Game/Map Settings

[Basilius]

Hey everyone; I couldn't find a thread like this and wanted to get some opinions from the community. What are your favorite game/map settings and why? (Or, which settings do you think best mesh with Vox Populi?) Bonus question: any house rules?

Myself, I like replicating history, so HUGE maps with max civs/CS. I play on epic because it buffs units and feels, well, epic; I'd play on marathon but I find it's simply too time consuming (and OP for imperialists.) I play on continents/communitas out of habit, but am starting to try new maps.

I turn on raging barbarians to make early game more exciting, and turn off ancient runes because I hate luck. I select "strategic resources" for the same reason. No time victory, and I play either King or Emperor depending on how well I know the civ.

House Rule: I play a civ as historically accurate as possible. Meaning I choose a leader in that civ's history I admire (not necessarily the in-game leader) and try and play my game as they ran their empire during their lifetime. This includes obtaining the wonder they're best known for.

House Rule #2: I sometimes try and win games by adhering to "Just War Theory." Meaning I play as ethically as possible. I have yet to win with this rule on emperor.

What do you guys do?

 

[Strigvir]

Raging Barbarians is more of a buff for the player. Also by turning off ancient ruins you effectively disable Shoshone's UU.

The house rule #1 is pretty stupid, civs behaved like they did in history because of the presence/influence of other civs, even misplacing one would change the course drastically.

 

[Basilius]

The house rule #1 is pretty stupid, civs behaved like they did in history because of the presence/influence of other civs, even misplacing one would change the course drastically.

It's merely a fun challenge, no need to be snobbish. How do you like playing?

 

[Galaphile0125]

Raging Barbarians is more of a buff for the player. Also by turning off ancient ruins you effectively disable Shoshone's UU.

The house rule #1 is pretty stupid, civs behaved like they did in history because of the presence/influence of other civs, even misplacing one would change the course drastically.

You do realize this is a game and people play it for fun, right? He was just giving an example of how he has fun. Not everyone plays trying to min/max everything. You really don't need to be such an ass to people who are just trying to have fun and share that with others.

 

[FoxOfWar]

I tend to play on Marathon, Large or Huge with usually more than 10/12 civs, but the map type I tend to vary. I go for different victory condition/civ/map type combos I have not tried before. [Last attempt being religious victory (the mod I'm fairly certain most of you know, extra victory conditions) with Byzantium on Pangaea, failed colossally as before medieval Carthage's Islam encopassed most of the continent and sadly India in the middle of it...]

Other than that, I do enjoy island/sea based maps more, but mostly because the naval combat is far more convenient to actually do away with turn-per-turn basis lategame. It also limits when I meet other civs, keeping an element of surprise and letting me sometimes get away with conquering my island/continent before anyone knows about it

 

[merill]

I personally enjoy playing with scarse strategic resources. It create much bigger emphasis on getting and securing them. One time, a CS embargo force me to go authority for the "double resources" tenet.

 

[Mad Madigan]

I like Civilization and Vox Populi as a means of exploring bizarre "alternate histories" of our planet, so I tend to always play on Large or Huge maps using Continents Plus or Communitas to generate a globe-covering mass of varying continents and islands with a pair of Deep Ocean rifts that separate the Civs in half until someone researches Deep Ocean travel. This also means that I play with as many Civs as I can, usually 14-20 depending on the map size, and I play using Epic speed so that wars are slightly more realistic (No "It takes 50 years to move my melee unit through 3 jungle hexes?!?" moments).

I still haven't used the VP Events system much, mostly because I feel that it the Event bonuses and maluses are too strong and can lead to too many lucky/unlucky swings in power. I've considered turning off Ruins to reduce the starting swing of any Civ getting 3-4 good Ruins pickups, but so far I have left them in place because...

I like to play using completely random Civs, so I don't want to nerf Pathfinders by removing Ruins. The same goes for using Raging Barbarians or disabling most other default game features.

Difficulty wise, I am just now starting to get the hang of beating King with VP's boost to AI intelligence, but I don't know how much I want to crank up the difficulty because I tend to want to "role play" as whatever Civ I randomly start as. That means taking advantage of each Civ's unique abilities and units, but also not being a warmonger unless the leader of that Civ would have also been one. However, I have found the smarter AI doing things (really clever things, actually) that really tick me off and constantly get in the way of my victory plan, so sometimes small wars are inevitable even if I have no intention of a Domination victory.

This is where VP's new AI gets really interesting, as some Civs develop game-long grudges against me for small past transgressions, while some seem to be BETTER friends with me after I have had to capture/raze a city or two of their's. Go figure...

This mod is just too much dang fun!

 

[tu_79]

I play with Planet Simulator random continents maps, normal size. Sometimes there's lots of land tiles, sometimes lots of water and mountains, sometimes it's very dry... but there are always at least two land masses.

I also disable Time Victory and Events. I choose my civ depending on my mood, choosing something interesting for trying one victory type. But there are civs I never played because I am not sure what their best VC is. Rules? Never reload. If it hurts, lower difficulty next time.

