Rating a start

Archon_Wing

Vote for me or die
Joined
Apr 3, 2005
Messages
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I'm interested on what people think are important factors to what defines a good start. That is, whether to consider going through with a certain roll or not. (Though I do play crappy starts anyways sometimes)

I'll start, and the numbers are totally made up.

Tiles (first 2 rings only and 6 tiles max, since it's quite hard to grow beyond that early)

Plains Hill Start +10
Grassland Hills +4 each
Forests +10 each
Jungle +8 each
3f tile +5 each
2f+2p tile +20 each
Better than 2f2p +40 each
Stone 10 for the first, +3 each extra.
Tile with culture or science +5 each
Cannot easily grow to pop 5 -30

Resources
Camp Luxury: +15 for the first one, +10 for each other unique resource(chance for Temple of Artemis)
Mine Luxury +10 per unique resource
Plantation Luxury +4 per unique resource (+10 if settled on) (x2 if Artemis gets built)
Horse +30, +100 if 2.
Faith tile immediately workable and has 2+ food +20

Capital Location
Must move for optimal placement -10 per turn
Coast Start +2
Fresh Water +10
No Rivers -20
River +2 per river tile
Capital has less than 3 hills -20
No immediate way to boost craftsmanship -50

Neighbors and Defense
City is hard to put under siege +5 (most coastal starts get this)
City is easy to put under siege (next to a mountain, for example) -30
Rush target nearby in easy terrain (like flatlands) +30
Rush target nearby in rough terrain - 30
Montezuma next door -100
France/America next door -20
Horse Barbs -40

Nice to haves
Less than 3 flatland desert tiles +50 (Pyramids chance!)
3+ mountain spot +30
2 mountain spot +5
 
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If born around a natural wonder, sometimes if can provide very wonderful bonus. In my recent game my 2nd city is built by the zhangyedanxia, which give me the first GG and GM, difficult to get normally.

Usually we just need 1 high-food tile to grow the capital and others to be high-production to produce what we want
 
In a recent game I moved my settler across a river for a better start. On the second turn, my warrior found Piopiotahi before I settled, so I moved my initial settler further and founded my capital near Piopiotahi on turn 4. The additional +1 culture and +1 food on the adjacent tiles (amounted to +4 of each very early on) was game changing. I was getting the early game civics faster than I could manage the inspiration bonus "quests" and unlocked my first government in the Ancient Era. Needless to day, I also founded the first religion and was able to build a decent starting army to harass my neighbors.

To answer the question posed in the OP, I do not restart to get better starting tiles. I play with what the map gives me. I used to reroll starts in Civ4 and Civ5, but this was because I was playing competitive games for the HOF. In Civ6, I am playing a lot more casually and generally just aim to unlock 2 or more Steam achievements with each game.
 
I don't roll, too. If I just play the map I like, indeed I'm limiting my play style myself. In Civ6 the map determine the way you play a lot. So I will try to play every map it provided and test different tactics. I think Civ5 is easier than Civ4, and Civ6 by now is easier than Civ5, which give me the confidence to challenge every map.
 
If born around a natural wonder, sometimes if can provide very wonderful bonus. In my recent game my 2nd city is built by the zhangyedanxia, which give me the first GG and GM, difficult to get normally.

Oh right, that's probably a huge boon to start near a natural wonder, though I guess some are better than others.
 
That's a pretty good analysis. I think you're undervaluing choppables, which even if they aren't chopped still boost their tile making it materially more valuable than the same tile without a choppable. I personally value even a single Mountain, as even +1 on your initial Campus is great. And there's value to having diversity of resources nearby, in part due to the ease of getting early tech boosts.

I get the sense that Natural Wonders aren't likely to spawn near your starting position. You're more likely to get their bonus to the second city. But a position near a Natural Wonder for your second city is a huge boost.

