One major problem of the game, especially in Multiplayer, is having starting positions that in heavy cases can decide a whole game right in the first turn. Starting in the middle of a desert or surrounded by mountains almost is a death penalty for your civilization. 
The game begins 4000bc, when nomadic tribes became tired of wandering around and began to settle down. I'm somewhat interested in those big migrations of the tribes, but the game handels it like your tribe must have been dull or something, ending its wandering in the middle of a desert.
In fact, all those tribes migrated all over the world only to find a decent place for settling down. So no one should start at rough or barren places.
To make the game more balanced and to also include a big chapter of human evolution, i think civilization should start with something called "The nomadic age" Everyone has a settler and can travel around the map and when he finds a decent place, he tells his tribe to settle down there. To prevent excessive wanderings around the map to find the best home, the game starts when 2/3 or 50% or whatever percentage of all players has already settled, forcing those who did not so far to hurry to the best places they found. Of course some still have better locations than others, but it would prevent some big disadvantages that occur in civ3 at the start.
The age would be very short indeed, only some turns for the majority to get to a decent location, but it would add a lot more balance to the whole game and also pays tribute to the great era of the nomadic tribes. It has no fixed number of turns, only as many as 2/3 of the players need to find a place to settle. The first one has to wait for the rest and a total number of players that already settled should be shown on screen, but when finally 2/3 have settled, the game begins at 4000bc and those who have not settled so far should do so now.
The game begins 4000bc, when nomadic tribes became tired of wandering around and began to settle down. I'm somewhat interested in those big migrations of the tribes, but the game handels it like your tribe must have been dull or something, ending its wandering in the middle of a desert.
In fact, all those tribes migrated all over the world only to find a decent place for settling down. So no one should start at rough or barren places. To make the game more balanced and to also include a big chapter of human evolution, i think civilization should start with something called "The nomadic age" Everyone has a settler and can travel around the map and when he finds a decent place, he tells his tribe to settle down there. To prevent excessive wanderings around the map to find the best home, the game starts when 2/3 or 50% or whatever percentage of all players has already settled, forcing those who did not so far to hurry to the best places they found. Of course some still have better locations than others, but it would prevent some big disadvantages that occur in civ3 at the start.
The age would be very short indeed, only some turns for the majority to get to a decent location, but it would add a lot more balance to the whole game and also pays tribute to the great era of the nomadic tribes. It has no fixed number of turns, only as many as 2/3 of the players need to find a place to settle. The first one has to wait for the rest and a total number of players that already settled should be shown on screen, but when finally 2/3 have settled, the game begins at 4000bc and those who have not settled so far should do so now.
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