Bad starting place - What do you do???

[stevesk]

Hey guys! Let me say that every 7 games 1 play, 6 of them I born in an acceptable location - or I can find one in at last 10 turns - but 1 of them not. I think it happens with you too and it is a problem that I see since Civ2.

But let's not stop here. Let's also say you are playing Terra with 18 civs (so, one civ VERY close to another and maybe you are only able to build 2-3 cities before the other civs take all the land around you) and you born in a place with bad terrain, you walk many turns to find a better place - I said MANY, for about until 3500 B.C. but you don't find any place AND later you discover that you haven't horses/iron/copper/anything else in your territory (so you would invade your neighbord with archers and they are already with swordsman).

What would you do, sincerely speaking? Try to play the game or give up it?

[Overcast32]

Hmm - typically, I would start a new game...

If I was inclined to give it a try, I think you would almost have to attack early, before their units become far more powerful...

But in all honesty - I'd re-start, most likely. I don't mind a "challenging" position - if there is still some chance at getting things to work.

[stevesk]

Thanks for the answer!

But the problem to attack early is when you take many and many turns to find a "less bad" place (but not a good one, you still don't have horses, iron, copper, etc.). The other civs will be many turns ahead of you so they will be more powerful.

[stevesk]

Ok, lets make the question a little bit simple: in other words...if you born in REALLY bad condictions, bad terrain without any millitary resource (horses, iron, copper, etc.) and you are surrounded by many civs and there is no more space to expand, what would you do? Keep playing or quit the game?

[Nacht]

I generally keep on playing. I had never a situation as you describe though. My last game I was on an island with Gengis without -any- happy resources on the whole island. I also didn't try to get any of the early religions and don't count on Gengis in that case. Man, for the first time I was happy to be able to build colloseums. I did win the spacerace and somehow after a bad start that's more satisfying.

In my current game I had a very good start, and yes, that's fun too

[LoriTX]

I will usually play a few turns then decide to continue or not.

Lori

[stevesk]

Well, I think it is not only me who thinks about giving up the game then...

The problem is: Ok, you have only 2-3 cities and you are surrounded by many other civs and most part has at least one millitary resource and you haven't none. How long you would keep going? Until your neighbor who has iron invade you with swordsman? Maybe it's just waste of time...but I would like to confirm that without the weight in my heart that "no, if you would be really good, you would keep going". But I think that there can be situations that you are so unmisfortuned that you cannot keep going. In an island as Nacht there can be a way out but maybe in a continent full of civs there can't be.

[armchairknight]

I would play as long as I was having fun. As soon as it wasn't fun, I would be SO out of there. Being completely surrounded or lacking valueable assets don't have to kill the fun, but if they did....

[Urban Ranger]

armchairknight

The fun factor is important here. If a game is no longer for you, there's no shame in restarting.

Depending on your civ (acutally UU) and the map you may attempt an ultra early rush of some sort against a neighbour.

[Paddy]

yeah the goal is to have fun is a game afterall

[Son of David]

Re: Bad starting place - What do you do???

If I get a bad starting position I retry the game several times using different tactics until I eventually win.

Failing that, I cry.

[Overcast32]

I was kinda thinking about this last night when I started up a new game - I'm a good one for starting a lot of new games.... I actually haven't achieved any kind of victory yet! I've only been playing Civ 4 for a month - I don't always feel the need to beat a game ASAP though, I find I can keep the games a bit more fun by "dragging my feet" sometimes.

But anyway, it started me in a fairly nasty position, but after a bit of exploration, I found quite a bit of lucrative area behind me.

Now, if I wouldn't have found that - well, I only had maybe an hour and a half to play - I probaly would have played it out anyway.

It's kinda do or die for me if I get pressured in a corner. Sometime's I'll just attack and hope for the best. If i get squished - I'll just re-start.

I agree 100% - don't feel you gotta be "hardcore" and play a map just because you started it. I agree 100% - just have fun. Afterall, I haven't gained a victory yet, but I'm still having loads of fun.

[Hayek]

Like it was said before, restart if it isnt fun.

I must say however that in most cases (a very crowded world being the main exception) a restart isnt really necessary in civ4. If you give yourself a bit of room, it's quite likely that you will have the essential early resources (copper, horses, iron) around, as well as a one or two happy and health resources. Lagging behind the AI in the early game doesnt have to be much of a problem either; in most cases it's fairly easy to defend your empire, few wonders are really essential, and there are several ways to up your income.

And if I'm allowed a brief excursion into slightly off-topic territory: what a difference with civ 3 that is! In 3 you could be royally -ed when another civ beat you to the pyramids or great library by 1 or 2 turns; you could get starting locations with no decent resources anywhere in sight, or sit on a small island even on a continents map, or start in the middle of the amazon jungle or the himalaya's.... or all of them combined actually...