I don't re-roll starts, but when assessing the quality of the start position for my test games, my mental check list sort of evolved to look for the following things. I haven't tried to quantify their relative value the way you have. Things that I think boost the value of your starting city (in no particular order):
  • a 3F/2P or 2F/3P tile within the first two rings
  • a 2F/2P tile within the first ring or two or more 2F/2P tiles within the first two rings
  • a tile with at least 3 combined F + P and another yield within the first two rings
  • settling on a Plains Hill
  • settling on a luxury
  • settling on a river
  • having two or more (ideally three) of the following within the first two rings for maximizing the science boosts from your first Builder: stone/marble, horses/sheep/cows, wheat/rice, iron/copper
  • the total number of choppables within 3 tiles, especially stone/woods, with less than 4 being poor, 4 to 5 okay, and more than 5 really good
  • having a Mountain you can place a Campus beside within the first two rings
  • a strong defensive position for surviving an initial AI Warrior rush, with the ideal position being a mountain behind, a river in front, and defendable terrain (hills or woods) flanking the city
  • having a great site for your second city at a distance of 4 or 5 tiles away from your Capital
  • having a City State nearby that you can get a free envoy from
EDIT: having the potential for a City Centre - Harbour - Commercial Hub triangle is also really valuable, but more so for later cities than your first couple, as it'll be a while before you can get this set up and running.
 
If I get a long river, some hills and at least one mountain tile I am usually satisfied.
 
I usually start a game with something in mind that I want to do, so good/bad overall start doesn't matter to me as much as a start that makes me get a religion, or make a certain wonder, or attack a neighbor, or whatever.

That said I get real ornery if I start with no water or no hills or mountain.
 
I usually start a game with something in mind that I want to do, so good/bad overall start doesn't matter to me as much as a start that makes me get a religion, or make a certain wonder, or attack a neighbor, or whatever.

That said I get real ornery if I start with no water or no hills or mountain.

Yeah, I'd be the same. If I start a game as Indonesia, I at least want to start coastal. Or if I feel like I want to club people, then I make sure that I have some production nearby.

Otherwise, I usually want the following:
-ideally 3 non-irrigation resources that I can improve, for both the craftsmanship inspiration and the science eurekas.
-1-2 "high-value" tiles (ie. 2f/2p or better), so that I can start going. These may or may not include the above resources (although always sucks when I decide to improve the desert sheep to get the eureka, even though I know I'm not going to work the tile maybe ever)
-Some logical spot for some districts. Ideally would have a couple mountains nearby for a campus, but even having an obvious river spot for a commerce hub, or a nice +4 or better harbor.

But just because I do/don't get that, doesn't mean I'll reroll. Some games, if I only have irrigation resources, maybe I try out the game by skipping the early builder and opting for an early settler. Or I might have a perfect starting city, but if after a couple turns I discover I'm on an island or peninsula, well, that doesn't help. Or if I want a peaceful game and then the AI pops down their 2nd city within 5 tiles of my capital, those can all be cases to re-roll. Or sometimes I'm just bored and don't want to handle the stupid barbarian horde early on.

Or other games I start and essentially lose. Like one Russia game where I literally started next to a natural wonder, and within the first 20 turns of the game I had built a +11 Lavra. But then I built my second city, and an AI warrior rushed me, and I quit.
 
EDIT: having the potential for a City Centre - Harbour - Commercial Hub triangle is also really valuable, but more so for later cities than your first couple, as it'll be a while before you can get this set up and running.
Why commercial and harbour in the same city? I understand there are some adjacency bonuses, but to me the opportunity cost of having another district is too high. I try to get up either a commercial or harbour district as my first (or second) district in every city to get the extra trade route. I might build the combo in one city where I want to concentrate on gold, but for most of my cities I want to have a campus and theatre district to get through the tech/civics trees.
 
Maybe have a look at my fav CIV6 player, PotatoMcWhiskey, he is the player I have been following for quite some time, he makes Deity look like Regent.


He is a really cool deity player and challenge himself all the time.
 
