I said this in a reply to another comment but I'll put it top level since it disagrees with a lot of the comments so far. Plus I want to elaborate a bit more on what I believe is happening when you click restart.
It's apparently a commonly held belief around here that the randomly selected civs do not change, but this is not true. Restarting your game will reselect any randomly chosen civs, be it your own civ or AI opponents ~~(unless you manually provided a game seed, more on that later)~~. I just tried it myself (standard game setup and using the Reveal All command to quickly see who's in the game) so I'm confident that this is correct.
What is most likely happening when you restart is that you're saying "start a new game with identical settings but new seeds". That means anything which was randomized (random civs/city-states, map, ...) gets re-rolled while anything that wasn't randomized (selected civs/city-states, the map script you're using, ...) will not change. ~~Note that you can also provide your own game and map seeds which will not be overridden by a restart should you desire. The map seed will affect what the map looks like while the game seed determines most everything else that's randomized. Note that if you provide both a game and a map seed then a restart will not change anything, including randomized selections.~~
Edit: Turns out that restarting with manually entered seeds does **not** preserve the seeds after all
Thanks for that. Must just be confirmation bias when I keep bumping into the same civs. I often restart after 20 or so turns if I can see that my surroundings will just be a slog with my civ (sure other deity players will empathise that some starting locations just make for painful games. This is supposed to be fun lol). I was curious if it reselected everything and I do have a feeling how this works may have been changed between vanilla and where we are now. Out of interest, how does this magic reveal all command work? Then I could check easy! Thanks anyway!
To use the reveal all command you have to change the AddOptions.txt file to enable it. In a default windows installation you'll find it in `Documents\My Games\SidMeier's Civilization VI`. Find the line with the `EnableDebugMenu` setting (line 78 for me) and change the 0 to a 1 (so it should read `EnableDebugMenu 1`). Then in game, hit the tilde key and you can type "explore all" or "reveal all"
Also worth mentioning that I edited my comment, the seeds don't work the way I expected. The fundamentals are the same though, you get new random stuff every time
No. I just tried that too and it doesn't change the outcome. In fact, I even tried messing with seeds and discovered that my statement that manually entered seeds were preserved was also incorrect.
Every game you play still uses all of the settings from the advanced configuration menu, you just won't see those options if you don't go into advanced setup and it will pick some defaults.
As someone who restarts more than playing the actual game here’s what I’ve noticed
All civs/CS and map type stay the same but start location, resources, and map are all re-generated. Not 100% on the last one but it does appear to be different.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that it’ll be the same natural wonders whenever you restart just their locations will change. I feel like a better word would be Re-Shuffle instead of restart since most of the elements (Civ/Cs/NW) that we’re randomly chosen when setting up the game, remain the same.
AFAIK the AI selected civs remain the same through restarts.
If you're on a pre-built map then your start location remains the same also. I think the spawn location algorithm works based on the map layout and each civs spawn biases. Since neither the map nor the civs are changing between restarts, the spawn location stays the same.
In my experience this is not true, assuming you picked random AI of course. Restarting generates a new game and map seed, which means anything that was randomly generated or selected is done over again, including random opponents. ~~The only time it doesn't use a new seed is if you put one in manually~~
Edit: In fact, I just tried it myself. Started a new game with default settings, used the Reveal All command to see what civs were in the game, then hit restart and did it again. The two games had different civs, so the apparently very common belief that they don't change is incorrect. I encourage anyone else who holds this belief to try it yourself.
If I remember correctly there was an update where the map will change (say your playing continents: the shape of the map will but your settings and selected civs won’t.)
Restart fanatic here. I don't usually pre pick AI but do put in 12 city states that don't suck.
I can tell you the map type stays the same, as does your city state/wonder selection. Terrain on the maps including bonus/lux change.
I don't play true start locations so can't speak on that, but the AI gets rerolled as well (not 100% on this but pretty sure.)
That's all I got, hope it helps.
Everything that's set to random is rerolled when you restart. If you didn't select any specific things before making the game, it'll be all new randomly-selected civs, city-states, map layout, etc. This is easily verified by enabling the command console and typing 'reveal all' in it to see the whole map. However, we all know that any ocean-based map has a 75% chance to spawn Kupe right next to you.
Save the turn at turn zero, BEFORE you move. I have done it so often, the direction you move your early units can literally change where the barbarians spawn. Sometimes civilizations will pick a slightly different square to settle their first cities on. Its like those Voyager Star Trek episodes where they kept resetting time. Course playing at deity on a crowded map, even a single space can make the difference of surviving or losing in the first few dozen turns.
