is start loc'n affected by difficulty level

[Terra Nullius]

originally posted by joncnunnThere seems to be a rationship between quality of players starting location and difficulty level on random maps as well. (Much more likely to have 3+ nearby diffierent luxary types on Regent than Emperor)

does anyone have any solid data on this?

certainly, all my deity starts seem to end up with me stuck on some chilly little isthmus with big nasty people for neighbours.

does difficulty level actually affect
a) resource appearance
b) available land
c) proximity and tastiness of neighbours?

or am i just being paranoid?

[Sabre2th]

As far as I know, you're just being paranoid, but Murphy's Law does seem to pop up a bit too often in Civ3...

[vmxa1]

Afaik the level setting has no bearing on the start locations and the resources available.

Some players will use a tool like MapFinder to gen up a bunch of maps to met their selection critiera. They then abandon games that turn out to be deficient once they get a better look around.

This is almost manadory for a HoF run, but too much trouble for us ordinary folks.

[Dominae]

You're just being paranoid.

[Theseus]

Would've been a good idea, though.

[Modo44]

Have seen terrific starts on Regent and beautiful ones on Demigod, so the answer is: not level-dependant.

Originally posted by Theseus
Would've been a good idea, though.

Was already proposed as an option (on/off) for CIV.

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Dominae
You're just being paranoid.

Just because you're paranoid...

[Rommel2D]

One thing to watch with starts on a random map is size of land mass. Obviously if you jam alot of civs into a small land, some are likely to get stuck with poor starts, but I also found the same happened with too small a number of civs.

I was trying 4 tribes on a tiny pangaea and did ~6 generations without a single swamp/mountain-type start. When I did 4 on a small pangaea, every map had one or two rotten positions. I'm guessing the generator is tweaked for distance between starts and tribes/land area or something...

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Some players will use a tool like MapFinder to gen up a bunch of maps to met their selection critiera. They then abandon games that turn out to be deficient once they get a better look around.

This is almost manadory for a HoF run, but too much trouble for us ordinary folks.

yeah, i specifically want to avoid that kind of thing.

firstly, i believe in making sacrifices to the rng...
the games where i just miss that crucial wonder by half a turn - stuff like that - always result in a much more interesting game in the end.

second (possibly due to my own limited experience), i tend to find that each map has something new to teach me. if i started setting the map conditions in advance, that would defeat the whole purpose.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Rommel2D One thing to watch with starts on a random map is size of land mass. I'm guessing the generator is tweaked for distance between starts and tribes/land area or something...

curioser and curioserer
i haven't gotten around to tweaking # of civs yet, but it's something to bear in mind, cheers