Worst start ever?

[Olodune]

It's playable. I'm having fun.

A few progress tidbits from t100 (no screenshots yet - I don't want to ruin the experience for any others who wish to try )

Spoiler :

By t100

1st in Food
2nd in MFG
4 cities - 25 total pop
Burned the liberty finisher in a very questionable way:

Spoiler :

Yep, the deplorable Engineer -> Hagia Sophia master plan. I wanted that religion

 

[danaphanous]

nice! thanks for not ruining it! I plan on playing it as well. Plains or hill start?

 

[Olodune]

nice! thanks for not ruining it! I plan on playing it as well. Plains or hill start?

It turns out the "plains tile" is actually coast. There are only 4 land tiles on that island:

1 forested hill
1 forested hill with silver
1 naked plains tile on the eastern tip
1 plains sheep hill tile

I settled on the sheep. Yep.

 

[danaphanous]

makes sense as an improved sheep is the base yield on a settled hill for a long time. cool. I figured it was playable and would be fun.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

If you want to see some godawful starts, try Egypt. The no trees start bias can place them at the south pole. But don't worry, the map generator makes up for it by giving you plenty of aluminium.

 

[EpsilonEridani]

I once had a significantly worse start : I just had half a second to see a nice ice shelf and then I had the "game over" screen

 

[Olodune]

I ended up winning fairly easily. I'll take some convincing that Worker first isn't the best choice here, Danaphanous. Chopped the wrong hill first. Silver should be second.

 

[danaphanous]

Hey Olodune. Just started this. I agree with you, this map is fun! And far easier than I expected.

Spoiler :

For me, monument was best first choice. I didn't feel that waiting 25 turns for tradition opener was worth it, so I quick-built one and got 3 culture and quick expansion going t8 or so. This allowed me to open tradition and get +6 culture going at least 12 turns earlier or so. I intended to settle on the sheep as well, but luckily moved my warrior to the far-right plains tile first to see if there were any good tiles that way I couldn't see and realized something. You know what I realized. So I moved my settler to the far right plain tile and ended up settling on the 3rd turn. This allowed me to get a good +3 food tile far earlier than I'd envisioned and I had decent growth past pop 3. I beelined straight for optics and my borders expanded over to the other landmass. This allowed me to make contact with a passing scout early even before optics. Once I got sailing I pumped out a work boat, then a scout, then settler, then lighthouse.

As my plan didn't include picking up mining until after optics a worker would have been useless to me. As it was there were quite decent tiles to work unimproved including the ones I was able to reach to the far right (reason I moved), the fish, and the silver, which I started working immediately as my first tile. After lighthouse the 5 fish were OP just by themselves. By the time I got mining for the worker I had already stolen one which is usually how I get my first worker. I stole one not long after landing on the other landmass and had an easy time getting away with it being the only one with optics and disembarking. Disembarked right on top of the worker then fled by embarking again. Brought him back in time to start chopping for the lighthouse and 2nd setter.

Now I've settled north with another settler queued and the game is going quite smoothly. Far easier than I thought and probably an easy win once I finish off this neighbor with siege towers. I've penned him in with 2 cities already with some quick settler action and stolen his starter worker. I should be able to do a complete wipe out with no one knowing.

Notice I'm purposefully being vague as I don't want to spoil this for others.

 

[b7fanatix]

Are Korea or Babylon in this game? I bought Vanilla on Steam, then G&K then BNW, but i don't have those Civs, and when i try to play your save, i get a message that i don't have required DLC?

 

[rkade8583]

Celts surrounded by jungle. Instant restart. I'd rather be in tundra or desert than stuck in a big BIG hunk of jungle (I play on huge maps)

 

[Olodune]

Are Korea or Babylon in this game? I bought Vanilla on Steam, then G&K then BNW, but i don't have those Civs, and when i try to play your save, i get a message that i don't have required DLC?