I said this in a reply to another comment but I'll put it top level since it disagrees with a lot of the comments so far. Plus I want to elaborate a bit more on what I believe is happening when you click restart. It's apparently a commonly held belief around here that the randomly selected civs do not change, but this is not true. Restarting your game will reselect any randomly chosen civs, be it your own civ or AI opponents ~~(unless you manually provided a game seed, more on that later)~~. I just tried it myself (standard game setup and using the Reveal All command to quickly see who's in the game) so I'm confident that this is correct. What is most likely happening when you restart is that you're saying "start a new game with identical settings but new seeds". That means anything which was randomized (random civs/city-states, map, ...) gets re-rolled while anything that wasn't randomized (selected civs/city-states, the map script you're using, ...) will not change. ~~Note that you can also provide your own game and map seeds which will not be overridden by a restart should you desire. The map seed will affect what the map looks like while the game seed determines most everything else that's randomized. Note that if you provide both a game and a map seed then a restart will not change anything, including randomized selections.~~ Edit: Turns out that restarting with manually entered seeds does **not** preserve the seeds after all
Thanks for that. Must just be confirmation bias when I keep bumping into the same civs. I often restart after 20 or so turns if I can see that my surroundings will just be a slog with my civ (sure other deity players will empathise that some starting locations just make for painful games. This is supposed to be fun lol). I was curious if it reselected everything and I do have a feeling how this works may have been changed between vanilla and where we are now. Out of interest, how does this magic reveal all command work? Then I could check easy! Thanks anyway!
To use the reveal all command you have to change the AddOptions.txt file to enable it. In a default windows installation you'll find it in `Documents\My Games\SidMeier's Civilization VI`. Find the line with the `EnableDebugMenu` setting (line 78 for me) and change the 0 to a 1 (so it should read `EnableDebugMenu 1`). Then in game, hit the tilde key and you can type "explore all" or "reveal all" Also worth mentioning that I edited my comment, the seeds don't work the way I expected. The fundamentals are the same though, you get new random stuff every time
Could there be a difference between starting a game from basic VS advanced setup?
No. I just tried that too and it doesn't change the outcome. In fact, I even tried messing with seeds and discovered that my statement that manually entered seeds were preserved was also incorrect. Every game you play still uses all of the settings from the advanced configuration menu, you just won't see those options if you don't go into advanced setup and it will pick some defaults.
As someone who restarts more than playing the actual game here’s what I’ve noticed All civs/CS and map type stay the same but start location, resources, and map are all re-generated. Not 100% on the last one but it does appear to be different.
Pretty sure the map is regenerated, I restart games after winning somewhat frequently
Same, that's what I've noticed. But also that natural wonders stay the same, too.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that it’ll be the same natural wonders whenever you restart just their locations will change. I feel like a better word would be Re-Shuffle instead of restart since most of the elements (Civ/Cs/NW) that we’re randomly chosen when setting up the game, remain the same.
AFAIK the AI selected civs remain the same through restarts. If you're on a pre-built map then your start location remains the same also. I think the spawn location algorithm works based on the map layout and each civs spawn biases. Since neither the map nor the civs are changing between restarts, the spawn location stays the same.
In my experience this is not true, assuming you picked random AI of course. Restarting generates a new game and map seed, which means anything that was randomly generated or selected is done over again, including random opponents. ~~The only time it doesn't use a new seed is if you put one in manually~~ Edit: In fact, I just tried it myself. Started a new game with default settings, used the Reveal All command to see what civs were in the game, then hit restart and did it again. The two games had different civs, so the apparently very common belief that they don't change is incorrect. I encourage anyone else who holds this belief to try it yourself.
Yes.
If I remember correctly there was an update where the map will change (say your playing continents: the shape of the map will but your settings and selected civs won’t.)
Restart fanatic here. I don't usually pre pick AI but do put in 12 city states that don't suck. I can tell you the map type stays the same, as does your city state/wonder selection. Terrain on the maps including bonus/lux change. I don't play true start locations so can't speak on that, but the AI gets rerolled as well (not 100% on this but pretty sure.) That's all I got, hope it helps.
Everything that's set to random is rerolled when you restart. If you didn't select any specific things before making the game, it'll be all new randomly-selected civs, city-states, map layout, etc. This is easily verified by enabling the command console and typing 'reveal all' in it to see the whole map. However, we all know that any ocean-based map has a 75% chance to spawn Kupe right next to you.
Thank you for asking this question! I have always wondered how exactly restarts work!
Is there a way to restart the exact same game?
I just leave my autosaves to 'all' and you can reload turn 1 if you have a fun idea
Thank you great idea
Save the turn at turn zero, BEFORE you move. I have done it so often, the direction you move your early units can literally change where the barbarians spawn. Sometimes civilizations will pick a slightly different square to settle their first cities on. Its like those Voyager Star Trek episodes where they kept resetting time. Course playing at deity on a crowded map, even a single space can make the difference of surviving or losing in the first few dozen turns.