Worst Start Ever?

[Casualty of war]

If you were Russia or Canada, not so bad. But for Mansa Musa.....

If you want to try it, here's the save. Deity, Seven Seas. Sorry the Warrior is already moved in the save; he started in the riverside tundra west of the Settler.

 

[Sostratus]

I dislike Deity but you could actually pull some moves with this.
First of all that tundra river is your ticket to $$$. (Take the tundra pantheon if you want tons of faith on those bad boys too.) Make a 3 city Suguba cluster (crescent layout) using 2 other crap cities in the tundra. (See suguba guide link in my sig.) If tundra pantheon is a no go, then use the other river to the right/south. (In that case capital could be a beastly St Basil's site later.) That should be enough, if you can pick up a classical golden age, to get you +10/+7/+7 if all 3 sugubas land on a river. That's an automatic 24 science; 34 if you have Reyna at 1 promo.
The two parallel sets of floodplains are also a boon - you can build more suguba clusters or you can get some delicious AQ-IZ cluster action (see IZ guide in my sig.)
The only thing mali gets from desert is extra food/faith on city settle and +gold to routes. But you only need 1 desert city for the routes, and not being in the desert helps make up for the lack of food bonus.

 

[ezysquire]

Definitely seen a lot worse. It's inland, riverside and has mountain adjacency.

 

[TheyMadeMeDoThis]

Even though it kinda sucks to not have any desert around, being mali and all, this isn't the worst. Capital will grow slow so prioritize getting a granary/water mill to grow it fat enough so it can birth some settlers fast! Bad capitol start is easily negated by pooping out settlers asap (quantity over quality).

Also, you've got 4 forests there, ripe for a chop, so get magnus and chop out a granary and settler.

But I'll stop back-seat civving, I'll get your save and see what can be done with it. I'll never tire of a Mali run!

 

[Archon_Wing]

Well, the best way to deal with it is not to deal with it.

Move southeast along the riiver towards the green hills and the deer.;

Spoiler :

Tried the map; the lack of luxury is worse than anything else tbh/.

 

[Casualty of war]

Thanks for the input and suggestions. I'm not saying it was unwinnable; that's someone else's specialty. I always find it entertaining when a Civ with a terrain based advantage gets plopped right down where none can be found. "Children, gather around while I tell you about this wondrous place called The Desert."

When I played it I did similar to what Archon_Wing suggested, moved my Settler and found a pretty great Temple of Artemis spot with a smidge of a Food/Faith engine and enough hammers to actually do something, made a monstrous capital, stayed diplomatic with my neighbors and overtook the world by Turn 100.

I put this up to prompt suggestions but also for awful maps. If you can win on an awful map, you can win on any ground.

 

[Karmah]

"ever" I don't know;but damn this is a bad start ,the only thing is you got going for it is the river. I usually don't restart , but when I do it's one of those start.

 

[Villager720]

I got an England start with only four workable land tiles around my city, which was completely cut off from the rest of the continent by mountains.
THAT was my worst start.

 

[bengalryan9]

Two games ago I rolled Russia. The lands surrounding my starting point had literally no rivers, mountains, iron, geothermic vents, oil (eventually settles an island outpost in the snow just for oil), uranium... managed to pull out the win and had a lot of fun doing so, but getting districts with even decent adjacency was a struggle. Had a very aggressive Hojo directly to the south too.

 

[Tech Osen]

I once had the perfect start for Mali, with Sweden. Same game I had Canada above me in an mountainous area with no tundra.

 

[Casualty of war]

Dump those horrible maps here! No fair hogging the misery.

 

[lotrmith]

I got an England start with only four workable land tiles around my city, which was completely cut off from the rest of the continent by mountains.
THAT was my worst start.

Movement-locked starts are the worst, hands down. No place to settle a second city, few if any tiles to work/improve, can't find huts / kill barbs/ meet city states. Have to rush to shipbuilding on absolute crap single city capital.

 

[Phoenix1595]

Definitely seen a lot worse. It's inland, riverside and has mountain adjacency.

Yeah, this isn’t the greatest start for Mali, but in general, it isn’t the *worst*. Several months ago, someone posted a start where their settler and warrior were on the only two non-mountain/non-water tiles available. Now that is the worst start imaginable.

 

[kb27787]

Meh, I've seen worse. As long as you do not have any aggressive neighbors, it is still better than coastal starts by far.