Huge maps Strategy

[IPEX-731BA5DD06]

I'd like to ask, for postings on peoples strategy for

HUGE MAPS​

1st I play mainly for the Food/hammer/specialist economy

My own, is to go for Strong food/production city sites. As I play Marathon (best fit I agree) I struggle to get enough workers.

Workers, you can NEVER have enough workers, NEVER. 40 workers for 20 cities, NOT ENOUGH, 22 groups of 3 workers for Continent, NOT ENOUGH, Bah by that time auto network or auto improve. I keep about 6 or so groups to work on 1 city at a time.

Great Wall is really a needed wonder. No 1. The spies are all settled, and I get insight into everyone's research.

I generally try to block off a section of the continent, by settling East Coast to West coast, at a mid narrow point. I then take over 1/2 as the case maybe, then look to move North/South.

Capital is settled not for production/Bureaucracy etc, but for 1/2 or 1/3 Continent maintenance reduction. If I get lucky, and can fit it into a holy city/cash cow site, I'll take the maintenance hit.

The Extreme north and South I.E. Ice belts, are settled last.

Corps;
I prefer Cereal Mills as Food corp. Sids Sushi is too much guarding/too easily pillaged. From Economics if I get it.

Mining corp is a No Brainer. I'll hold a Great Engineer for as long as I need to for that corp.

I've been thinking, would Civilized Jewelers, Cereal mills , Aluminum Corp and Creative Constructions be a better fit, in my wall street city.

Hammers are not a problem for my main cities, and Creative would give enough for new cities, The cash generated from a wall Street city would be obscene.

In a recent game, well the only one I've completed at Emperor level, I was generating 2.5K from my Wall street city alone.

5K gold , 10K beakers/turn at 0% Science, O.K. many cities on science but had nothing else to build. and built the Space ship from Go to finish in 14 turns, using 14 separate cities.

Of course it took twice as long to fly there as it did to Build

Building an army, when i was bored flying the ship, took only 3 turns to gain 100+ troops, the biggest hold up was getting them all to grouping points.

The AI won't fly them from Airports, and yes ALL cities had an airport, I cash rushed it in weakest cities, but would prefer to March them even via railroads 6+ turns, to city.

I do know how to Control click city to select ALL CITIES, Shift click to De-select Destination city for routing production, but still they came via land. (I shouldn't have had 1 light on)

If you like to Micro manage your Empire, and can handle the map, Lowest graphics setting, lowest all else, its great fun. Its like a Pangaea map X 2.

Hey it can be an excuse to upgrade your comp, Memory is cheapest upgrade/bang for buck. Graphics card is probably my hold up now.

 

[Earthling]

This is really kind of a shotgun article, but you have a lot of good points. First, for any other huge map players out there, I'd like to invite you over to the Huge map challenge I'm just getting around to updating, we could use some more interest! Edit: Nevermind, saw you already tried and blazed through that map IPEX! But I intend to continue the series eventually, thanks for trying this one anyway.

About some points: I strongly agree that corps/shrines are more powerful on huge maps, especially when you get the AI following you and spreading stuff for free. It's trickier to get these on higher difficulties but they are worth it when you do. Maintenance is often tougher to deal with too - usually you can get forbidden palace or even versailles if you really need it placed right. However, the hit that's really painful is 'Colonial Maintenance' in BtS. This kicks in with just 2 cities on another landmass, same from small maps all the way through huge ones, but on our huge maps we will have much larger islands even so this hurts.

One obvious thought of mine is that the gameplay will still differ significantly enough between marathon and other speeds - generally I prefer epic, but keep in mind that marathon makes warmongering easier (units are cheaper). Also it differs if you crowd/uncrowd the map too much (I'd say the right range is 10-12 civs). Great Wall/barbarians also might not be as big of concerns if you're not on marathon, from what I've heard (I don't play marathon much), so sometimes it's more important to balance expansion with an attempt for such an early wonder.

Finally- you certainly look ready to move up a difficulty level, from the ease you're dominating; particularly I'd say that playing at huge maps is already about a level up anyway, so you could probably take on Immortal (if I read that right) on more standard games. Huge maps cause increased research costs, and resources are more spread out (harder to get all the different ones) which are a factor against your civ; imo the AI also gets more benefit from all their bonuses with larger empires. Pretty standard runthrough of factors on huge maps, but they are fun to play and worth the epic feel

 

[CivCorpse]

I play Emp/Huge?marathon....have for a while. Some thoughts.

