At what point do you start over?

Yeah sometime you just cant find any fertile ground to settle at all. I hope they can improve this aspect of the random map generator. I usually restart if I cant find more than three resonably close together spots to settle.

I am actually enjoying my current game where I had just a single 4/3/2 spot for the first 100 turns.  I built up a nice level three fortress (love strike garrison!)  and built 5-6 outposts to gather resources.  I was really pleased that even though I lagged behind the AI players I met, nobody declared war on me for another 120 turns or so.  I had a few tribute demands, most of which I ignored.  Now, I am at war with three of the nine other factions but adding many cities to my once lonely turtle fortress.   

But sometimes, yeah, I ctrl-n a lot! 

I tend to go with the minimum number of opponents for any given map size. I figure that improves my chances to find suitable space to expand. It doesn't always work; I still restart some games when they are hopeless.

I usually force myself to play the hand I am given...I find the games are more interesting when you have to deal with a 'crap' start. But of course, I realize some starts are almost guaranteed failure.  

One time I started a random map, and there was a dark wizard tower within three-four tiles of the only decent yields. On top of that, there was no "gimmie' champion in sight, and not a single goodie hut in sight. I hit control+N pretty fast. 

I play on Insane, so in the early and mid game, if an opponent has less than double my power rating, it means another opponent is killing him.  

I only restart when my defeat is imminent.  For instance, if an opponent is taking down my cities, or if they've got too many armies in my territory to keep casting Tremor to stop them.  In the game I won on Ridiculous, I was on the bottom for so long, but I'd built such a strong economical foundation, that in the late game I was able to vault forward, overtaking everyone.  The point is, if you're playing on a higher difficulty setting, being at the bottom of the power chart for a long time is normal.  

Another thing I've noticed is that, I play on a large map but with 8 opponents, and often my opponents will not expand beyond their first city, even the one on top.  So, even if you only get one city, you can still make it.  Just don't lose it.

I start over every game at some point, I almost never finish a strategy game.  If I run into a lot of bad luck in the start of the game I'll start over, but most of my starting over is when the game has reached a point where I gain no more joy from building up my empire or I am just steamrolling enemies.  I had one game that I ended because I was in a stalemate.  This was a long time ago, maybe in the beta.  I started in a far corner of the world between a mountain range and an ocean, and had room to make three cities.  I made my cities and Was then immediately at war with Tarth.  They had me completely cut off from the rest of the world.  The attacked non stop, and eventually the captured and razed two of my cities, but I was able to take a force and capture their capital and force peace.  but then the game became instantly boring to me and I quit. 

I'm starting over when I'm leveling each opponent's army and it is becoming obvious that I'm gonna conquer each settlement no matter how well protected it is. Next game is definitel gonna be on a level bove challenging...

I keep doing quests and stuff and teching and building up my towns, then I generally do the Master Quest.  I tend to not attack other AIs (on Challenging difficulty) unless they attack me first or have a few Forge pieces.

Since I have disabled all victory condition options but conquest victory, I always have to resort to violence. *grins*

But only AFTER I have done all the available quests and mastered the wildlands.

I used to play medium maps with everything on random but sometimes I ended up with no wildlands at all. That was boring. So right now I'm playing a large map with random resources, many heroes (my sov has adventurer profession and my faction has traitor trait mind you :D), dense monsters, many wildlands and 6 opponents.

Is it me, or are iron resources much less frequent in 1.32? (I always play on the same resouce frequency settings)

I've done two games recently were neither me or any of the AI's had iron.

And without iron, a magic victory isn't possible....

I'l play and play and play and play.

When I load the next day, I generally have a very hard time getting back into it.
If I do, I play and play and play some more. .
If I don't, I start over and play and play and play again.

Anyone play on scarce resources and scarce magic (shards)? I find it makes games more interesting - and harder to get to the point where you are OBVIOUSLY winning, and you just want to start again.

Dense monsters also makes expansion more difficult, so each town counts in the early to mid game.

After asking for more entertaining starting options in the forum I decided to try it, and I liked scarce resources but not scarce shards. IMO scarce resources are fun because add to the feeling of post-apocaliptic world, but scarce shards just weakens magic too much. Spells power depend a lot on shards, as does mana.

Dense monsters are really funny, makes for a very alive and entertaining world. Makes you think twice before leaving cities unprotected, and many times forces you to clean a city spot before settling, which IMO is soooo fun!

When something beyond my power happens... Lately I have been running into no fertile farm land, while running into strong armies or even a single strong dragon.

Playing this game as a pure mage is frustrating sometimes and other times I drop bombs on them .

i think the only game i didn't finish so far was with relias/altar. i just don't have the discipline to ignore the pretty overpowered aspects of henchmen and the game gets too easy when you use them, imo. i quit that game when i realized that i was about twice as strong as the other factions and managed to kill stuff like obsidian golems from the imperium wildland around turn 80 or something. i guess i'll give them another try when LH is released (if henchmen are removed or changed to work significantly different [aka less potential for abuse])

OliverFA- I love Dense monsters. There's one problem though- you level faster, and late game is too easy. High level champions are already godlike, and late game lack of challenge is probably the biggest bummer for me in this game. 

I like scarce shards because it makes the spell-power monuments so much more significant, and forces you to specialize in magics you don't anticipate (you're forced to embrace the shards you find the most of). Mana isn't a problem for me on scarce magic- I prioritize essence spots and build conclaves with temples of essence and alchemists to pump out the mana.