About restarts in tourney game

[[Armag] diarouga]

In my 4th game against Tit, we had to restart because apparently Tit was missing a mine (his mines were totally fine imo, but why not), and I was quite upset about that, because we got a gold start, and after the rehost it was a wood start.
Since the EP team decided 2 years ago not to go for fixed crates, what should we do about the crate starts?

After all, I'd argue that having a wood start instead of a gold start as India (ie aging 30 sec faster) is a bigger deal than having a far 3rd gold mine. So what should the casters do in this kind of situation? Rehost until they get the same crate start? Does anyone have a suggestion about that? Honestly, random crate can be a game changing issue, and likewise, I would have been pissed off if I had to get a coin start instead of a wood start against China.

[aligator92]

Well looking at the map and ignoring the crates does seem like the most objective and fair way to me
Crates are always a luck factor as are treasure positions. Why should that not be the case if the map has to be rehosted

[[Armag] diarouga]

Well looking at the map and ignoring the crates does seem like the most objective and fair way to me
Crates are always a luck factor as are treasure positions. Why should that not be the case if the map has to be rehosted

One could consider that map spawn is a luck factor as well. After all, why would crate spawn and treasure spawn be different?

[aligator92]

Well it is a luck factor that the community very consistently wants to be limited to asymmetry and a certain deviation of resource positions

And it is certainly not practical to base rehosts around crate starts as there may be matchups that just do not have a "fair" crate start. And even if there was, fixing the crate start for every MU would severely cut down the number of paths a game can take

[dansil92]

Well looking at the map and ignoring the crates does seem like the most objective and fair way to me
Crates are always a luck factor as are treasure positions. Why should that not be the case if the map has to be rehosted

One could consider that map spawn is a luck factor as well. After all, why would crate spawn and treasure spawn be different?

WARNING noob opinion ahead

Because in many matchups you have to pick a favorite to determine a crate start? Like dutch vs india a wood start or a coin start literally can make or break the game.

A caster cant say "oh its coin start thats too hard for india" or they would have to say "oh wood start, too india favoured"

It also gives some flavour to matches (especially mirrors) to add a little variety in builds.

A missing mine isnt interesting its just bad

[ListlessSalmon]

I think the question in restarts is "has the map loaded properly?" rather than "is the map fair?". Resources are supposed to spawn fairly so that gets restarted, but crate start is inherently random and so can be unfair.

The obvious solution would be to just do fixed crates, (or at least fix them vs China if that is possible as thats where the dumbest possibilities are due to China's fixed start, imagine Jap or India vs China with a food+wood crate start restarted into a coin start). Lacking fixed crates we're just stuck with some possible silliness.

[bwinner]

Has it been tested to give china same crates randomness like other civs ?

[[Armag] diarouga]

Well looking at the map and ignoring the crates does seem like the most objective and fair way to me
Crates are always a luck factor as are treasure positions. Why should that not be the case if the map has to be rehosted

One could consider that map spawn is a luck factor as well. After all, why would crate spawn and treasure spawn be different?

WARNING noob opinion ahead

Because in many matchups you have to pick a favorite to determine a crate start? Like dutch vs india a wood start or a coin start literally can make or break the game.

A caster cant say "oh its coin start thats too hard for india" or they would have to say "oh wood start, too india favoured"

It also gives some flavour to matches (especially mirrors) to add a little variety in builds.

A missing mine isnt interesting its just bad

That's just bs, crate start doesn't add variety, it just adds unbalance.
Of course a caster can't say "oh, coin start, need to restart", but my point is that we shouldn't restart unless we really need to, and "the 3rd mine is a bit far" wasn't a reason to restart the game. 3rd mine and 4th shouldn't be considered when you want to restart a game actually.

[[Armag] diarouga]

Has it been tested to give china same crates randomness like other civs ?

No, but it would be a very big nerf to the civ. It would almost be like -1 vill tbh, because you'd have to skip the 2nd village or the TP.

[Kaiserklein]

Of course crates starts add variety. Being able to build a TP in age 1, or a market, or to age 1 vil earlier, changes the way match ups are played

[momuuu]

The sole reason I play aoe3 is to get an age 1 market, like Ive done a few thousand times, to make the game feel wildly different while I feel smart about myself. This is what aoe3 is all about: doing one of two variations in the opening phase and thus randomly getting ahead or behind.

