, Catherine (the only one completely appropriate) and Ada. In fact, the only way I've found to consistently get a tropical/semi-tropical start appropriate if playing Maurya or Khmer is to play as Trung Trac. As in the previous two Civs, I find myself restarting on average of 3 - 7 times to get what I consider an appropriate starting terrain for the Leader- Civ combination I'm trying to play.

Not to say you cannot play a perfectly enjoyable game with Egypt or Greece in the Tundra, but I personally cannot stand it and have been putting up with the same start bias problem for over 10 years now.

Until they allow us to pick the terrain or at least the terrain bias ('Tropical', 'Desert', 'Tundra', etc) for our maps I nsuspect I will siply continue to waste a lot of time restarting before every game . . .

 

[sixty4half]

I get some pretty crazy mountain ranges about one-out-of-four games. I've played Inca once and that was a pretty mild mountain range compared to some I've gotten. It only had space for 3 or 4 Terrace Farms.

You'll find some amazing mountains soon. Just keep looking for them.

 

[Kwami]

Civ VII has the same Start Bias = No Bias problem that both Civ V and Civ VI had, made worse by the fact that the game seems to only consider the Leader's Start Bias, not the Civ's.

I don't think that's right.

That means a great many starts will be in Tundra, because that seems to be the Bias for every European Leader, including Charlemagne, Napoleon, Machiavelli, Catherine (the only one completely appropriate) and Ada.

This certainly isn't right. Charlemagne has a river bias, the two Napoleons have no bias, Machiavelli has no bias, and Ada has no bias.

The reason that you see starts in tundra is usually because someone else has a bias for tropical or desert and the game is trying to give everyone some room to expand.

 

[MutilationWave]

Civ VII has the same Start Bias = No Bias problem that both Civ V and Civ VI had, made worse by the fact that the game seems to only consider the Leader's Start Bias, not the Civ's.

That means a great many starts will be in Tundra, because that seems to be the Bias for every European Leader, including Charlemagne, Napoleon, Machiavelli, Catherine (the only one completely appropriate) and Ada. In fact, the only way I've found to consistently get a tropical/semi-tropical start appropriate if playing Maurya or Khmer is to play as Trung Trac. As in the previous two Civs, I find myself restarting on average of 3 - 7 times to get what I consider an appropriate starting terrain for the Leader- Civ combination I'm trying to play.

Not to say you cannot play a perfectly enjoyable game with Egypt or Greece in the Tundra, but I personally cannot stand it and have been putting up with the same start bias problem for over 10 years now.

Until they allow us to pick the terrain or at least the terrain bias ('Tropical', 'Desert', 'Tundra', etc) for our maps I nsuspect I will siply continue to waste a lot of time restarting before every game . . .

I agree there is a problem with start bias for sure, but I think it's fun to try to make it work. I've done one immortal and two deity games so far, no rerolling starts personal rule. They've all been complete blowout victories. Last one was really tight in exploration though, I was trying the all city strategy.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I don't think that's right.

This certainly isn't right. Charlemagne has a river bias, the two Napoleons have no bias, Machiavelli has no bias, and Ada has no bias.

The reason that you see starts in tundra is usually because someone else has a bias for tropical or desert and the game is trying to give everyone some room to expand.

I can only say that what the game says the bias is has not been my personal experience with over 100 Antiquity starts. Furhermore, even when I select the specific opponents to avoid the 'other jungle bias' situation, at least 7 out of 10 starts will be either in or within 4 tiles of Tundra in the initial start . It is only after restarting 1 or more times that rthe game begins to give me starting positions that make any sense with the Civ or Leader's other bonuses and benefits.

