The Useless Start Competition

[frob2900]

My entry below, and all I can say is wow. Oddly enough, good starts tend to make me enjoy the game slightly less, since I start to sweat about beating my personal bests in the various victory categories.

This on the other hand just makes me want to slog out a late conquest victory using my Mongol Hordes pouring out of the Icy Southern Wastes Pure fun!

If my scout doesnt find copper or horses anywhere I dont really know what to do tho. Perhaps whip a few triremes and travel round the map pillaging luckier peoples workboats out of spite. Their troops would freeze to death marching to my capital should they decide to exact revenge

[EDIT] I attached the save, in case the summer heat is getting to anyone and they're wishing for some colder climes. The game has "No Barbarians" which might lighten the doom slightly.

 

[Jerrymander]

Oh God. You're gonna need Fogbusters, and a lot of them.
>_<

 

[frob2900]

Well, luckily I had "No Barbarians" set, so that lightens the nightmare a bit

Oh God. You're gonna need Fogbusters, and a lot of them.
>_<

 

[AThousandYoung]

No horses or copper - try for iron. Use Archers like old school Starcraft Siege Tanks; fortify them on hills to control territory.

 

[cabert]

you may want to plant a semi useless city to grab silver and furs.
After that, take a neighbours' capital and move your palace asap.

 

[Galileo44]

At least you know where your GP farm is going to be.

 

[MarkM]

you may want to plant a semi useless city to grab silver and furs.

Actually that city wouldn't be too bad -- place on the ice square right between the silver and northmost beaver, it's barely touching the bay so you get to build lighthouse. With lighthouse you get to work the inland lake for an extra food, eventually you can support a size 7 city if you work all the water plus silver and maybe the beaver hill. do that, plus move that scout sourh of your capitla 2W on top of the hill, your fogbusting is done too (should you have needed it)

not great, but not bad. the cap city has some pretty awesome surplus food though -- whipping or GP heaven ...

 

[DNK]

And to think I've actually complained before about a start. Well, congrats. My worst is just a bunch of plains hills with no food resource.

 

[futurehermit]

That's a pretty crappy start.

HOWEVER

Two resources in first (admittedly crappy) city. PLUS ***stone in your capital with a ton of food***

So, you can nab pyramids and great wall (no need for fogbusters then) while expanding your empire to the east. No worries about going down below 50&#37; science for awhile while you expand because with representation scientists (I would go COL early to run caste system + pacificism + representation in capital for lots of scientists...remember 2 from silver + furs + extra from representation).

Look for an enemy capital to the east to add still further representation-enhanced scientists.

And don't forget the Great Library for 2 free representation-enhanced scientists.

You could still make something of this game I think.

 

[frob2900]

Well, I beat the map. Keshiks then knights then cavalry did the trick. Somewhat embarrasing admission: I've never really used cavalry that much before; always though Rifling was a better grab than Music/Military tradition at that point. Boy was I wrong!

Now with BtS coming out my revelation is for naught

Anyhow, as I played it I build my first city just north of the little river north of the fur (adjacent to the german cultural boundaries that are barely visible in the first post). I lost the silver that way but grabbed the deer and thus got a passably useful whipping post out of the deal.

Strange maps make for strange tactics; I knew that the second city (Beshbalik) would drown in Berlins culture without some drastic steps, so I researched masonry and sailing in order to get stone to Beshbalik ASAP (the long arctic trek meant researching sailing was quicker than a road).

I got stonehenge early and the pyramids around 1 AD (also in beshbalik). I then quickly whipped away that extra 3 happiness to get some german cities ASAP. Once I controlled germany and most of Persia (the only two targets who got Feudalism late and werent protective) I was woefully behind Caesars tech pace (he was friendly due to shared religion but a real space race threat).

Using cavalry I did something I don't usually do and went on a razing rampage in Caesars core cities rather than performing a "traditional" invasion. As far as I can see the cavalry window (until the AI gets rifling) seems to be only realistic time for this interesting strategy. I moved huge cavalry stacks through Open Borders roman territory, positioning them in Carthaginian land south of Caesars' core cities, then ran through his cities as fast as I could, razing and pillaging. This really saved me in this game, and slowed the AI tech pace enough for me to win later on.

The most dangerous episode in the game was a later counter assault by Caesar and Wang Kon (his vassal) in the mid 1700's, but again the useless AI war management saved my skin

The razed Roman lands are visible as an empty swath on the minimap in the second attachment. Fun stuff, fun game

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

Calvery are always the backbone of my army, they just seem to have a long, golden age of use. I can usually get them when the only counter is Pikeman, who perform pitifully against them.

A very interesting post, I enjoyed it

 

[Soneji]

lol at the great wall.

I've never seen it built so small lol!

 

[Phrederick]

lol at the great wall.

I've never seen it built so small lol!

Haha, that's hilarious.

 

[Bursk]

Haha, that's hilarious.

It should probably just be called "The Wall".

 

[InFlux5]

To the OP: that doesn't look too bad for a sea-based empire. You've got a lot of food there. Maintenance costs for distance would be the worst part, as your cities are going to be very far from each other.

 

[Ecofarm]

My worst start ever:

Black screen "You have been defeated".

4000BC loss. Settler or warrior maybe poped an angry hut on entry, I dunno (post-game display does not even show me the starting locations of other civs).

I was like "damn, this difficulty level is REALLY tough".

 

[BARBEERIAN]

Worst ever:

Multiplayer (Teamer), Modern Era
Islands

My entire island had no floodplains, 3 grassland, 15-20 plains, and the rest was ice/tundra. Oh, and not a SIGNLE hammer resource or hill or even plains forest anywhere on the stupid thing.

 

[Quornix]

My worst start ever:

Black screen "You have been defeated".

4000BC loss. Settler or warrior maybe poped an angry hut on entry, I dunno (post-game display does not even show me the starting locations of other civs).

I was like "damn, this difficulty level is REALLY tough".

I've seen some tough starting locations, but I think that, hands down, you win. Really, could anyone have a worse start than "you lose"?