Is there a linke between civilization and starting location?

[Badtz Maru]

I've noticed that every time I play as the Indians, there are lots of elephants near my starting city. I thought it was just one of those odd coincedences, but then I started as the Incans and had more gold near my starting city than I had ever seen - 3 immediately bordering the city, 2 more within the 'fat cross', and there was more just outside my cities reach.

So, is there anything going on behind the scenes to make sure your civilization starts with access to appropriate special resources, or are these just random coincedences?

[ghen]

I will certainly check it out.. I play a different civ each time so I haven't be able to get any patterns down.

[LordShiva]

Eh. Everytime I play as the Indians, I need to go out and beat someone over the head to get myself some elephants.

[Handel]

No, the starting civs depends on the options you choose in the beginning. Change the options and you get different starting civs. It's stupid indeed, but it is so. The game says "random", but this is a lie.

[Enigma_Nova]

I notice no special access to resources when playing Bismarck compared to Qin, Mao, or Elizabeth.

[Strategist83]

Originally posted by Handel
No, the starting civs depends on the options you choose in the beginning. Change the options and you get different starting civs. It's stupid indeed, but it is so. The game says "random", but this is a lie.

Can you please elaborate?

[Axxaer]

Re: Is there a linke between civilization and starting location?

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
I've noticed that every time I play as the Indians, there are lots of elephants near my starting city. I thought it was just one of those odd coincedences, but then I started as the Incans and had more gold near my starting city than I had ever seen - 3 immediately bordering the city, 2 more within the 'fat cross', and there was more just outside my cities reach.

So, is there anything going on behind the scenes to make sure your civilization starts with access to appropriate special resources, or are these just random coincedences?

Originally posted by LordShiva
Eh. Everytime I play as the Indians, I need to go out and beat someone over the head to get myself some elephants.

Perhaps something to do with the difficulty level? It's possible that the easier difficulties favour the player with better resources in general or based on civ, but randomises / disadvantages at more normal or harder difficulties. Would take excessive amounts of testing... anyone got a few hundred hours spare?

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
I notice no special access to resources when playing Bismarck compared to Qin, Mao, or Elizabeth.

What would be the Civ-specific resources for Germany? Iron?

I think a few people in this thread don't get what I'm talking about...what I mean is that I've noticed that I frequently have large amounts of special resources near my starting location that are historically connected to the civilization I'm playing as - elephants for India, gold for the Inca. I guess I should try and think of resources for other civilizations. What did Rome have a lot of? China should have nearby silk, I guess I'll test them next.

[Badtz Maru]

I'll do more testing later, but I just did three starts as Qin on a large map.

1 - 1 silk, 1 cow, city inland on a river
2 - 2 spices, inland on a river
3 - 3 silk, 1 cow, city inland on a river, gold and wine just outside city radius

The second start was hilarious, by the way - I met Alexander on the second turn because he started 5 spaces from me in a narrow peninsula which had only 4 squares of land within his city radius, including the city itself, that was entirely blocked in by my borders after their first expansion. All he had was 2 clams. Worst start I have ever seen, glad I didn't get it.

[[to_xp]Gekko]

So far I've played with Gandhi only, and each time I got totally different starting resources. Now if only I could get marble and stone next to my capital every single time...

[Badtz Maru]

Re: Re: Is there a linke between civilization and starting location?

Originally posted by Axxaer




Perhaps something to do with the difficulty level? It's possible that the easier difficulties favour the player with better resources in general or based on civ, but randomises / disadvantages at more normal or harder difficulties. Would take excessive amounts of testing... anyone got a few hundred hours spare?

I did notice in the game difficulties XML there was a start pecent that varied between difficulty levels. The difficulty I am using for these tests uses the equivalent of Noble for this value (I'm using a customized 'fair' difficulty level that gives no bonuses to either AI or player).

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by [to_xp]Gekko
So far I've played with Gandhi only, and each time I got totally different starting resources. Now if only I could get marble and stone next to my capital every single time...

Hey, everyone who is interested in this thread, please help out by doing this simple thing. Keep a sheet of paper near your computer, and every new start make note of your civilization, difficulty, and map size, and what special resources start out within your cities boundaries (that is, if you make a city on the first turn), and what ones are just outside those boundaries. With enough data we might be able to see if there's truly a trend or just observer bias.

[Enigma_Nova]

People will just forget to upload the data once they've done collecting it.
But anyway... (gets a sheet of paper)

[Badtz Maru]

Sorry, I've only started one new game since my last post.

Difficulty: Noble
Map: Large Continents
Civilization: Egypt
City Location: Inland on a river, immediate access to stone and cows, wheat just outside of city boundaries.

Going to do more Egypt starts this evening to see how common it is for them to start with stone.

[Diadem]

I'm 99% sure difficulty effects starting resources.

I don't think it's anything specific, but just a generic random factor that's decreased by difficulty. You can still get very poor starts at settler, or very good starts at deity, but it's less common.

On a lower difficulty you'll get more resources on average than on a higher difficulty. It's also map and mapsize dependent, obviously.

But I don't think it's civ dependent.