Poor and subpar starts wanted!

[Thrar]

As the title says - I'm looking for starts that are a bit tougher than average. Not necessarily sadistically poor, but below average. I normally play Fractal and got some pretty interesting maps out of it, but you never really know early on.

As I usually play Immortal, I'd like to ask for starts on that level, or Emperor if it's particularly tough. Unmodded and with huts and events disabled. I'm not looking for custom-built challenge maps - just randomly generated maps where the RNG wasn't in the best of moods.
If you have an interesting start on a different level, you're welcome to post it anyway, although I might change the difficulty level through WB.

I'm planning to do writeups on the maps I play, perhaps not to the end, but up to the point where I consider a game clearly won or lost. If there is interest, it would also be great to see how other players approach the games or even do a forum game out of some of them!

 

[Manco Capac]

You could play either Oasis or Boreal mapscripts as it occasionnally ensure really subpar starts. But I suspect you won't accept that from main reactions of players in Noble's Club when it deviates from the standard fractal, pangaea and continents.

Out of curiosity, why the profound hate for special mapscripts? I always wondered about that. For me, it's so refreshing.

Do you have BUFFY? If so, I could generate some really icy starts for ya through mapfinder, an applet that eases the job a lot. Ever heard of Seraiel? Well, his insane starts come from that and weeks of regeneration, albeit I think I no longer do that. And mapfinder can track down bad starts if giving the good parameters.

Otherwise, it is possible to have bad starts with few efforts with two components:

1)A start with rather low food like the traditional Obsolete start.
2)Start in a peninsula...and a bad one. Although it effects much much more on deity, on IMM, that could happen to be a bother.

 

[Robert FIN]

Try the last Alexander game in NC.

 

[Robert FIN]

Try the last Alexander game in NC.

Nobles' Club CXXV Alexander. They told me the map is hard. Pangaea. Try to beat the 2nd post tough HoF.

 

[Izuul]

Yeah that Alex game is a pretty good one. The rest of the map isn't too bad but the starting location is pretty awful.

 

[Thrar]

Thanks, that Alex game was exactly the kind I was looking for!

Brief report, on Immortal:

Spoiler :

Since the start was apparently very far north, I decided to move and keep it in my backyard for later. Finally settled on T4 for this:



Got squeezed a bit between Saladin and Cyrus but managed to carve out some land for myself. Second city went to secure horses in the east. I imagine it would have been difficult to get there or to the copper from the initial starting location. The start actually got settled by barbs later on, I took it with some chariots while the AI was attacking it.

Played until 800 AD:



I'm about to get Paper, one turn after Hannibal who got it just now. I have two GS waiting for a double Edu bulb, that should be enough to secure Lib I hope.

Not sure yet what next. Maybe build some cuirs and try to hit someone on the head. Saladin, Cyrus, Hannibal and myself are all Buddhist and pleased/friendly towards each other, but JC might be a target.

 

[Izuul]

This IU genghis khan game that I hosted had a pretty junky starting location.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=500152

 

[Thrar]

So I did finish the Alex game finally.

Got MT from Lib and got some horses ready. Was planning to hit fake Hammy (Crete), but he vassalled to JC before I could get started. Sal, Hannibal, Cyrus and myself shared Sal's Buddhism while the others were heathens. Then Cyrus made the mistake of converting to his self-founded Islam. About two turns later, Sal's fist went up.

By the time Sal declared on Cyrus, I had about 20 cavs in the area. Waited for Sal's troops to take out any army Cyrus might have, then took his cities for myself. For the first time in the game, this gave me a strong economy, and I planned to just ride it out to space from there. However, JC eventually built the UN, and with my two friendly neighbors and spreading Sushi for some growth, it was Diplo in 1878.

Thanks for the suggestion, this game was lots of fun! I'll look into the GK game Izuul suggested next. More game suggestions are welcome!

 

[Doshin]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=498012

 

[auagxa]

This IU genghis khan game that I hosted had a pretty junky starting location.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=500152

I don't see why this is junky. Pretty average if you ask me.

 

[elitetroops]

Here's one strange start I found when playing with mapscripts. Immortal, normal speed, hemispheres with regular settings, no edits.



Looks yummy for Roosevelt (IND and starts with fishing), but play a few turns and you will find out why it's evil. It should be quite possible to win though, I think...

 

[Thrar]

Thanks, these are great!

I'm playing the IU Genghis now. The starting location itself is pretty normal, but the surrounding land is garbage. I decided against the Keshik rush because I figured there's lots of space and no neighbor close by. I still managed to crash my economy pretty badly though, just managed to dig myself out.
It's the early ADs now, I'm the undisputed ruler of the garbage land nobody else wants and caught back up in tech. Might go hit Ragnar with Elepult or something, not sure yet.

Having read some of the first half reports people wrote, hitting Ragnar with Keshiks probably would have been better. Good to know for next time.

 

[Izuul]

I don't see why this is junky. Pretty average if you ask me.

You have to play for about 10-20 turns to see i guess.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Incan Empire on the Earth 18 Civs scenario.

 

[auagxa]

Well this one sucks

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=518016

 

[Thrar]

Thanks, it definitely looks interesting.

Do you know if there's a way to remove the huts from the game? Events are easy; save a WB scenario and turn them off when starting a new game. But when I do this for huts, they stay on the map because they're already there in the WB save.

 

[Nexlev]

It seems to me, that any time you pick Tokugawa and generate a fractal map, you'll probably end up with crap.

I have no idea if there's a factual basis for this, but any time I use Toku / Fractal I end up with piss poor starts, often isolated on food poor land

 

[Dubioza]

Do you know if there's a way to remove the huts from the game?

You have to open wb save file with word processing tool (notepad or such) and:

Find all occurrences of "ImprovementType=IMPROVEMENT_GOODY_HUT" and change them to blank or delete the lines they're on (use Find - Find next functions).

 

[Thrar]

Find all occurrences of "ImprovementType=IMPROVEMENT_GOODY_HUT" and change them to blank or delete the lines they're on (use Find - Find next functions).

Thanks, that's great!


I did finally get around to continue the Genghis IU99 game.
Messed up a bit compared to others by choosing not to horse rush Ragnar; there was just so much land wanting to be settled. Eventually I did hit him and took a few cities, but he vassalled to Justinian who I couldn't bribe off.
Overexpansion and crappy land meant I was doing very poorly in tech, but focusing on espionage let me steal enough from Zara to be just a few techs behind. Eventually took out Zara with cuirs, followed by Charlie with cavs.

It's now 1665AD, I'm at 23 cities, compared to Justin/Ragnar and Hatty/Washington (he peace-vassalled) at 11+5 each. They're 3 or 4 techs ahead, but I get enough EP to keep up. Next plan is building up the economy and build factories (they're currently teching AL), then maybe hit someone with tanks.
Not sure if I'll play it out; these endgames take so long and it looks like a pretty strong position. Thanks for the suggestion, this was a very interesting map!