Best/favorite all-around map type?

[attorneyatlol]

What is everyone's opinion as to the most well-rounded map type? (I'm talking about maps you would play with any civ -- not like Inca on Highlands or Huns on Great Plains, etc.).

Pangaea and Continents are the most basic but each have their flaws. Pangaea everybody can meet everybody from the get-go, but the coastal/naval aspect of the game is largely ignored. Continents has a mix of land and naval gameplay, but if you're on the wrong continent before you hit the renaissance you can be left in the dust. Fractal can be a bit too stringy, making land wars much more difficult than they should be (IMO). Communitas script is cool, but, like Fractal, I find the density and frequency of rough terrain and mountains makes land wars too hard and some cities impregnable.

Of the base scripts, I lean towards continents because I tend to enjoy the shift from focusing on my continent, into developing my coastal cities and exploration, into the world stage with both continents. However, I find that the base Continents script too often gives you just the two continents and an ocean full of a bunch of nothing.

I liked the concept of Continents Plus adding island chains, but that script seems to put all the city-states on the islands so you can't settle the islands or meet city-states until later. So I found this old CFC post that shows how to edit the Continents Plus script so it doesn't force all of the city-states onto the island chains: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=453587

I've been playing this "Continents Plus Plus" (as I call it) almost exclusively since I discovered it. All the upsides of regular Continents with a little more space to start since some city-states start on the islands. It's also fun to colonize the islands and sometimes you can even meet the other continent early on if there's enough connected shallow water.

Anyway that's my take on it, but I'm curious as to everyone else's opinions about other well-rounded map types. What do you like about your preferred map type?

 

[Edaka]

What is everyone's opinion as to the most well-rounded map type? (I'm talking about maps you would play with any civ -- not like Inca on Highlands or Huns on Great Plains, etc.).

Pangaea and Continents are the most basic but each have their flaws. Pangaea everybody can meet everybody from the get-go, but the coastal/naval aspect of the game is largely ignored. Continents has a mix of land and naval gameplay, but if you're on the wrong continent before you hit the renaissance you can be left in the dust. Fractal can be a bit too stringy, making land wars much more difficult than they should be (IMO). Communitas script is cool, but, like Fractal, I find the density and frequency of rough terrain and mountains makes land wars too hard and some cities impregnable.

Of the base scripts, I lean towards continents because I tend to enjoy the shift from focusing on my continent, into developing my coastal cities and exploration, into the world stage with both continents. However, I find that the base Continents script too often gives you just the two continents and an ocean full of a bunch of nothing.

I liked the concept of Continents Plus adding island chains, but that script seems to put all the city-states on the islands so you can't settle the islands or meet city-states until later. So I found this old CFC post that shows how to edit the Continents Plus script so it doesn't force all of the city-states onto the island chains: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=453587

I've been playing this "Continents Plus Plus" (as I call it) almost exclusively since I discovered it. All the upsides of regular Continents with a little more space to start since some city-states start on the islands. It's also fun to colonize the islands and sometimes you can even meet the other continent early on if there's enough connected shallow water.

Anyway that's my take on it, but I'm curious as to everyone else's opinions about other well-rounded map types. What do you like about your preferred map type?

Hey, we play on the same map with the same name! Our experiences seem so alike that I don't have much to add to what you've said. Although I'd say that you can always get to the other continent via an island chain.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Question. On Terra maps, does the AI know that there is an empty continent to find and settle? It always feels like my foreknowledge of that map type is an advantage over the AI.

 

[IcyAngel]

Communitas: the map is too big, therefore I play on small but with 8 civs and 16 city-states. I prefer it to standard with 10 civs 20 city-states, because the late-game clutter gets insane.

Otherwise, shuffle or continents. Pangea and Archipelago are strictly unbalanced imo.

 

[crdvis16]

Just gonna chime in to say that attorneyatlol gave me his continents++ map and it's all I play now. Seems to be well balanced for any civ and the extra island chains can often be great for mid/late game settling.

 

[zeta]

It was Communitas, but since it's not well balanced with CBP, Fractal seems to be my number one at the moment.

 

[joosegoose25]

NQ Pangaea and Hellblazers continents have been the most balanced map types of any sort that I've played. They need to be configured to work with More Luxuries I believe, but once they are I've yet to find anything better.

