The perfect place to land?

[Gelion]

As it was stated here a number of times Jungle is the best natural location avaliable to you.
Personally, I like playing as University on Huge planets with little corrosive forces. This gives me a huge world, dominated by great mountains and mountain ridges, to expand in. The best starting location then is somewhere on a moisture side of the mountain, middle of valley, or between mountains (again on moisture).
In short, a starting point that allows me to expand over a huge continent in all directions is best.

[CEO Aaron]

I've never played around with the strength of erosive forces, always choosing average. I thought it changed the incidence of rocky terrain. Does it actually make high ground more common?

[Russia4Life]

Yes, with weak erosion you get more mountains, hills, and rocky terrain. The opposite applies to strong erosion, the terrain is usually flat or rolling, and very few if any mountains with some hills. Also note that weak erosion can cause more land when a random map is generated. This is due to mountains and hills being generated near a coast that causes land to rise out of the ocean.

[Miko_uk]

Gotta Be the Jungle for me
Ruins is also a good second fav.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Freshwater sea may be a pretty good landmark as well. It's not as powerful as the Jungle but it's still a decent boost.

[Russia4Life]

I landed in the freshwater sea as the pirates on the map of planet. I didn't much care for that experience. Due to the Hive starting right underneath of it so I couldn't make a city to connect the fresh water sea to the rest of the ocean. So I waited for the ability to lower terrain to get out. but when I did that the freshwater sea lost its freshwater bonus. After this happened I decided to take aggression out on the Hive by gassing their bases and then I quit the game.

I suppose it could work out if you get it all to yourself, but bad place to be if your the pirates and there are other factions around.

[Wobbo]

While the Monsoon Jungle is extremely powerful, perhaps overpowered, part of the reason may be that the AI acts significantly more aggressive when it has lots of nutrients. Its almost as if the AI was designed for a different game, because nutrients don't really affect your military might or technological power directly.

The Uranium flats are underrated, especially on huge.

[vyeh]

Welcome, Wobbo!

I prefer to play a mineral focus early game, so I like the Garland Crater.

Another great place to establish your HQ base is in the middle of The Ruins.

[RJPugh]

The best landing site I've had to date was in the game I'm running right now. I landed just south of the Freshwater Sea, which is a decent place to begin with. But I later discovered that I had the entire L-shaped continent to myself. So in addition to having a good starting point, I had vast resources at my disposal with little or no competition for most of the game. It wasn't until well after 2300 that I started getting bugged by neighbors, and by then I had a huge infrastructure and a strong economy.

[Wobbo]

Welcome, Wobbo!

Hi! Thanks, but I'm actually a long time poster, I could no longer log in to my Xian account for some reason, and I came back with my FPS handle.

Another thing I should add: when modders have lowered the growth limit they find that the AI acts extremely aggressive and plays much smarter. I think the AI was designed around the idea that you would sacrifice a points of population for each military unit - like in some versions of Civ. Of course this isn't true, but the AI acts as if it is.

[Marchantbard]

My preferred location is on or near the Uranium Flats. Second preference is somewhere near the Freshwater Sea and/or Pholus Ridge. I'm now considering the Monsoon Jungle as viable, although I'm not having much luck on placement yet.

[dgh64]

One time I started out on the west coast of the central continent, sort of between Garland Crater and Uranium Flats. I was Santiago, so I built a pair of rover colony pods to go claim Garland Crater, because I've landed there before and I know someone else usually lands on the other side of the continent. Sure enough... Diedre was there, but I put my bases down first. So you know what Diedre did? She pronounced vendetta, and put three colonies 2 spaces away from mine, so she could take all the best resource bonuses.

Fortunately, I had the Uranium Flats all to myself, and I rushed some Laser Infantry to crush those bases before they could get reinforcements.

My favorite place is the Freshwater Sea, just because you can have like 4 or 6 bases around (and in) the lake, and the ships you build can get out, but nobody can get their own ships in to attack you.