Starting Bias

[bcaiko]

I know the Starting Bias causes certain Civs to begin near certain terrain types (i.e., Iroquois near forest), but does it also currently cause Civs to be biased to be near other certain Civs (like Asian Civs more likely to be near each other)?

I'm sure this has already been answered, but I couldn't find a thread using search. Thanks in advance for humoring me.

 

[Rowzdower]

good question but I dont think certain civs are more likely to be placed next to certain civs. Unless someone more knowledgable knows more than I.

 

[Brichals]

Is there a button like "Allow culturally linked starts"? That is what you are referring to, and it was possible in Civ3 and/or Civ4. I think it might be possible in Civ5, but it's not start bias I think, it should be another check box.

 

[vexing]

nope.

england, ottoman, polynesia: ocean
arabia: desert
aztec: jungle
india: grass
iroquois: forest
russia: tundra
mongol: plains

 

[Oohforf]

Umm, I don't think this is the case with civs themselves.

I once had China and Japan across the world from each other, but in one game I had them literally right beside each other.

 

[Keejus]

nope.

england, ottoman, polynesia: ocean
arabia: desert
aztec: jungle
india: grass
iroquois: forest
russia: tundra
mongol: plains

Also,

Denmark: Ocean
Inca: Hills
Egypt: Non-forest/Jungle

 

[The Judgemental]

What is rome's start bias, i've seen them start near desert quite a bit

 

[Misterboy]

My last Iroquoi game, my capital didn't have a single forest tile in it's entire radius, even after fully expanding. There was quite a bit of forest in the general area. But I only built a longhouse in 2 cities. Hrmph. Still won on Emperor with the new patch, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

I just wonder how much the start bias is ...well... biased.

 

[Keejus]

Not all civs have a start bias. I think all of them were mentioned; America used to have a river bias, but it was removed in the patch.

To my knowledge, when a world is generated, it's split into regions. Some are hilly, some are plains, etcetera. I don't know the specifics of a region, but it doesn't mean that all the tiles in the region are of the specific type, which mostly shows with Aztec, Iroquois and especially Russia in my experience, who may not start near any of their tiles, though there will be some close by. If a map is created without your specific region, you will just start near one of the appropriate tiles.

Ocean bias just puts you on a coast, though you may get stuck on an inland sea, I think.

 

[dayfax]

I just wonder how much the start bias is ...well... biased.

I've wondered about this too. I've started standard and large earth maps as England and been placed in the center of Europe/Asia (basically, where Moscow is in the real world). On these maps, that's about as far as an ocean as you can get.

 

[Lose]

does anyone know the starting bias of each civ? they dont have them listed in the game -_-

Moderator Action: Merged into existing thread.

 

[vexing]

I just wonder how much the start bias is ...well... biased.

there are notes in the map generation lua script about this... basically it looks to see if there's a feasible spot for each leader in the map, and if not it tries to get something similar. also there's something in the handicaps xml about starting locations, i'm not sure what, but for the player it gets lower as difficulty increases. i'm not sure if this makes it less likely the players start bias will be hit or something else.

 

[bcaiko]

Also,

Denmark: Ocean
Inca: Hills
Egypt: Non-forest/Jungle

Is England not biased for Ocean? That'd be very silly, considering their unique ability.

So, it sounds like the Starting Bias does not bias you toward being placed near certain Civs?

 

[Keejus]

That's in addition to vexing's list. England, Denmark, Polynesia and Ottomans all have the ocean bias.

 

[fmlizard2]

Anecdotally I can say that Spain tends to have a Ocean bias, Siam tends to bias toward Jungle, and Babylon tends toward Desert. I've seen all of those rules break, but it seems to happen more often than not.

 

[Keejus]

The actual biases are somewhere in the xmls, though, and only a few civs have them.

EDIT: Oh. Conveniently, someone bumped an old topic on the matter, and it seems I was mistaken. Spain does indeed have an ocean bias, and Siam has a non-forest bias.

Additionally, Songhai has a non-tundra bias.

That should be all of them, though