Map Size

jayjackson said:

Well, to be fair, at least you're still playing on even ground in that regard. If the AI is in Tradition, they're only getting 4 free buildings as well.

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My point is that with only four free buildings on Large and Huge maps, I would always run Liberty instead of Tradition. That is not balanced.

What if Liberty gave out 2 free Settlers or Workers?

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That would be skewing things much too much the other way.

It would be an absolute trick to balance the policy trees if the count items were altered.

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Not that tricky, but the devs did not try at all. The number of trade routes staying static is even more glaring an oversight.

I think most people would play Liberty and take 2-3 free Settler and 2-3 free Worker over 7-8 culture buildings any day. If they didn't raise the counts of Settler/Worker, but gave those same 7-8 buildings, no one would ever play Liberty.

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Those counts are not right. Tradition on Large maps should give five culture buildings, five aqueducts. On Huge, six and six. That tweak still leave Liberty relatively stronger than it is on Standard size maps. Yes, at Standard/Standard, Tradition is OP compared to Liberty. The game is what it is, and folks find plenty of good reason for running Liberty on Standard size maps anyway. I very much appreciated the tension between choosing Tradition or Liberty on Standard size maps.

It is not good game design tor the balance between Tradition and Liberty to be totally inverted just because one is playing on a Large map.

The weaknesses of tradition are even more apparent on huge when your realize the map size introduces an across-the-board 30% to all science costs on small size (10% on standard). So even if you run a perfect tradition game on a huge map you'll finish a lot slower then on standard size. I wouldn't be surprised if experiments showed that liberty actually finished reliably faster from my own tests. I would also be surprised if anyone finishes sub-200 turn on a huge map for the same reason. That science penalty shifts up your finish time. A finish time of Turn 250 on a random-rolled map is actually pretty good. No idea what optimal map times would be, haven't tried. Playing on the larger size with a bigger empire is more complex and harder to optimize.

Tradition is not limited to four cities, neither are its advantages. Every city gets a smile for each 10 pop, meaning usually 2 smiles per city in the late game. Every city gets the Tradition finisher growth boost, which is huge. Every city benefits from the reduction of culture tile cost (I think ).

You can very well do 5 city Tradition or 6 city Tradition and achieve better times than 4 city Tradition. A lot of the HOF sub T200 wins are with 5 city Traditon.

There is also the option of conquering CS, conquering cities or acquiring cities in a peace deal in the lategame. Usually between Unis and Plastics, otherwise it comes either too early or too slow. Additional cities help with lategame bulbs. There is a video of TommyNT on his YT channel where he wins a sub T200 Space Victory with the help of conquering.

Just how Liberty is not limited to 7+ cities, just remember the composite bow rushes that used to be so common, Tradition is not limited to four cities. It's just the safe and easy way to play it. Tradition on huge maps could still work. There are many advantages a huge map would bring, such as giving lots of coastal city spots for 3-4 Cargos to the capital.

^^ All of that is true. But they are just “exceptions that prove the rule”. The raw math is inescapable.

1. On Standard size maps at high difficulty, even getting four cities up is a challenge, but it is usually possible.
2. The buff-per-city that Tradition provides is at a maximal for four cities.
3. Large and Huge maps make it much easier for the player to get more than four cities up. Even with the additional AIs and CS, there are more tiles for each major civ.

(1) + (2) provides Tradition a great deal of synergy. It is why it is easy and safe to play four city Tradition on Standard size maps.
(2) + (3) makes it absolutely the case that the Tradition tree is relatively less strong on Large and Huge maps (as compared to Standard size maps).

Yes, there are plenty of caveats and counter examples. Those don't change the math.

Standard/Standard is for me the right balance of game length, turn length and CPU performances. It also feels a bit better balanced for units on standard speed than the other speeds.

It's also something that became generally liked by many players, allowing for shared games (challenges etc) which in effect helped de facto make it the standard way of playing and sharing strategies.

For similar reasons Small/Quick is really popular in multiplayer.

Sclb said:

If you don't do domination, it doesn't matter. If you do, then huge map is harder due to many more AI to go through. Also if you do huge without adjusting game speed, then units will become obsolete before you even get to fight on deity due to travel time.

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turtle until xcoms! thread solved

I have a question. Isn't there a +10% increase in techs on standard? Why are most fast victories gone for on standard instead of small? The 2 extra civs doesn't really seem to be worth having +10% tech increase. Is this increase on small as well?

that's right. Tech costs scale as:

Small: 100%
Standard: 110%
Large: 120%
Huge: 130%

I assume the reason people prefer standard is you have the room to settle 4 cities more reliably and get a better pick of terrain. This results in a faster game then the 10% reduction. Of course if you cheated and reduced civs on small you could finish faster on it yes, but the land competition is not good when Deity AI start with an extra settler and usually have a 3rd before your 1. I would say the exception would be founding 4 decent cities, uncommon.

