Starting condition revisited

[colossus]

This post intends to explore variation of starting conditions and the effects on gameplay.

The starting condition consists of:
1)Starting unit(s)
2)Starting tech
3)Starting exploration
4)Starting money
5)Starting location
6)Accelerated startup

1.Starting unit(s)
As my earlier post 'starting unit' has pointed out, starting with 2 units(eg. horseman + settler) for every player helps to balance the game. The no. of starting units can be increased further(may be 4 or 5, even 6), but the baseline is that every player should have same no. of starting units, to level out the advantage of double settlers as in civ2.

In accelerated startup, a variable is to start with 4-5 settlers plus equal no. of combat units, but without any city founded.

2.Starting tech
The current situation about starting tech is that you can get, from 0-8 techs from a given pile of techs. The no. of free tech is influenced by the size of your starting landmass and proximity to enemy civs. More critically, the frequency of getting some starting tech is much higher than the other, and studies has shown it is related also to the personality of civ. For more detail, see the 'A for alphabet' thread in Apolyton's Great Library, civ2 strategy forum.

While it works fine in civ2, it's sensible to cut down the maximum no. of free tech to 6, possibly 4, while increasing the available pile of tech for starting tech. Thus we might start with say, writing, which is not allowed in civ2.

3.Starting exploration
In civ2, units start with an explored area of a city radius(21 tiles). But the randomness of the starting has a huge effects on gameplay. Anyone starting with 2 or more specials including a whale is almost guaranteed 1 to 2 early wonders. Because it's possible to wander for a thousand years without discovering a decent location for starting city(by decent location, I means city location with at least 2 specials plus enough access to food for early growth), the decision whether to wander before settling becomes critical.

One way to reduce this randomness of starting location is to increase the amount of initial exploration. Players are better informed to choose between early exploarion or immediate settlement. Thus we may increase the starting exploration to say, 7x7 tiles. An auxiliary results from increase exploration is that gameplay is speeded up a few turns, because player, notified of the terrain, can plant their cities with more coordination and efficiency. The down side of the coin is that AIs are probably hurt by increased exploration, as they are weak at where city site selection.

On the opposite way, we can reduce the initial exploration to 9 tiles(starting tile + 8 surrounding tiles) so as to force everyone to explore.

4.Starting money
In civ2, civ starts with an emrty treasury, but we can change this to give every civ some starting gold. 50-100 gold is enough IMO. The effect is that you can do some early rushbuy, important for deity to keep order. Alternatively, early rushbuy is suitable for staring cities that are rich in food but poor in shield.

5.Starting location
One of the worst feature of civ2 is that you consistent end up in the poles if you play a small world and choose a colour down the ladder. The cure is to ban this altogether, No one should ever start in the poles. A related isse is the start in very small island. An island should have at least 4-5 tiles to qualify for starting position. But the size is arguable and someone is allegedly to enjoy start with sinle tile island.

6.Accelerated startup
In civ2, the accelerated startup gets you to 2 founded cities, plus a couple of tech, units and some tile improvements. But because the AI managed your cities poorly, the option is seldom played.

What do we really wanted in a short game version? I propose that the accelerated startup should not give us any cities. Instead, we start with 5-6 settlers, plus equal no. of combat units, and the initial exploration should be larger, may be 10x10. The starting techs should consist of two parts. The first part is a universal free techs given to all civ.(IMO this should include, at least, all the base tech, plus the ones up to and until monarchy, writing and map making). The second part is similar to starting tech in regular game. You are given 0-4 extra free techs from a given pile of techs subjected to the size of the starting landmass and proximity to enemy civ. The starting treasury should be something like 200 gold.

In short, we want to condense the first 1000 years of efforts in civ2 and compress it to starting condition.

[airdrik]

I like it, though the area of exploration shouldn't be a 7x7 square, but a circle of radius 4, since that is more realistic. And maybe only 1 square into the ocean. After all, why would the early explorers scout a square area before settling down when they can travel just a little further and make that square a circle. And they are not going to swim 3 squares out to see just to cover that area.

Otherwise I like your ideas.

[Urban Ranger]

I dunno.

While it's nice to balance the start for multi-player games, I feel that Civ does it that way to reflect the fact that not all civs are started equal.

[colossus]

Urban Ranger,

Your point(unequal start of civ) is valid and good for history, but not so good for a game. After all, a balanced game is more important than historical accuracy for many player including me.

[Bender]

I see what we're really coming down to in this discussion here: game balance vs. history. I am more inclined to support an historic approach. It presents more of a challenge and prevents players from formulizing their strategies. Let the balance of play be applied throughout the game as all civilizations rise, fall, and rise again.

I concur Colossus. History is one thing, a strategy game is a totally different animal. Keep it all even across the board (at least for the human players) I say!

[Youngsun]

Random disasters don't happen sequentially one civ after another. People ,who ask strict fairness, are missing the point of random probability actually helps to make the game less predictable.

btw, Has anyone noticed the game has the mechanism to balance things up little bit? When you start from small island with no immediate enemies around you, you get less technologies and definitly one settler. When you start from hugh continent and surrounded by enemies, you get more technologies and possibly two settlers. More than 80% of the cases I have seen are effected by my starting position.(Good position, less pre-given bonus. Bad position, more pre-given bonus)

I too, have noticed this Youngsun.

[Youngsun]

Good to hear I'm not the only one, wittlich.

[Lord Maxwell]

One thing that I am very keen on in starting conditions is that the development team takes a cue from the FreeCiv project, and maybe enhance it a bit.

I want to be able to say: Every civ should start on a medium sized island of their own, there should be half as many empty major islands as there are taken islands. There should be a low-moderate amount of archipelago.

Or, every human run civ should start on a major continent shared with exactly two AI run civs. (And there should be xxx AI run civs around, of which yyy should begin on smaller islands etc.)

It won't take very many "spinners" to set up a nice looking GUI for an "advanced setup" option.

[airdrik]

Lord Maxwell: I like it, I think those are great ideas. Though they are optional at the beginning of the game. Possibly you can set how many civs per major island: 1, 1-2, 2, 1-3, 2-3, or 3 civs per major island.