And, as posted, this complete lack of a start that matches the programmed Civ has been present since at least Civ V. I have much less than Fond Memories of restarting 3 - 10 times or more to get any desert tiles in my Nubia or Morocco starting position, or even a coastal position for Norway or England: the Civs almost never matched the start bias, with the exception of Russia in Civ VI, which almost always started on or near Tundra. If I were paranoid, I would consider the possibility that the Russia bias from Civ VI has been programmed into Civ VII somehow, but that train of Conspiratorial Thought process only works if I wear my tinfoil hat . . .

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I get some pretty crazy mountain ranges about one-out-of-four games. I've played Inca once and that was a pretty mild mountain range compared to some I've gotten. It only had space for 3 or 4 Terrace Farms.

You'll find some amazing mountains soon. Just keep looking for them.

Ih my latest game, Pachacuti was one of my opponents, and he started (as Mayans) in a beautiful Great Valley surrounded on three sides by mountains, with room for about two fat cities and a very narrow (3 tiles) passage to it. He played an isolationist game for most of Antiquity, and now in Exploration has broken out to settle a bunch of islands, because his start was about one cit-site from the coast. I may save the map seed and see if I can get that starting position, because it was made for Pachacuti/Inca play.

 

[queenpea]

Ih my latest game, Pachacuti was one of my opponents, and he started (as Mayans) in a beautiful Great Valley surrounded on three sides by mountains, with room for about two fat cities and a very narrow (3 tiles) passage to it. He played an isolationist game for most of Antiquity, and now in Exploration has broken out to settle a bunch of islands, because his start was about one cit-site from the coast. I may save the map seed and see if I can get that starting position, because it was made for Pachacuti/Inca play.

I haven't played Pachacuti yet, though I have played as Inca and was really underwhelmed/disappointed by the difficulty in finding appropriate sites for the terrace farm unique improvement. For me, what really saved Inca, strangely enough, was the unique scout unit. I wasn't expecting it to be as powerful as it is, but the sight that you receive on it makes it an actually incredibly useful unit for scouting. Once embarked, it's basically the most powerful "naval" unit in the game for exploring distant lands.

 

[Kwami]

I haven't played Pachacuti yet, though I have played as Inca and was really underwhelmed/disappointed by the difficulty in finding appropriate sites for the terrace farm unique improvement.

Terrace farms, like most unique improvements, work best in towns. You're less likely to have developed the tiles next to the mountains in towns. In my only Inca game so far, I was able to get 1-4 terrace farms in each of my homeland towns.

 

[queenpea]

Terrace farms, like most unique improvements, work best in towns. You're less likely to have developed the tiles next to the mountains in towns. In my only Inca game so far, I was able to get 1-4 terrace farms in each of my homeland towns.

Yeah, I’ve just found in my games that many tiles next to mountains are either vegetated or rough, or resources, so incompatible with farm improvements.

 

[UWHabs]

Terrace farms, like most unique improvements, work best in towns. You're less likely to have developed the tiles next to the mountains in towns. In my only Inca game so far, I was able to get 1-4 terrace farms in each of my homeland towns.

The big problem with Pachacuti/Inca is that the terrace farm is contradictory to what you want with Pachacuti. There's not enough rough tiles next to mountains, and once you have maybe 2 mountain tiles next to a Rough tile, you're probably better to put a building down there anyways once you factor in specialist yields. If they fixed the map script so that next to a mountain tile it was like a 75% chance to be a rough tile, the terrace farms would be a lot more valuable. In a game I played before, one of the only rough tiles next to mountain had 5 mountains around it, so while the terrace farm yield would have been useful, 2 buildings plus adjacency plus specialists are just way more valuable.

IMO, it works a lot better for Inca to reduce the yields of Terrace farms (give them like +2 or +3 instead of the like +6), but have them buildable on mountain tiles, not next to them.

 

[Rob Airdrie]

Ih my latest game, Pachacuti was one of my opponents, and he started (as Mayans) in a beautiful Great Valley surrounded on three sides by mountains, with room for about two fat cities and a very narrow (3 tiles) passage to it. He played an isolationist game for most of Antiquity, and now in Exploration has broken out to settle a bunch of islands, because his start was about one cit-site from the coast. I may save the map seed and see if I can get that starting position, because it was made for Pachacuti/Inca play.

