Starting position

[PersonaWolf]

Do you think its worth it to take a few turns to get a good starting position? Say try to find a natural wonder to start by? Or just found your first city where you start (Unless the position is particular bad)

[mss73055]

It depends on how you do this. Moving your settler more than one hex tends to move it out of your goldielock spot. Maybe it's a poor location, but the immediate surroundings are even poorer. Also you may collide with city states.

When I do not like my starting location I usually do a restart on the first turn. Very handy when having a particular opener or a pantheon in mind.

[backnine31]

Also depends on game speed. If you're playing epic (my usual speed) or marathon, then moving for 3-5 turns can be overcome fairly easily. Especially if you find a better location. I don't play deity, mostly emperor, but I would think that the higher the difficulty (bigger starting disadvantages for you) the less you'd want to move. I could be wrong on that. I'm sure a deity player can chime in to confirm or deny...

[abonamente]

On normal speed it's a gamble I prefer not to take. I always move my warrior/scout before settling down, but I delay founding my first city only on occasion, for 1 turn mostly and never more than 2 turns. And that, no matter what level of difficulty I play on.

Reasons for the delay: I prefer my cities to be coastal, on hills, on rivers, close to a mountain (in that order). Not interested in luxury resources in the beginning.

Reasons for not going with the delay for more than 2 turns: I prefer large maps, large empires, normal speed. It doesn't really matter where is my first city, I'll have 2-3 more settlers soon enough, better knowledge regarding the strategic resources, a lot of explored land and nobody around to claim it.

[Twelvefield]

I don't move more than 1 or 2 hexes, and I would not delay more than 2 turns. If you don't see a lot of starting resources, it's because they are hidden. Your starting spot is almost always seeded with plenty of resources, since that's how civs get their start, both in the game and in the real world.

It's a good question, though. On the lower difficulty levels, Civ V seems to give you a little more time to explore than, say, Civ IV or the earlier games. At least that's how I see it.

[Murgen]

I would say don't delay more than one turn at most.

In the game I'm playing now I delayed two turns and that 2 turn delay had a ripple effect that has cost me through the whole game. My two turn delay ensured that my capitol would be on the ocean and next to marble, so it seemed like a good deal at first.

I was the Netherlands and I found the perfect spot to found a second city. It was near two luxury resources, by a river, easy to defend, and it was the only place nearby that had flood plains so I could build polders. I quick built a settler in my capitol and sent him to the spot, only to have Greece beat me to it by ONE TURN! See, if I had just been content with my average quality initial start location I'd have gotten that great second city; instead I was dealing with happiness issues all the early game due to the subpar land I was forced to settle outside my capitol.

And then three times I've been beaten to wonders by just 1 or 2 turns -- that two turn delay in getting started created a ripple effect over time...

[Dylan]

I think that you should keep it in the place that you start in. The game put you there for a reason.

[T R A I T O R]

Originally posted by Kilo_doreo:

I think that you should keep it in the place that you start in. The game put you there for a reason.

And that reason is to settle there or settle near there. The exact spot isn't always the best.

[Baneken]

In general I allways scout the spot around it and then simply reload it from autosave because no matter where I start it's crap unless I move a bit.
Usually it's a choice between having 4 cows + 2 luxuries or a desert with 2 cows with just one luxury for your capital.
Also river is nowhere near as important in civ 5 then it was in previous editions (where you might as well start over if there was no river).

[DerEider]

Murgen has hit on the key points for not delaying the founding. However, I have a problem with the Settler's not knowing what's in the territory around the game-selected spot.

I mean, C'MON MAN !!

This Settler dude and his Warrier have been wandering all over creation for ... What? ... 40 years or something. And nobody noticed anything nor has any recollection of where they've been ???

So ... I use a mod that gives the initial Settler a ten hex move per turn so he can check around a little and still found the Capital on the first turn. But, interestingly enough, the initial spot usually is the best in that vicinity.

[Narrowmind]

Some things said here I've found interesting.

One day I was digging around in the options and I saw an option for disabling start bias. In my experience, I haven't actually noticed it making much of a difference - has any of your experience showed any consistancy for your civs of choice?

[T R A I T O R]

Originally posted by Ratlegion:

Some things said here I've found interesting.

One day I was digging around in the options and I saw an option for disabling start bias. In my experience, I haven't actually noticed it making much of a difference - has any of your experience showed any consistancy for your civs of choice?

Well, for certain ones it makes a big difference. I think Saudi Arabia may be the most affected by it. Their start bias is desert, so they'll spawn by a big desert. Iroquois have a forest one. Aztecs have a jungle one. It can play majorally on how you develop your religion (desert folklore, sacred path, ect) and your playstyle (as Saudi Arabia, you usually want to rush for the Petra wonder).

If you turn that off, its all random.

[Strategikal]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

If you don't see a lot of starting resources, it's because they are hidden. Your starting spot is almost always seeded with plenty of resources,

Exactly! In my experience, it's usually the best spot, but you may not find out why until much later in the game. Try generating lots of random maps using the SDK and you'll see what I mean. I almost never move more than 1 hex and then only if there's a very good reason.

[PersonaWolf]

One time I was playing as the spanish on normal and I spent 3 turns checking stuff out. Found a wonder and settled there. Ended up getting a massive lead in tech, gold, and culture. That was one time where It was definitely worth searching, but yeah over all it did seem like doing so in other games was more detrimental.

Its a shame theres no like, roaming period of like 3-4 turns or something. I think that would make some games more interesting.

[mss73055]

Originally posted by PersonaWolf:

no like, roaming period of like 3-4 turns or something. I think that would make some games more interesting.

That's called Unreal Tournament :)

[Clefairy]

Like most people are saying, I would not delay a founding any longer than two turns. It does put you at a huge early game disadvantage if you wait too long, and anywhere in the general area is usually a good place to start due to the bias.