I want to try Deity in a non-cheese way...is small map cheating?

[macheteman]

Generally I hear people say "play on small maps until you are good enough to play on the bigger ones", but I want to have a benchmark Deity win and it seems like Standard-Standard-Pangea/COntinents is kind of that benchmark.



Should I feel like I'm cheesing the DEity win by playing on a Small map with only 6 civs instead of 8? Same question for playing on Epic speed....completely gives advantage to military and knowing that seems like a 1up on the AI.

 

[wayneb64]

I play Immortal on small/quick all the time because I just don't enjoy all that extra map space and 2 more AIs to deal with that are that much farther away not to mention the turn times getting so much longer as the game wears on. Yes I think small is 'easier' than standard, but the level difficulty is still pretty much there. Quick is supposedly 'harder' so maybe that balances my smallness. I don't think I would have the patience to play Epic even though it might make things easier. I may however consider slowing down to Standard speed if and when I move up to Deity and Quick proves to much to handle. I may even start on Tiny maps to make things a beat easier but I don't consider that cheating so much as I am only playing for fun and reloading is the best way to learn so again not really cheating but keeping it fun. Only recently have I been able to play Immortal without reloading so clearly I am learning something.

 

[consentient]

What kind of victories are you achieving? If peaceful, then map size doesn't matter a whole lot. If you're making big use of conquest, then its a little bit cheesy.

 

[macheteman]

What kind of victories are you achieving? If peaceful, then map size doesn't matter a whole lot. If you're making big use of conquest, then its a little bit cheesy.

I've been avoiding Domination as I just don't have the patience for army movement and 5 minute turns. I can never seem to make it to Info era as I'm usually so bored outta my mind.

I'm playing a standard pangea now and there is just so much land to cover and so much space that everyone is dropping tiny cities everywhere.

 

[beetle]

I think you should only be changing one major variable at time. So if you are doing standard/standard at Immortal, try playing standard/standard at Deity. Maybe start w/ Poland or a civ that you feel has a straightforward play style. My first Deity game was Sweden aiming for Diplo because I was comfortable with how that worked. I probably made sure Alex was not in the game!

But yes, smaller is easier, slower pace is easier. But if you are not used to those, why start now that your are ready to bump up the difficulty?

 

[reddishrecue]

Small map isn't cheating, its just that much easier than standard or most other maps. Their clear times are also a lot faster than the larger maps. However, trying out larger maps such as standard could be challenging but not impossible to dominate. It seems like its work but by the time you're done you realize you've done it.