Worst starting position ever!

[Salvor]

I like to play random map, random civ, random rivals, iron man style, and I usually play it out, win or lose, for the experience. I've had some bad starting positions before, and have probably lost at least as many games as I've won. I generally don't restart just because of a bad start, since I learn more from losing than I do from winning, but I think I'm gonna make an exception in this case.

Has anyone seen a starting position as bad as this one?

 

[Badluck]

Not for me, but i don'T play all random

 

[Benjamin Miller]

I have had some pretty bad starting spots, but I can safely say, that by far dwarfs the badness of all my bad starting spots put together times ten.

 

[jimmytrick]

I don't see a problem with that position. Nice isolated spot far from warmongering civs, a lake in your front yard (ice fishing and size 12 with no aqueduct), hill top view (excellant for defense) and you will automatically expand to that game tile in 10 turns. Extra food for those long winters!

 

[Dinorius R.]

eyrei reply:

At the risk of adding to YET ANOTHER thread on starting positions (I mean everything that could have been said about this topic was said back in January) I must ask what on earth are you complaining about, you whiner? This is an excellent starting position and it would be exactly where you would expect a thriving civilization to have its roots. I cite the huge Eskimo civilization as a real-life example. Wish all my starting positions were like this. Don't change anything Firaxis! If you can't deal with this position how are you ever going to deal with all the 1-shield cities you make later in the game? Get used to eating whale blubber.


Zouave reply:

What do you expect from such an obviously flawed game that Firaxis rush-released before any kind of play-testing? Along with ships that can't be sunk by bombers, tanks that can't kill spearmen, cities that can't produce anything and totally bogus tech trading by the cheating AI, we have to contend with starting positions in Antarctica. Fix it Firaxis otherwise I'm releasing the rest of the anthrax.

 

[Parmenion]

Why aren't you two using your own logins and what have you done with Dinorius R??


Ho ho...

 

[Selous]

hehe laughin my arse off BIG time Dinorius R!! lol lol .... so i guess those 2 aint going to post here? or perhaps just flame u ... next time a post comes up like this we shall just have to keep an eye out for there post .... perhaps they could cut and paste of this one

 

[Dirk Aurel]

 

[aja]

been there dude. just another stupid example of sid ala money. thank you for sharing. i thought i was the only one...

 

[AugustoD]

man i dont like to be in that position....

 

[jnikkel]

On my first Warlord game after moving up from Chieftain I got started in the middle of the rain forest - nothing but jungle for miles around. I played it out and was anihilated? as I couldn't get my cities large enough to produce settlers.

Always play it out.

 

[Arrian]

Salvor,

I gotcha beat. Only I don't have a screenshot to prove it. I once started on a plains square, completed surrounded by desert. At least you had a lake and a game.

I admire your patience in playing out any old start. Me, I'm a chronic restarter. I don't want to waste my time on a bad location... or even a mediocre one. I restart until I find myself in a nice place.

-Arrian

 

[Salvor]

Actually I did start to play it out. My island is pretty small, and I squeezed in about a half-dozen cities to take advantage of any spot where I could get at least 2 coastal or game tiles and 2 forest or hill tiles within its range (especially if I don't need a temple to reach them). It took me until around 500BC to get mapmaking, and there's a big continent to my north within reach of my galleys. The Iroquois were in the process of pummelling the Persians to dust, and I managed to get a little bit of grassland and start 2 cities, while my impies fend off the Persian archers. I actually managed to destroy one Persian city that had 2 - count 'em 2 - Persian spearmen.

Now it's about 200AD and I'm the only one (of the three civs I know of) still in the ancient age. But my histograph shows me in 2nd place! And I not only managed to build Colossus but another 100 years or so and I'll have the Great Lighthouse as well. All that in about one hour of playing time. I've never had a huge map game that played out this quickly before. I've decided that even a bad start like this can be fun. With a little imagination I'm not really the Zulus, I'm the Anti-Vikings! (Dark skin and coming from the southern icecap.) Conducting a lot of coastal raids and basically playing spoiler to any of the AI civs I don't like, starting with the Persians. I hope the French aren't too far away. I hate pink!

 

[royfurr]

Salvor-

Good for you man! Go for it. LIke you said, you often learn as much or more from losing as compared to a lopsided victory.

ANYWAY I admire ya for sticking with it. Post how it plays out in the end. Goodluck at least making it to the end of the game.


Dinorius R.-

MAN OH MAN DID I LAUGH!! Well said!!

BTW like your sig line. I too am one of those nefarious alchemical types.

Civ on!

 

[Beamup]

I've seen worse. My personal record looked something like that, but without the game or lake and with only one forest tile.

 

[Alc0p0pz]

a lake in your front yard (ice fishing and size 12 with no aqueduct)

But he's never gonna get that city beyond size 4 (Forest + Game = 3, Lake = 2, City Centre = 2, Tundra = 1. Total = 8 food, 4 pop.)

I once started on a plains square, completed surrounded by desert. At least you had a lake and a game

Nah, the Tundra one is far worse in the long run.
Once you have Steam Power and Electricity, you could irrigate and RR all the desert, allowing size 21 (20 * irrigated and RR'd desert = 40, City Centre = 2. Total = 42 food, 21 pop.)

Desert > Tundra, simply because each tile worked can support one pop, when properly improved.

 

[Aeson]

Assuming you build where you started, the all desert start = game over. You could never produce a settler without disbanding the city, which ruins the whole point of building it in the first place. I've had games where I moved my first settler up to 8 spaces to find a suitable city site. I have never seen a start without at least 1 tile of 2 food in the 9 square radius though.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

I once started with Jungle only, too. Sadly on my island there was noone else and there was only jungle. Now how do I even get a settler for town two at the coast so i can ship troops somewhere where I might capture someones town so i can get started......... It took the others until 1200 AD to kill me..........

 

[Hamlet]

At least with the desert there's a chance of finding a flood plain. I have to say, that the desert knocks away tundra anytime.

 

[LordAzreal]

That is definitely the worst start location I've seen. Sure you've got your deserts, jungles and hills, but consider this.

Jungles can be cut down to grassland
Deserts may contain floodplains somewhere. They can also be irrigated or mined, meaning that they can be more productive than tundra.
Hills can be mined

However, it is pointless to play if your current location is somewhere in which you cannot get your first settlement population to 3 (need to to build extra settlers), unless you're expansionist and INCREDIBLY LUCKY!!! and find nothing but settlers in goody huts.

The thing that makes tundra the worst is that the best way of manipulating it is to plant a forest (doesn't come until middle-ages).