The definitive(lol, I wish), JS starting conditions guide?

[Iazo]

Hi. I have been asked multiple times to give an opinion on starting conditions, especially on JS.

I have played only a handful of starts, and there is no secret to which one is my favourite, but in order to broaden my horizons, I think I will have to attempt to try them all, in order to definitively (until next version) answer which one is best. Or at least, sort them into tiers.

I have theorycrafted a bunch of promising candidates, in no particular order:

Pacific/None

Siberia/Turan

N. Africa/Thebes

N. America/Cali

Arctic/Northfed

Europe/Blackmarch

Europe/Romanica/M.Touch

If you are experienced, you can probably see a pattern as to why I consider those the strongest starts.


I plan on trying them all with Gray/Dumbass/Male Touch to limit variance a bit, and play each for 6-ish months, about to the time the missile rain starts. The ideal preparation would be 4 Overcharged radars by 1st of July.

Any other ideas? Suggestions?

Since playing such a start is A LOT of work, I will not promise to play all suggestions. If you come here suggesting that Middle East/Thebes or S. Africa/Rogue Fields is the best start ever, I will not even attempt it, unless you can argue it well in words.

[Psyentific]

If you get it almost pixel-perfect, there's a patch of western Canada that is actually in the Pacific region rather than North America. I'm not sure if that's actually a desirable combination for you, but it's an interesting find regardless.

[Iazo]

I know about it, but it is not, since Canada bonus is weaker than the None bonus.

[Greep]

I feel like thebes is always going to be "best" even with the new base defenses, but some other ideas:

-Fuso:  Seems like cats 4 life gets catgirl platemail (well, chainmail for all intents and purposes) with this option, unless I'm missing something. It costs 250k apiece, but samurai armor seems cool and you get one piece for free.  Obviously, kinda pointless if you test with Male Touch route, though.

-Iron tribes:  I tried this out a while ago and it kinda sucked, but with the charger laser being no more, and with more early game UFOs, might be a consideration to have tons of 14mm ammo and a 450 speed +25% dodge daredevil with some Xtra armor slapped on. 

Kind of a pity that the relevant research costs are so high, though. Necroparts recycling needs Tools and Blades which has a ton of reqs.  Something like 80 brainer days of stuff you don't need immediately to finally research it.

[ontherun]

Guys, id' also advice to not start a game placing first base in Turan: a s bonus we get n. 3 Turanian gals byt every on and off webget an event saying you're robbed by locals! They take away cash between -100.000 and -300.000 causing severe slowdown; in july 2601 i did not managed to build the mess hall (!!!) i tryed ven to fence them away but no way...

[Iazo]

500k in february is almost inconsequential. And 100k per month is also inconsequential. Consider that on JS, by july, you gotta have at least 4 overcharged radars built by july. If you didn't even have the money to build a mess hall by july(a building you would build in jan, normally), you are nowhere near of being ready for JS.

[Pherdnut]

Can somebody direct me to a list of all of the starting conditions? All I've found so far is a busted link.

[Iazo]

https://xpedia.netlify.app/##COUNTRIES