BNW Huge Map Issues

KokeenoPokameso

Warlord
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
123
Location
Ontario Canada
Playing on a huge map I have found a couple of issues. First it is very difficult to actually connect my trade rout to any of my neighbors. They are just to far away. This mean I do not have a good source of income till I have a 2-3 decent sized cities connect with roads. I hit the 0 gold very quickly with just a few building and units. Then I cannot do much of anything.

Second my neighbors almost never seem to go to war with one another, or me. before my neighbors were always DOWing each other, and me. This would provide me an opportunity to take a couple of cities to expand my empire that way. Now we just sit there for turn after turn doing nothing. Epic game speed is usally boring when you are at peace and not moving units around, now it is really boring.

Anyone else having these isures? Do smaller maps invose more conflict, and promote more lucrative trades in the early game?
 
Yeah I've noticed these things too but I wouldn't really call them issues. It's just what you get when you play on huge maps.

Try adding additional AIs. On huge maps I have at least 15 AIs and 25 CSs, sometimes more. Should fix both of your problems.
 
Yeah, 15 AI's seem to be a good number for a huge map. Not sure why the default is 12, there is way too much land for just 12 and it makes the early and sometimes mid game boring.
 
Yeah I've noticed these things too but I wouldn't really call them issues. It's just what you get when you play on huge maps.

Agreed. I play huge a lot and saw this, but, like you, I don`t see it as a problem. just a consequence of the type of map. It actually suits me since I still have plenty of time to develope. I always have max amount of Civs so it don`t get too boring.
 
Yeah, 15 AI's seem to be a good number for a huge map. Not sure why the default is 12, there is way too much land for just 12 and it makes the early and sometimes mid game boring.

But late game with 12 it's somewhat bearable while with more and more civs and city-states the turn times may go up to like 5 minutes per turn (on harder difficulties where the AI has 1 unit per tile (or more^^).
 
I really think the default is supposed to be 12, look at the Resettlement tenet from Order, some land is meant to be inhabited at Industrial/Modern Era.
 
More Civs, more city states, could help. I still would like to see trade routs expanded on Huge maps.

Civ's in BNW seem to be far more peaceful than ever. Wars seem to the the oddity, rather than the norm. They were over geared towards war before, so maybe something in between.
 
22 civs is the only way to go on a huge map. If people have room to grow they'll use it. Why go to war for war's sake when there's perfectly viable territory you can grab for just a settler. You're acting like this is a problem with the game and not your settings.
 
Some Civilizations should just be war like, just for flavor. The peacefulness tends to persists even when they have relatively close borders. I have played Huge maps before BNW it still did not stop civs from going to war. Part of it seems to be that they are less inclined to expand as they use to.
 
22 civs is the only way to go on a huge map. If people have room to grow they'll use it. Why go to war for war's sake when there's perfectly viable territory you can grab for just a settler. You're acting like this is a problem with the game and not your settings.

I'm on turn ~800 now in a Marathon game with 22 civs, and believe me, the waiting time between turns is starting to take its toll. But even with 22 civs on Immortal, I have to take matters into my own hands if I want any action. The AI tends to move around peacefully forever, and I actually got so bored with it today that i saved, exited to windows and started googling about organic fertilizers and composting instead. :crazyeye:
 
I dunno about that peacefulness of the AI. In my game on the Legendary Earth map, 6 AIs out of 22 were extinct before the end of the game, and only one of those was my doing. Dido went mad berserk and took Portugal, Egypt and Songhai out one after another... Egypt was the first to go and I was shocked to see the early msg ('Unmet civ has lost its capital!' ... wonder how the news found its way to Australia :p). Then Shaka took out Ethiopia's mountain stronghold (really horrendous terrain in that part of the map for attack), and The Huns wiped their fellow nomads the Mongols out of existence... I guess there's only so much room on the steppe to flex your pecs in.

