Best map to get use of navy without it feeling tedious?

bonafide11

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Unfortunately I find the Continents map to be tedious and boring. On Continents I don't really need a navy until late game, and only if I'm going for domination, and by then it takes 15-20 turns to get my navy over there, and every time I send a unit over the ocean it takes that long. It just seems to take forever and makes the navy feel sort of boring. So I end up playing Pangea even though that makes the navy basically pointless altogether. There's never really a need to build many ships except for to explore. I'd like to get some use out of my navy without it feeling tedious or painful.

Is there a good map type for something like this? To have solid landmasses, but still require some navy usage, earlier on, and not have it take 15-20 turns to get your units over there? Maybe landmasses that are closer by would work. Thoughts?
 
That basically what the island plates map is, and often ends up with some larger landmasses ala the civ 5 small continent maps (though sometimes you are on a small landmass, it depends). Indonesia on that map going for a naval victory is fun, for obvious reasons.
 
Archipelago is great for some navy play.
 
That basically what the island plates map is, and often ends up with some larger landmasses ala the civ 5 small continent maps (though sometimes you are on a small landmass, it depends). Indonesia on that map going for a naval victory is fun, for obvious reasons.

That looks fun, I think I might try that. I'd like to have some other civs on my continent, but not have everyone on the same continent or on the complete opposite side of the world. I'd rather not be on the continent all alone, but I might give it a try anyway.

Archipelago is great for some navy play.

The problem is, I'm not really looking for JUST navy play. I want a good balance of land and naval play. Archipelago is weighted towards just heavy navy usage.
 
The problem is, I'm not really looking for JUST navy play. I want a good balance of land and naval play. Archipelago is weighted towards just heavy navy usage.

Archipelago isn't a small islands map - the islands are pretty big and I've been stymied in my game because I don't have enough of a ground army to take major cities. It's definitely the best for a mix of both unless my map is atypical. And I'm playing a small map - there are still four major islands, two of which started with two civs on each.
 
That looks fun, I think I might try that. I'd like to have some other civs on my continent, but not have everyone on the same continent or on the complete opposite side of the world. I'd rather not be on the continent all alone, but I might give it a try anyway.



The problem is, I'm not really looking for JUST navy play. I want a good balance of land and naval play. Archipelago is weighted towards just heavy navy usage.
It's not though, it's quite balanced. Give it a try. I had three large islands/small continents and some smaller ones.
 
Archipelago isn't a small islands map - the islands are pretty big and I've been stymied in my game because I don't have enough of a ground army to take major cities. It's definitely the best for a mix of both unless my map is atypical. And I'm playing a small map - there are still four major islands, two of which started with two civs on each.

It's not though, it's quite balanced. Give it a try. I had three large islands/small continents and some smaller ones.

Thanks! Now it does sound intriguing. Can't decide if I should choose Archipelago or Island Plates now. I'd like to see some samples of both now. I still miss the World Builder form Civ IV where I could see maps when I started to tell if I was going to like them.
 
Thanks! Now it does sound intriguing. Can't decide if I should choose Archipelago or Island Plates now. I'd like to see some samples of both now. I still miss the World Builder form Civ IV where I could see maps when I started to tell if I was going to like them.

Here's a screenshot I've shared before (which, incidentally, shows a land combat situation) - it's a much earlier game stage than I'm at now, but the general shape of the map is mostly revealed by this point on the minimap.

A93CCC4B5087168A19E86DC4F5F56DBA1F079F3D


I don't have clear recollections of Island Plates to compare - I may only have played it once for the achievement. Archipelago's my favourite map in Civ VI so far, though - it's closer to a varied, somewhat realistic 'continents' map (rather than the predictable 'exactly two landmasses' of the Continents map) than the name 'Archipelago' suggests, and would probably be my default map type if it wasn't always going to be some form of island map (I prefer the variety that comes with Shuffle, but Archipelago seems to generate better maps).
 
Earth map :p

though I always make sure to settle a "Panama" city and a Suez city if possible (though this often isn't possible without razing).
 
I almost play fractal invariably now. Sometimes it only gives you one continent, as in my current game, but said continent is much more realistic, being made up of several lakes, peninsulas, and bays, you can often use cities as canals. All in all, it makes the navy much more useful, especially when it births more than one continent.
 
Here's a screenshot I've shared before (which, incidentally, shows a land combat situation) - it's a much earlier game stage than I'm at now, but the general shape of the map is mostly revealed by this point on the minimap.

A93CCC4B5087168A19E86DC4F5F56DBA1F079F3D


I don't have clear recollections of Island Plates to compare - I may only have played it once for the achievement. Archipelago's my favourite map in Civ VI so far, though - it's closer to a varied, somewhat realistic 'continents' map (rather than the predictable 'exactly two landmasses' of the Continents map) than the name 'Archipelago' suggests, and would probably be my default map type if it wasn't always going to be some form of island map (I prefer the variety that comes with Shuffle, but Archipelago seems to generate better maps).

Thanks, I think you might've convinced me to try Archipelago, unless someone can show me a better looking map than that.
 
I almost play fractal invariably now. Sometimes it only gives you one continent, as in my current game, but said continent is much more realistic, being made up of several lakes, peninsulas, and bays, you can often use cities as canals. All in all, it makes the navy much more useful, especially when it births more than one continent.

I've moved away from fractal because it almost always spawns some variant of a pangea for me - I agree that the pangeas look more realistic than those in the Pangea script, but while I'm happy to discover I'm on a pangea some portion of the time, I like the majority of my games to have multiple landmasses.
 
Fractal in general makes navy pretty relevant IMO.

The other thing that really makes it useful tho is if sea resources themselves are pumped up to make them worth fighting for. That is why my Combined Tweaks mod increases the value of sea resource tiles, to tempt more Settlers to the coasts.
 
Continents is definitely a slower game for domination. I’m playing as Chandragupta now on continents and I’ve found that the best thing to do is to get a foothold on the continent first. Then plan a total continental invasion. I got two of Georgia’s cities then peaced out. Am planning my next invasion. However, I’m also playing a religious game, so I might go after Spain instead since I’ve converted two continents entirely.
 
Fractal is the maptype I use in 80% of my games, it gives balanced but unpredictable maps and you can choose low sea level for more naval focus or standard or low sea level for more ground.

Earth map is actually very fun and good for both naval and land.
 
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