Discussions on Starting Location Characteristics and City Booster Spells, ie. Making the Start Less Rigid. =)

I'm hoping we see some improvement for this in beta4 (what's essence?). But I don't want to take away choice like your first suggestion (if every tile is the same, there is no choice).

I actually prefer 5/2 locations to 4/4 because it quickly becomes 6/2 from the farm or even 7/2 if it's twilight bees. orchard.

There actually was some improvement done in 0.915 - now material+grain must be over 6 in total or the tile is not possible to settle in. This, I think, prevents the AI from putting down cities in those 3/2 or 2/3 locations instead of the much better nearby tiles.

Also, congratulations on the longest title I've ever seen.

Doesn't it have to be equal or greater than 6?  Aren't there still some tiles with 3/3 or 4/2?

Also, what happens if you don't get an available tile within 5 or 6 squares of the sov's starting location?  In that case it might be better to have a default or a choice between 4/4 and 5/3 and be able to start anywhere, but only for the city the Sov builds.

About the title, I didn't want to miss anything.  But I'll shorten it now.

Yeah you're right, equal to or higher than 6.

All starting positions should have tiles you can settle in though, if you don't get those that's bugs in my book.

We will see what beta 4 brings, I'm sure the playing field will change given the new tile yield.

Sometimes with 10+ Opponents there might be trouble giving enough starting spots though.  But I agree, there should be a very good starting position for all players if at all possible.  But it might be good to have a default backup Sov City Ability, just in case.

Sorry to disagree, but I would like to see more things done to make the first city LESS important instead of more important.
... Ok I am not sorry , But I think boosting the research and production of your capital is a bad idea.
I did write them a huge post about the current cities in another thread, so they know how I feel atm. And hope they will use 1/10 of the ideas . Also would like to see less "rush" for a 2nd and a 3rd city, mostly because I feel I need to put that one down at first.

To not go too much offtopic I would like to have inspiration require some certain research so you cant cast it off turn 1, so you dont have to do it every single game on turn 1. Would help the "You have to do this". and then move enchanted hammers to earth magic lvl 2, or earth magic lvl 3.

That said, the map generator should be a little better to equalize starting positions.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

You make some good points here.

I've seen lots of maps where the starting location had nowhere to build, and others with one or two poor tiles in an otherwise barren landscape. Experienced players may appreciate the extra challenge but newer players, on levels normal or below, should be presented with a decent starting location.  A good starting location is a force multiplier and the developers could easily use this, instead of crippling the AI, to adjust the game for lower levels - with the bonus that a rich base, with plenty of resources and useful goodies will make the game more enjoyable for beginning players.  The best tiles don't have to be in plain view - it took me a while to learn that it's useful to look around a bit before settling!

I would argue that production is more important than growth in the early game - the faster you can build improvements and train units, the more competitive you'll be. I haven't seen much reason to differentiate cities thus far - hopefully that will change in the next beta. I think some improvements should be mutually exclusive - you can't have both in the same city. Improvements should only be effective if the resources they require to operate are available to the city where they are built. I would like to see domestic trade routes - where surplus resources from one city can be sent to other cities where they are needed. I'd also like to see a bridge as a level 2 or level 3 improvement so cities built on a river bank can expand to the other side of the river.

While they might give you +1 grain and +1 production in your first city (in 0.915 terms) I still think I would much more enjoy if the map randomizer would be much better at giving suitable starting positions, trying to give you 1 or 2 special resources, and a decent amount of grain and materials, No Matter The Difficulty.

I just like to have a proper start, I even take great time restarting in "Civ 5" because I hate starting in the middle of a big useless snowfield or rubbish desert with no production, and no food available! Wish there were Ctrl+N in civ

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Kongdej is right on the money here (I think, heh, if I read the post correctly); making better starting cities, "giving" it to the player, loses a golden opportunity to diversify and enjoy more equally-viable-yet-different games.  For example, I don't think it should be possible to cast both Inspiration and Enchanted Hammers on a city upon opening--you ought to have to choose (do I research prestige and rush, or inspiration, or enchanted hammers, or...?).  Those opening "must-do" buffs should be the magical versions of Civics tech improvements, and that makes the game more replayable, because they all boost your out-of-the-shoot direction in differing ways (and you cannot do them all at the start; some will be better for different starting spots and sov builds).  The more "rigid" (to use Kongdej's appropriate term from another post) the opening game, the less fun.

