Sometimes the game feels like it's trolling you...

[Starwars]

Roll games where you play a civ that is suited for peaceful play. End up completely surrounded by other civs with little to no way to expand. Play a civ where you want to get out some aggression and do some early warmongering, end up up on continents where there is no other civ in sight and tooooons of empty space.

Seriously, just rerolled a bunch of starts with Alexander that I would've *loved* for any more peace-focused civ, just because I wanted to release some quick aggression... and there is just noone else around.

 

[Midgardsormr]

I've been having the same problem with my Montezuma play. Took me several re-rolls to find a game where there were civs close enough to offer some stone age fun. And naturally the one I decided to play put me up against Gilgamesh.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I cannot remember the last time I actually started playing a game without Restarting at least once. So far, the Worst case was a game in which I wanted to play England in exploration/colonization style. I restarted 8 times before I gave up in disgust, and never got a start that was within visual range of a coast: I was going to have to play England as a strictly land-based Civ at least for the first part of the game. I don't see the point of playing against Bad Programming, so I didn't play that day, went off and translated some passages from the Zhurnal boevykh deistvii voisk fronta za 12.1941 g, which were at least useful and overall a lot less frustrating than Civ VI. . .

 

[Lord Lakely]

Yeah i had a lot of luck with my England game that I literally started at the edge of my land mass and had the other content *literally* on the other side of a one tile wide sea. It only took about 4 rerolls. (even then I was still rushed by a surprisingly sneaky Norway, who sent some Longboats to my coastal cities. First time I actually had to build a navy for defensive (and later, offensive) purposes in the Ancient era. Maybe the AI is getting better, y'all. Maybe.)

In another game, as Zulu, I had an isolated start. Literally *every other* civ started on the other side of a massive mountain chain, leaving about a quarter of the continent to me.

It's pure luck in those cases however. I've had cramped starts as Monty and Chandragupta and quickly managed to get supremacy over the map as a result. Who your neighbour is is imo way more defining than isolated starts or not: starting next to Monty, Chandra, Aminatore or Teddy is hell. Starting next to Wilhelmina or Brazil? Significantly less so.

 

[Jaybe]

I don’t reroll, never have. The trick is to not predetermiine how you are going to play. Let it develop as the game progresses.

 

[gozpel]

To not reroll makes the game just more tedious, and I don't have that kind of patience.

All I want is a decent start! I usually walk around for 5-8 turns, then I decide if it's worth to spend time on this.
If the area is decent, I settle on turn 0-2, while the warrior is walking around, but if everything around is abysmal, I restart.

There is no need to avoid restarting, as there is no cheating in a single player game where you just want to have fun.

You won't know it, the AI won't know it, only I will know it and I take my shame to the court of righteousness!

 

[jbavon]

My most memorable games have been seemingly useless/uninspring starts. You never know what's around the bend. Just saying...

 

[Tech Osen]

I don’t reroll, never have. The trick is to not predetermiine how you are going to play. Let it develop as the game progresses.

Agree, but that can get annoying when you play (or randomly get) a one tricky pony civ.

 

[Victoria]

the Worst case was a game in which I wanted to play England in exploration/colonization style. I restarted 8 times before I gave up in disgust,

I’ll play to T50 even with a grassland start, if nothing else it makes good start games more fun.

 

[bite]

The amount of times I have played Australia only to start knee deep in Rainforests is too high

 

[Browd]

So, does that just mean you keep starting in the equivalent of north Queensland?

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Roll games where you play a civ that is suited for peaceful play. End up completely surrounded by other civs with little to no way to expand. Play a civ where you want to get out some aggression and do some early warmongering, end up up on continents where there is no other civ in sight and tooooons of empty space.

Seriously, just rerolled a bunch of starts with Alexander that I would've *loved* for any more peace-focused civ, just because I wanted to release some quick aggression... and there is just noone else around.

I notice that most often with Mongolia .

 

[Victoria]

So, does that just mean you keep starting in the equivalent of north Queensland?

Not sure why a kiwi is playing as oz anyways

 

[iammaxhailme]

I'd love to get a mod where you can see your starting position before you choose your civ. Yeah I know start biases would make this complicated but I've had so many "this location would be perfect for polders/big outback stations/etc but I'm the wrong civ" moments

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I’ll play to T50 even with a grassland start, if nothing else it makes good start games more fun.