In short, in civ 3 I'd restart on average about 5 or 6 times before I played a map to the end, with civ 4 that has dropped to around 2....

[stevesk]

I wish to thank you all for your opinion, really the fun is what matters...I will say what happened in a game today:

I started in Noble level, in a very bad location. REALLY BAD. That was a Terra map with 18 civs (yes I love everyone close to everyone, like it would be a "real" Europe lol). Well, so, watching my bad location I walked...and walked...and walked. I REALLY walked to find an acceptable location but I wasn't finding any one - this is an excession which as I said happens only 10-15% of the games. 20 turns later (!!!), I found an OK place (no, I am not wanting too much, just somewhere close to a river but I didn't find any unoccupided territory in a river until 20 turns of game - quite strange but ok). Found my civ. very close to 2 other civs capitals . Later I found out that I didn't have horses, copper and I had to fight a real culture war against one of the civs to get iron. When I got Iron, I was with 3 cities (one of them in a real bad place just to get the iron). From this moment, I knew I could at least defend myself so I played for a while (gave up the game later for other reasons like game unexp. so I was getting too much behind in the tech run). But the fact is, if I haven't had got those iron, there would be no way to keep going. My first city was founded 20 turns later than anyone's other so no way to start an early invasion, specially with powerless archers because I didn't have horses or copper to get better units.

About what Hayek said, it was the reason I only played Civ3 for one week. I played a lot Civ2 (yes, I was good on this one, winning the game in Emperor level) and that was a real problem, but it seemed to become worse on Civ3. Now on Civ4 they finally seemed to "fix" it. Seems that the game had become more "balanced".

Anyway, I woul still be very glad to receive more opinions about this topic.

My next question is (but if you still want to say your opinion about the first one, feel free to do it ): Ok, if the game is not fun anymore because you are in a real bad and hopeless location, you can give up. But...and if it is in multiplayer game? I still don't play multiplayer, but for those who play, is that common see many players giving up in the early game because they didn't see any future in their locations?

Edit: In addition to what Hayek said, I can be wrong but in the only week I played Civ3 I saw that AI was too much cooperative between themselves and too much against the player. I think that sometimes they were just "giving" techs one to another even if the other civ has nothing to offer. I think it was a little "solved" in Civ4. Not that they don't cooperate between themselves but I think it is not "everyone vs. the player" as it was in civ3.

[marvinkosh]

Here's some food for thought.

I'm currently playing a game against AIs on a large map generated by Tectonics. On my entire continent, which is big enough for the three Civs (including mine) which occupy it, there are a few missing resources. I managed to snag Horses and Iron, but no Copper - and Marble was also nowhere in sight so anything which used it had to be built at half-speed. Thankfully, the barbarians weren't too much of a handful, thanks to the excellent cover afforded by the flora (trees and jungle) but resources continued to be a problem as I progressed to the industrial age, finding no oil anywhere on my continent. I've just nabbed some at an extremely southerly location, and have an outpost right next to some oil on the polar ice.

I've got a guess on what happened with the 'western' continent, which is slightly smaller and only occupied by two Civs. Montezuma managed to get boxed in a bit by Elizabeth because of the mountain range but spread his religion (Buddhism) in her cities. Although Elizabeth eventually rose in power and founded her own religion (Taoism), she didn't actually spread it all that much.... Buddhism continued to be her state religion for some time until I sent waves of Confucian missionaries her way.

The advantages of following an AI's state religion as opposed to one you have just founded is that you have one or more nearby allies who are willing to fight for you, or at least a neighbour who isn't actively plotting your downfall.

Unfortunately for Montezuma, although he's raking in the cash from Elizabeth's cities (and the cities of a couple of other nations) he didn't do anything much to keep her on his side and so when she eventually switched first to Confucianism and then to Free Religion, he wound up on the receiving end of her (by now considerable) military might.

So too can a human with a bad starting position turn things around and end up becoming a force to be reckoned with. In that same game, I have flipped a couple of American cities to my side with superior culture, and I stand to add one more at least before the end of the game I think. Now the extra cities are not necessarily going to make or break, but here's the thing - I didn't have to apply any sort of military pressure to get them, I've just been on a strong defensive footing. Washington did all the work of building them up, and they fall into my hands with just a little careful pushing.

Having maintained a fairly good research speed thanks to the spreading of my own state religion, and having a decent share of the land, I should now be on track to win a late-game victory (Space Race or United Nations being the likely wins). If I am attacked in the intervening years then I have the modest reassurance that most of the resources I need will be at hand and I will have a capable military.

They key I think is to survive those years when you can't build the best troops for that era, and play nicey-nicey with your neighbours until you can build decent troops which don't depend on resources, such as Riflemen. When you start cranking them out, you can easily gain several positions in terms of power ranking.