Game Set-up and Bad Start Positions

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by DeepO

Happy B-day then (okay, a bit early, but I'll prolly have forgotten it by then )

As to posting each start position in a separate thread: no thank you. If your start is very bad, you might want to risk posting it, if it is decent or even good you don't want others to get any piece of information on you. So post as you like, as long as you don't force us to post ours

DeepO

Shush, you! I'm trying to get a sneak peek where all of the teams are starting out at.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by UberKruX
if you get a bad start location Aeson joins your team. simple as that.

That would work. Aeson can win with nothing but a city radius full of 21 desert tiles.

(And that's assuming his initial worker was killed by a barbarian before it could make any improvements.)

[WarriorPoet]

I'm with Randolph...now we need to determine what God Aweful would be.

IMHO, if you can't generate more than 10 shields at your start location with a size 6 city, then that position is god aweful.

[DeepO]

10 shields in size 6? that would be considered a good position! If you can't reach size 6, that would be god awwful... which is a rare occurence, as you can always move your settler a little. The only posititions that really need restarting are the all-desert, or all-tundra ones. Everything else is ok. Don't expect that every civ will start with a bonus resource, if you got one you will be lucky. For rivers the same... some teams won't have rivers nearby, nothing to avoid this.

DeepO

[asleepathewheel]

I hope the requirements aren't too restrictive.

how can we possibly guarentee 8 perfect spots?

[Randolph]

I say: "if in 5 turns of exploration (2/3 for expansionistic?) you can't find a city cite that is capable of reaching size 6)"

As stated above, there's no way we can (or should) guarantee even a good starting position for everyone. OTOH I would like to protect against that rare (but we've all seen it) starting location that is so bad the team doesn't even have a real chance.
I'd say there's less than a 10% chance for this, but even this chance is worth protecting against for a game that will be as involved and long as this one.

I do think we should decide and move on to more important issues.

[WarriorPoet]

moving 5 turns! DeepO, I've found that you need to produce 10 shields by size 6 to fend off the AI that sometimes surround you. Back to Randolph, 5 turns??? I would say 3 moves max to find a good start position, and I'm talking about the settler moving.

[DeepO]

WarriorPoet, 10 shields is not needed at all, and even with bonus resources is quite rare. Besides, how many games have you played in which the capital was at size 6 in the ancient era? Most of the times it is a settler farm, and only starts to grow when you start going to war. It's only after either Monarchy or Republic that it will actually start to produce a little.

As to the movement: that seems a good discussion start: if you aren't able to find a start position, 3 moves away from the initial start, that will allow your city to grow to size 6, you are allowed a restart. But don't misinterpret Randolph here: he was sying that if you can't find a position within 5 turns (of exploring), you should be able to restart... which would mean something like 2 moves with your settler. Which is also fine for me...

DeepO

[Arrian]

I think we just ought to pick a neutral poster whom we can all agree is trustworthy and send him the map, and trust his judgement with respect to the definition of "god awful." Otherwise, we're gonna sit here and debate the definition amongst ourselves for a week.

Speaking of Aeson... might he be a good judge of the start locations? I doubt anyone would accuse him of being soft on people

-Arrian

[Randolph]

That is if he won't join our team

[WarriorPoet]

Good points DeepO. I play differently, more of a modified builder I guess...my capital always gets to size 6 in the ancient era, which means more wonders, more culture, and a bigger army for me-at least that's been my experience. As to the movement requirement, I'll side with the 5 turn thing, if indeed it is interpretted as you say DeepO, that the settler gets only two moves.

[DeepO]

Well.. I would like both approaches: Aeson would make a fine judge on starting positions (provided he plays out the first few turns, as I really think we should take moving a settler into account), OTOH we could define it as any position withing 2 moves can produce enough food to get to size 6.

Probably a referee would be better, as he can also spot if there is one superb position, which would unbalance the game (like having 3 cows, when others have half desert).

DeepO

[WarriorPoet]

Yes, we are now in agreement...if only we could see something official on this topic...better yet, is there to be a demo game newsletter e-mail???

[Meshelic]

Originally posted by WarriorPoet
Yes, we are now in agreement...if only we could see something official on this topic...better yet, is there to be a demo game newsletter e-mail???

There had been some discussion of an independant journal that followed the game with press releases from each team in the PTW threads. I don't know how far that got but it sounded like a good idea to me at the time....

[alva]

I asked catt to do this, but he said he doesn't have the time for it

And I would prefer this thing being done by a non-member

Wasn't Trip gonna do a newZ-update btw??