With Regard to the notion that (perhaps) there is a kind of rigid  Optimal Strategy  to the first 50 turns or so of the game, there are some of us who take an opposing view.  ( See also replies #33, #45, #51, and #52 to the "Other Post" : "On what level(s) of difficulty are you playing ... ?" )

Ah ... never mind ... let me repeat part of the discussion here:   I think we all recognize that the starting set-up (including productivity of your starting city), and the early turns of a 4X game, can make a huge difference in how the balance of the game plays out.  IMO (in the other thread) Kongdej made some good recommendations in that regard;  BUT he suggested that a pretty "rigid" and consistent pattern would always (or usually) be optimal.  I am happy to believe (in my innocence) that there is no single pattern of choices that is always going to be optimal. 

Some examples:  Quickly casting "Inspiration" and "Enchanted Hammers" on your first settlement MAY often be a good idea.  Researching the first 3 or 4 Civilization Advances (and "Shard Harvesting" from the Magic column) before tackling any other research advances MAY often be a good idea.  Training your first pioneer immediately MAY often be a good idea.  Setting your Tax rate to zero during the first 20-50 turns MAY often be a good idea.  Concentrating on buying several champions in the early game MAY often be a good idea.    AND concentrating on leveling up your Sovereign in the early game MAY often be a good idea.

BUT, bottom line, there is no single, rigid course of action that is always going to be optimal.  People will have their favorite approaches; different factions (and custom Sovereigns) will suggest different approaches; and the level of difficulty played upon, will permit different approaches.  There are still lots of meaningful choices, and viable alternative styles of play, to experience in E:FE.

By the same token, I think that the starting resource distributions, and quality of the possible starting locations  SHOULD  be variable from game to game, and from playing level to playing level.   If that is not good enough, you can always fall back on [Ctrl] [ N ] .  I would be in favor of widening the number of meaningful choices ... not reducing them ...

I don't see any reason NOT to equalize the starting locations. There can still be variations in materials, food, shards and the types of other features, but getting a really good or poor starting location can throw the whole game out of whack and adds a degree of variation the game just doesn't need. A lot of players on here will reload until they good a good one, and so long as the game encourages players to do that, it hands a huge boost to the player, which is silly when most of us are complaining about how easy the game is.

EXCEPT, a lot of us are not complaining about how easy the game is ... and I think among the future players (people who come new to the game, especially after the retail version is finally released) may well fall into that category.  They will probably expect a learning curve, but I would bet that a lot of them will NOT consider the game too easy initially  ...   

I agree that most of us beta testers are veteran 4x gamers, but that's why there are so many levels below Normal (and the base level can be challenging if the player spends lots of time smelling the roses).  However (and I speak with the experience of someone who has done both ambling around and efficiently exploring/expanding), if you want to play optimally (and many gamers do by nature, I think), there is very little room for creativity.  You get rush and pioneers and other cities and the important research as fast as you can, and there seems to be one narrow way to arrive at this (with very minor exceptions, like switching a build priority between workshops and pioneers, and choosing which things to rush, rather than casting Enchanted Hammers).  I've now found the Hard mode to be too easy when I follow the "rigid" formula because I expand/grow in power faster than the AI can, which means they never feel like they can threaten me (and on a medium map, they never have a chance to catch up).

I don't think having an optimal path is always a bad thing, but it would be cool for the AI to use several counters to this looming inevitability (like forming alliances earlier on to combat the player's growing power, and certainly not paying tribute/making the player more powerful--Civ has done this well, making it almost impossible to exploit the AI via diplomacy, because they tend to get very ornery when you "threaten" their ability to win).

Also, I agree (I think) with Steven, who seems to be saying that it's not conducive to begin the game with a city buff that you really need to use.  There is truly no better way to use your opening mana than by immediately casting Inspiration, and if you do not do this, then you will be hamstringing yourself in a cascading fashion (because slower tech leads to slower growth and building and troop/kingdom strength, which allows the AI to get ahead of you and bully you).  What could the design idea be for having this?  Rather, if you had to earn each "method" of boosting your kingdom (research boost vs. production vs. money/hiring/training, as opposed to being able to do them consecutively) and they were all viable paths to kingdom strength, the game's replayability would be enhanced from the very beginning.

I don't want to start a game with all the uber stuff done for me.  Nor do I want to have to have multiple restarts just to get a starting area where I'm not starting at a severe disadvantage either.

