Starting pos. and Holkan Rush

[Metal Bunny]

I just started another Immortal game
Huge map, because I love them
Medium and small
Pacal of the Mayans

I rolled a game.. and.. well..
I know that huge maps, in order to compensate for the needs that more civs bring, increase the amount of happy res in a certain area.
Where in a standard game, you see a set of 2, maybe 3 dye's, in a larger map, this turns to 5, sometimes even 7, but they are usually spaced out for multiple cities as well.

But this?
View attachment 253473
Uh.. is this even possible? Has anyone ever come across something like this?

Btw, this turned out to be a perfect setup for a holkan rush.
So.. for those who want to try it out, I put up a save.

View attachment 253476

Spoiler :

Here are the screens of the cities I rushed, as you can see, Ragnar came close to getting bronze.
View attachment 253474
View attachment 253475
And as you can see, the city sites are not all that bad, so I thought at the beginning that my really ridiculous city start would be compensated by a really sucky surrounding environment.

But.. as you can see, it has gold and health resources and stuff..

Are huge maps really so imbalanced/untested?

 

[bigwinw]

I have seen many elephants clumped together. Usually like 4 or so. 6 is at the high end. As far as I know though those 6 elephants only count for 1 x Happy. Each type of Resource can only help you once. Maybe I could be wrong. If so please let me know.

 

[DaveMcW]

Spoiler :

 

[Cusanus]

I don't think your starting postition was that strong.
10 water tiles without any seafood aren't beautiful. The elephants are nice, but nothing to get all psyched about.

But if you want to make the most of your position, why would you build camps on more than one elephant? Farms or cottages both would have been much stronger, wouldn't they?

@Dave: Yeah, that one looks a little stronger.

 

[Metal Bunny]

Okay.. wow, that start is most definitely better.
And yeah, I camped a lot of it, because I was busy building holkans and didn't have wheel or pottery yet, and being financial, I thought that 3 gold and some hammer was better than a farm, since I already had rice. I am going to build some workers to change some camps though

 

[NihilZero]

I've got a cool screenshot somewhere on one of my computers of the Egyptian city of Elephantine, surrounded by about six herds of Elephants.

Unfortunately I got my ass kicked in that game, but at least I had Elephantine.

 

[ICNP]

I've got a cool screenshot somewhere on one of my computers of the Egyptian city of Elephantine, surrounded by about six herds of Elephants.

Unfortunately I got my ass kicked in that game, but at least I had Elephantine.

Always looking at the positives.

I don't really like resources clumps. They typically occur in horrible terrain (Furs and Silver in Tundra, Incense and Gems in Deserts) or in rigged Earth maps (looking at you Britain)

 

[Infantry#14]

i've seen 6 elephants clumped together on tiny map too.

6 gems are just insane!

 

[Manco Capac]

Six gems! Is that even possible? Is that on highlands map? The best I ever got was 5 golds and it is not comparable to grass gems. Regarding the phants, I've seen this multiple times on fractal. Maybe it doesn't fall under the same rule as other ressources for the capital.

BTW, newbie question that cropped up by looking the 6 gems locations: Is that normal we get a second session notice when we load a game save stored from the mapfinder? I stopped using mapfinder because of that.

 

[iggymnrr]

Six gems! Is that even possible? Is that on highlands map?

Could be a highlands but I'd bet a dollar to donuts that that's Darius! Impressive find after only 40 map regenerations. I personally haven't done that with mapfinder on a large highlands map. Probably is a huge map in response to the post.

 

[ahcos]

dave's screenshot is ridiculous indeed, although there are better "overall" startpositions, e.g.: you're persia, have already 2corn/2gold/FPs/4hills/horses in BFC and ghandi is next door with a 4-seafood-cap that awaits to be conquered... room for 18+ cities on an island that can't be reached by land from 2 other civs etc. ... yeah, had this yesterday, ended the game after i rushed ghandi with 3 immortals, not too much fun to play smth. like this out.
I really don't know why people freak out about start positions so much lately, but tbh most of the one's posted in the opening post aren't so hot whatsoever. either i'm just super-lucky with my start positions or i have a complete different understanding of "strong start position" than most people out there.

i wouldn't consider the OP's startpos. to be strong after all, junk seafood and pretty low food, rather bad commerce in the long shot...

 

[Manco Capac]

dave's screenshot is ridiculous indeed, although there are better "overall" startpositions, e.g.: you're persia, have already 2corn/2gold/FPs/4hills/horses in BFC and ghandi is next door with a 4-seafood-cap that awaits to be conquered... room for 18+ cities on an island that can't be reached by land from 2 other civs etc. ... yeah, had this yesterday, ended the game after i rushed ghandi with 3 immortals, not too much fun to play smth. like this out.
I really don't know why people freak out about start positions so much lately, but tbh most of the one's posted in the opening post aren't so hot whatsoever. either i'm just super-lucky with my start positions or i have a complete different understanding of "strong start position" than most people out there.

i wouldn't consider the OP's startpos. to be strong after all, junk seafood and pretty low food, rather bad commerce in the long shot...

Starting locations is like playing roulette; you'll never know what will await you. You can win a location lush with rare ressources as well as a piece of t*rd. When people gets a rare and powerful starting location, they feel like they've won the roulette and want to "show off" their luck.

However, a starting location can be decisive in some games. Lands make your destiny. (This is why european nations almost controlled the world at some time and Zulu nation never control beyond South Africa) Starting location means IMO also where you're place in the world; one can have within the capital BFC a great balance of ressource, but elsewere nothing worths as much. Moreover, the effect of early gold or gems sites are unvaluable: better expansion, early multiple rushes, teching extremely fast, etc.

 

[ahcos]

erm, okay, maybe i wasn't as clear as intended: i'm not sure why people freak out about the start positions that were posted lately. except for dave's there wasn't a single really strong position iirc

 

[stopstopp]

Spoiler :

Aha! I see brown tiles. Start sucks