[Rikikipu]

You can't say that random crates make change a lot about mu balance and at the same time that it doesn't bring diversity to the game.
But let's discuss about the random crates start problem ; and as often, the easiest solution is not always the best one. I'd say that the real problem is that these civs don't do much with this +100c. And that is an interesting topic to work on, which could be tackle by for instance working with tweaking treasures on some maps, or removing just one variation of crate starts instead of the entire concept, or adding 150 coin crate instead of 100... In short there are smartest and diverse alternatives other than : "X sucks -> remove X".

Overall, it's not the first time that I see you coming with ideas of wanting to fix everything by removing the aleatory part of the game. To caricature, your point of view is : "Make all maps with same big amount of food at base, with always tps on the map but not too much (~3tps) and fixed crates". Although I respect your ideas, I highly disagree with you about what this game should be, and fortunately the ep changes haven't going toward your direction yet. AOE3 was made with 14 different civs which represent 100+ MU, featured with 46 different maps which spawns randomly every time. You also have random crates, random mercenaries, random treasures, random map pick (qs and map sets). This game is built around aleatory events which makes it interesting and arguably fun. Yes, this game is not perfectly balanced and probably will never be. If sometimes you lose and you think the only reason is because you had a 100c start, then that's still not a big deal because, what's the problem if the luck didn't help you in some few rare cases and you lost an AOE3 game during a saturday afternoon. I'm sure luck will give it back to you at some point.

[n0el]

Should just fix crates and move on. It’s one of the worst design mechanics of the game.

[Garja]

In my 4th game against Tit, we had to restart because apparently Tit was missing a mine (his mines were totally fine imo, but why not), and I was quite upset about that, because we got a gold start, and after the rehost it was a wood start.
Since the EP team decided 2 years ago not to go for fixed crates, what should we do about the crate starts?

After all, I'd argue that having a wood start instead of a gold start as India (ie aging 30 sec faster) is a bigger deal than having a far 3rd gold mine. So what should the casters do in this kind of situation? Rehost until they get the same crate start? Does anyone have a suggestion about that? Honestly, random crate can be a game changing issue, and likewise, I would have been pissed off if I had to get a coin start instead of a wood start against China.

Easy answer: just accept it and move on.
Complex answer: only call the rehost if really necessary, weighting in what already happened so far, including crate start and treasures taken (or very likely to be taken).

As a side note. India might age 20-30 seconds faster with the wood crate, but Aztecs also get a significant boost w/e strat they are making.

[Mitoe]

I don’t think crates have a big impact on the outcome of a game all that often really.

There are a few civs that I think are at a disadvantage more so than other civs on certain starts (i.e. India/Japan), but other than that most civs still have some sort of option available to them.

The main problem isn’t that crates are random, but that the same crate start can be very favourable for one civ, while very unfavourable for another. Dutch vs India on a coin start for example.

At the moment this is the possible spawn for any civ:

+100f
+100f +100w
+100f +100c
+100w
+100c

And thinking about it, really every civ is ok with food and wood crates--they can always do something with these resources relatively early. It's the coin crate that's the big problem: some civs get a market, Dutch gets a faster age up, and other civs don't do anything with their gold crate until they're already in age 2, and others that can do something with that crate (like Fre/Ger/Brit sometimes, for example), will choose to intentionally ignore that coin crate because it has a possibility of slowing down their age up. Unfortunately I have to admit it kind of makes sense to remove the coin start.


As for China, I really don't think it's a big advantage for China that they have fixed crates compared to other civs. If anything, I don't think other civs need to really care that they didn't get the best crate start vs them--China on the other hand should be sad if their opponent got such a good start while they're still stuck placing their wonder at 3:20 - 3:30 and forced into either making trash units in age 2 or doing a Fast Fortress and letting their opponent do whatever they want for a while. Even the fact that China can construct a TP at the beginning of the game no matter what is not a big advantage for them, I think, because virtually all civs can just make a few units to siege it down and there's nothing China can do about it unless they're doing a sub-optimal build--such as staying Colonial. Plus China gets no information about what options their opponent has available to them at the start of the game because they don't know which crates their opponent got.

