Monarch vs Emperor starting locations

[Fistleaf]

It just seems that Emperor is much harder because of the starting locations. I have tried 4 consecutive games on Emperor (all losses) and the nearby resources my starting cities get are 1-2 health/happiness bonuses and maybe copper. I tried playing the Mongols for early warfare but there are no horses nearby.
I switch back to playing Monarch, and I get stone AND marble both times for wonder building. Copper and iron are not hard to find too.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

One of the handicaps in the game is the order that the starts are selected. It's not necessarily a smooth progression, as integer rounding kicks in, but if you are getting the 4th best spot instead of the third best, you'd expect to see a weaker collection or resources nearby.

[Fleme]

I've had some insane spots on Emperor too and I still get a ton of those 17 forest tile starts on Monarch as well as Emperor. I'm sick of those and always regenerate them, because they're simply not fun.

I suppose it's down to luck too. (I play RandomScriptMap, perhaps that has got something to do with the start locations being mostly good)

[Fleme]

I actually ran a test to see what kind of maps turned out. I selected Emperor as difficulty and first created 3 maps with RandomScriptMap. First one was a Big and Small map, turned out a starting spot with 5 Flood Plains, 3 Grassland Hills, a plains hill with Gold, a Fish and a Cattle. A really good spot. Second one was a Terra with an average spot. Coastal location, no river, 2 clams and something. Third one was a Pangaea, 2 rivers running in the BFC, incence, cattle, wheat. So, all in all, good types of start locations for each specific map type.

Then I created a game with the inbuilt Pangaea. This also turns out a really strong spot with 2 Corn, a plains hill with gold, but on the downside there's not a lot of river. Worldbuilder shows that there's stone, marble, horses and iron nearby. Second one was a Terra, which I immediately looked at in the worldbuilder and boy it was grim. On my screen I could see only 3 resources which were Coal, Dye and Wheat, all in my BFC and other than that there was nothing. Awful. The third one, another Terra, was again a good spot with a river running through, a plains hill with gold alongside it, ivory, cattle.

So, it's quite inconclusive. The mapgenerator can apparently really screw you over and I'm glad I wasn't playing that game with nothing within any reasonable distance. In retrospect I'm a bit upset I didn't save that Big and Small with the killer start spot

Anyways, I do like RandomMapScript, it can generate all kinds of maps and in my opinion beats the regular map generator.

[johnmcd]

"on the downside there was a lot of river" How can that ever be bad?

[LzPrst]

heh, my last started emperor game got 2 cows and the rest forest. fekk. first tech AH. then the barbs started pooring in ruining my early development. when I beat them back I had 4 cities and my worker army was breaking my economy. emperor is HARD. moving along fairly nicely now though, but I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind in tech. maybe I can catch up as I have a big rivercovered area now. but still, seems far fetched looking at my competition.

[LDiCesare]

I haven't seen anything in the code that ties difficulty level to starting locations. There is no such link in any of the map scripts I read (or wrote).

[Fleme]

Did I say downside? Well I had stayed up until 7 AM so that was me being daft. Just shows what missing a simple "not" will do to your point.

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by Fleme
Did I say downside? Well I had stayed up until 7 AM so that was me being daft. Just shows what missing a simple "not" will do to your point.

Ah, that makes sense then. I do that all the time too!

[Crossfire]

It seems like I get way more starts right next to the Tundra in Emperor than Monarch. I also know that if I don't have a decent start on Emperor I am going to lose so I probably regenerate more often than on Monarch because I don't like losing EVERY game! Actually, I have yet to win a more or less peaceful game on Emperor. I keep getting closer though...

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by Crossfire
It seems like I get way more starts right next to the Tundra in Emperor than Monarch. I also know that if I don't have a decent start on Emperor I am going to lose so I probably regenerate more often than on Monarch because I don't like losing EVERY game! Actually, I have yet to win a more or less peaceful game on Emperor. I keep getting closer though...

Nothing worse than a bad emperor start, bite the bullet, slough through a hundred turns...no copper...churn another hundred...no iron...another fifty...Gilgamesh has a big army!...Gilgamesh declares war you (your insults have gone on long enough)...Yes! a cottage!....