Having small Stamps created for reasonably balanced starting positions isn't necessarily going to decrease the challenge.  I actually find the early to mid-game challenging enough even with a reasonably balanced starting location.   Where I find the difficulty dropping off is in the mid to late game.  The problem is the difficulty doesn't scale up with the players very well. 

I would add to the suggestion that having "pre-balanced" starting location be selectable by the player when starting a new game.  That way, those who want the additional challenge of a crappy starting position have that option.  That way, everyone is happy.

But most of those new players WON’T be rerolling until they find a good starting location, and will just put up with what they get the first few times round. As an advantage it’s one that only applies to experienced players and 4x veterans. If anything it puts new players at a disadvantage.

More than anything, it’s not a question of easy vs. hard, but of adding extra variation, the consequences of that and whether it’s adding anything to the game. Even in AI vs AI situations a great starting location could lead to one AI steamrollering the others even earlier than might otherwise happen. It would be like giving players a random amount of money at the start of a game of monopoly: just not fun.

It’s not about variety either: it should be possible to have plenty of variety in starting locations (some have more food, but less materials, or more shards, but no gold mines) without making certain locations outright BETTER than others. So I say again, what does the present situation actually ADD to the game?

I think this is a good discussion, and I am glad that we are having it.  (And actually, it really does more appropriately belong in this Discussion thread, rather than in the survey/data-collection thread, that I started.)  Also, I don't really think that we are all that far apart ...   

I believe that most 4X game players want variety in the games they play.  They want meaningful choices; they would like multiple paths to victory; they appreciate customization; and they appreciate features that foster Replayability.  I may have overstated the point I was trying to make, by using the term: optimal strategy.  I probably should have talked more about viable alternative strategies .  For my part, I just don't want to see all our games, at all levels, and with different Sovereigns/races, always start with the same uniform starting positions.  I want to preserve some measure of variety.  In Chess I expect equal/uniform starting positions; in monopoly I probably want them; but in Civ 4 and E:FE  I (personally) don't really want that ... 

I think we may have an honest disagreement on your point above.  I don't want the [ctrl] [ n ] feature to be a secret!  I certainly want the newest novice players to be aware of that feature.  But assuming they are, I woud fully expect them to play around with it, experiment with it, and seek to use it as one of their first meaningful choices ...

Now, I do like your suggestion, that starting locations can have some variety, within a context of some balance.  In other words, we don't always have to have all players (human and AI) start the game sitting on a 4/4, with one mana shard and one iron-pit close by.  We could have one starting position which has horses, iron, and grain nearby; while another has 2 crystal shards and gold nearby; and a third has an apiary, wargs, and a mud-pit nearby; etc.  And some of these can have a 5/3, or a 5/2, or a 3/5 (are there any of those ?), rather than a consistantly uniform 4/4. 

Actually, Aerion Istari's suggestion may be the best compromise.  Have a selectable switch that offers either "pre-balanced starting locations", or "not-so-balanced starting locations".  Given the option, I would probably go for the second choice 90% of the time ... but other players might not ...     

As to the variety of opening strategies, what if the city spells simply cost more to cast (not necessarily maintain) and you started with just enough mana to cast 1 right off the bat?  Or you could save your mana for combat to help fight more monsters nearby so you have some choices on how to start.  Not sure if that would cause early-game balance issues though.

Would still deter me from using mage stuff early game, which is my biggest problems with the current city enchantments...
I always pick or create custom sovereigns with "Attunement" so I have magical reserves while... "Playing the Game" (running inspiration and enchanted hammers on capitol and meaby inspiration on a 2nd city).
Also usually going melee with my sovereign, path of the warrior, seems the easy way for lategame beatdown without requiring too much mana, either levelling er second hero or giving my sovereign casting abilities by casting steal spirit. (Natural leader + betrayers + Steal spirit, gives you tons and tons of magical abilities on the sovereign for free)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I have to disagree as well.  I think having a variety of starting locations is fine.  I think you should try a 3/3 city or a 4/2.  Not everything should be perfect all of the time.

As far as the bonus, I don't think it should be granted to the biggest city.  I think it should be granted to the city that the sovereign is stationed at.  Now you have a big choice.  Go out and explore, or stay at home and gain a bonus to production and research.  That would be better, than just givinig it to the biggest city.  It could be the "oh crap the King (or Queen) is here, I better it my crap done bonus."

