Starting on the icecaps

[Junuxx]

Years ago I played a Civ2 game where my initial Settler was placed on the Arctic ice. There was a little bit of tundra, seals or fish nearby so it could have been worse. It later turned out there was no landmass of any importance at all connected to the ice though. Growth, production and research were extremely limited but I decided to continue the game anyway, and eventually managed to squeeze a victory out of it. Possibly my hardest-fought victory in about 18 years of playing Civilization, and therefore also one of the most enjoyable civ games I've ever played.

Yet, I've never seen such a start again. Have any of you had games like this, and what were your experiences? Any idea how (un)likely such a start is, or how to produce one?

It was a small map, probably continents, and I was playing the Sioux. I guess both map settings and civ choice might have something to do with the starting location. Difficulty was probably Emperor or Deity, not sure. All I have left of the game is a screenshot of the power graph, but I think it tells a pretty interesting story in itself.

 

[Rowan]

Yes I had one start on a very small island that formed from the ice cap.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

I have been playing Civ2 for well over a decade and has seen this exactly once. Ironically, it was my second game of Civ2. Like you I was playing the purple civ.

I think this is least likely to happen for white and most likely to happen for purple simply because by the time the game gets to placing your settler it may not find any better place. The game cares about the size of your starting place but not for its quality. If you start on a tiny fertile island you will get several starting techs as compensation. If you start on a mid size or larger wasteland you get no compensation.

In my game I got 2 settlers on the north pole with no tundra in sight. I sent them in opposite directions. It took a long while but eventually one found an 8 tile island which was half forest and half plains. I made my capital there. The other settler found nothing and eventually made it to the home island. With only 8 tiles of land, all of which were plains and forests, initial growth was real slow. By the time I got to the main continent housing several of my rivals, my end of the continent was fairly full. I did manage to squeeze in my cities but what gave me the big break were the barbarians that took over a major rival city. My diplomat got to the city quickly and I bought it for not a whole lot of money. That gave me a solid foothold.

I went after conquest and conquered all but one or two rivals by 2020. Just before the end I was nuked causing pollution I did not have time to clean. Had I had a few more turns beyond 2020 I could have conquered the world. I should mention that at the time I was an experienced Civ1 player but not a very good Civ2 player.

 

[Junuxx]

Ha, I just managed to create an icecap start! This is going to be fun!

@Ali: Sounds somewhat similar to my game I described in the first post, although I didn't even have an 8 tile island. I fell behind immensely, and by the time I was ready to bribe a city on the continent, with a diplomat in a trireme, I had to evade AI ironclads! But I stole a bunch of techs and managed to catch up eventually.

 

[Inkerman]

An icecap start was the GotM a few years back.

Game of the Month 106: January 2010

If Ali had got his files in in time it would have been his first green star, 14 games before that momentous event actually occurred.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Thanks for the reminder Inkerman.

I did remember having missed the green star, but had forgotten that we started on the ice cap.

 

[Junuxx]

Nice, I might try that one. The game I posted a screen from above turned out less interesting than the game I remembered, the icecap was connected to the main continent and I quickly established contact and dominance as in a regular game.

 

[starlifter]

What GOTM was the Icecap?

Like you I was playing the purple civ.

When human plays the purple, you dont need to gift anyone, as the Rubber Band is attached at both ends to the human, if you are Supreme. Supreme corresponds to the Purple as the key civ. This can make for some expensive science. A tactic is to make very valuable freight (eg, long distance trade with AI overseas cities), and take advantage of the huge cap value.