How to rate your starting position - A simple algorithm

[couerdelion]

I’ve developed a simple scoring system to enable people to rate how strong a starting position they have.

The basic score will be based on number of specials in the capital’s fat cross to enable the start to be assessed quickly. (Edited version)

6 pts Fish, Corn, Pigs
5 pts Wheat, Clams, Crabs, Gems, Cow, Sheep
4 pts Rice, Gold, Deer
3 pts Ivory, Silver, Marble, Stone
2pts Other resources

+2 if access to fresh water
+1 if coastal
-1 for each resource covered by jungle
+1 per flood plain (or oasis)
+1/2 per forest
+1/2 per river tile
-1 for each seafood resource if city site is not coastal
-1 for each poor tile (desert,tundra,ice, jungle, mountains, ocean
+2 if city site provides more than 2/1/1 (but resource now valued as +1 instead of full value)
-2 per turn used before founding first city

The score can then be adjusted as you gather more information on the surrounding position

-5 if on an island
-1 for each aggressive neighbour – borders separated by up to 10 tiles. Treat Julius and Isabelle as aggressive.
+(0-10) for second city site eg oasis and floodplains with gold combined might be a 10 pt. If you’re surrounded by desert, ice, tundra or jungle then you might have a 0 pt.
+(0-3) for third city
+(0-2) for fourth city
+2 if horses are easily accessible
+2 if copper is near
+1 if iron is near
-2 if all three are unavailable

It's crude I know and perhaps some of the factors might be adjusted a bit. Of course, you can take this and adapt it to your own ideas but I'd be interested to have some feedback, particularly on the relative values that I've attached to some of the factors

[uberfish]

Well I guess the AI has some sort of system along these lines...

Which is why it founds bad cities.

[Metaliturtle]

Gold should definitely be weighted higher, I'd much rather get 3 gold mines than any three of the other 5pt resources.

[Yuufo]

- Rice: 4 pts or 5 pts?
- Seafood: * 0.5 if city not coastal
- Gems: * 0.2 if covered by jungle. It is the case unless it is within your starting settler's starting loc. Then exploit the tile, or prey a Jungle doesn't grow on it

- why a bonus for agg neighbours? don't understand

[rah]

You can have all the points in the world but if you don't find copper, horses or Iron reasonably near, your start sucks.

[Blake]

I rate Gems as better than Gold, if the Gems is uncovered. On most map scripts jungle is automatically cleared around the starting site, and thus gems will be cleared.

Grassland Gems are 2-1-6 (I think) while plains hill gold is 0-3-7.
A tile which feeds itself is worth SOOOOOO much more than a tile which doesn't feed itself.
Grassland Hill Gold is worth more than PH Gold, altough in my experience gold is usually on a dry hill.

Deer should be rated as highly as rice, at least if it isn't in tundra (you can get non-tundra Forest Deer which are the best starting tile in the game). Furs and Ivory are also excellent resources, they aren't great to work (tho there's nothing wrong with a 2-0-4 tile if they're grassland), but they provide +1 happy, and that can be huge.

Really the start rating for me looks like this:
+1 pt for every easy surplus of food you can get.
+0.75 pt for every easy hammer you can get.
+0.5 pt for every easy point of commerce you can get (ie river, or gems grassland)
+1 pt for every easy happy face you can get and that you need (obviously it doesn't matter if your food surplus is too low to grow to the happy cap)


If your civ starts with Agriculture and has a grassland corn on river then that alone counts for a lot. I'd generally consider needing to research Hunting, Fishing, Agriculture or Mining to still be easy.

Otherwise the quality of a combination of resources depends a lot on the research. For the Ultimate Bad Start I'll use Tokugawa (Fishing/The Wheel). The Bad Start gives you Cows and (dry land) Stone. You need to research 2 entire techs to pick up the cows, and a short-term dead-end tech to hook up the stone. And the start doesn't have high food, work both resources adn you're stuck at the basic +2 food surplus.

But a start with Grassland Deer and Cows is a good start, because there's a straightforward Hunting->AH tech line and at at least +4 surplus.

While Pigs are always good, they aren't as good if you don't start with Ag or Hunting and/or don't have Grains or Campable resources.