That being said I do think China would be easier to balance if they also had a bit of variety in their starts--but perhaps not so much as other civs. Besides, most people seem to think that China is a bad civilization right now anyway, so they could probably use the help.

So this is what I would consider as a good compromise to fixed crates:

1) Optimal (Wood) Start:
- On this start each civ will get their most desirable bonus crate—ideally the crate that provides the most options. For pretty much all civs I think this is a wood crate. Even civs that don’t necessarily get anything out of the wood crate at the very beginning of the game (like Dutch or Russia) will still prefer it to a different crate as it will speed up their transition to Colonial by quite a bit.

[spoiler="Example"]Base crates are listed in parenthesis.

Aztec: (300f, 200w) +100w
British: (200f, 200w) +100w
China: (1 Goat, 200f, 300w) +1 Goat
- +100w would be pretty broken for China probably, so this seems like a decent compromise. This doesn't necessarily help their age up time unless they eat both, but it will still be useful later--although never as useful as a food crate.
Dutch: (400c, 100w) +100w
France: (300f, 100w) +100w
German: (200f, 100w) +100w
India: (100f, 300w) +100w
Iroquois: (400f) +100w
Japan: (400f, 200w) +100w
Ottoman: (300w) +100w
Portuguese: (100f, 100w) +100w
Russia: (500f, 100w) +100w
Sioux: (300f) +100w
Spain: (200f, 100w) +100w[/spoiler]

2) Favourable (Food) Start:
- On this start each civ will get the crate most likely to speed up their age up, but not give them quite as many options as the "Optimal Start."

[spoiler="Example"]Aztec: (300f, 200w) +100f
British: (200f, 200w) +100f
China: (1 Goat, 200f, 300w) +100c
- Doesn't help their Colonial age up time at all, but it does maybe help them up to Fortress--kinda sticks with the civ's theme a bit.
Dutch: (400c, 100w) +100f
France: (300f, 100w) +100f
German: (200f, 100w) +100f
India: (100f, 300w) +100f
Iroquois: (400f) +100f
Japan: (400f, 200w) +100f
Ottoman: (300w) +100f
Portuguese: (100f, 100w) +100f
Russia: (500f, 100w) +100f
Sioux: (300f) +100f
Spain: (200f, 100w) +100f[/spoiler]


3) Optimal + Favourable Starts:
- This would provide each civ with both the wood and food crate.

[spoiler="Example"]Aztec: (300f, 200w) +100f, +100w
British: (200f, 200w) +100f, +100w
China: (1 Goat, 200f, 300w) +1 Goat, +100c
Dutch: (400c, 100w) +100f, +100w
France: (300f, 100w) +100f, +100w
German: (200f, 100w) +100f, +100w
India: (100f, 300w) +100f, +100w
Iroquois: (400f) +100f, +100w
Japan: (400f, 200w) +100f, +100w
Ottoman: (300w) +100f, +100w
Portuguese: (100f, 100w) +100f, +100w
Russia: (500f, 100w) +100f, +100w
Sioux: (300f) +100f, +100w
Spain: (200f, 100w) +100f, +100w[/spoiler]

4) Alternative Start:
So until now the starts haven't really changed for any civ, and I thought about making/calling this an unfavourable start for a while, similar to the coin start, but to be honest that's the start that poses the biggest problem to balance even if you want to adjust the crates on this start individually for each civ. As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately it kinda makes sense to just remove the coin start from the game. This makes me sad only because the whole buying wood to get a market start isn't really going to be a thing anymore--and it's one of the more interesting early game options.

We could make an unfavourable start for every civ by making this a start where every civ only gets their base crates and no additional crates, but this doesn't sound fun--also you would probably have to remove one of China's wood crates on this start.

So, here's where I suggest something controversial in the interest of keeping some of the variety around in the early game!

There's one other type of crate in the game that's never seen the light of day. It's the experience crate--and nearly every civilization can make good use of xp at the beginning of the game. Basically this would function similarly to a food crate, as it will speed up most civilizations age times, but doesn't really allow them to construct a Trading Post or a Market very easily. It also has the added benefit of helping out certain civs on non-TP maps if it ever happens.