 

[Jdoug312]

Continents++, huge map with 12 civs/27 cs, emperor difficulty is my go to because I like the land/sea balance. Raging barbs (I don't farm them), disable time victory, enable research agreements, disable tech trading. I try to rp the civ I'm using. I only ever reload if I genuinely clicked the wrong thing or something like that. Otherwise, I go with the flow of the game

 

[Basilius]

enable research agreements, disable tech trading.

What are the merits to this? In my experience, RA make alliances stronger, and tech trading allows tech "catch-up" towards the end of the game.

 

[Jdoug312]

What are the merits to this? In my experience, RA make alliances stronger, and tech trading allows tech "catch-up" towards the end of the game.

When I was using tech trading, I saw the AI undervaluing (imo, I suppose) techs, making it too easy to catch up. I haven't used it in months, but I also haven't seen any patch notes about rebalancing it. I'll give it another shot in my next game actually.

 

[zeta]

Standard Communitas map with base amount of civs and CSs and standard pace. Back in the day, when I had more spare time I played large or huge maps with +2 civs and +4 CSs and epic pace.

My difficulty varies. If I really feel like I need a challenge, it's usually Emperor. If I want a middle ground, it's Prince or King. If I just want to relax and establish my dominance, I choose Warlord.

Events enabled (bad events disabled, realistically bad, but this is a game about progressing IMHO), RA enabled, tech trading disabled, no vassals (because I still don't get how they work).

Time Victory (and sometimes Diplomatic) off.

 

[Workerspam]

Standard size (8 civs), standard speed, Emperor difficulty, Communitas map with two random rifts. Larger maps feel grander but I found they took too long to play out for my taste. Two rifts as I like to discover what's been going on elsewhere (though half the time the map only has a single rift anyway). I use Advanced Set-up mod just to remove Venice as a civ option; never became a fan of their playstyle, either as or against them.

I started playing random civs and love it. Picking a civ came with expectations on how the game might play out that were frequently dashed as soon as I saw my starting spot. Random civs come with no such disappointment. Inland Japan start? Let's see how this plays out!

House rule: I used to abuse reloads but without expectations on how my game should play out I roll with the punches now. Lose a battle or miss a wonder by one turn? C'est la vie.

Raging Barbarians on (AI can handle it in this mod and prevents me from disregarding units for infrastructure/Wonders), RAs on, tech trading off (as others noted found techs too cheap to trade for, seemed to greatly reduce penalty for falling behind), and just recently turned Bad Events off. I didn't mind the minor ones too much, kept me on my toes. But had a game recently where a hurricane took out a good number of buildings in my tradition capital (and 2 citizens despite paying to save the population) then an eruption decimated my second best city two turns later, with no option to minimize any damage. I'll pass.

If "Catastrophic Events" ever becomes it's own category I might be tempted to re-enable Bad Events.

 

[Greggy08]

I play standard pace and size on communitas map with 10 civs and 20 CSs usually. Atlantic and pacific rifts, all standard.
GG/GA points from barbs, human vassalage, tech trading and not RAs, raging barbs.
Always deity, because I feel the only level with competitive AI.
I also play with a few other mods:
-promotions expansion pack
-unlimited xp from barbs
- sometimes "evolved barbs" but they are nightmare on deity.

House rule: RANDOM CIV

Edit: House rule #2: no reload, for anything. What is done is done.

 

[Horvath Broncos]

I play on huge shuffle map with 16 civs on immortal on epic pace most of the time. I really love the shuffle map. Random civ and I will restart if I have Civ that I have played with recently. No time victory and everything else on standard settings.

Never reload mainly because the reload time is so damn long.

 

[Degenx2]

I've traditionally always played on Continents, but recently I've started playing Communitas more.

Does anyone know of other map scripts that work well with CBP? Someone mentioned Planet Simulator above, is that any good?

 

[pandasnail]

I've traditionally always played on Continents, but recently I've started playing Communitas more.

Does anyone know of other map scripts that work well with CBP? Someone mentioned Planet Simulator above, is that any good?

Its not perfectly balanced or whatever, but I like the landmasses created by Tectonic more than Planet Sim or Communitas.

 

[Splink]

Its not perfectly balanced or whatever, but I like the landmasses created by Tectonic more than Planet Sim or Communitas.

I highly rate the tectonic map script. It provide a good balance of different sized and varied continents, islands of various sizes and locates everything in an unpredictable but very playable way. Its also very customisable with RAS. I use it exclusively now and would definitely recommend it.

 

[Horvath Broncos]

I highly rate the tectonic map script. It provide a good balance of different sized and varied continents, islands of various sizes and locates everything in an unpredictable but very playable way. Its also very customisable with RAS. I use it exclusively now and would definitely recommend it.

Does it work with VP out of the box or do I have to tweak something? That sounds like my kinda map types cause I love shuffle maps and small continets+ map.

 

[zeta]

Does it work with VP out of the box or do I have to tweak something? That sounds like my kinda map types cause I love shuffle maps and small continets+ map.

I think you just drop that baby boy in your MODS folder and that's that. Remember to select Tectonic in Mods menu.