A few weeks back I also played a game or two with Planet Simulator and I felt it created a more "balanced" game map than Communitas usually does.

 

[zeta]

NQ Pangaea and Hellblazers continents have been the most balanced map types of any sort that I've played. They need to be configured to work with More Luxuries I believe, but once they are I've yet to find anything better.

A few weeks back I also played a game or two with Planet Simulator and I felt it created a more "balanced" game map than Communitas usually does.

Does Planet Simulator need tweaking to work with More Luxuries then?

 

[Sendaf]

Communitas: the map is too big, therefore I play on small but with 8 civs and 16 city-states. I prefer it to standard with 10 civs 20 city-states, because the late-game clutter gets insane.

Otherwise, shuffle or continents. Pangea and Archipelago are strictly unbalanced imo.

Ditto! I find that communitas is balanced and gives interesting terrain to fight over. You just have to adjust civs/cs to the number in a map 1 size larger

 

[Funak]

Ditto! I find that communitas is balanced and gives interesting terrain to fight over. You just have to adjust civs/cs to the number in a map 1 size larger

Problem with this is that the maximum number of religions is still stuck at the 'small map'-value.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Communitas is my favourite, I use the standard settings (unless I want to change something for more variety) on a large map.

It's always the most fun on this map type, it's just so overflowing in resources and bonus stuff that every land can be - sooner or later - contested and worthwhile.

 

[Mitch.sp]

Does Planet Simulator need tweaking to work with More Luxuries then?

Not, and in my opinion definitively a step ahead for most Communitas's players, requiring the same modifications in relation to map size (increased # of Civs, CS and Religions)

Very recommendable

 

[IcyAngel]

Problem with this is that the maximum number of religions is still stuck at the 'small map'-value.

Hadn't thought of that. Can easily be altered in the logs/with advanced setups, though.

 

[Adonis VII]

Communitas is so far my favorite in terms of map layout and variety.

 

[ExpiredReign]

I'm looking at combining elements from Planet Simulator and Communitas together for the following reasons.

• I don't like the mountain ranges in Communitas, there are rarely... ranges, just a few isolated mountains.
• Planet Simulator doesn't assign the starting locations of CSs and NWs properly so you will have more chance of these being inside CS territory with PS than Comm.
• PS placement of resources isn't balanced for CP/CBP with far too many strategics only providing 1 of each compared to Comm.
• Islands in Comm. are placed better than PS.

Lastly there is a difference that is purely to taste, and that's the fact Comm. makes the world circumnavigatable whereas PS, and a most other maps, can have land stretching right into the poles. Sometimes I like this and sometimes I don't. It would be good to figure out how to make that an Advanced setup option.

 

[Logik]

I love the continents map myself. 5 billion yrs old low water level with temperate climate is just perfect for me.

 

[shaglio]

For those who think that Communitas is too expansive, but don't want to increase the # of AI and CS, you can always raise the water level to shrink down the available land area.

 

[Tomice]

For those who think that Communitas is too expansive, but don't want to increase the # of AI and CS, you can always raise the water level to shrink down the available land area.

Good idea!
I tried creating a few maps with this option, can't tell the difference TBH. It might be that the function isn't working, but the maps sure don't look worse than the normal option, maybe even more natural.

EDIT: The option exists in the code, it changes land% up or down by 25%. Guess I'm gonna use this option from now on.

 

[Fragamemnon]

I play on the NQMod pangaeas almost exclusively. There's plenty of naval play in most games and the AI performs very strong on this map-settling is straightforward, war is fairly easy to execute for them since there's few natural chokepoints, and there's plenty of bonus resources to give them a strong start out of the gate.

Deity games with this setting get dicey, and that's where I want it. Maps with significant snakiness make for a game that feels an entire difficultly level easier. You want things like Mongols getting out of hand with city-state grabs, America being a giant PITA with tile buys, etc. Too many natural chokepoints and water usually cause one or two Civs to never really get going.

 

[merill]

My preferred is Planet simulator (modified for more fish).

Good idea!
I tried creating a few maps with this option, can't tell the difference TBH. It might be that the function isn't working, but the maps sure don't look worse than the normal option, maybe even more natural.

EDIT: The option exists in the code, it changes land% up or down by 25%. Guess I'm gonna use this option from now on.

You can change the map size, line 537. (search "tiny")