You can work on the name!

I tend to think of starts in 4x games as:

OMG, Competitive and uncompetitive.

OMG starts are bad they give such an advantage that the game is too easy.

Competitive starts are what I want as a player.

Uncompetitive starts are a fact of life when you have a large number of players.  But as a player I don't want one.  Ideally I have already set the difficultly such that I will have a fun game.  Adding the uncompetitive start means I lose.  While I don't mind a computer player or two having an impossible start, I don't want it for myself.  Nor do I want "all" the AI to be screwed, but I do not mind some of the AI to be screwed.

I'd like for the ability to start with an additional gold mine, food resource, metal mine, shard of type, essence, etc. via tha Sov's/Faction's creation options.  This would add alot of meaning to the initial city being these things would be why this spot was chosen for the capitol in the first place, and would allow one to 'guaranty' their preferred location while also giving additional ways of specializing in a certain school of magic or building armies with all the gold you would get with the additional gold mine or making a wheat producing power house and so on.  This might help with the whole 'CtlN thing' too.

Hell, could go further & have multiple choosings of the same resource (the point cost would double for each additional? so 3 gold mines would be 6 points), now this would allow for some awsome startups, would eliminate the 'CtlN thing' all together, any mage would love to start their capitol in the middle of their ideal shard mix, a warlord would love to have several gold/metal mines, etc. - I would lean towards this possibly balancing it's self out while adding a ton of spice

I can see both sides of this coin.

One the one hand, I totally understand Kongdej's position and can agree that the first city shouldn't be overly emphasized. We are building an empire afterall....and especially with the 3 new city specializations....at minimum now we're going to need 3 good city spots to be competitve in a game. None should stick out over-excessively more than the others.

On the other hand, I'm such a munchkin and love it when my first city....the capital....soon to be the capital of the WORLD....is also the gem of the world. A small piece of my heart is taken away when I find a better city or city location later in the game. Just had that in galciv2.....playing humans with a promising 13 earth. 6 days into the game and I just came across a 30 planet. . WOW. Earth sucks. Had no choice to rename the 30 planet Wayland (Starwars humor).

Lastly, since the worlds are fairly small, 3-6 cities is about all it can handle. I'm hoping that in beta4 those number double to 6-12, but not much more than that, else you get too much managing and not enough playing. It doesn't hurt for your capital to be a bit better than the rest, but not necessarily a lot better.

I recommend a comprimise, but not only considering the mine/food values. The capital should be garenteed 1 essence location and 1 shard location. You are a mage after all....you should know something about how to choose your first city as a capital of magic. This doesn't mean that your first city will automatically be a conclave either....town and fort could very well still be viable options depending on your strategy.

Also, maybe a check could be implemented. If the production bonuses at your start location don't add up to X, then add an iron vein nearby or something. Gameon.

Fast expand or immediate build up?  Oh wait, since all starting locations are the same, plus Derek said more is better and build queues can be moved around at the player's discretion, then that means I can follow a near no brainer opening strategy every time.  No thanks OP, I think Kongdej is right on the mark here.  Let's all hope beta 4 doesn't turn into an early city spam rush.

When it comes to early game fun, FE has one very solid advantage over its 4X competitors, namely heroes. They do keep the player busy during that boring colonization phase.

Actually, the intended design is that expansion is always better. The limitation is your ability to clear an area of hostiles in order to expand. That limit is severely lacking to be sure. I am not sure if this is even the intended design or just the most recent stated design. Right now the early game offers few monster related limitations to expansion. Prestige offers some limitation, but only in as much as you need to level your Sov to fuel growth. The minimum 3 seasons to build or train further puts a small kingdom at a disadvantage. We will have to see if the design is more clear in beta 4.

I dunno, I can normally secure one expansion site fairly quickly but unless I'm very lucky any sites after that are perilously close to slags, umberdroths and other beasts that are way beyond my ability to fight early on, and which always attack my cities if provoked; others are guarded by really serious enemies like drakes and shrill lords who are a threat to the city for much of the game, whenever the whim takes them to attack directly rather than spawning minions.

I know that the monsters also present a threat to at least some of the AI players, as there's the occasional message that someone (usually Magnar, for whatever reason) has been wiped out early. On the other hand, I half suspect that AI Altarians somehow get a secret Master Scouts-type bonus as their cities and outposts are always guarded by powerful monsters. But that's another rant entirely.