Some civilizations have a starting bias, which affects the starting positions they get assigned when the map is generated. Starting biases help players spawn near terrain and resources that allow them to take advantage of their civs' and leaders' unique abilities and components, and are usually based on historical data.
Upon generation, the map is split into equal parts for each civilization that is in the game. Each civ starts far enough from the others so that they have enough space to grow (except the Māori, who do not get any land allocated to them). Civs' starting positions (that is, where their initial units are situated) will be distributed around the map according to their starting biases. If a section has a lot of Rainforest tiles, for example, Brazil is more likely to be placed there than Arabia. Starting biases are ranked by tiers, with tier 1 being the strongest and tier 5 the weakest. It is not guaranteed that each section will directly correlate with a civ, as the map generates without taking into consideration which civs are in the game.
List of starting biases[]
Civilizations[]
City-states[]
There are also a few city-states that have starting biases.
| City-state | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Tier 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Mogadishu |
 Coast
|
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 Nan Madol |
Coast
|
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 Nazca |
 Desert
|
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 Rapa Nui |
 Volcano Coast
|
See also[]
- Starting bias in other games