Wish: start more towards middle of the map

I'll second this request. I've been asking/hoping for a way for this to happen for quite some time as well.

Starting on the edge is extremely boring as you can easily bottleneck yourself off which is really abusive towards the AI.

Imo, since the player is the central aspect of the game (why else have the game), then the player should be the central focus of the game as well. I'm completely fine with the idea above: to start the player at the closest starting location near the middle of the map to help ensure an interactive and dynamic game with the surrounding AI.

Another alternative that I had proposed back in the beta days, was to have north-south and east-west world wrap features, so that no matter what starting location you have, you are considering to be 'in the middle'.

You do realize being in a corner is the most strategically advantageous place to be?

And being in the middle is the very worst starting spot?

Of course if you play on a super easy difficulty and just want to expand and turtle then yeah I suppose middle would be best.

But the other Kingdoms on any reasonable level of difficulty will be aggravated by sharing borders and directly competing for resources.

In other words if you are in the middle, almost everyone is going to quickly share borders, and will be competing for your resources, and will have an easy and short route to send attackers your way.

You can almost be promised to be quickly and repeatedly attacked by multiple kingdoms at the same time, from all sides.  ( = Very Bad )

In games where you have a corner, you cause less aggravation overall and many times if a Kingdom on the opposite corner goes to war with you, they will have a long hard road to get troops to your borders, some times loosing units and entire armies to the dangers of the wilds.

And if you exploit that tactically you can have your neighbors go to war with those farthest from you, which keeps you safe as they will be too busy to send troops that far and it also softens up your neighbors so you can target one for early removal.

That being said, it only really hurts if you expand too slow and arent capable of claiming a large enough section of the map quickly to sustain you through the beginning.

Which shouldnt be a problem as long as you are "playing the game" and not expecting a situation of...Everyone leave me alone until I am ready for war, I want to take whatever, build whatever, and not be bothered until I have this massive huge army and just wash over the whole map easy mode style.

Yes, I do realize that starting in the corner would be the easiest location to be and that starting in the middle would be the most challenging. That's precisely why I would like the option to start close to the middle.

I've recently increased my difficultly, now playing hard//hard (used to play challenging//challenging). I don't like the 'cheating' the AI does....I like everyone having to play by the same rules. Never the less, a small price to pay for having an enjoyable game. I don't even bother starting on corners anymore....Ctrl-N is wearing down on my keyboard. Imo, starting in the middle is even more important than having a city with 2 or 3 essence...and I have turned down games that have 3/3/3 starting locations ONLY because that starting location was not near the middle.

Besides, with so many difficultly options, if starting in the middle is too hard....just turn it down a notch.

I'd rather have everyone playing by the same rules and play at a lower difficulty level than have the AI cheat more because starting placement makes it too easy for the player.

I dont think the idea should be to limit the starting positions which will reduce the strategic possibilities...but if this allows you to abuse the AI, then make the AI better.

But like I said in my previous post this is all just obvious and basic tactics that work and happen in the real world. 

And using proper tactics should give the player an advantage...assuming you are looking at this game as a strategy game and not an "I'm awesome King guy in my own fantasy world that revolves around me simulator".

I agree, however I think the only true failure at this point if the fact the AI is incapable of keep up with a good player.

And has to be given insane bonuses in order to provide challenge.

Yeah you have 7 cities, well managed but this is a higher difficulty so the AI can out perform you at every level having 3 cities with only 1 having production over 10.

Which again I agree is really annoying.  However I assume/hope this is just a band-aid for now to as you said create a more challenging game at the cost of the AI cheating badly.

I hope a time comes when all things are equal-ish and the AI is still a challenge.  But for now we're left with the AI with 3 cities and 0 production producing epic armies compared to what they have ANY business creating.

You could generate a series of maps in the editor and adjust the start positions yourself. You could even generate 10 of these types of maps and then chances are you wouldn't remember what the map is which and effectively produce a series of pseudo random maps for yourself.

Yep, that's what I want. Be in the most interesting spot, instead of a boring corner. Corner is too much determined by whichever opponent happens to be closest, and the handful of resources between me and them. Dumbest "corner" map I encountered, was when a wildland dominated the immediate terrain. Hard to make a decent, connected kingdom. Regardless, I'd rather have more than one or two neighbors.

In the center, you have more options. Quickly find out what is in every direction, decide what are the best spots to expand to, and defend. In a corner, you have only one or two places you can grab, before you hit the closest neighbor. I prefer to build first, then respond to attacks. Prefer to have multiple different neighbors. Some friendly, some not.

I agree that it should be optional.

I play on Expert. I have no interest in playing on Ridiculous. On Expert, I find myself "in the middle of the pack". Some opponents are stronger, some are weaker. The friendly ones don't give me much trouble.

I get plenty of games in the middle... too often for my taste to be honest

Just spam CTRL-N until you are starting somewhat in the middle. (CTRL-U for checking if you have cheat enabled to really make sure)