Unfortunately quite a few DLC is needed here, including "Scrambled Continents". I finally caved and picked it up. The only one I didn't see, at a glance, was "Scrambled Nations". Sometimes I think that whenever Firaxis needs some beer money they post a game like this with all DLC enabled If they were a tiny indie studio that might even be plausible.

@danaphanous

I thinks its funny that we see such a different approach for this map. I see limited production and resources and think: Mining + Worker + Liberty. You see the same and go: Tradition + Worker? What for? + Optics. Nice.

 

[danaphanous]

I thought about liberty after the fact. Liberty might've set me up better for conquest here, but with loads of fish I figured quick-growing my cap with a tradition start would turn out well and I wanted a shrine as fast as possible to try for God of the Sea.

Spoiler :

The area actually will not have bad production. If you'll recall I settled as far right as possible. this included a cow and 2 riverside hills on the other continent in range, plus a new lux and a 5th fish. After lighthouse my growth was phenomenal on the fish (main reason I rushed optics but also to get settler spots quick and make contact). That extra growth and tradition is allowing me to run all the hills early so settlers and things are coming pretty fast. Oh, and forgot to mention, going pottery first also allowed me to score +1 production from work boats pantheon. It'll suffer on production later though but the +2 hammer and +2 food per fish from LH is really helping. Anyway, I'm only about 50 turns in and haven't had time to get back. Swap early pics soon?

It's fun seeing how different ppl play the map. what do you mean by "Tradition + worker? what for? + optics" That I ignored a worker and tried to get off-continent first?

 

[budweiser]

There is no plains between hills, its coast.

 

[Buccaneer]

It's always amusing to see someone stating a real bad start that turns out to be an easy and fun map. I think too many has to roll a 5-luxury, hill, coast, river start in order to play.

 

[budweiser]

I pretty much did an OCC diplo victory. Was making over 200 GPT. I did Pottery>Calendar>Stone Henge>God of the Sea.

 

[layelaye]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=521480

The first post is mine. this is way worst then what you have...

 

[Olodune]

It's always amusing to see someone stating a real bad start that turns out to be an easy and fun map. I think too many has to roll a 5-luxury, hill, coast, river start in order to play.

I like the storyline of a tiny backward nation turning into a world superpower. Also, if I know that I am playing a poorer start it makes for a more relaxing game since I won't be able to get a fast result anyways

Short report (with screens)

Spoiler :

With the early worker prepping mines, and Liberty to collective rules, the early slow growth can be offset a little with hammers. Of course, just to the east, lurks Hiawatha. He's usually one of the capable AIs, so I take his presence seriously. This map is some kind of Archipelago, so having a smallish, sea based capital is less of a problem than it could be.

I went three city NC, followed by a fourth on the large isle to the NW (which I was very late in scouting). Nineveh is on Iroquois lands, but has a 1-tile choke point so should be easily held. It's the best of my initial 3-cities, and if it had slightly better production would have been the NC location.

T100 East (3 city core, all settled before t60)



T100 West (a really solid city that could eventually become my best)



At t100 I've just finished Compass. That means a Galleass fleet and war. The attack ready for Hiawatha below. Next turn I'll have 5 Galleass, 1 CB, 1 Warrior, 2 Triremes, and a Siege Tower.



Siege Towers are amazing. Because of their +200% city attack bonus they can take the -50% Amphibious assault penalty without flinching. (I am fairly certain that naval units don't get the city attack bonus, but I might have not been immediately adjacent to the city when I checked. Anyone know? ). Hiawatha mainly has Mohawks. These are not going to get the job done on a water map.

Frigates into Amsterdam (I still don't have any range promotions, but experience is building).



Isabella built a useful canal city so that I have faster access to Madrid, the last non-Assyrian capital in the game.



This leads to a t176 domination victory.



Fun map, but for this map type having a somewhat weak capital isn't much of a problem. Total isolation would have been a different story.