Deljade
Prince
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2019
- Messages
- 312
Well, I think feedback from Huge size players is necessary to do this correctly. The facts are;
-Huge maps have more cities in total.
-Huge maps have more cities per player, even with added civs. Exception being 43 civs. I've seen very tall AIs like Ethiopia or those that are doing poorly roll with 6 but still try to late game found. 10 is a good estimate I think.
-Capitals are still the strongest cities in most cases and are of course part of the Domination Victory condition(which you won't be seeing in the current state)
It therefore makes logical sense that conquering a non-capital city in a huge map is of less overall consequence that conquering a city of similar economic strength in a standard map and that if this is not accounted for, standard and huge players will have somewhat different experiences of the diplomatic consequences of war. Keep in mind that more cities mean a somewhat increased (but not linearly) supply limit, which allows for more concurrent conquests to players with a stronger army than their opponent.
What I am seeing in my games;
-Non Authority AIs struggle to make conquests in the first place, I assume their army cannot overpower their war enemies enough to conquer cities early on. Those that still try to wage a lot of wars (say Catherine when she picks Progress) often get sanctioned in the world congress even though they conquered very few or no cities.
-Authority AIs sometimes conquer one of their neighbors. I am seeing this in every game lately. They usually get sanctioned in the first session.
An example from my latest game; I had done no conquests until the industrial era and were in good terms with most people. I then proceeded to conquer 2 medium cities and an okay capital so 3 out of the 8 cities of 1 out of the 13 other civs (originally 14 but one got conquered). This got the majority of the civ fearing a dark age out of my warmongering and a bunch of denouncements. 30 turns later (Epic speed) I declared and conquered 2 medium cities from another neighbor, after a hard fight, and this made even my few remaining friends to not want anything to do with me and denounce me and a unanimous Sanction by the World Congress. Now I am basically forced to push more conquests and vassalise everyone in my continent so as to secure Offices and trade deals, this is the path I chose, of course, and would eventually do it either way. So, is conquering 4 cities, out of maybe 150+ in the world and one capital out of 14, over the span of 50 turns, a justification for this? Possibly, I am not usually a warmonger, but I also see the AIs that do wars and conquests suffer a little too much. Of course conquering 3 cities in a Standard map would be maybe more that half a players cities and would basically ruin them but the AI in question was able to keep up in Tech during the following turns and was able to declare on me with help from other civs and contemporary units. Definitely an interesting scenario and possibly appropriate to the loss of a capital but goes to show that taking 3 cities in a huge map is not enough to ruin a player.
I would not suggest radical changes, last thing I want to see is AIs turning a blind AI to serial conquerors and I do like "coalition" scenarios, especially of nearby peaceful civs in response to a series of conquests or the loss of a capital. Maybe small adjustments to see how games work with different values and see what feels best. Also would like the opinion of other Huge size players on this.
