Cream filled Donut- Training map

Favorite training map idea-- for playing higher difficulties than you might be ready for.

This is the only way I have been able to have fun playing at Deity level. I think it’s cool because you’ll start this game as normal, but if/when you get to the point of needing extra help, your own personal Shangri La is right there for you to exploit. Plus, it doesn’t eat up any of the map as it would have not been used anyways.

I used Worldbuilder and started with a huge donut map with a mountain center. I added 22 civs and then hollowed out the middle mountain mass (leave the edge about 3 mountains thick or you’ll have issues with AI borders spreading inward) with only access to my starting point (first city effectively blocks the pass into this area), which was right up against the center. Then create your own creamy center to your donut map. For me, it was a generous placement of resources with a couple Natural wonders thrown in and a whole lot of ancient ruins. Like, I put the Pool of Life close the entrance so if I needed it, it would be easy to pass my units past it for the bonus.

So then you can play as normal, but when you start feeling like you’re getting your butt kicked a little too much, just plop a new city down in your personal Shangri La. Or maybe just sucking up a few ruins is enough.

Or, if you don’t usually play close to Deity level, you can settle inside at first instead and have only the one narrow bottleneck passage linking you to the rest of the world so you don’t have to worry about protecting your flanks until helicopters hit the map.

It’s also worth noting that this area is huge, so if you don’t settle it or leave parts unsettled, you’ll be getting a constant bombardment of barbarians from that passage. If you opt not to use it, a single siege camped at the opening is usually enough. Plus, it’s fun to kill the never ending horde of barbs once they start coming through.

If anyone is interested I can upload mine. But its easy (and very fun) to make your own.

Gee, no comments, eh? Is it because this is an old news idea? Or do you all scoff at the idea of needing help on deity?

This sounds like it would be pretty fun, though the temptation to 'cheat' by using the creamy center would be high even if I was doing well. For me, learning to play better comes from being challenged and having only what's laid before me available to use. For others though, this sort of thing might help if someone wanted to try out a new strategy if their initial one doesn't work out by mid game. Cool idea.

what no pics?
What no links?

I can't use WorldBuilder (damn Aspyr or whoever for not making a SDK for Mac), so can you upload one please? Maybe not so many players though. Only if you have time of course. Your idea sounds really great! My first Civ game was Civ5 and I just got it in June, so I would even use it on say, king!

OmegaKabob said:

I can't use WorldBuilder (damn Aspyr or whoever for not making a SDK for Mac), so can you upload one please? Maybe not so many players though. Only if you have time of course. Your idea sounds really great! My first Civ game was Civ5 and I just got it in June, so I would even use it on say, king!

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You got it... I'll bring it in tomorrow...

I'd love to play something like this Diety Always War OCC Challenge from Civ4. That map had a single tile choke point from which you defended your resource-laden city from 6 of the most aggressive AI leaders. The stacks of the AI were so ridiculous that you had to defend up to 100 times a turn. All that experience generated great generals and mega-units. The real crux of your success though was trying to efficiently navigate the tech tree in order to out tech the opponents and eventually break out of your contain.

Of course such hikinks aren't really enjoyable in Civ5 since you can't stack units and thus would need to have a somewhat open choke. And probably you would still be no match for Diety AI production since your wounded units couldn't possibly escape to heal, eventually creating ridiculous units with every promotion. To have a level playing field you'd need some sort of mountain chain that formed a siege gauntlet to kill invaders, and it would be an unfun chore to bombard the enemy every turn. Moreover, you can't attach Great Generals to your units anymore, so they would reduce to a superfluous constant golden age. Likewise, any specialists you generate wouldn't contribute to creating an amazing city with production so high you can't eliminate its overflow. You couldn't out tech the AI with a single city.

Still worth considering though. I guess the key would indeed be tech, therefore your only chance would be with Babylon and great scientist bulbing...

Here's that map.View attachment creamydonut.zip Sorry, didn't get a chance to modify it... but its large(not huge), still with 22 civs... and you must choose Egypt to get the starting spot.