To be fair though Dido had 8,000 gold at one point and hundreds of gpt. (Sure am glad she didn't touch my city states! :D) It seems they could tone down the AI's protectiveness of trade routes a bit. In my game Japan did DOW me and break our very lucrative route though. Needless to say they were the sixth civ to disappear from the map. No, Oda, you do not get to keep your winter palace in the Alaskan mountains. I will GDR or XCOM your ass out of there (after a helpful nuke or three). Good times, good times. :king::goodjob:
 
I just tried a huge Terra map and would recommend it. Since all the Civs start in the old world. Even with the default 12 Civs, it's quite cramped... which means, either fight for the old world, or search for the new world and new lands over the ocean. No problem with trade routes in this map, and plenty of conflict due to the tight space.
 
I'm on turn ~800 now in a Marathon game with 22 civs, and believe me, the waiting time between turns is starting to take its toll. But even with 22 civs on Immortal, I have to take matters into my own hands if I want any action. The AI tends to move around peacefully forever, and I actually got so bored with it today that i saved, exited to windows and started googling about organic fertilizers and composting instead. :crazyeye:

I am so glad somebody agrees with me, I thought I was going Mad. I took out my two nearest neghbors and on the other side of the contnet there are four of them in spitting distance and nothing is happening. Why is oda sitting their with just two cities and generating turrism already? Is he not one of those ware time sives.

I dunno about that peacefulness of the AI. In my game on the Legendary Earth map, 6 AIs out of 22 were extinct before the end of the game, and only one of those was my doing. Dido went mad berserk and took Portugal, Egypt and Songhai out one after another... Egypt was the first to go and I was shocked to see the early msg ('Unmet civ has lost its capital!' ... wonder how the news found its way to Australia :p). Then Shaka took out Ethiopia's mountain stronghold (really horrendous terrain in that part of the map for attack), and The Huns wiped their fellow nomads the Mongols out of existence... I guess there's only so much room on the steppe to flex your pecs in.

To be fair though Dido had 8,000 gold at one point and hundreds of gpt. (Sure am glad she didn't touch my city states! :D) It seems they could tone down the AI's protectiveness of trade routes a bit. In my game Japan did DOW me and break our very lucrative route though. Needless to say they were the sixth civ to disappear from the map. No, Oda, you do not get to keep your winter palace in the Alaskan mountains. I will GDR or XCOM your ass out of there (after a helpful nuke or three). Good times, good times. :king::goodjob:

Sounds like the kind of game I am used to playing before BNW. I miss it.

I just tried a huge Terra map and would recommend it. Since all the Civs start in the old world. Even with the default 12 Civs, it's quite cramped... which means, either fight for the old world, or search for the new world and new lands over the ocean. No problem with trade routes in this map, and plenty of conflict due to the tight space.

I have done a tera map befor BNW. Your right it realy was one of the best games I had played. I will try it again soon.
 
The trouble with Terra maps before was that the AI took too long to settle the new world. Has that been fixed in BNW? Fwiw, in my game the Zulus did manage to colonize most of South America but it was fairly late and I never made an effort. With the 5% science penalty per city overseas colonies may now be a losing proposition... Although food and hammer routes might balance that out. After the tech that extends the length of sea routes, those routes go a shocking distance even on a Huge map. I was able to make a route from my capital Brisbane to Boston in North America over a distance of maybe 60-80 tiles! Perhaps they should make the extending tech come a bit earlier? Can't remember which one it was but it was one of the sea techs, perhaps Navigation. The other solution is to found a city in the local 'Pacific' solely as a trade hub... It helps that (afaik) there are no pirates (barbs) on the high seas - at least I only ran into them in coastal waters. All in all I really like the new trade mechanics in BNW. It takes some effort to make a good route but the rewards are well worth it. Perhaps too much in fact (in the late game certainly).

