How to choose certain countries when starting a new game?

[WarLoard]

How to choose certain countries when starting a new game?

Thanks,
James

[rjmatsleepers]

Are you asking about the advantages and disadvantages of the choosing a particular country? I presume you must be, since the mechanics of choosing are straight forward - you click on the country you want to play.

There is a thread somewhere that looked at the average number of starting techs each civ received. My recollection is that white got the fewest on average. I suspect the "best" land will go to the first civ (white) and so on. However, this depends on the games definition of "best" which is probably not the same as most players.

For myself, I nearly always play the English where I have personalised the ruler and the cities.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Elephant]

Some civs, when controlled by the AI, act more "civilized/rational" and some more "aggressive/militaristic". You can find the default settings in RULES.TXT. For example, the Mongols are almost maniacally militaristic, while the Babylonians are teeth-grittingly perfectionistic in city building/improvements. These settings also seem to influence what techs the AI civs will prefer in research and trading and whether they tend to explore and plant more small cities or work to build up their older cities.

For your own choice, realize that civs come in seven sets of three based on color, and choosing an earlier color may get you a better starting location at the expense of "compensations" like free techs or a second settler. Again the sets of civs are listed in RULES.TXT.