[spoiler="Example"]Aztec: (300f, 200w) +100f or 100exp?
- Wondering if 100exp might be too good for Aztec? Or perhaps it's actually not even that good since exp is so easily acquired by Aztec compared to other civs.
British: (200f, 200w) +100exp
China: (1 Goat, 200f, 300w) +100exp
- Not going to help them as much as other civs, either, just like the other starts. They still need to wait until they have their village up to send their first card, and if they start TP their shipment will not arrive any faster than any other start for the same reason.
Dutch: (400c, 100w) +100exp
France: (300f, 100w) +100exp
German: (200f, 100w) +100exp
India: (100f, 300w) +100exp
Iroquois: (400f) +100exp
Japan: (400f, 200w) +100f
- 100exp probably doesn't help Japan as much as other civs: all of their shipments in age 1 and age 2 are simply weaker.
Ottoman: (300w) +100exp
Portuguese: (100f, 100w) +100f
- Since Portugal sometimes doesn't even send a shipment in age 1, this is probably more appropriate.
Russia: (500f, 100w) +100f
- Early Distributivism isn't going to help Russia's age up at all--maybe 100exp is still preferable here? Would need opinions from people who play Russia more.
Sioux: (300f) +100exp
Spain: (200f, 100w) +100f
- Spain's first shipment only costs 219exp--since you would get 100 from this and 20 from constructing your house, this might be too good for Spain? Honestly not sure. Exp is definitely more valuable for this civ than any other because it represents a larger % of a shipment, but at the same time aside from getting that first shipment a bit sooner (and maybe a 2nd shipment like ATP if they want it), they probably wouldn't get much out of this crate until 6-8 minutes into the game anyway, so perhaps it's better to just go with food instead here.[/spoiler]

It might be better not to include this one, but it might be worth testing, at least.

P.S. Idk why I waste so much of my times thinking about things (and writing posts about them) that no one will want or will never happen

[dansil92]

@Mitoe with the idea of xp crates may i suggest perhaps for the asian civs an export crate? Gaining 100 export for japan would ne a huge boost vs a coin start. Might be too good for india though

Edit: also the xp crate could allow for 2 colonial shipments potentially which could open some interesting builds. Eg VC for brits, advanced trading post for russia, etc.

[Mitoe]

@dansil92 I think that would actually be just as bad as a gold crate--you simply can't use it until Colonial, sometimes even mid-Colonial.

I think what you mean is 2 Discovery Age shipments, and I don't think it will, actually. People already construct TPs in age 1 which nets more than 100xp after construction and the first pass alone, and you still don't normally see more than 1 shipment in Discovery. Plus, I think most of the time sending a 2nd card in Discovery is just strictly worse than saving the shipment.

[dansil92]

@dansil92 I think that would actually be just as bad as a gold crate--you simply can't use it until Colonial, sometimes even mid-Colonial.

I think what you mean is 2 Discovery Age shipments, and I don't think it will, actually. People already construct TPs in age 1 which nets more than 100xp after construction and the first pass alone, and you still don't normally see more than 1 shipment in Discovery.

Yes discovery age haha

You could get the fishing ships as japan on a water map in discovery or even start using gopd faith agreements for some unusual builds. Idk just throwing out suggestions

[Mitoe]

I just don't see why you would start doing that now when you already don't want to do that when you have better starts that net you even more experience. Most of the time sending a shipment worth ~300 resources at 3:00 is significantly worse than saving the card for something worth 600 or 700 resources.

The only time it's worth considering is for a shipment of arguably greater value than a Colonial Age shipment, such as Virginia Company or ATP.

[[Armag] diarouga]

You can't say that random crates make change a lot about mu balance and at the same time that it doesn't bring diversity to the game.
But let's discuss about the random crates start problem ; and as often, the easiest solution is not always the best one. I'd say that the real problem is that these civs don't do much with this +100c. And that is an interesting topic to work on, which could be tackle by for instance working with tweaking treasures on some maps, or removing just one variation of crate starts instead of the entire concept, or adding 150 coin crate instead of 100... In short there are smartest and diverse alternatives other than : "X sucks -> remove X".

