Civ5 & Earth maps

I understand that cities CAN reach 3 tiles, and that if they have been around a while they often will (At least in some directions). What matters is whether they usually do in gameplay. From my experience very few of my (and the AIs) cities end up reaching and working their full 3 tile radius. Usually cities are founded at the same distance as they are in cIV. Also, in cIV RFC cities were often founded far closer to each other than normal and we still managed fine.

Is anybody playing on the ecv map that Rhye linked to at the top of this thread? And has anyone gotten much further past 1750 when playing on it? I'm running into serious performance issues past that point, with the game hanging during the Other Player updates and then crashing with memory problems. I'm playing on a next-to-the-latest-generation MacBook Pro laptop (Bootcamp installation) and CiV itself runs quickly and without any hiccups at all on it.

I wonder if the problem has to do with all the city-states in this particular game. Each time that that there has been a crash it has come soon after a league of city-states has launched a war against one of the major civilizations. By the time of the last crash--I've given up entirely on the game; it's too frustrating--at least five of the major civilizations had been targeted by these mass gang-ups. Maybe the sheer volume of war involving so many "independent" actors is clogging things up past the breaking point?

I offer this not as a complaint but as a possible data-point about performance on large maps with lots of units and political entities.

so, please take a look at this.
I'd like some of you to try both maps and post saves of certain dates (0AD, 1000AD, 1400AD, 1700AD, 1900AD if you can) and measure loading time as well as judge gameplay in tight areas. Take a European civ (make sure you load starting locations too).

Please consider that it's a very raw conversion, so no accurate shapes and just random resources.

AND PLEASE, do not take one of these maps, improve it and post it elsewhere.

Just started playing as Greece on the 128 map. My first comment would be that the mountains that block off access between Russia and Rumania aren't a good thing. But the map otherwise feels good so far.

Where do we put it to play it?

civ_king said:

Where do we put it to play it?

Click to expand...

My Documents -> My Games -> Sid Meier's Civilization V -> Maps

Then it will be on the list when you set up a game through the mod menu.

Rhye said:

so, please take a look at this.
I'd like some of you to try both maps and post saves of certain dates (0AD, 1000AD, 1400AD, 1700AD, 1900AD if you can) and measure loading time as well as judge gameplay in tight areas. Take a European civ (make sure you load starting locations too).

Please consider that it's a very raw conversion, so no accurate shapes and just random resources.

AND PLEASE, do not take one of these maps, improve it and post it elsewhere.

Click to expand...

By loading time do you mean the lag between turns or something else?

EDIT: I couldn't even load the 150sc version (the game locked up on the loading screen). But that's not the first I've had freezes/CTDs with huge maps so it's probably my problem.

Úmarth;9736387 said:

My Documents -> My Games -> Sid Meier's Civilization V -> Maps

Then it will be on the list when you set up a game through the mod menu.

Click to expand...

okay, I'll have to find that (playing in OS X)

I did a quick 125sc game as England, and played until 1945 with no significant issues. Boy, that's a big Europe.

I'll play a mainland civilization next. My only note on English geography is that it could stand to be made a little smaller, actually, by pulling the west coast (Welsh mountain and Cornish peninsula) in so that they can fall within London's 3-hex radius. As it stands, the player has three unpalatable choices: (1) Move off London (not fun historically); (2) settle a pissant city in the west so as to capture three tiles in the west (an ugly choice); (3) let the tiles go, where they are prey to the French and frequently spawn barbarians.

mxzs, which map did you play?
Please post the saves (possibly (0AD, 1000AD, 1400AD, 1700AD, 1900AD)

Rhye said:

mxzs, which map did you play?
Please post the saves (possibly (0AD, 1000AD, 1400AD, 1700AD, 1900AD)

Click to expand...

Sorry, mistype: 128sc. That is the info you want, right?

I'd post saves but I forgot to do regular saves. Also, I need to figure out how to post saves to the forum. So, you know, other than not knowing how to post non-existent saves, I'm good to go!

I'm having fun, so I'll have saves for you in the future, no fear.

EDIT: Hey, Rhye, I tried sending you a PM but your box was full. So I guess I'll post out here in public. It's kind of OT, but related to the whole "map" thing:

I made up some play-testing scenarios, to give me a clearer idea of how certain early game RFC situations and strategies would play out in CiV. They are adaptations from ecv's RFC map, WorldBuild-ed in various ways to reflect RFC game play at certain key points early in the game. For instance, one map includes only the Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, and Babylonians (well, Ottomans, but in Babylon's starting place), along with five city-states representing Sur, Yerushalem, Susa, that barb city in Anatolia, and Afrasiyab. The idea I had was to play the first 50 turns of classic RFC in a CiV environment without pesky French or Germans, etc. spawning on the first turn, to see how classic play involving those civs would proceed in the new environment. So: How fast can Babylon build a big city; how fast can China get multiple cities up; how much early culture can Egypt acquire and how soon can it get its UHV wonders up; and so on.

I made them for my own use, but then thought you might find them useful—though I don't know what prep stuff you have of your own. I was going to tell you about them privately, since I didn't want to just horn in on your prerogatives, and offer them to you if you thought they might be useful. I have five of them done:

Map 1: Described above.
Map 2: First four civs somewhat built up, with Greece and Persia post-spawn near their RFC starting locations with units.
Map 3: The first six civs somewhat built up, and then Japan, Rome, and Carthage [using Arabia] starting with a bunch of units.
Map 4: Same as above, but redone to assume a Persian conquest of Babylon and Sur.
Map 5: No "spawned civs," just Egypt, Carthage, Greece, Rome, India, China built up, and awaiting barbarian invasions (which, though not as part of my design, turn out to be pathetically weak).

I was starting to work on two further maps, one that included starting units for France, England, Germany, and Russia (in a Europe featuring city-states representing a collapsed Rome), and one that included starting units for Portugal and Netherlands in a Europe that already included Spain, France, England, Germany, Scandinavia, Russia, and city-states representing collapsed Rome and Greece. But the maps in this thread kind of rendered those extensions moot.

I played a game on the 128sc version - Germany, Prince difficulty, Standard speed. It was okay, I thought the "tight spaces" in Europe had about the right amount of interesting tactical choices (considering the map isn't finished) without creating too many annoying troop-movement issues. Lag wasn't a problem at all, even though my laptop just meets the minimum specs, but that might have something to do with the fact that I never got round to exploring.

Anyway, here are the saves. They're a couple of turns off the dates you posted because I forgot, sorry.

thanks
please also try the bigger one

I tried the big one first but my game crashed when it was loading. I'll try again, but I doubt I'll be able to play it. It's happened before with huge maps.

Yeah, the large map crashed for me too.

I got the large map working and as Rome it placed me in South China >.<

150sc map works fine for me, starting locations work too - only issue I have is very slow turn rate.

The 150sc map loads for me, and I've played thru 1000AD as Greece. It is so humongous, though, that I've barely explored anything outside the Mediterranean. (Stupid barbs.)

civ_king said:

I got the large map working and as Rome it placed me in South China >.<

Click to expand...

Did you click on "Load Scenario" under Map Type? I think you have to do that or else it will set you down randomly somewhere.

I dialed up a start as Egypt on the 128 map and was surprised that I wasn't in a starting location with a river.

A bit of exploration though reveals that I am indeed in North Africa, but there is NO RIVER NILE????

The river doesn't mean anything. I told you that it's raw. I only care about size


EDIT: actually there should be the river there, because I did not delete it