Are larger maps more difficult?

[Binky123]

I've been playing monarch for a while, and not winning that often...

Most of the time when I do it's because I conquer a neighbor early (as seen in the EMC's, and other high level walkthroughs).

I'm finding myself falling more and more behind when there is an abundance of open land.

The barb spawn is vicious when there aren't many AI's around, and instead of building stuff for economy/science I have to build constant units just to deal with the barbs!

Any tips as how to deal with them without sacrificing too much of my economy?

 

[RIcs]

I'm about the same level like you... but Monach in Vanilla Civ4 ... $ $ for warload....

I guess, Huge map is easier for start, which you still have some time and space to make 1 - 2 mistake and miss out some good locations...

But soon I find out, the main problem is.... far far away, there's too much space for 2 AIs to complete, so they grow big and strong.
Meanwhile I reach somepoint that spending my effort on those not-so-good locations, to build something to fight a not-so-good civs. But soon after the war I took over my neighbour... leading AI's military will be just a whole generation faster then I have. eg. Tank vs my newly trained Calvary. (I know my game is gone like 30 epic turns ago, but I don't know it's that bad.)

So... conclusion... you HAVE to kill the neighbour early, as you said...
And keep pressing on someone else.
Capture a holy city seems very important to my game, since I couldn't tech any anyway. Or I have Hin-Jew with Myth as starting Tech.
Being over expand in early is a good thing. Dropping sci to 40% or even more, it just mean you have a competitive size empire. Once tech-trade avaliable, research those "not-quite-common" tech, should trade you 2-3 more tech, then you get back to the pack.

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Are you playing Continents? I think if you play on pangea or terra with 8 other civs you wouldnt have as much of a problem. Even when I play large lakes I usually have at least one neighbor close.

 

[futurehermit]

You must use fog-busters. Get units sitting fortified on forested-hills surrounding your empire. It reveals terrain giving barbs less places to spawn, gives you advance notice of barb attacks, and any barb passing near your unit will attack it and often lose. Once your unit starts accumulating some woodsman promotions it is even harder to kill. Start with warriors. Later, archers really excel at this.

 

[cabert]

although futurehermit is right (fogbusting is key), I agree that larger maps are harder.

More room often means less excellent city sites, which means more soso cities, barely paying for themselves.
It also often means less AI-AI wars.
And finally it means more work to achieve domination.
+ techs cost more with bigger maps.

All this means that larger maps are indeed a bit harder (but not much more interesting! ).

 

[futurehermit]

I started a large maps 18 civs game the other day thinking it would be a lot more interesting. It wasn't. 90&#37; of my continent converted to judaism even after multiple religions were founded <_< It just felt cluttered and jumbled. So now I'm back to standard size. Much better.