Iamteehee said:

Why are most fast victories gone for on standard instead of small?

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That is because standard is, well standard.

The amount of competitive players is very, very small, most play 'just for fun' or whatever; so to be able to compare our results with others we must play similar settings.

beetle said:

My point is that with only four free buildings on Large and Huge maps, I would always run Liberty instead of Tradition. That is not balanced.

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Those counts are not right. Tradition on Large maps should give five culture buildings, five aqueducts. On Huge, six and six. That tweak still leave Liberty relatively stronger than it is on Standard size maps. Yes, at Standard/Standard, Tradition is OP compared to Liberty. The game is what it is, and folks find plenty of good reason for running Liberty on Standard size maps anyway. I very much appreciated the tension between choosing Tradition or Liberty on Standard size maps.

It is not good game design tor the balance between Tradition and Liberty to be totally inverted just because one is playing on a Large map.

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And if it got five or six culture buildings, it sways it the other way to where nearly everyone would always run Tradition. It would essentially turn it into a "wide" SP even though I am sure you would agree that is NOT supposed to be its intent.

If we're talking two extra cities and monuments/aqueducts (and not a further culture building with more tech advancement) we are essentially debating over 280 and 4 between the hard builds and the maintenance, when the rest of that policy tree is percentage based or free maintenance with the garrison.

On standard speed you're getting 176 in the free Worker and Settler, plus the % bonuses for their creation in the capital, so it seems a pretty fair balance to me.

Culturally, comparing a six-city empire with six buildings free in Tradition:

15 per turn from Tradition: (12 for 6 monuments, 3 from cap bonus)
6 per turn from Liberty (6 from 6 cities bonus)

It may not be a "perfect" balance at 4 buildings, but I think more than that would be unbalancing. I'm generally not trying to go much wider than that in Tradition, even on a huge map, if for no other reason than the higher cost for social policy acquisition.

I just finished my Huge/Marathon portions of Veni Vidi Vici, so I'm actually going to steer away from the huge maps for a bit just because on the machine I'm playing on now slows down a bit mid and end-game -- but that last game I wound up with four self-built cities and a puppeted Boston. Sure, there's a lot more land, but there were 4 more Civs and 8 more CS in the game, too... so further expansion was certainly a possibility but not hugely necessary -- and by no means a guarantee, especially if I was thinking of self-founding. Obviously, all maps are going to vary.

I'll admit that I'm not at your skill level as I generally play a bit at game launch and then wait for the "final" with all expansions to really get going -- so I hope you don't take this as me trying to argue with you and simply trying to learn more and present a different viewpoint.

jayjackson said:

And if it got five or six culture buildings, it sways it the other way to where nearly everyone would always run Tradition.

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I respectfully disagree. I think what I would suggest would restore the tension between Liberty and Tradition on Large and Huge maps.

But I am not playing Large and Huge maps. They are not appealing to me for a few good reasons, what I perceive to be the imbalance between Liberty and Tradition is actually a smaller factor.

Culturally, comparing a six-city empire with six buildings free in Tradition:

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You are comparing 6 cities. On Huge, running Liberty I would expect to found at least 10 of my own.

beetle said:

I respectfully disagree. I think what I would suggest would restore the tension between Liberty and Tradition on Large and Huge maps.

But I am not playing Large and Huge maps. They are not appealing to me for a few good reasons, what I perceive to be the imbalance between Liberty and Tradition is actually a smaller factor.


You are comparing 6 cities. On Huge, running Liberty I would expect to found at least 10 of my own.

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In which case you still would not be to the culture gained out of the Tradition tree. (If six free buildings were given!) Obviously there is far more to the decision, but that would be a major factor if 6 buildings were given.

I am also moving to Standard size games and maps, mostly so that the amazing information (and competition of the HoF and VVV) is more relevant to me personally, and will allow me to be a bigger contributor in the forums.

I thank you for the excellent discussion, its been a pleasure to meet you and to converse with you on this issue.

I'm playing a 16-player game, 32 city-states, huge map, small continents plus, on marathon, using the American & Asian civs, playing as Polynesia. I'm halfway thru, and so far haven't had any difficulties.

mmm, small continents/marathon/polynesia! I bet that was fun. You'd be the first to be on tons of islands. How many ruins did you get? I hope you went liberty and built an amazing island empire