(October 28th, 2015, 08:42)Commodore Wrote: Oh my dear boy. Neighbors alas aren't the *last* consideration; they are indeed the first. To pick, say, a crazy random example, I would always prefer to neighbor three newbies in a craptacular tundra waste start rather than have a lush and lovely start in between, say, Plako and Dtay...
That's your own personal bias though. A player still needs stuff to do stuff.
(October 28th, 2015, 11:45)Bacchus Wrote: Just saw that Comm went ahead and posted "picks" in each thread — just an hour after coming to a unilateral conclusion that this is what the players want, even if it goes against everything said up to date. What the hell?
And people thought I was being paranoid earlier when he started slinging people around on the map!
I think now you absolutely have to balance the starts based on the starting techs of whatever civ people choose, and you have to balance the land based on the error from the spreadsheet instead of just using the quality of combos for that. This is frustrating, Commodore.
I'm no expert by any means, but here're my thoughts on some of the starts based on this image:
Greywolf:
Really nasty IMO. Only food source here is a Fish, because the Pigs seem to be jungled. Can't plant a second city with first ring food except for the Clams to the southeast in Jungle Hell. The Clams to the NE are orphaned if you SIP; the Fish to the north of that are orphaned unless you settle on the Pigs. Several of the capital's riverside tiles are covered by jungle, with the rest at risk of being overgrown. I'd remove all of the jungle near the captital, get the Pigs into the cap's BFC, and add a couple of food resources to the west and SW. Maybe green up the little desert too.
Dantski:
This spot seems fine. I'd remove the jungle NE of the Pigs so it doesn't spread, but otherwise this looks alright. Decent potential for expansion. The big desert to the east could use a few more oases, and perhaps a food res to the east of the triple Ivory (that isn't a dry plans Wheat), as otherwise it could be difficult to make contact with let alone fight the REM/Greywolf empires.
Gavagai:
Very little good land beyond the capital. Has to reach far to the south to keep expanding as the east is all tundra and desert and there are no islands nearby. The northmost Fish will be orphaned unless you settle 1SW of the Sheep. If you want to keep the tundra, run a river or two through it and have some tundra floodplains. The desert really needs to be greened up, or receive oases or food resources or something.
The rest of the starts seem fine to me, although if TheWannabe is as bad as you say he might have trouble expanding from his island. I guess Molach has limited access to islands that won't be contested by other players, but that's acceptable.
Neighbors alas aren't the *last* consideration; they are indeed the first. To pick, say, a crazy random example, I would always prefer to neighbor three newbies in a craptacular tundra waste start rather than have a lush and lovely start in between, say, Plako and Dtay...