Overall, it's not the first time that I see you coming with ideas of wanting to fix everything by removing the aleatory part of the game. To caricature, your point of view is : "Make all maps with same big amount of food at base, with always tps on the map but not too much (~3tps) and fixed crates". Although I respect your ideas, I highly disagree with you about what this game should be, and fortunately the ep changes haven't going toward your direction yet. AOE3 was made with 14 different civs which represent 100+ MU, featured with 46 different maps which spawns randomly every time. You also have random crates, random mercenaries, random treasures, random map pick (qs and map sets). This game is built around aleatory events which makes it interesting and arguably fun. Yes, this game is not perfectly balanced and probably will never be. If sometimes you lose and you think the only reason is because you had a 100c start, then that's still not a big deal because, what's the problem if the luck didn't help you in some few rare cases and you lost an AOE3 game during a saturday afternoon. I'm sure luck will give it back to you at some point.

If you don't think that crate start can change a game you have no clue about the game.
For instance, coin start for India or Japan just means you age 20-30 sec later while it doesn't really affect your opponent. Likewise, in many situations, Germany can semi ff for free with an early TP, while they have to fight and struggle on other starts.

When I say that it doesn't bring diversity, I mean that your overall plan will just be the same. For example, India wants to hold a rush while booming against Aztecs, while Germany wants to age and survive the age 2 timing in most MUs, you can see that the plan is the same, the only difference is how you make it happen.
For India, it's of course going to be harder to hold a rush if India is 20 sec late on everything, thus he'll have to cut some eco to hold, still the plan won't change.
Likewise, Germany wants to age and make skirm/uhlan or skirm/WW in age 3, the only difference is that on wood start, you can just go for 3SW/700w/700c, or even 3sw/700c ff sometimes and age for free, while on coin start you might have to stay age 2 for a while, making bows to age etc.

[[Armag] diarouga]

In my 4th game against Tit, we had to restart because apparently Tit was missing a mine (his mines were totally fine imo, but why not), and I was quite upset about that, because we got a gold start, and after the rehost it was a wood start.
Since the EP team decided 2 years ago not to go for fixed crates, what should we do about the crate starts?

After all, I'd argue that having a wood start instead of a gold start as India (ie aging 30 sec faster) is a bigger deal than having a far 3rd gold mine. So what should the casters do in this kind of situation? Rehost until they get the same crate start? Does anyone have a suggestion about that? Honestly, random crate can be a game changing issue, and likewise, I would have been pissed off if I had to get a coin start instead of a wood start against China.

Easy answer: just accept it and move on.
Complex answer: only call the rehost if really necessary, weighting in what already happened so far, including crate start and treasures taken (or very likely to be taken).

As a side note. India might age 20-30 seconds faster with the wood crate, but Aztecs also get a significant boost w/e strat they are making.

Well, that's my point: only rehost if it's REALLY necessary.
What does really necessary mean? You lack a 2nd mine or a 3rd hunt, "my 4th hunt is far" or "my 3rd mine is far" isn't a thing.

Also Aztec doesn't get a significant boost, because you just get the market, and it would just be the same with coin start.

[[Armag] diarouga]

I don’t think crates have a big impact on the outcome of a game all that often really.

There are a few civs that I think are at a disadvantage more so than other civs on certain starts (i.e. India/Japan), but other than that most civs still have some sort of option available to them.

The main problem isn’t that crates are random, but that the same crate start can be very favourable for one civ, while very unfavourable for another. Dutch vs India on a coin start for example.

At the moment this is the possible spawn for any civ:

+100f
+100f +100w
+100f +100c
+100w
+100c

And thinking about it, really every civ is ok with food and wood crates--they can always do something with these resources relatively early. It's the coin crate that's the big problem: some civs get a market, Dutch gets a faster age up, and other civs don't do anything with their gold crate until they're already in age 2, and others that can do something with that crate (like Fre/Ger/Brit sometimes, for example), will choose to intentionally ignore that coin crate because it has a possibility of slowing down their age up. Unfortunately I have to admit it kind of makes sense to remove the coin start.

Yea, the coin start is the issue. Food and wood start are good for all civs, although wood start is better for semi ff TP civs.


As for China, I really don't think it's a big advantage for China that they have fixed crates compared to other civs.

What? You don't think that starting with +100w is a big advantage?