Why commercial and harbour in the same city? I understand there are some adjacency bonuses, but to me the opportunity cost of having another district is too high. I try to get up either a commercial or harbour district as my first (or second) district in every city to get the extra trade route. I might build the combo in one city where I want to concentrate on gold, but for most of my cities I want to have a campus and theatre district to get through the tech/civics trees.
Well, it's not some adjacency bonus, it's a lot of adjacency bonus. I like plopping reyna and at least up to a shipyard for the corresponding production, if the opportunity presents itself.
 
Well, it's not some adjacency bonus, it's a lot of adjacency bonus. I like plopping reyna and at least up to a shipyard for the corresponding production, if the opportunity presents itself.

That's another reason to look for a City Centre - Harbour - Commercial Hub triangle in a later city, rather than the capital. The capital will often have Pingala for the Science and Culture boost. I, too, like to place Reyna in a triangle and buy a shipyard. That city then becomes both a gold and a production powerhouse which can pump out a lot of tech and civics boosts, especially naval ones.

The only downside is whenever I send Reyna off to buy a district somewhere, I lose 10 turns of extra gold and production. Late game that tends to mean I stop buying any districts except for the Spaceport.
 
That's another reason to look for a City Centre - Harbour - Commercial Hub triangle in a later city, rather than the capital. The capital will often have Pingala for the Science and Culture boost. I, too, like to place Reyna in a triangle and buy a shipyard. That city then becomes both a gold and a production powerhouse which can pump out a lot of tech and civics boosts, especially naval ones.

The only downside is whenever I send Reyna off to buy a district somewhere, I lose 10 turns of extra gold and production. Late game that tends to mean I stop buying any districts except for the Spaceport.
I think the Centre-Harbor-CH triangle is most useful in the early game if you can confirm you have a golden age. With +3CH and +3Harbor you get +12 Beakers with Reyna!
 
In the early game I place Liang for the boost to workers. Before any other buffs become available, she increases workers from 3 charges to 4 charges. This is a huge benefit in the early stages of the game.

Also, could you explain how Reyna provides beakers? Her bonus is to gold, not science.
 
When it comes to the early game, the triangle is something that looks great on paper, but really isn't and is often a trap in most cases early game. In a mountainless city, making a Triangle with a Theater Square/Campus makes for a +1 district which is useful without a mountain.

In reality, it's just 3 more gold, which you can make 5 if you take the adjancency card, and like +2 production with a shipyard. This would be nice early game, but problem is Celestial Navigation isn't that cheap and having to wait on it is a problem.

Sure there's always the corner case scenario where you have only coastal cities and there's always the infamous "Free Inquiry with a jackpot of 20,000 sea resources" gimmick but I don't consider that valuable enough to really consider it viable in most games. I would say it seems easier to find maps where you can get the Dance of the Aurora/Holy Site GS one

But then again, once shipyards come along, and you have district space, I think it's not a bad idea, but it's more to round out the city, as harbors usually do. Shipyards are an excellent building.

Overall, for the purpose of a start, this almost has zero value to me. Unless you can become suzerain of Nan Madol.....
 
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I know what you're saying, but it's gold for the Commercial district too. With Reyna that's as much money as a decent INT TR (which people seem to like). I agree that it's probably not something to build first off but it's nice when it comes up.
 
Overall, for the purpose of a start, this almost has zero value to me. Unless you can become suzerain of Nan Madol.....

I agree that it's probably not something to build first off but it's nice when it comes up.

Yes, this is correct. I should have been more careful with my post script addition to my earlier post. This is basically what I was trying to say, too: the presence of a potential triangle for these districts is very interesting for later cities, but not a big factor for a capital (or even your second city).
 
Yes, this is correct. I should have been more careful with my post script addition to my earlier post. This is basically what I was trying to say, too: the presence of a potential triangle for these districts is very interesting for later cities, but not a big factor for a capital (or even your second city).

Yeah, I tend to look at the CH triangle more as a bonus if I have a city that I know I'm going to want a harbor for anyways. Being able to stick down a +4 or +5 commerce hub, especially if I have envoys in one or two commercial city-states, can be a nice extra source of income, and an obvious landing spot for Reyna to maximize.
 
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