Why is it so Damn Hard to Get Specials?

[Gatekeeper]

Everyone:

The Germans are especially hard in regards to this. All I get with them are frickin' grassland squares on the standard Earth map. Even when I mess around a bit, adding in plains and forests and maybe even a hill, it's next to impossible to get a frickin' special.

At least now I know why I *loathe* trying to play as the Germans. I spend more damn time trying to get a frickin' special — just one, mind you! — than I do actual game play. Meanwhile, the piece of living crap AI gets specials *and* two damn settlers.

Gatekeeper

[DrSpike]

The colour of the civ can influence where you get placed, but the civ can't. I don't think any colour can necessarily gets fewer specials anyway, unless you are purple and start on the poles.

Work out the pattern (or use hut finder 1.4) and it will seem like you have tons more. You don't have to found exactly where you are placed.

[PDifolco]

It's widely known that Germans work much harder than say, French, Spanish or Italians.. So they don't need frigging Spezialen, let Camembert squares to French and Pasta squares to Italians !

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

According to the AI, a lot of grassland squares and a river (the Rhine?) is a GREAT start But you won't see many specials

[Gatekeeper]

Grasslands and rivers are good for creating big, fat, juicy cities ... RIPE FOR THE CONQUERING! (At least early in the game.)

I thought about setting the "resource seed" to a certain number, but then you end up knowing where the specials are in the long run, and that's no fun after a game or two. So I've always kept it at random ("1"), but it doesn't seem to help with the Germans.

So I started a game with the Aztecs in Central America. Yep, you guessed it: I got two whales right away. I can only wish that almost every game started out that generous.

Gatekeeper

(And being the "Earth-centric" player I am, I refuse to wander out of a nation's birth lands, so to speak. IOW, Berlin won't ever show up in Italy.)

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

It's been ages since I played on the real world map. Thanks for the idea

The only other suggestion I can come up with is to modify the map - create your own map with a larger than usual Europe, and plug in some non-grass squares. Or mine the grass looking for silk/birds.

[Gatekeeper]

STYOM:

If you want to play on an Earth map, I highly recommend the "Northern Hemisphere" file, which can be DL'd from the files section here.

You have to add some geographical features to it (I think ... it's been a while since I've "customized" my NH file), but the continents and islands are all there, along with some major features like mountain ranges and some rivers.

Gatekeeper