I was trying to understand how starting crates of each civilization works. I found that Chinese starting crates are always the same, 200 food, 300 wood, 6 villagers and 1 goat. However, the opponent's civilization sometimes has 1 more crate while China remains the same with no additional benefit.
For example, Dutch starts with 6 crates or 7 crates, but Chinese always has only 5 crates, 6 villagers and 1 goat. Isn't this a bug? I don't see a reason why other civilizations sometimes can have 1 more crate while China remains the same.
I have tested this on both the latest RE and the latest EP, and both RE maps and ESOC maps, they are all having this bug.
By the way, here is the table that I made, this is in RE, I was trying to generalize how starting crates are determined.
1. civilization's inherent starting crates and villager count
Civilization | food | wood | gold | villager count |
British | 200 | 200 | 0 | 6 |
Dutch | 0 | 100 | 400 | 6 |
French | 300 | 100 | 0 | 6 (5 cdbs) |
German | 200 | 100 | 0 | 6 (3 settler wagons) |
Ottoman | 0 | 300 | 0 | 6 |
Portugal | 200 | 100 | 0 | 7 |
Russia | 500 | 100 | 0 | 5 |
Spain | 200 | 100 | 0 | 6 |
Iroquois | 200 | 200 | 0 | 5 |
Sioux | 300 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
Aztec | 300 | 200 | 0 | 5 |
China | 200 | 300 | 0 | 6 |
India | 100 | 300 | 0 | 6 |
Japan | 400 | 200 | 0 | 6 |
2. random starting crates
There are total of 5 different random crates. In every game, the game will choose one kind of random crates randomly and every civilization except China receives the same number of random crates.
5 kinds of random crates:
(1) 100 food
(2) 100 wood
(3) 100 gold
(4) 100 food 100 wood
(5) 100 food 100 gold
total starting crates = civilization's inherent starting crates + random crates + map's natural starting crates
Note: Chinese starting crates are always the same in every game and does not receive the random crates.