If anything, I don't think other civs need to really care that they didn't get the best crate start vs them--China on the other hand should be sad if their opponent got such a good start while they're still stuck placing their wonder at 3:20 - 3:30 and forced into either making trash units in age 2 or doing a Fast Fortress and letting their opponent do whatever they want for a while.

Well, you just see it the other way lol. I'm saying that you should be upset if you get a bad crate start against China while you're saying that the player playing China should be sad if you get a good crate start, which is the same.

Even the fact that China can construct a TP at the beginning of the game no matter what is not a big advantage for them,

Lol, if it's not a big advantage then skip that TP and see what happens in some MUs.

I think, because virtually all civs can just make a few units to siege it down and there's nothing China can do about it unless they're doing a sub-optimal build--such as staying Colonial. Plus China gets no information about what options their opponent has available to them at the start of the game because they don't know which crates their opponent got.

Yea, China has to lose the TP, it means that you have to commit for siege units vs China, and delay your strategy to kill the TP, which isn't free. Of course, it's worth it, but you don't want to be making pikes or musks vs China just to get that TP.

That being said I do think China would be easier to balance if they also had a bit of variety in their starts--but perhaps not so much as other civs. Besides, most people seem to think that China is a bad civilization right now anyway, so they could probably use the help.

So this is what I would consider as a good compromise to fixed crates:

1) Optimal (Wood) Start:
- On this start each civ will get their most desirable bonus crate—ideally the crate that provides the most options. For pretty much all civs I think this is a wood crate. Even civs that don’t necessarily get anything out of the wood crate at the very beginning of the game (like Dutch or Russia) will still prefer it to a different crate as it will speed up their transition to Colonial by quite a bit.

[spoiler="Example"]Base crates are listed in parenthesis.

Aztec: (300f, 200w) +100w
British: (200f, 200w) +100w
China: (1 Goat, 200f, 300w) +1 Goat
- +100w would be pretty broken for China probably, so this seems like a decent compromise. This doesn't necessarily help their age up time unless they eat both, but it will still be useful later--although never as useful as a food crate.
Dutch: (400c, 100w) +100w
France: (300f, 100w) +100w
German: (200f, 100w) +100w
India: (100f, 300w) +100w
Iroquois: (400f) +100w
Japan: (400f, 200w) +100w
Ottoman: (300w) +100w
Portuguese: (100f, 100w) +100w
Russia: (500f, 100w) +100w
Sioux: (300f) +100w
Spain: (200f, 100w) +100w[/spoiler]

2) Favourable (Food) Start:
- On this start each civ will get the crate most likely to speed up their age up, but not give them quite as many options as the "Optimal Start."

[spoiler="Example"]Aztec: (300f, 200w) +100f
British: (200f, 200w) +100f
China: (1 Goat, 200f, 300w) +100c
- Doesn't help their Colonial age up time at all, but it does maybe help them up to Fortress--kinda sticks with the civ's theme a bit.
Dutch: (400c, 100w) +100f
France: (300f, 100w) +100f
German: (200f, 100w) +100f
India: (100f, 300w) +100f
Iroquois: (400f) +100f
Japan: (400f, 200w) +100f
Ottoman: (300w) +100f
Portuguese: (100f, 100w) +100f
Russia: (500f, 100w) +100f
Sioux: (300f) +100f
Spain: (200f, 100w) +100f[/spoiler]


3) Optimal + Favourable Starts:
- This would provide each civ with both the wood and food crate.

[spoiler="Example"]Aztec: (300f, 200w) +100f, +100w
British: (200f, 200w) +100f, +100w
China: (1 Goat, 200f, 300w) +1 Goat, +100c
Dutch: (400c, 100w) +100f, +100w
France: (300f, 100w) +100f, +100w
German: (200f, 100w) +100f, +100w
India: (100f, 300w) +100f, +100w
Iroquois: (400f) +100f, +100w
Japan: (400f, 200w) +100f, +100w
Ottoman: (300w) +100f, +100w
Portuguese: (100f, 100w) +100f, +100w
Russia: (500f, 100w) +100f, +100w
Sioux: (300f) +100f, +100w
Spain: (200f, 100w) +100f, +100w[/spoiler]

4) Alternative Start:
So until now the starts haven't really changed for any civ, and I thought about making/calling this an unfavourable start for a while, similar to the coin start, but to be honest that's the start that poses the biggest problem to balance even if you want to adjust the crates on this start individually for each civ. As I mentioned earlier, unfortunately it kinda makes sense to just remove the coin start from the game. This makes me sad only because the whole buying wood to get a market start isn't really going to be a thing anymore--and it's one of the more interesting early game options.

