Playing on Oversized Maps

I've recently started playing on maps one size bigger than the norm for the number of civs and city-states. Originally it was just while teaching someone to play the game in MP, but WOW, it's nice.

On the regular sizes, you have the other civs up your rear by turn 25. I sometimes find it hard to get even 3 cities in good spots, and the fourth city is often just vestigial. This, more than any other reason, is why I always pick Tradition in regular games. Sometimes you have some space, often you just don't. On oversized maps, while Tradition might be strong for my strategy, Liberty is often just as tempting depending on your lands.

I don't know, it just feels more like real life, where you have a few cities and some build-up before border disputes start happening, unlike the crazed potato-sack race to your second city spot that defines most of my games.

I think the concern is that it discourages warmongering. I was concerned that perhaps it makes the game easier, but in theory the AI benefits just as much from it. Against humans it might actually be an improvement over the base game, since war is the beating heart of MP, whether it's for Lebensraum, for key resources, for wonders, to prevent a peaceful Science/Culture/Diplo civ from winning, to backstab the warmonger before he gets around to you, or to win the game through conquest yourself.

In Civ 5, much of my enjoyment is derived from building my nation into my lands (whether it's the Polynesian archipelago or the Incan mountain stronghold) and then pitting that nation against other developed nations, rather than pitfighting over land by turn 90. It also encourages more involved city placement, as you build a forward trade-city, found a nice productive coastal city, and a defensive stronghold against invaders, rather than just settling every scrap of space you can get until the midgame lockdown. I just think setting your second city shouldn't be such an aggressive affair.

So what do you think? Is the border pinch what defines Civilization, or could there be some more space in the default games?

I think it also depends on the difficulty. On emperor and below I feel like I have plenty of room/time to expand, but on immortal and above the AI expands so fast its slim pickings for city spots even on huge maps where there may be plenty of room but its in the middle of no mans land. Also the AI loves to march halfway across the map just to grab that great city spot right next to me.

I've recently started playing Continents, Huge and typically you have a decent amount of Civ spacing. Ironically in some instances you may have or a Civ may have an entire continent to yourself/themselves with two or three City States or you could have three Civ neighbors about 14 to 16 hex's away.

When I'm playing these Huge maps I try to establish three cities fairly quickly, since I'm typically going for a science victory I want to insure I have enough real estate to nab that elusive Aluminum. I really enjoy playing on Huge maps because it allows for a lot more interaction between Civ's. Thankfully I have a pretty decent gaming rig so the Turn times aren't to bad.

I'd suggest that if you do play on a Huge map try to either get your cities about 7 hex's apart in a straight line, horizontal or vertical, depending on the resources (also have at least one be a Sea Side City) or in a triangular design there by giving you a better chance to utilize space for growth.

I like Huge maps at Marathon pace but I find that I usually get happiness locked at about 4 cities, while the AI just keeps on spreading like chicken pox (Immortal and Deity). When you have 4-6 cities and the AI is approaching 20-30 its usually game over.

I'm playing on standard pangea now, seems to limit space as long as 1 AI doesn't kill all the rest. Turn times are a lot better too.

It feels nice at first when you can expand. But wait till industrial era and the ai had like 50 cities good luck competing against them.

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I play on huge, BUT I also add more civs to the game. This way, there is a lot more to explore, and at the same time, after 4/5 cities the border disputes start up. Adds a lot more political maneuvring to the game too.

I have come to the conclusion that when playing on a map size 1 larger than the regular number of civs is a boon to policy trees chosen. First of all, it makes Tradition chosen a little more often. More space to expand for cities, more civs will go wide with the map.

Secondly, it also allows Barbarian Camps to spawn more frequently and allow them to roam further. Which helps support taking honor more often.

I like playing on maps one size up for the number of civs too. Like other posters said, it gives expansionists some elbow room to work in, and the increased room for Barbarians to spawn gives Honor something to do & makes civs without a military pay for their risk-taking.