I don't have quite that much patience, but I have played probably a few hundred games to about T25 - T30, only to discover that my proposed Peaceful Cultural Game has other Civs within 10 Tiles on all sides of me, and every one of them is building their second city between me and them: I either ReStart or go all Byzantine on them - as in Boris the Civ Slayer . . .

I'd love to get a mod where you can see your starting position before you choose your civ. Yeah I know start biases would make this complicated but I've had so many "this location would be perfect for polders/big outback stations/etc but I'm the wrong civ" moments

In My Perfect Civ game, you'd see a Starting Position, probably with an Extended Vision since, usually by 4000 BCE your people have been wandering around the map for a while already, and then get a list of Civ Options from which to choose, ranging from a Civ whose Uniques are matched to the position, to Civs that are not quite matched, but can still make some use of it. So, a Tundra or near Tundra start would get Russia and (now) Canada at the top of the list, but, say, because the position is within a tile of the coast with a bunch of Fish or other coastal resources, England, Norway, or even Indonesia might also be offered as options. Australia or Kongo would not be.

 

[civxander]

What do you thinkabout this: I believe there is a a bug since the start of Civ6 in which the programming mix up the civs placing them on the map.
For me some Civs are working better than others.
For example: Russia gets most of the time Tundra. Tomyris get most of the time her two horses. But its hard to get a good start for Cleopatra or Aminatore, or no hills with playing Gorgo.

Random or mistake?

As Boris said: I would like to prefer to see the map first and make then a dicision.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

What do you thinkabout this: I believe there is a a bug since the start of Civ6 in which the programming mix up the civs placing them on the map.
For me some Civs are working better than others.
For example: Russia gets most of the time Tundra. Tomyris get most of the time her two horses. But its hard to get a good start for Cleopatra or Aminatore, or no hills with playing Gorgo.

Random or mistake?

As Boris said: I would like to prefer to see the map first and make then a dicision.

Some Start Biases definitely appear to be more Biased than others. Tundra is one of them, but I'm not sure it's a Civ bias or a game bias. I have proven it to my satisfaction, that even if I choose a Hot temperature Map, if I restart a Civ more than 4 times, I will get a Tundra or partial Tundra start, regardless of the Civ. On the other hand, a coastal start is Never guaranteed, regardless of the Civ.

This bothers me a lot when I see new Civs like Inca and Canada with terrain biases: unless they've done something to make the Start Bias realistic, I can foresee starting Inca without a Mountain in sight . . .

 

[civxander]

This bothers me a lot when I see new Civs like Inca and Canada with terrain biases: unless they've done something to make the Start Bias realistic, I can foresee starting Inca without a Mountain in sight . . .

Thank you for you reply. I had the same thoughts about the Incas - no fun without mountains...

 

[Stringer1313]

When the game is too easy, we complain. When the game is too hard, we complain.

 

[Aristos]

The amount of times I have played Australia only to start knee deep in Rainforests is too high

Wait till you see the Mali tundra starts that will dominate the next "patch"...

When the game is too easy, we complain. When the game is too hard, we complain.

There is a HUGE difference between real and fake difficulty. Game throwing by bad programming is FAKE difficulty. And not fun.

In My Perfect Civ game, you'd see a Starting Position, probably with an Extended Vision since, usually by 4000 BCE your people have been wandering around the map for a while already, and then get a list of Civ Options from which to choose, ranging from a Civ whose Uniques are matched to the position, to Civs that are not quite matched, but can still make some use of it. So, a Tundra or near Tundra start would get Russia and (now) Canada at the top of the list, but, say, because the position is within a tile of the coast with a bunch of Fish or other coastal resources, England, Norway, or even Indonesia might also be offered as options. Australia or Kongo would not be.

In my perfect civ game, you would start with no special traits at all, and then develop them according to where you started and what you do with it. So, a Mali civilization will not have a starting strong bias towards OP bonuses from desert tiles; they will be an empty slate, just like all others. If they happen to spawn in a desert region, and then try to make the most of it, then they start to develop some of the traits. Same for others. Now THAT would be really playing the map.