What's this talk about bad starts? (probably my best start ever) - Page 3

WarpStorm · December 16, 2003, 19:08

Sure, but I was thinking of an easier to find scheme than just the general directory, for example a sticky thread.

alva · December 16, 2003, 19:16

Start a tread and pm Ming

sabrewolf · December 16, 2003, 19:18

ideal situation: 1 post for screenshot, 1 for the savegame. but in the end it'll be a mess.

someone would need to keep editing the first few posts of a thread to keep a good overview.

volunteers?

asleepathewheel · December 16, 2003, 19:35

That sounds very cool, very good idea.

Great way to cut down on Ctrl-Shift-Q, as we would have a bank of good starts etc.

MrWhereItsAt · December 16, 2003, 23:24

Can't you just give us the seed number from the .ini file?

Then, when the patch arrives, we can play with that precise world...

Jaguar · December 16, 2003, 23:30

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
11 cows is a bit of over kill. JW, bring back your old avatar.

Jessica Alba? Or Faith Hill?

vmxa1 · December 17, 2003, 01:38

You got me, I think it was Jessica. I did not know the name. She had dark hair and I think Faith has light hair. I have to confess I only heard of the singer and never heard of Jessica.

sabrewolf · December 24, 2003, 09:14

i just generated a archipelagio 240x240 map in the editor and saw one of the greatest starting locations ever... well, at least if you move the settler 5xSW, 1xS.... that would be 12 (!!!) cattle in the city radius.

there were some other nice spots around too. obviously the resource distributor calculates from the total tile number and not from the usable tile count... it had half as much land (80% water) than on other maps (60%) for the same amound of resources.

asleepathewheel · December 24, 2003, 10:24

now thats a nice looking map

WarpStorm · December 24, 2003, 10:47

I think that start area would be do-able.

Fatwreck · December 24, 2003, 14:33

hey! there is no river near those cows

vmxa1 · December 24, 2003, 14:45

Missing iron, but as long as you don't get mad cow, it should be nice.

Kuciwalker · December 24, 2003, 15:42

It has Iron on that mountain

vmxa1 · December 24, 2003, 16:47

You maybe right, my eyes are not good enough anymore to be sure.

Puma · December 24, 2003, 21:58

OMFG

Shogun Gunner · December 25, 2003, 00:01

awesome! I hope my luck is that good in five minutes.

Theseus · December 25, 2003, 02:23

Iron, Horses, and Rubber... Oh My.

okblacke · December 28, 2003, 19:01

Quote:

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

Toynbee discusses this at length in A Study of History, and shows how each unique civilization (meaning, those without any predecessors) arose in less-than-idyllic terrain, while cultures in lands of plenty lazed in barbarism.

Toynbee's problem was that he never left his ivory tower, so he made straight-faced claims that (for example) Africans never developed like the other four cultures because their environments weren't challenging enough.

He got it backwards: a very harsh environment induces apathy. When your life can end at any second, you don't think much in terms of "planning for the future", which is what civilizations are all about. People who actually work with peoples that haven't thrived find this problem.

I mean, think about it, if his logic held, the greatest cultures in the world would have been born in tundras, deserts, jungles.

Not that the equation is that simple, of course. The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (www.iahp.org) have a saying that "civilization is 18 inches in front of your nose". In their view, the key distinction between whether a society evolves is whether or not the ground (or floor) is a safe place to put their babies. It's hands-and-knees creeping that develops the ability of the brain to converge, and thus evolve things like writing.

Again, unlike Toynbee, the IAHP actually has worked with different peoples all over the world.

OK, enough off-topic ranting. Sorry. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

[ok]

vmxa1 · December 29, 2003, 00:36

okblacke that was interesting, but is this were you mean for it be be placed?

GePap · December 29, 2003, 01:28

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
okblacke that was interesting, but is this were you mean for it be be placed?

He was respoding to Boris' statements earlier. And I completely agree with him.

I just got the game and have had about 4 starts (my computer is a bit on the minimum requirement side, so plenty of aborted games- and I have found all four to be much harsher than my starts in regular civ- specifically the areas about 10 tiles from my city-big deserts, jungles, lack of rivers, strange topography..more realistic and harder maps overall.

okblacke · December 29, 2003, 08:46

Quote:

Originally posted by vmxa1
okblacke that was interesting, but is this were you mean for it be be placed?

Well, it would be nice if it had come out directly underneath the Toynbee message as a response, but I don't think these message boards work that way.

Thanks, though.

[ok]

Boris Godunov · January 2, 2004, 17:11

Quote:

Originally posted by okblacke
Toynbee's problem was that he never left his ivory tower, so he made straight-faced claims that (for example) Africans never developed like the other four cultures because their environments weren't challenging enough.

He got it backwards: a very harsh environment induces apathy. When your life can end at any second, you don't think much in terms of "planning for the future", which is what civilizations are all about. People who actually work with peoples that haven't thrived find this problem.

I mean, think about it, if his logic held, the greatest cultures in the world would have been born in tundras, deserts, jungles.

Okay, so I see you actually haven't read Toynbee and are just making an assumption of his arguments. If you had read Toynbee, you'd know he specifically--at great length--explains that there is a point of diminishing returns for the harshness of environments. He explicitley says there comes a point where the terrain is so harsh that the energy expended on mere survival will leave nothing left for the creation of civilization, and cites several examples of this (Eskimos, for instance). So no, great civilizations will not arise in the harshest terrains, and Toynbee wouldn't say otherwise (Although great cultures have arisen in jungles--Mayan, Indus--and near-desert environments--Egyptaic, Sumeric, Aztec).

Toynbee's claims vis-a-vis sub-Saharan Africans are based on knowledge from the 1930s, so aren't complete, no. But his assessment as to why no such civilizations arose there seems to fit--either the conditions were too harsh or not harsh enough. If you combine with that the insights given by Diamond about the environments, I think Toynbee's argument continues to hold.