Question about Cultural Starting Places

[Osito de Felpa]

How does this work? I like to play on Earth, and I supposed that if I picked the "cultural starting place" option, I'd be able to control exactly where my civ appeared. Apparently, it doesn't work that way, the way you're own civ appears is completely random in the earth world map. Is this the way it's supposed to happen?

PS I'm playin gon conquests right now.

[vmxa1]

The only way I know of to start where you want is to gen your own mp and use the properties of the start location marker.

This ruins the game as you have seen the map.

[Alex]

yes, you have to use the editor for this.

[Osito de Felpa]

OK, thanks, I've stopped even trying to play on Earth.

I'm something of a veteran of CIV 1 and II, but haven't really played III at all, till this conquests version came out. Here's a few more questions:

1. On the middle settings of the planet set up, is it supposed to give you mostly mountain, marsh, jungle and desert, cos that is what I seem to get. I expected the middle setting to be more balanced, with a bit more nicer terrain.

2. Does the continent randomiser make any difference, cos I've tried a few different settings now, and I always seem to get pretty much the same layout? (As an aside, I always seem to get an opponent on the same landmass as me, even if I only pick one or two opponents. Is this "feature" hardwired into the game? I tried creating, then quitting about half a dozen games now, just to see, and its always happening the same.)

[vmxa1]

The older the planet setting the lower the frequency of mountains IIRC. The climate determines the amount of desert wet or dry cool or hot.

[Datajack Franit]

Even though the game always looks the same

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by vmxa1
The older the planet setting the lower the frequency of mountains IIRC.

Supposedly the older the planet the more broken up terrain should be. Thus rather than get a mountain range, you will get an area with grass, forests, hills etc all within sight of each other - no large blocks of one terrain, no uncolonisable mountain ranges extending to at least 6x4 blocks etc.

[ceroomaster]

The culturally-linked starting locations won't make you start in historical locations on Earth, unless said locations have been entered in the editor- it means that all Civs of a particular culture group start near each other, i.e. if you are Japan, China and India may start on the same landmass (they're all Asian), but you're less likely to be near England or Spain (which would be near each other but on a different landmass). IIRC:
Europeans:
Celts, England, France, Germany, Spain, Viking and Russian
Mediterranean:
Rome, Eqypt, Carthage and Greece
Middle-Eastern:
Ottomans, Babylon, Arabs, Persia and Zulus
Asian:
China, Japan, Korea, Mongols and India
American:
American, Aztecs and Ironquois

I would say Zulus are African, but I think they are included in with the Middle Eastern civs.

re: planet settings, I agree with the 'broken up' terrain statement above, plus I've expereinced more mountains on the 3 million year setting than on the 5 million, although that could be down to chance via the randomness of the worlds.

Edit: moved Celts from Med to Europe.
(Also, forgot to mention, info is based on the PTW version)