1. Great Wall is very very powerful. Barbs on marathon/huge have 3 times the turns to spawn and a lot more fog to spawn as well. I usually make the decision about it when i am finished BW. If i have met 2-3 civs very very early and know they are close enough that the land will quickly fill in, I REX hard to get my share and barbs are significantly less of a problem.
2. The Great Spy from the wall should be saved and used for an infiltration. Even with Representation you will get way more bang for your buck.
3. workers. 2 per city is fine once the city hits pop 4-5. At that point growth has slowed to the point that 2 workers can improve a tile in the time it takes to grow to the next population point. Three if there is jungle involved.
4. Diplomacy is much more difficult. You are going to have twice as many civs asking you for war/techs/stop trading. If your landmass is divided between two factions you need to pick a side.
5. If you have a map with multiple significant land masses then SP can be more beneficial than Corps. I play with vassals off because the whole system sucks so this is not an issue for me.
6. Early rush opportunities are fewer because enemy capitals can be located too far away to be economically feasable. Also resources are more spread out. So nabbing early copper and getting it connected might be a 3rd or 4th city.
7. I have been playing a lot of tectonics which seem to be a little food scarce. With resources spread out you must be prepared to build cities without food specials and use generics farms.
8. Do not try and rely on one super science city the entire game. Or one mega military city.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I started playing Huge to test out my system memory, see if it would crash, and decided to stick with it because I hate being boxed in and love an open-land map. Huge delivers.

I tend not to build GW for the same reason I tend not to build any of the early wonders: I am just plain too busy getting my cities out. The cap is busy with workers and settlers. The second city is busy with units. By the time the third city has basics like a monument to pop its borders, it's too late to grab any early wonders with it, they're all gone. Plus I almost NEVER have stone and am seldom Industrious.

The barbarian activity on Huge I find to be manageable even without GW. You need units *ANYWAY* to keep your power rating up, avoid Shaka DoWs, etc., so you might as well get them busy beating down barbs and building up XPs. If anything sometimes now I complain that the fog is busted too soon even on Huge, because I love a good fog training ground. I might start to flip on raging barbarians just for that reason.

Workers: I generally go with 2 per city for the first handful or so, but after a certain amount I can make due with one new one per city after the first city is working all improved tiles at the happy cap (workers can move on to other cities). This varies by map and obviously if there is a lot of road to lay down more will be needed longer, but to me it's just sort of an instinct to keep the cycle escort/settler/worker/worker until the unit pump is running at full throttle, then just settler/worker/worker with the escorts provided by the unit pump.

Diplomacy: I find that if anything it's actually easier. Because there are more civs, there are more chances that some civ out there has the civics I usually get to as their favorite; and/or one that is my religion; and/or one who has the same "worst enemy" as I do. It's easier to find a friend, and it's easier to drive a diplomatic wedge between powerful rivals (or play "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" routine). On smaller maps I get creamed diplomatically (usually ends up a solid AI coalition against me from the first time I refuse to gift techs). On Huge I end up with 2 or 3 at "Pleased" without even trying. That's good, because I tend not to try.

SP versus corps: SP *can* be more beneficial more often on Huge simply because resources are extreeeeeeeeeeeeeeemely scattered on this map type. You don't get much more in the way of corp resources than on the smaller maps, but you're spreading it to far more distant cities. But sometimes I get a good concentration of corp resources (mining and sushi are the ones I really look out for), and then go with corps anyway. However, the AIs sometimes grab the corps first too, so, you might have to go SP just to avoid paying maintenance to Mansa or whoever.

Early rush is mostly nerfed on huge, which suits me fine, because I hate to early rush.

Because resources are widely scattered on Huge, cities pinned to food bonus tiles will be too. This makes for a lot of filler locations either required to grab a non-food resource or to be fed by Sushi (or SP bonuses) later on. I still make an effort to (initially) only settle near the food pits, but after a while you gotta make hard choices.

I agree with CivCorpse that specialty cities need to be multiplex. Often the map will also force situations where your National Forest has nearly no food, forcing a hard wedge between that and your National Epic farm, giving you two GP pumps. Unit pumps will tend to be multiple, and the bigger challenge is finding enough commerce city locations (green seems to be a lot more scarce on Huge). Prod cities are a dime a dozen but I'd prioritize settling any green you see first, after the usual blockoff/chokepoint strategy is done.

 

[CivCorpse]

On Huge maps corporate resources are worth 1/2 what they are on standard size maps.

RE: Barbarians. I think game speed is a bigger factor than on Huge when considering barbarians. Marathon speed gives them many more chances to spawn than normal or even epic speed.