It may not seem a lot, but not needing to research an entire tech is quite a boost to beakers. This can make Floodplain starts extremely strong, especially for civs that start with the pre-req to Pottery (Japan and France) or at least one pre-req to pottery (having both fishing and ag will discount Pottery, so America gets a small bonus here).

I hope if nothing else I've illustrated the folly of a simple rating system.

edit: Another thing:
+1 pt if for every extra resource you get in the capital, by founding on Plains Hill, commerce special on river, food special on grassland. Of course you need to deduct the LOSS of resources from founding on it, for sugar this is nearly nothing, while for gems it's significant.

[johnmcd]

My ideal start city is big food and big production.

That way I can get my settlers out fast for the big commerce sites and nail any early wonders I want quickly.

Also, because so many valuable resources aren't shown at the start what can look like a crummy start often matures into something incredible by the ADs.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Yuufo
- Rice: 4 pts or 5 pts?
- Seafood: * 0.5 if city not coastal
- Gems: * 0.2 if covered by jungle. It is the case unless it is within your starting settler's starting loc. Then exploit the tile, or prey a Jungle doesn't grow on it

- why a bonus for agg neighbours? don't understand

I think Rice has to be lower than wheat because it only gives +1f with a far.

Fair point about the seafood resources but even this can be solved with a nearby second city (coastal) sending a workboat round to improve the tiles. Even so, definitely -1 for the non-coastal since you won't build the lighthouse.

It’s worth considering that the jungle adjustment is almost meaningless in view of Blake’s remarks that your “starting” fat-cross never contains jungle. However, you can move into a tile which has jungle in the fat cross so the –1 adjustment still stands in my book. But a –80% factor is far too high. All you need to do is chop the jungle after Iron Working so the difference is merely lost worker turns. After this, and the mine, the gems are just as valuable as if they had been open.

The factor for aggressive neighbours should be –1. I’ll make that change.

In view of Blake’s other remarks, the +2 for founding on a plains hill should definitely be added although I’ll also add a –2 for each turn before the founding of your first city.

One thing you should consider is that this is merely a tool to measure how good a start is and perhaps allow you to consider options. It is a measure of how good that location might BECOME rather than its value as a starting city. That’s might I haven’t made any reference to starting techs. It complicates matters far to much by introducing too many “what if” elements. As always in this game, start with a simple approach but also learn about the tech tree and traits so that you can also see when the general rule ceases to be effective for the circumstances you are in.

I think also a –2 adjustment for lacking all three key military resources might be in order. But this is never a real disaster, it just limits your options. That adjustment should not be applied if you have ivory though. In fact, Ivory just jumped a place with Deer to reflect the excellent military unit it provides.

[samspock]

I think an oasis should be higher than a flood plain if you are financial. You get three food and three commerce from the start making your turn one science output 12 beakers instead of the normal 9-10 without having to skimp on food. It's only real drawback is you can't improve it.

I tried a start where I founded on a gold plains river hill next to an oasis and had 14 beakers from the start.

[drsparnum]

Personally, I don't like my starting city on the coast. My ideal empire would grow by building 6-7 cities around my capitol in a circle, to optimize defense and minimize maintenance due to distant (something like France with Paris in the middle). If my capitols on the coast I cannot do this, since I cannot expand into the sea.

Secondly, I'd be very happy to get an island full of recources and big enough to comfortbaly hold 9 cities in a ring of 8 cities surrounding my capitol. You would need to have nearby islands, ideally not seperated from you by ocean with AIs present so you can trade tech* but 1) islands really take the barbarian threat down a peg and 2) being on a seperate island will minimize the AIs relationship penalty due to close borders.

You can build up your island and then invade one of your neighbors islands, which ideally looks just like your own, take it all over and slap a forbiden palace or versailles over there. Plus, your much less likely to lose territory to the AI in a war, since the AI just isn't that capable of loading boats and shipping troops safely across water.

That is my ideal start, so it is 1 in a million. Plus I know you won't have all that information in the first coupla turns, so I still appreciate the value of your tool couerdelion. I'm just surpised how differently we feel about water.

*More and more often I've been playing without tech trading. I've found I prefer it.

[padillah]

You call that SIMPLE?

Tom P.

[Urban Ranger]

I changed the XML so rice is the best cereal type special.

This is a fact. Rice is much more productive than other cereals, even though maize has a better carbon cycle.