Wow! Please share if you do!!

 

[Rob Airdrie]

I get some pretty crazy mountain ranges about one-out-of-four games. I've played Inca once and that was a pretty mild mountain range compared to some I've gotten. It only had space for 3 or 4 Terrace Farms.

You'll find some amazing mountains soon. Just keep looking for them.

Yes thank goodness for the restart button!! Spent a while on it yesterday restarting for a long time. Got one or two with semi decent ranges. I also got one with mt everest - had anyone else noticed that when you find everest it shows you all the other mountains on the map?

 

[Menocchio]

The big problem with Pachacuti/Inca is that the terrace farm is contradictory to what you want with Pachacuti. There's not enough rough tiles next to mountains, and once you have maybe 2 mountain tiles next to a Rough tile, you're probably better to put a building down there anyways once you factor in specialist yields. If they fixed the map script so that next to a mountain tile it was like a 75% chance to be a rough tile, the terrace farms would be a lot more valuable. In a game I played before, one of the only rough tiles next to mountain had 5 mountains around it, so while the terrace farm yield would have been useful, 2 buildings plus adjacency plus specialists are just way more valuable.

IMO, it works a lot better for Inca to reduce the yields of Terrace farms (give them like +2 or +3 instead of the like +6), but have them buildable on mountain tiles, not next to them.

With Pachacuti and Inca (in the two games I played anyway) I didn't really find much of an issue mixing districts and terrace farms, but perhaps I was lucky in getting nice mountain ranges. You don't need to put all of your districts next to mountains—just the ones you want to build up first with specialists. By the time you get to Modern and really fill up your specialist slots their maintenance costs will be a non-issue with the policy cards and such. Certain buildings, also, you really want to get adjacencies for regardless of whether you can put them next to a mountain: production is such a rare specialist yield that I'll stick my production adjacency buildings where they get the highest possible boost, whereas science and culture are relatively less important in terms of specialists, since you automatically get a minimum of +2 on both for any specialist anywhere. Also, because of Pachacuti's bonuses, sometimes I completely skip on the happiness building tree after Antiquity besides an obligatory temple in the city center.

 

[Kwami]

The big problem with Pachacuti/Inca is that the terrace farm is contradictory to what you want with Pachacuti. There's not enough rough tiles next to mountains, and once you have maybe 2 mountain tiles next to a Rough tile, you're probably better to put a building down there anyways once you factor in specialist yields. If they fixed the map script so that next to a mountain tile it was like a 75% chance to be a rough tile, the terrace farms would be a lot more valuable. In a game I played before, one of the only rough tiles next to mountain had 5 mountains around it, so while the terrace farm yield would have been useful, 2 buildings plus adjacency plus specialists are just way more valuable.

IMO, it works a lot better for Inca to reduce the yields of Terrace farms (give them like +2 or +3 instead of the like +6), but have them buildable on mountain tiles, not next to them.

Again, terrace farms work better in towns because you're less likely to build on those tiles. You can't put specialists in towns.

 

[Sagax]

Yeah, I’ve just found in my games that many tiles next to mountains are either vegetated or rough, or resources, so incompatible with farm improvements.

You DO need rough tiles next to mountains for Terrace Farms, that’s their placement requirement. Reminder, this is a unique improvement, which means it goes on top of whatever basic improvement you built (without resources). So you indeed end up slapping Terrace Farms on top of Mines.

 

[queenpea]

You DO need rough tiles next to mountains for Terrace Farms, that’s their placement requirement. Reminder, this is a unique improvement, which means it goes on top of whatever basic improvement you built (without resources). So you indeed end up slapping Terrace Farms on top of Mines.

Oh right, I forgot. In any case, I’ve found it hard to find a lot of tiles for placing terrace farms.