Perfect start - not necessary.  A start which allows some real exploration (with tangible rewards balancing the risk), tactics, creating and implementing a strategy, what no not like?  I enjoy challenges. However, I have found, with many 4x games, including FE/EH, that starting on a truly wretched spot creates a risk / reward tradeoff that bites the big one to the max.  While such a poor initial setting does spice up the very beginning of the game in one specific manner - it does not change how it plays out.  From civ one on, all a really lousy start position does is make the early game a slug fest.  One turtles up, eerking out, one tiny nano inch at a a time, each tiny improvement that might stave off the next wave of numberless uber, whatevers.  After sitting there, merely surviving in one tiny space, (one square/hex, maybe two if you are lucky) suddenly, after a way too long war of attrition, you get enough of an edge to actually hold a second square/hex.  Wow, 5 hours and I finally get a second square and I just added one shield and food (material resource and nutrition for city dwellers).  I'm excited.  For me, the joy of 4x gaming begins with exploring a new world, the delight of surprise, learning the quirks of the 'system.'  Then comes the internal exploration of creating tactics and strategies that actually work in this environment.  Cool.  And, of course, there is the occasional foray into this world in role playing mode.  A novel and story line in which i participate in its creation and development.  Very, very cool.  I like challenging starts - but hate slug fests.  Bottom line: a very poor initial placement keeps all the tings I love about playing and immersing myself in a 4x game too far away for too long.  If I loved that kind of game, I would play tower defense games.  BTW, I don't play tower defense games.  And I don't care for 4x games that begin as tower defense games.  Its not about facing " problems and challenges," its about facing the problems and challenges one enjoys facing.  Many tastes, many styles.  Good thing there are many styles of games, is it not?  I just don't want to play a 4x game that requires winning a tower defense game just to get to the parts i like. 

I never suggested that multiple restarts were necessary.  All I did was describe what I like, a type of game I dislike, and therefore why I might understand why someone else might dislike that kind of start to the game – a start reminiscent of the tower defense type game. I do wish the LH set up was moderated by the program that is better at weeding out really poor initial placements. Some setups, for some of us, are truly not worth investing OUR time into. (BTW, I rarely restart my games.)  But my desire to have a certain kind of game play does not make me spoiled.  It makes me someone who decides what I like.  Call me all the names you want.   Label my behavior with pejorative words like ‘spoiled’ as often as you like.  All that proves is that you don’t wish to discuss real concerns, and have too little empathy for others in the community with whose behavior you disagree.  Someone comes in and expresses a feeling:  “I’m frustrated.”  Your response to the thread maker, (and later to me) was something I never expected from you.  I expected better.  I was wrong.  You spoiled me.

I have enjoyed our previous ‘conversations.’  However, here in this thread, you have trespassed.  Call me spoiled, but I deserve better from you.  And you deserve better from yourself. 

Wow, I didnt mean to hit a nerve. I still think that  your first post is putting the game in a worse light than it derserves, but I did not mean to insult.

What size map are you playing on?  It seems like it shouldn't matter, but I notice that this seems to happen to me more on smaller maps.

Sometimes I get a itch and restart until I get a start that gives me a river and lumbermill connected to a single tile where I will settle the city on. I just really wanted lumbermills and piers in my capital. As long as it have at least 1 grain and 4 production, I'm good to go!

But I once got that kind of spot then a tile where there was four essence slots but no forest/river connected to that tile. I couldn't decide and so I shut down for the day.

N/A

I bought the new map pack they put out recently and it made the startups a lot more fun.