Fwiw I started another game as Venice on Immortal on the same map and so far I've been at war with Byzantium, Germany and France one after another and it's turn 120. Venice's location is easy to defend on this map but attacking any of the three rivals is a losing proposition before Xbows or maybe even Cannons or Artillery. As it is I could probably take Paris but at the cost of five or six promoted Comp Bows (virtually my whole army), so I'm postponing it until my troops have farmed enough xp for the ranged upgrade.

EDIT: The trouble with huge maps with extra civs on them is that you can kiss any wonders goodbye until you have a significant tech lead. Naturally this applies mostly to Deity and Immortal, but even on Emperor I refrain from building wonders until the Oracle at the earliest. Forget about the Alhambra or Chichen Itza; it's not gonna happen even if you beeline unless you have huge luck. The other thing is that constant announcement spam ('Hi I'm friends with X as well, glad you like him! Ta-ta!') gets fairly nerve-wracking as well. The game was really designed for Standard sized maps with 8 players, and it shows. I'd gladly play a Standard sized world map if there were any decent ones... May have to make one myself one of these days (months, years ;)). The size of Europe and the placement of continents are the major hurdles. May have to cut something out or make it a flat world with half of the Americas to make everything fit. And ofc cut the seas down to nothing.
 
I'm on turn ~800 now in a Marathon game with 22 civs, and believe me, the waiting time between turns is starting to take its toll. But even with 22 civs on Immortal, I have to take matters into my own hands if I want any action. The AI tends to move around peacefully forever, and I actually got so bored with it today that i saved, exited to windows and started googling about organic fertilizers and composting instead. :crazyeye:

Could just be "bad luck" maybe? I play Marathon 22 civ/citystates on huge with the Perfect World 3 script, which is a bit bigger than Terra Huge I think. Some games I can get to industrial+ without my neighbors going to war with me or eachother, and everyone has a friendship pact. Other times it's constant war and everyone has denounced everyone.
However, most often, I've noticed it usually works out that there is a 'peaceful half' and a 'warring half' of the largest continent. Not sure what factors cause it, but it happens so much that there must be something about the way everything is that forces diplomacy to take either extreme, rather than ever really sitting in the middle.

But whatever the case I guess it doesn't matter, the only solution I would offer is try and stir up trouble yourself, or maybe try and have fun subtlety manipulating alliances to indirectly shape the world as you see fit, rather than directly with an army.

As for the long turn times, use them to navigate menus, study religions, look at cultural progress, check out trade information, resource/gold availability, diplomatic situation... there's a lot of stuff to look through, do it between turns, so you know exactly how to act during your next turn, then plan again between... etc. Not a perfect solution, but it still helps with the wait. No reason to stare blankly at the screen between turns, then read all the information during your turn to plan your strategy.

Edit: I'm glad other people get distracted researching random stuff though, last game I played as Indonesia was cut short as I spent the rest of the day researching their history :)
 
Also Great Works run out on Huge maps (or with extra civs really). Just run into this issue myself, and many people have reported it. Really now this can't be intended... Why not just give them generic names and pictures? "Elvis #93 has created 'Hound Dog' #87"... :lol: I hope the Fall Patch addresses this, along with some of the trade route troubles; a modest increase in range on the bigger maps wouldn't be out of order.
 
Also Great Works run out on Huge maps (or with extra civs really). Just run into this issue myself, and many people have reported it. Really now this can't be intended... Why not just give them generic names and pictures? "Elvis #93 has created 'Hound Dog' #87"... :lol: I hope the Fall Patch addresses this, along with some of the trade route troubles; a modest increase in range on the bigger maps wouldn't be out of order.

I have not had this hapen yet. So what dose happen when they run out of names? You start not getting great artists, wrighters and artists? you get them, but cannot create great works? You get great works but cannot see what they are?
 
I have not had this hapen yet. So what dose happen when they run out of names? You start not getting great artists, wrighters and artists? you get them, but cannot create great works? You get great works but cannot see what they are?
Bolded, and it sucks. Still good that it ain't option #1, though. :lol:
 
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