We could make an unfavourable start for every civ by making this a start where every civ only gets their base crates and no additional crates, but this doesn't sound fun--also you would probably have to remove one of China's wood crates on this start.

So, here's where I suggest something controversial in the interest of keeping some of the variety around in the early game!

There's one other type of crate in the game that's never seen the light of day. It's the experience crate--and nearly every civilization can make good use of xp at the beginning of the game. Basically this would function similarly to a food crate, as it will speed up most civilizations age times, but doesn't really allow them to construct a Trading Post or a Market very easily. It also has the added benefit of helping out certain civs on non-TP maps if it ever happens.

[spoiler="Example"]Aztec: (300f, 200w) +100f or 100exp?
- Wondering if 100exp might be too good for Aztec? Or perhaps it's actually not even that good since exp is so easily acquired by Aztec compared to other civs.
British: (200f, 200w) +100exp
China: (1 Goat, 200f, 300w) +100exp
- Not going to help them as much as other civs, either, just like the other starts. They still need to wait until they have their village up to send their first card, and if they start TP their shipment will not arrive any faster than any other start for the same reason.
Dutch: (400c, 100w) +100exp
France: (300f, 100w) +100exp
German: (200f, 100w) +100exp
India: (100f, 300w) +100exp
Iroquois: (400f) +100exp
Japan: (400f, 200w) +100f
- 100exp probably doesn't help Japan as much as other civs: all of their shipments in age 1 and age 2 are simply weaker.
Ottoman: (300w) +100exp
Portuguese: (100f, 100w) +100f
- Since Portugal sometimes doesn't even send a shipment in age 1, this is probably more appropriate.
Russia: (500f, 100w) +100f
- Early Distributivism isn't going to help Russia's age up at all--maybe 100exp is still preferable here? Would need opinions from people who play Russia more.
Sioux: (300f) +100exp
Spain: (200f, 100w) +100f
- Spain's first shipment only costs 219exp--since you would get 100 from this and 20 from constructing your house, this might be too good for Spain? Honestly not sure. Exp is definitely more valuable for this civ than any other because it represents a larger % of a shipment, but at the same time aside from getting that first shipment a bit sooner (and maybe a 2nd shipment like ATP if they want it), they probably wouldn't get much out of this crate until 6-8 minutes into the game anyway, so perhaps it's better to just go with food instead here.[/spoiler]

It might be better not to include this one, but it might be worth testing, at least.

P.S. Idk why I waste so much of my times thinking about things (and writing posts about them) that no one will want or will never happen

You can't really do that lol, because it means that you would change the crate start for every civ.
It should more be like, keep the crates as they are, but remove the goat on coin or food starts.

[Mitoe]

You can't really do that lol, because it means that you would change the crate start for every civ.
It should more be like, keep the crates as they are, but remove the goat on coin or food starts.

I'm assuming you're talking about China here. You already think they're a bad civ, why make them worse? Plus removing the goat would be sad, it's part of what makes them unique.

[[Armag] diarouga]

You can't really do that lol, because it means that you would change the crate start for every civ.
It should more be like, keep the crates as they are, but remove the goat on coin or food starts.

I'm assuming you're talking about China here. You already think they're a bad civ, why make them worse? Plus removing the goat would be sad, it's part of what makes them unique.

After playing them a bit, I don't think that they're that weak, probably tier 2.
Anyway, my point is that starting with +100w isn't fair in a strategy game.

[EAGLEMUT]

@Mitoe while I like the idea of overhauling the random crate mechanic in some way, I don't think any of the options you suggested are implementable.
To my understanding of the code, the restrictions/functionality of the random starting units are such that:
- there can be any number of random variations, but you can never have one player spawn with a different variation than other players (based on civ or anything)
- a civ can be defined to have the random starting units game mechanic disabled (current China)
- the randomized units can most likely include any unit in the game
A potential overhaul could of course also adjust the permanent starting units.