What map settings do you enjoy?

Curious how other people like to set up their games. Trying to find new ways to make the AI more active.

Map Erebus Continent (Erebus World is hard on AI civs or boring for me if we spawn alone on an island)
Size:Large or Huge
Sea Level: Low or Med
Era: Ancient
Speed: Normal
Cohesion: Low or Med (to encourage some islands but not where civs spawn initially)
World Wrap: All
Advanced Terrain:On
Smart Climate: Off
Ancient City Ruins: Off (like exploration, but this option seems too clustered)
I usually leave the other map setting tweaks the default.

I usually run 14-15 civs on Large and 20 or more on Huge

I usually play Deity difficulty, not so much for the massive barb armies it generates, but to help the AI aggressiveness by giving them the advantage if they survive the early game. Having the right amount of civs helps this out by limiting the spawn areas for the barbs who do run quite amok early.

Options
Advanced Start (evens out AI starting advantage on higher difficulty I believe)
Challenge Aggressive AI (AI is too timid even with it)
City Flipping after conquest
Timid Animal
Wild Mana
Last Days (the armageddon counter seems a little slow to rise on normal)
All Unique features (I like them
Religion Based Interfaces
Broader Alignments
Flavor start
Well Known Faces (since emergent leaders are broken atm it seems)

I usually leave the Restrict Civilization options on default.
I also remember reading recommendations to set Challenge AI no building requirements to make them more competitive, but I hate taking completely empty cities more. :/ They already burn down most of the buildings in the taking as it is it seems.

I used to play with
pangaea, standard size, high sealevel, quick, emperor
no duin, no orthus, no goody huts, double mana, blessing of a., all improvements, no goody huts, no vassals, no tech brokering
no religious win, no altar win
all non-original-ffh civs disabled

Erebus_107b
Huge Size
Medium Sea Level
Ancient Era
Marathon Speed
Wild Mana, Feral Mana
Living World
Mechanos and Balseraphs disabled (screw you Loki)
Editor locked
Time victory only
FINAL DESTINATION

I have the erebus_107b map, but haven't played it for some time. Anyone know the scripting difference between it and erebuscontinent/erebusworld?

acestealth said:

I have the erebus_107b map, but haven't played it for some time. Anyone know the scripting difference between it and erebuscontinent/erebusworld?

Click to expand...

Erebus has the long thin peak chains. Erebus continent I don't think I've played. World of Erebus is one big continent surrounded by ocean and several islands of varying size.

TheIanOakley said:

Erebus has the long thin peak chains. Erebus continent I don't think I've played. World of Erebus is one big continent surrounded by ocean and several islands of varying size.

Click to expand...

World of Erebus can also be multiple smaller continents depending on your settings.

For the past couple of my games, I've been playing with 50 civs on a huge map with differing map scripts, the most recent one being smartmap with two large continents. The main atypical settings I had were no settlers, no savages, and no demons. The only main problems I have with it is in having to contact civilizations with a high score since they cannot all fit on the screen and that the lowest civs with no technologies just end up massing warriors or other trash units.

Due to the no settlers setting, I think it might play better with giving everyone feudalism via the world builder and going on a one city challenge so that I will have to capitulate enemies to gain limited power rather than steam rolling enemies after I get manual control 3+ cities when they usually only have one.

A second game setting I have been trying out has been a middling amount of civilizations, 20-25 on a large/huge map with no settlers, but with all barbarians enabled so that there is always unexplored and unsettled land, similar to a map of homm in that you don't settle new cities as much as capture them and there are many neutral enemies between them.