Lord Chambers said:

I'd love to play something like this Diety Always War OCC Challenge from Civ4. That map had a single tile choke point from which you defended your resource-laden city from 6 of the most aggressive AI leaders. The stacks of the AI were so ridiculous that you had to defend up to 100 times a turn. All that experience generated great generals and mega-units. The real crux of your success though was trying to efficiently navigate the tech tree in order to out tech the opponents and eventually break out of your contain.

Of course such hikinks aren't really enjoyable in Civ5 since you can't stack units and thus would need to have a somewhat open choke. And probably you would still be no match for Diety AI production since your wounded units couldn't possibly escape to heal, eventually creating ridiculous units with every promotion. To have a level playing field you'd need some sort of mountain chain that formed a siege gauntlet to kill invaders, and it would be an unfun chore to bombard the enemy every turn. Moreover, you can't attach Great Generals to your units anymore, so they would reduce to a superfluous constant golden age. Likewise, any specialists you generate wouldn't contribute to creating an amazing city with production so high you can't eliminate its overflow. You couldn't out tech the AI with a single city.

Still worth considering though. I guess the key would indeed be tech, therefore your only chance would be with Babylon and great scientist bulbing...

Click to expand...

We can do something like that. This map the way it is, if you plop a city right inside the opening you'll have the Fountain of Youth right there so all your units get double healing.

But I like the idea of overlapping fields of fire spots in the mountains for a tower defense feel. You can do that with this map, but I can tighten it up a bit too and upload it again.

I'll also put up a smaller version with less civs since it was asked for too.

Regarding second cities, you still have the rest of the inside area, and at some point you would have to try to take over the rest of the map. But it might be boring the way it is now to try this because it would take several hundred turns before you had AI knocking at the door.

My favorite strategy with this map is to make a beeline to the coast with two parallel strings of cities... about 3 in a row works. At that point you have cut the map in half and left another nice buffer zone between your two parallel strings of cities to fill in with another city or two if you can. By the time you manage this, you'll have already a lot of AI pressuring you. Though getting enough cities to do this on deity before the AI moves in is tough. To help, I overextend the city placement and leave a unit between each city to monitor/block AI traffic from infiltrating land I consider mine. I'll leave it there until the borders finally close the gaps. This alone can take a couple hundred years.

But, sometimes trying this I find myself unable to exploit the interior if I need it because then I can't afford to put down another city if I wanted to. So if you play it out, you might get overtaken and ended up pushed back into the interior and then this makes for a nice place to regain your power and try to take your old cities back again.

blasto said:

Here's that map.View attachment 297458 Sorry, didn't get a chance to modify it... but its large(not huge), still with 22 civs... and you must choose Egypt to get the starting spot.

Spoiler :

You'll start on the south side of the middle mountain mass...so the pass to Shangri la is to the north, the coast to the south

Click to expand...

Thank you very much! Will try this out soon!

i put the map into the maps folder and then play as Egypt, but I am randomly placed on the map, did I do something wrong?

TW_Honorius said:

i put the map into the maps folder and then play as Egypt, but I am randomly placed on the map, did I do something wrong?

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For reasons I can't fathom, you have to load the map through the mod section:

Main menus > mods > agree to EULA > single player > set up > select the map > check the new "load scenario" button that appears > start the game

I tried to recreate the aforementioned Deity OCC Challenge. One problem is that the AI doesn't come and attack you until the industrial era. You can literally have 0 defenders at the pass until riflemen. And then, instead of holding back waves from all your opponents, you have to old back a couple of units that the local AI has in the neighborhood.

The choke is currently too narrow. But are there any other ideas to foster the AI's bloodlust? Perhaps some game setting akin to Aggressive AI in Civ4 that I overlooked? My only ideas are to widen the choke so the AI sees it as more tactically viable to charge in, and to make the map smaller and thus increase competition for space.

