Placing the civ

[rhialto]

There have been lots of threads asking that civ traits or unique units be choosable, on the basis that having a horse resource nearby will make you want a cavalry army, or seafaring trait is wasted on a land-locked civ, or Indian elephants don't make sense when you start far from jungles, or...

The problem with this choose your traits and UU is that it reduces the civ name to nothing more than a label with no meaning. It is good to know that when you meet the Viking civ, they will be good at seabourne assaults.

I think the best solution is not to make the civ traits depend on player decisions in game, but to make the starting locations a characterisitic on each civ. Using the civs in conquests, the starting location for each civ will be constrained as follows:

Not quite sure how large an island should be constrained as being below, it could probably depend on a lot of factors.

America:-
Arabia: must include 2 desert tile
Aztec: must include 2 jungle tiles
Babylon: on a river
Byzantine: coastal
Carthage: coastal, must include 2 desert tile
Celts: -
China: -
Egypt: on a river
England: island
France: -
Germany: -
Greece: coastal
Hittites: must include 4 plains/grass
Inca: must include 2 mountain
India: -
Iroquois: must include 4 plains/grass, horse in 10 tile radius
Japan: island
Korea: -
Maya: must include 2 jungle
Mongol: must include 4 plains/grass, horse in 10 tile radius
Ottoman Turks: -
Netherlands: -
Portugal: coastal
Persia: must include 4 hills
Rome: iron in 10 tile radius
Russia: -
Scandinavia: coastal
Spain: iron in 10 tile radius
Sumerian: on a river
Zulu: -

I probably missed a few items, but you get teh general idea. Civs should be started so that for early UUs, the required special resource is grabbable, and the starting terrain should loosely match history.

 

[Teabeard]

I don't agree with this idea. Civs such as Sumer placed near a river have a huge advantage to one placed on tundra or jungle.

 

[Flintlock]

Like Teabeard said, this would throw the game way off balance.
Also, it'd get very repetetive after a while. The english always on a island, rome always with legions, etc. It takes some of the strategy out of the game, never having to adapt to a different start, all of your starts (with the same civ) would be all very similar.

 

[rhialto]

Well, some of those constraints could be toned down a little. It didnt occur to me just how powerful having a river start is when I typed that. But it definitely makes sense that a seafaring trait civ should start on a coast (thats already in civ3). All I want is to go a step further and make sure that every civ should actually be able to take advantage of their traits. It makes no sense for the mongols to not have horses availabel for example. Without the horses available, they would not have developed their advanced horsemanship skills, and while you could then make them develop something else, they wouldn't be the mongols anymore, and teh tribe name becomes a meaningless label.

 

[Keirador]

This would only make sense if different Civs could utilize different terrain squares differently, like a vast extension of the effect the Agri trait has on desert squares. For example, the Mayans can produce an extra food and shield from jungle squares. The Inca can get one extra food from mountains, and perhaps have the ability for workers to Terrace them, producing one MORE food. The Greeks can get extra food from hills. Something like that, but perhaps a bit more balanced.
Also, I think every Civ should start near freshwater. After all, almost every great city IS near some source of freshwater, usually a river.

 

[dh_epic]

This is a neat idea, but probably shifts the game off balance and only pigeon holes people into choices they might not want to make further. I'd like to see greater freedom, personally.

But if they did move forward with it, I'm sure starting location could be one of those balancing factors. A civ with a killer starting location would have a crappy UU, whereas a Civ with a bad starting location might have a killer UU.