Overcoming bad starts.

[CrimsonEdge]

Other than rerolling, how do you guys cope with a bad start? Talking about things like desert around a coastal city with two spices or a tundra start with two deer and a fur?

I can't figure this one out tbh .

 

[HappyBuilder]

Other than rerolling, how do you guys cope with a bad start? Talking about things like desert around a coastal city with two spices or a tundra start with two deer and a fur?

I can't figure this one out tbh .

You play to the strengths given you. You're probably not going to be building a lot of wonders in that capital city, so the 2nd city is going to be very important. Or you're going to have to cast your eyes to your neighbor.

Maybe you won't overcome it. I started a game with a pretty bad situation yesterday and I'm probably going to lose in the end. That said, I'm impressed by how far out of the hole I've dug myself. I was trapped on a peninsula with virtually no production and China had me sealed off with their capital city - a super city with 2 sources of silver, 2 stone, 2 cattle, 1 horse, and 1 marble. To compound my trouble, they built the Great Wall. But they screwed up and tried to jam a city in between us, a city I could take, and that let me swing momentum against them and surround Beijing. First game where I've used a culture bomb as an offensive weapon too, so it has its quirks.

Just have fun! And if you lose, you get to see some Leader sayings you wouldn't normally see. I'm kind of curious to see what Herbert Hoover or Dan Quayle says at game's end.

HB

 

[chazzycat]

there usually seems to be some kind of compensation on the map for a "bad" start. Keep exploring a bit before you give up. for example if you have no river or coast, it's quite likely there is a big cluster of luxuries around somewhere. The map scripts usually give you something to take advantage of.

If your capital site does in fact suck, you either want to found your 2nd city ASAP and keep expanding (use liberty) or build up an army to to take someone else's land (honor). So you want to avoid tradition, and pick between the other two paths based on the map, your civ, and your opponents.

 

[Kerosene31]

Honestly if I see a lot of desert and/or tundra I'm re-rolling. You can explore around a bit and see if you have better options around and get a 2nd city going asap with liberty as was said.

It might just be me, but it seems bad starts are more difficult to overcome than Civ 4. If I'm only going to build 3-4 cities and one of them is in a bad location... I just re-roll.

 

[galahadba]

Bad or not soo good starts are what make the game fun for me... try to compensate the bad luck and yet win the game is the chalenge... the very good start normally gives you advantages that sometimes even overcome the computer bonus from level (not counting deity of course)

 

[Becomedeath]

If my starting location really sucks, I'll just reroll.

If it only moderately sucks, I'll explore a little and go back to the 4000BC autosave to relocate.

If it only lightly sucks, I'll move to a more preferable tile and found there.


Games can turn around from even the most dire beginings. You just have to adapt to the situation.

And if nothing else, it's only a game. So you're not really killing hundreds of thousands of people if you just restart....lets hope we're not living in someones Civ game right now!!

 

[CrimsonEdge]

Don't get me wrong, I've been rolling with the punches. My problem tends to be that I'm heavily capital centric (this is why I love Rome) and a bad start tends to put a diddle in my next few cities.

I'm also finding out I need to expand more and earlier. Since I have these really bad starts and don't have an uber-capital to amass a quick army with, I need to focus on the land grab game.

 

[galahadba]

Don't get me wrong, I've been rolling with the punches. My problem tends to be that I'm heavily capital centric (this is why I love Rome) and a bad start tends to put a diddle in my next few cities.

I'm also finding out I need to expand more and earlier. Since I have these really bad starts and don't have an uber-capital to amass a quick army with, I need to focus on the land grab game.

That's what i like on bad starts, normally when i start a game i have some ideias of what i want to achieve in the game, normally something that does not involve wars (early hush was always the weak point of civ AI)... ...then if i get a very bad start, or some especific start (like no prodution, but good gold, etc) i have to change everything i got in mind... very bad terrain with lack of resources is what begun many of the real world wars, and is what normally begun wars in my games

 

[ShahJahanII]

A start that bad seems impossible.
What climate settings do you use?

 

[CrimsonEdge]

A start that bad seems impossible.
What climate settings do you use?

Whatever the default is.

I set everything to the defaults except for the difficulty.

 

[ShahJahanII]

Whatever the default is.

I set everything to the defaults except for the difficulty.

Well that really is bad luck then.
Oh well, you could always reroll.

 

[headcase]

Best hope is to focus on dom, and hope you can invade better land... which would take a while with a bad start.

 

[pspboy7]

Brings to mind why I miss the ability to move the palace like in other Civ games. I sure do miss that ability. The capital should always be your best city IMO, but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way.

 

[Civciv5]

If my starting position is bad I move my settler to search for a better location,if that does not work I just restart the game.

 

[Camikaze]

Whenever I start off with a poor capital location, I try to take someone else's! Of course, it's going to be highly situation dependent, but that would seem to me to be the obvious way out of the problem. There is a fairly large requirement for good land, so you can't, for instance, culture your way out of the situation.

 

[qemist]

My latest capital start was flat coastal tundra. I'm now well on the way to supremacy. I think Emp is getting too easy for me.

 

[comatosedragon]

Whenever I start off with a poor capital location, I try to take someone else's! Of course, it's going to be highly situation dependent, but that would seem to me to be the obvious way out of the problem. There is a fairly large requirement for good land, so you can't, for instance, culture your way out of the situation.

I agree with this 100%.
Also, one of my favorite things to do is a terrible start is pump out 2 or maybe even 3 scouts as fast as possible (even to the point of letting the Capital stagnate if it saves a turn or two). I have found that when given a bad start, many many times there is a utopia just around the corner. Plus with the extra scouts you are more likely to pop some culture from a hut, and a free settler is only two policies away. Plant that second city (in last nights game it was a riverside hill with 2 hill gems, two grassland cows (one riverside) two sugar and one stone. Come to find out, there was also horses AND iron within the radius) and run from there. Sure, you will be off to a slow start, but that second (and subsequent) cities could very well make up for it in the long run. Unless you are playing Deity. Or a OCC. Or both.