If I was going to build a Civ 6, I'd probably make the standard map sizes one size bigger. Current Huge becomes Large, current Large becomes Standard, etc.

Huge.
22 Civs.
41 City States.
It's hard to find cities, even on emperor.

Helmling said:

Huge.
22 Civs.
41 City States.
It's hard to find cities, even on emperor.

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I've never understood setting up a game like this. What do you do when you hit Next Turn, flip open a book and wait ten minutes?

GoStu said:

I've never understood setting up a game like this. What do you do when you hit Next Turn, flip open a book and wait ten minutes?

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My friend, you are soooo right. I do sometimes do exactly that, but I also waste a bunch of time browsing the web--like how I just flipped over to this website and posted while I wait.

As to the why, well, I just don't like an empty game world. I want as much diversity as possible to make the game richer and more interesting. More players equals more possibilities. I mean, in the real world, there are thousands of cultures and hundreds of nations. I want my Civ experience to come as close as possible to that.

They key to this is to increase the inter-city spacing from 3 (default) to 5. Some city states will not settle (they are hard-coded for max 4 tiles in between them, and if there are more than 4, the second to settle cannot and freezes until someone captures it), but that adds randomness to the setup. With 5 tiles between cities, there is ample room for maneuvers, and believe it or not, that helps the Tactical AI big time...

Something like this:
Huge
5 tiles inter-city
10 civs
20 CS (but you are not sure how many will really settle)
I would recommend trying this on Emperor first. So much space plus AI bonus is to the advantage of the AI.
Epic or Marathon

Try it.

I like the way the game works (especially diplomacy wise) a lot more when there are more civs, but the longer turn times get annoying late game especially. The main appeal of more civs is that there's always a way to get out of everyone hating you. The civs that aren't close by will trade with you normally because they don't really care about or feel threatened by you or your neighbors denouncements of you.

I've found a happy medium on a map size one bigger than standard, with two additional civs more than default for the map size. Then again, I tend not to expand a huge amount, so I like it when other civs are around me.

Helmling said:

My friend, you are soooo right. I do sometimes do exactly that, but I also waste a bunch of time browsing the web--like how I just flipped over to this website and posted while I wait.

As to the why, well, I just don't like an empty game world. I want as much diversity as possible to make the game richer and more interesting. More players equals more possibilities. I mean, in the real world, there are thousands of cultures and hundreds of nations. I want my Civ experience to come as close as possible to that.

Click to expand...

I also would rather prefer that sort of game set up. However, since my computer is ancient (more than 5 years old,) I stick to Huge Map 8 Civs, 20 city states. Best of both worlds, room for expansion/ quick loading times.

SYKOJAK said:

I also would rather prefer that sort of game set up. However, since my computer is ancient (more than 5 years old,) I stick to Huge Map 8 Civs, 20 city states. Best of both worlds, room for expansion/ quick loading times.

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Yeah, the turn times are excessive...especially on my laptop. If I load up on the big computer, though, it's more bearable. For that, though, I have to have the living room to myself, so that hardly ever happens.

8 tribes on Huge maps works the best for me. I'm a fan of exploration,expansion and marathon games. Hope in Civ VI they'll make the maps even bigger.

Yeah, the lag can get pretty nasty late game, but loading up about 25%-50% more Civs and about 25% LESS City-States based on the size of the map makes for pretty enjoyable games. In my opinion, anyway.

I got the Scrambled Nations and Scrambled Continents map packs during the winter Steam sale. I've now played using the Turkey, Scandinavia, and Earth maps at their "standard" size. They all seem to have much more space than the map scripts that ship with the base game. On the earth map, I started in SW Africa, went liberty, and put my second city in the NE corner and bought the Sinai peninsula to control land access to the continent. I eventually settled 10 of my own cities and learned that Liberty is a lot of fun to play when you actually have enough room to expand peacefully at first. I agree with the OP that one of the reasons that tradition is usually so powerful is that the default sizes and number of civs and CS rarely give you room for more than 3 or 4 cities anyway.

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Size isn't so important as much as ratio of size:#civs.