Because normal games tend to take so long to play (let alone epic and marathon!), I've been playing quick speed, small world continents games with the standard (five at small size) number of civilizations. I figure that the quick speed tends to make warfare more difficult so the small size means fewer opponents and less distance to get your troops to them.

So, I'm wondering. At monarch and emperor difficulties, what am I missing compared to normal speed and standard size maps? Maybe a bit less tech trading and more frequent starts alone on my own island. Anything else?

The reason I'm posting in the strategy section is because I'm wondering if some of the strategies I'm learning and employing are specific to my map size and game speed and wouldn't transfer to longer, bigger games.

In my opinion your missing the beef of the game, the time playing on level ground with your opponents, entire wars with only axemen, swordsman, and archers. The true strategy, then agaiin im only a noble player

I find in quick games that by the time I gear up for war my stockpiled units are obsolete. Too fast.

Do you mean normal "speed" or bigger maps on marathon?

Small maps on marathon are quick and dirty, get an advantage and take the AI out. There is a lot more give and take on larger maps, need to use allies (I got Isabella next to me in my current game, praying she doesn't switch religions and go all crazy).

Expansion and tech pace. I played only standard length games until the last GOTM (which was Epic), and there are differences in strategy, especially early. On epic you could expand far faster than you should, as it takes longer for your new cities to build up infrastructure and longer to get to Currency, Civil Service and other techs that boost your income. Your opening strategy has to be different ... at least differently paced.

Also, as mentioned above, units don't go obsolete for a long time, so there is a real feeling of eras. For example, I hardly ever built musketmen before, as riflemen were just moments away. That is no longer the case ... there are two other somewhat related military strategies necessary. You have to be prepared to be attacked, because it is no longer possible to simply quickly build (until the late game) new defenders. Plus, if you put off researching an important military tech, it'll take you longer to catch up and some else's newer units could wipe you up in the mean time.

It's like a race ... on a short enough track, you just go as fast as you can (research, expansion, etc). But with a longer game, there is more ebb and flow, more strategy. It doesn't matter that you're a little behind at anyone moment, as long as you have a plan and are building momentum.

Thanks for the replies. I do think I need to just bite the bullet and play longer, larger games.

I've certainly noticed the quick obsolescence of units. Even trying for an axeman rush is almost futile because by the time I build three or four, I can be adding swordsmen to the mix. It becomes very tempting to go for iron working earlier than worker techs to get swordsmen and clear jungle sites.

Interestingly, while worker techs are quick to research, and workers quicker to build, the number of turns it takes for a worker to improve the land are the same as in normal speed. Makes those Indian fast workers that much more useful.

On quick games, the AI don't handle the tech race so well, it's easier to beat them. They're sharper in normal speed.

I wonder if this is because the AI relies on tech trading to advance in tech. With the quicker speed, it takes longer to meet everyone (for both you and the AI), so tech trading is delayed. If you try to compensate by reducing the size of the map you either get fewer potential tech trading partners (if you take the standard small map number of civs) or less commerce ability for each civ (if you keep the same number (7) of civs as in the standard size map.

I guess you could keep the higher number of civs on the smaller map if you lowered sea level so there's more land. Hmmm.

The real issue is the # of AI players, on a smaller map, there are fewer of them so diplomacy is less of a threat (when they outnumber you 2 or 4 to one its much less threatening than when you are outnumbered 10 to 1 on a large map)

If speed is compensated for by smaller size, then diplomacy really is the only difference. (although I think small is best on normal, you might want to try that because a small map also speeds up the game)

That's a good suggestion to play the small map at normal speed. I think I'll also see if lowering the sea level helps too, but it may just make it so that fishing boats can complete Magellan's voyage, which isn't what I want.

As for the number of AI civs...I have the impression from reading the forums that in the higher levels, it is very helpful to the human player to pick an AI side/team to trade techs and gang up with for war. I wonder if having only 4 AI civs handicaps the human player since I've found I invariably want to take over at least one of them for expansion. With 4 AIs, there seem to be about 2 blocks. So, you can be at war with half the AIs. With 6 AIs, maybe there are about 3 blocks (perhaps one is a loner), so you can be at war with 67% of the AIs. That would seem to be an advantage to the human with more civs because the skilled human is better than the AI at warfare.

Also, regarding overall difficulty, I have the impression that because of the human player's (potential) skill at warring and at tech trading, that relative difficulties of games goes something like this:


As maps get bigger, the game gets harder because it takes longer to get your troops to all points on the globe (so large map is harder than normal size map)
As speeds get slower, the game gets easier because your troops can heal and move more quickly relative to tech progression (so epic speed is easier than normal speed)
As number of civilization increases...I don't know. Maybe a wash? More civs means more tech trading among the AIs, but also more potential trading partners for the human. More civs means more potential "teams", so if you only choose one, a greater percentage of the world is "fair game" for your expansionist aggresion, but also more civs are looking to take over your empire.


I have heard others make the suggestion that game speed be tied to map size so that the time it takes to march a troop across the world and (relative to that time), the time it takes to research a new type of troop remain constant.

Still, the fact that they have to differentially modify the speed at which buildings are built and the speed at which troops are built may mean that different game speeds are inherently different games.