I'm investigating whether this is the sort of game that might appeal to me. I would be getting it for the Iphone if so.
Question: how much micromanagement is there in the game?
- Do you micromanage city tiles? Worker actions?
- How many cities & units might an average civ have in each age, on a small map?
- How much does this vary based on map size?
- How long does an average game on a small map take to complete? A large map?
There are no workers. You can micromanage cities at the tile level, or select focus for city of balance, gold, science, production (hammers) and computer sets the tiles ... although it seems to never work only the focus, it always seems to work one food tile.
Tile yields are increased by particular buildings, not by improvements on the tile itself.
Roads are bought ... with enough gold, you make road to connect two cities. No roads out to nowhere. A 1 move unit can move from one city to another in 1 turn with a road, regardless of distance (more like a civ railroad, IMHO). 2 move units can continue to a second city on a road, in the same turn.
As far as I know, only one map size (at least in DS version)
I have tended to have 2 to 3 cities in ancient (depend on conquests), expand to 4 to six with settlers unless warfare is on a roll, and might end with 8 to 10. Since you can only make roads between cities, you almost have to take cities just to build the roads to get units to the ends of the map!
For me, maybe 4 to six hours to complete a game that isn't a fast warfare win. Probably less for folks who are more familar with the game. Probably varies with difficulty level (I am playing and winning on King currently)
dV