terrain start question

[Bulldog Bats]

I always figured that the computer did some balancing at the start. In other words:
1. If you were totally surrounded by tundra, desert or jungle, other civs on the continent would not be in a very fertile area.
2. Number of resources were somewhat balanced

Is there anything in the code that does that? I just assumed it did, but based upon some threads here, I wonder.

Thanks.

 

[joncnunn]

Nope, Civ V doesn't try to go for equal city starts. None of the other versions of Civ did either.

What it instead tries to do is add a bit more bonus resources to some starts than others based on what score it's initially given a start.
But there is a design flaw where the developers think non-fresh water plains is better than non-fresh water grassland.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Seems like it would be a desire. I hate to reroll, but there are times when I am surrounded by nothing but flat tundra

 

[shaglio]

Another thing to consider is unlocking Strategic Resources. A particular start might look awful, but you might later discover it's rich in Coal, Aluminum, Oil, etc. This might be taken into account by the map generator at the start of the game, but unfortunately, there's no way to tell until you play out the game a bit.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Yeah, but then you can spend even MORE time wasting a lousy start.

 

[Asklepios]

Out of curiosity, are the civs starting biases assembled in a nice list anywhere?

 

[reddishrecue]

Civilizations have a default starting bias.

 

[Browd]

Not all civs do. Here is the list of start biases in BNW (I think this is complete -- others can weigh with any omissions):

Byzantium - Along Ocean
Carthage - Along Ocean
England - Along Ocean
Indonesia - Along Ocean
Japan - Along Ocean
Korea - Along Ocean
Ottoman - Along Ocean
Portugal - Along Ocean
Spain - Along Ocean
Venice - Along Ocean

America - Along River

Austria - Hills

Arabia - Desert
Morocco - Desert

Aztec - Jungle
Brazil - Jungle

Mongol - Plains
Poland - Plains

India - Grassland
Netherlands - Grassland

Celts - Forest
Iroquois - Forest

Russia - Tundra
Sweden - Tundra

Assyria - Avoid Tundra
Babylon - Avoid Tundra
Songhai - Avoid Tundra

Egypt - Avoid Forest and Jungle
Huns - Avoid Forest and Jungle

Zulu - Avoid Jungle

Siam - Avoid Forest

 

[LoneRebel]

Inca must be hills start too.

 

[joncnunn]

America's River bias was removed by one of the Vanilla patches.

But note that many humans play with both a river bias and an avoid jungle/tundra bias via use of the restart button

 

[4N4C0ND4]

America's River bias was removed by one of the Vanilla patches.

But note that many humans play with both a river bias and an avoid jungle/tundra bias via use of the restart button

this is what we call... the human bias