What are good settings/mapscripts for multiplayer?

What are some balanced, fun map settings for multiplayer games?

I know EitB is the best mod, and most people play on quick speed. Simturns vs. sequential turns seems to be a matter of preference.

What game settings and maps do people use? I imagine no Living World, no Erebus continent, no unique features.

well, if you have more players and you are not playing via email or pitboss, i'd say that simturns are a bit more than a matter of preference

NMAI seems to be used in MP as well, along with EitB

well, if i remember correctly, the last mp game i had was normal speed with raging barbs, no tech trading, all unique features, no hyborem/basium

For multiplayer, I'd recommend this script: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=487504 it's basically a solid coastline pangaea with better starting locations and less bad terrain. you could even open it in notepad and set it to make sure everyone gets at least one copper.

Extramod ( includes Eitb and is based on a much more recent MNAI version ) , simultaneous turns, quick speed, small size and no tech brokering. other gameoptions are gravy, I like unique features but I you might want to disable Acheron in MP. possibly Orthus as well.

What kind of game are you trying to play? That makes a big difference. For a duel, I like a mirror map. For a team human vs. AI, Highlands or Tectonics tend to produce interesting maps. For a big free for all game, lakes, pangea, or Tectonics are good. For a larger game, it's a good idea to have someone preview the map and edit start locations to make things fair.

As far as settings: I hate lairs because they're so imbalanced (Yay! I won/lost the game on turn 3!). Placing lair guardians is an option if someone is making a map for you; otherwise, I'd strongly recommend turning lairs off. I really, really, hate tech trading - it makes it mandatory to group up in a tech block or you'll be left in the dust. Acheron and Orthus are both really poorly balanced. Some people argue that Living World is more fair than leaving it off, since the quality of events will tend to even out as the quantity rises. I'm skeptical.

A lot of the settings also depend on the style of game you're trying to play. Large maps will let the players play builder in their own corners, and result in wars with much more advanced units than small maps. If you like diplomatic contact, a small map will bring that into play a lot earlier. Simultaneous turns and sequential turns are really completely different games; in the former, reaction speed is probably as important as strategy (double moves with super fast units can be insanely powerful; don't even mention Blinding Light). You can start with simultaneous turns and convert to sequential when war starts for the best of both worlds: faster early game and TBS instead of RTS warfare.

How do you convert from simturns to sequential?

At RB, you ask T-Hawk
No idea, but he definitely knows.

I'll second the NTT request - it's particularly important in FFH because TT destroys the importance of investing in delegate lines.
For mapscript I would *strongly* recommend Torusland or FoR. Torusland is awesome for placing capitals equally apart, and gives good capitals, but it's balanced for BtS so it treats AH food, seafood and grains equally. Which we all know they're not. It also goes for the whole over forested capital thing from base. FoR is great because you can customize for equality. I don't think it works for the latest MNAI though (it definitely does for EitB).
As Doug says, simultaneous is broken in FFH unfortunately.

akatosh said:

How do you convert from simturns to sequential?

Click to expand...

I think you just have to save the game and reload with simultaneous turns unchecked. Even if that works, however, it is probably better to do it by player agreement. Say you have five players, and two of them are at war: there's no reason for those two to wait for the other three, nor for the uninvolved teams to wait on the two in conflict.

Thanks for the replies all. What kind of settings work well for Full of Resources? I only recently started using the script and there are a ton of options. You can generate crazy starts like a peninsula with 8 seafood.

It depends if you like to :

- Play versus humans only or versus humans & AIs.
- Play with some hasardous things or not.
- Play with bigs power gaps beetween civs or not.

Personnaly,

- I don't like to play with A.I so I prefer games witout any A.Is.
- I like to minimize the luck factor, so I turn off barbarian animals and lairs.
- I prefer balanced civs, so I tend to ban the overpowered things, like Raider trait civs, or I tend to play the best civs vs the best civs (like Calabims vs Elves because they roxx, or Bannors vs Elohim because they suxx).

For most of my mp maps we use Fantasy Terrain.
I'd love to find out a way to use this terrain type on other maps, like pangea or big & small?
I love seeing jungle on ice and other strange combinations. It definitely gives the feel of not a normal Civ. game.