Good Setup for Friendly Multiplayer

[makattack]

Hi everyone, this is my first post. I have Civ 5 along with some friends and family. We have played a few games together, but we never get involved enough into the game to want to continue it later. In other words, when we have to end the game session, we usually create a new game the next time we play. Sometimes we just play 2v1v1v1v1 or more AIs on the top three difficulties, but the team bonuses (shared research etc) inevitably put us far ahead. By the time we engage one of the civs and beat them, there is an inevitable victory with little difficulty.

My question is this- how do you like to play with good friends? How would you recommend setting up and playing a "coop" game?
Should we start unallied and use the game's normal diplomacy to set up alliances later, to avoid the dramatic shared tech boost? Can you get shared vision using game diplomacy?

Also, what map styles do you think are best to go along with this style of play, what size, how many other civs and city states? (for a 2humans with AIs, or 3 with AIs for example)
I find that I enjoy adding several extra city states, because no matter what map size we pick, I feel like there is perhaps too much free space to grow and expand. I like the added strategic difficulty of less free space.

So in summary - What are good Coop multiplayer game setups (map setup, teams or no teams, play style?)

 

[Bluebird]

I don't have experience with this, but wouldn't putting the AI on the same team provide them the same benefits?

 

[RoBoSMASH]

For a challenging, yet not overwhelming game, why not make it 2v3 or 2v4? On a big enough map you could even go 2v3v3 team game. I've played both and my brother and I had a good time.

 

[Shilkanni]

I've been playing mostly 2v2v2v2, Standard, 16 citystates and that's been fairly fun, of course ramp up the difficulty as required.

 

[ddd123]

there is only ONE serious way to play: team 1 vs team 2 each made of N players

better if N>1

all the rest is all pointless

 

[swordspider]

I played a 2v4 on King with Snippywest and it was extremely challenging when the war first started and through until we took out the first of the 4 ai's. After the first fell and we regrouped, it was a cakewalk.

If you're not awesome like us, a 2v3 on Prince may be fun for you.