Pick the worst start

[Qactus]

I sometimes ask Mapfinder to look for especially bad starts.
The mapfinder rules in this case were
- no river
- max 1 food resource
Sometimes they're not as bad as they seem initially, but I found that when I played around with multiple starts to identify the truly worst, I have less incentive to stick to it. That's why I'd like to commit to only one before opening the save.

Which of these five would you say is the hardest start for Peter (Phi/Exp, Hunting/Mining) on Standard/Normal/Imm/IceAge/NHNE? To keep me from wandering too far, I usually commit to settling on a tile visible in the starting screenshot.

Spoiler Screens :

I think 1 and 3 are out because green sheep is a strong food tile and for No3 settling on the marble hill and going fishing-BW should be quite strong, especially with the oasis.

 

[sampsa]

All have a plains hill to settle on, so I'd keep looking.

 

[Qactus]

Ok, sure but I wasn't looking for the absolute worst, just the worst of the roll. No 2 has the oasis, No 4 should have seafood and relatively decent unimproved tiles, No 5 has offshore land (which could offer an economic lifeline with GLH)

 

[sampsa]

4. Hope the only -res is seafood.

 

[sampsa]

Peter is such a great leader for -poor starts though. Can't get horribly plainscowed because you start with hunting. Can also go straight to BW and start chopping, plus the scout is great at finding a good 2nd spot. EXP guarantees the start is not super slow.

 

[Qactus]

Good points. Thinking about it, I very much prefer a strong leader making the most of a tough map than a weak leader with bad starting techs standing in the way of an otherwise good start.

 

[6K Man]

Based on what I can see or infer, 4 is the worst. Your worker has nothing to do until Bronze Working, and Bronze Working first means no food for ages (unless there's some livestock or grain hidden in the dark).

So Worker first is problematic, and you can't build a Workboat without Fishing... so what, you pump settlers out at size 1? Yuck.

 

[sampsa]

so what, you pump settlers out at size 1? Yuck.

It's not that bad really with EXP and extra city center. Maybe worker-worker even and just chop.

 

[Qactus]

It turned out to be not that bad, but quite weird/unusual. Not that bad in the sense that there was a sheep where I had suspected coast. Went AH-BW and had ~5 idle worker turns before chopping (after a PH mine). Great second city spot with fish&copper, but awkward foodless spots in the vicinity apart from that. Sitting Bull as a neighbour with lots of Dog Soldiers, so decided against an Axe rush. Chariots might have worked, or HAs. Settled along the coast and built GLH, found Marble just when I had Maths and wanted to tech Construction, so did Aest-Lit instead which is just in at 1AD with 9 cities. AI appear to be quite slow as well (no Alpha yet, though Louis has Currency)

Spoiler :

 

[Fippy]

5 if you only have the cow.
Moving on the PH results in a terrible city, researching AH gives only 1 improved tile and delays BW.

 

[NothingBesideRemains]

The problem with searching for bad starts as you have been, is the chance that good tiles are within your fat cross but in fog of war. Since there is a bottom threshold of acceptable starts (which the map file will cheat to give you if not present).

So for example, your screenshot 4 is guaranteed to have a food resource in the fog of war.

To find a bad start, you would need to see the full fat cross, and also have something to check for presence of 'bad' food so you know it accounts for the minimum threshold.

For a non-ag non-fishing leader that has hunting, I would suggest to search for 2 clams or 1 dry rice as the worst starting food. For leaders without hunting or ag, 2 clams or plains cow is probably the worst.

 

[6K Man]

For leaders without hunting or ag, 2 clams or plains cow is probably the worst.

2 Crab (instead of Clam) would be worse news, suggesting you are near a pole and likely stuck with Tundra outside the BFC?

 

[Qactus]

This is a good idea, to look for specific sub-par resources that may have been added by the start normalizer

 

[Qactus]

I rolled another set of maps the other night, following the suggestion to explicitly look for (visible) seafood-only starts.
The mapfinder rules were
- no river
- (max 2 food resources AND min 2 fishing resources) OR (max 1 food resource AND min 1 fishing resource)

1200 maps were rolled and resulted in only three saves. Two of them don't look too bad at all, but the third, oh boy...

Spoiler :

Obviously No.3 is the one to choose for Asoka on Fractal/Standard/Normal/Imm, because in addition to the bad land it very much looks like isolation on a godforsaken island.
Especially awful, that settling 1S you risk ruining the whole western part of the landmass (and all possible seafood there) if it doesn't extend any further.

 

[6K Man]

Curious to see how #3 plays out.

 

[sampsa]

I guess 1S, BW-fish, mine beaver, start chopping settler.

 

[Qactus]

Curious to see how #3 plays out.

I played a bit and it turned out I was wrong with basically everything I had guessed about the start. It's an interesting map though, definitely challenging, but for reasons more related with my questionable decisions / a greedy worker steal than with the map itself.
I'll put my notes in a separate spoiler and the starting save here in case you guys want to play yourselves. Requires BUFFY005 mod though, because of Mapfinder.

 

[Qactus]

Spoiler Asoka T60 :

Went 1S to get a better view over the lake and have the option to still settle 1E from there. Went Hunting-Fishing-BW.
Been unable to make peace with Pacal after an early worker steal despite killing one of his archers. Don't think it was worth it. Now seriously contemplating to send the settler down south and settle a gift city for peace instead of the two spots I still want for myself. Otherwise, a stack of Archers and Holkans will show up soon and it's gg.
Elizabeth has been plotting for ages as well, but I hope Inca are the target which are her worst enemies.

 

[LincolnOfRome]

I see four cities. Why wasn't one of them adjacent to a strategic resource?

 

[Qactus]

In this case because they were either inconveniently placed (Copper) or revealed too late (Horse revealed after sheep settle).
In general, food should be settled first for productive cities. And to secure contested spots such as the first city site here north of England, which was fogbusted with the stolen worker. Strategic resources I want to have in time for an attack usually (or for barb defense, which was not necessary here). Against Pacal copper would've been nice though, because of the worker steal war. Chariots less useful though against Holkans.