Lord Chambers said:

For reasons I can't fathom, you have to load the map through the mod section:

Main menus > mods > agree to EULA > single player > set up > select the map > check the new "load scenario" button that appears > start the game

I tried to recreate the aforementioned Deity OCC Challenge. One problem is that the AI doesn't come and attack you until the industrial era. You can literally have 0 defenders at the pass until riflemen. And then, instead of holding back waves from all your opponents, you have to old back a couple of units that the local AI has in the neighborhood.

The choke is currently too narrow. But are there any other ideas to foster the AI's bloodlust? Perhaps some game setting akin to Aggressive AI in Civ4 that I overlooked? My only ideas are to widen the choke so the AI sees it as more tactically viable to charge in, and to make the map smaller and thus increase competition for space.

Click to expand...

I tried that, and it only lets me play as Arabia as they are player 1 in the scenario list.

View attachment creamydonut.zip

The only way I know to set starting position on a map... is you're going to have to load it as a mod.

Here is a better version of it.... I shrunk the middle area down and condensed the goodies better.

But to play it, from the opening menu, pick mods- then single player and setup game. Then pick this map and select the load scenario button. Once you do this, change the Civ to Egypt and pick your difficulty. Then start.

If you pick any advanced options it cancels everything...

But yeah, I'll have to create another map that specifically conducive to the tower defense type of play. This one is really just a cheat for normal play. THis one I purposely left open land around you so that you'll get a chance to spread before the AI pressures. I think that this was the only way to have a chance to make it to the coast in your city spread and cut the map in half. But for a defensive game, yeah, it'll be a long wait for the AI to encroach...

blasto, thanks for your work on the map. I've been playing Civ too long to play for anything other than fun. This looks like fun.

Hey, for a tower defense map idea, I'm thinking of a wagon wheel, with an inner ring hub that the player starts in. With a limited number of holes in the inner ring for access control, and then AI's placed in between the spoke mountain ranges that don't quite touch the inner ring to still allow some AI roaming.

The spokes will limit AI spread among themselves and force the middle of the map to be a constantly contested area. Which of course the player will control...

Its sounds cool in theory.. guess I'll have to try it. But I would love any new ideas. I'm on board with Lord Chambers idea of a smaller map for this..

blasto said:

The spokes will limit AI spread among themselves and force the middle of the map to be a constantly contested area. Which of course the player will control...

Click to expand...

Great idea! And no world wrap.

Make sure to pick the most aggressive AIs. I'm not much of an expert on Civ5, but using the Diplomacy by Numbers thread I chose Aztecs, Mongols, Songhai, Japanese, French, Greek, German. I mainly made my determination by the rating of offensive units they made, and their likelihood of declaring war in diplomacy. However, this latter factor might be irrelevant in an always war game, in which case The Ottomans might be better substituted for either the French or Germans.

binhthuy71 said:

blasto, thanks for your work on the map. I've been playing Civ too long to play for anything other than fun. This looks like fun.

Click to expand...

You bet.. hope you got the one I just posted today.. In hindsight I found the middle area of the first map I posted to be a bit too big with goodies spaced too far apart. But its still fun. The one I posted today is a big improvement though..

Thanks, an interesting fun map. It probably makes it too easy for the really experienced players, but for me (still learning and finding deity very challenging), it's really cool.

View attachment wheelofdeath.zip




The wagon wheel idea came out great. So far it’s pretty fun to play. It’s a standard map with 8 AI’s. The player starting in a middle defensive position. I was having a blast with it last night, but I might tune it a bit still. I’m thinking possibly raging barbs, but then I would worry about barbs stifling the AI’s spread so I’m still debating this. But giving the AI’s an extra settler to start with might be cool to get things going quickly. Permanent war too might be neat.

It still could be considered a training map though for Deity level players. Maybe giving the AI two starting cities would do the trick.

I think even a deity player would find some fun playing this map and I would love some feed back.

You must load it as a mod/scenario and pick Japan.