Huge Earth TSL Map

[Linklite]

AFAIK it's the only Firaxis map (built by World Builder not map script) that has river flooding and dams.

By that, Im assuming you mean prefabricated maps like TSLs as opposed to the generated on demand maps like Highlands, Wetlands, Fractal, etc.

 

[Socrates99]

There will never be a TSL earth map where every civ can have three cities withing their historical borders. The number of micro-european nations in the game, plus the number of European + Middle East civs that lived in the same region at different times kill that idea dead.

Almost everyone (sorry Gaul, but no way to get both you in Belgium and the Dutch) being able to build a city on their starting location regardless of who else is in game is probably the best that Portugal, Netherlands and Scotland can hope for. But really, reducing Europe to something like Four-five civs max is the way TSL should be played.

In the game I'm playing it's just Spain and Germany in Europe, along with a few CSs, also the Ottomans to a lesser extent. It seems to have worked ok. Phillip didnt go Shipbuilding as fast as he should've though because he settled one tile from the coast for some reason. Maybe they should've been a hair less accurate with his start position. Itd work better for him even if Madrid isn't supposed to be coastal.

Valetta and Geneva left the Vatican without a settling spot so I saw its settler wandering north and finally settling in Lithuania.

 

[flairin]

So far I have played about three games on this map. As Babylon there were a couple of city states as well as a couple of civilizations that spawned next door. I quickly learned to move my settler one space before founding my capital, which meant that at least one of the City States could not found its city with its settler. In a few turns I was able to capture the settler and therefore start with two cities by turn 7. This made it possible to take the other two civs out (capture their capitals), then I moved on to Africa and Europe.
In Europe I started as the white or black queen of France (cannot remember). Similar starting scenario but more of a cluster___. Three city states as well as Gaul and Rome. None of the city states had room to found their cities so I ended up swiping three free settlers. I could only settle one of these because there was no more land (all taken up!). I ended up rerolling. Three city states but no Gaul but Spain ( . Swiped two free settlers by turn 6 and able to settle two cities to the East of Paris. Third city state able to settle by where Rome would settle. At turn 7 I had 3 cities.

 

[flairin]

So far I have played about three games on this map. As Babylon there were a couple of city states as well as a couple of civilizations that spawned next door. I quickly learned to move my settler one space before founding my capital, which meant that at least one of the City States could not found its city with its settler. In a few turns I was able to capture the settler and therefore start with two cities by turn 7. This made it possible to take the other two civs out (capture their capitals), then I moved on to Africa and Europe.
In Europe I started as the white or black queen of France (cannot remember). Similar starting scenario but more of a cluster___. Three city states as well as Gaul and Rome. None of the city states had room to found their cities so I ended up swiping three free settlers. I could only settle one of these because there was no more land (all taken up!). I ended up rerolling. Three city states but no Gaul but Spain ( . Swiped two free settlers by turn 6 and able to settle two cities to the East of Paris. Third city state able to settle by where Rome would settle. At turn 7 I had 3 cities.

Oh, in the game with Spain, Portugal was also in it. After taking Spain's only city (its capital) I noticed that Portugal never was able to settle its capital city! It was down in a corner of Iberia. I was surprised that Spain never bothered to take the settler! I guess Spain had not decided to because it had no chance of settling another city?

 

[aieeegrunt]

So far I have played about three games on this map. As Babylon there were a couple of city states as well as a couple of civilizations that spawned next door. I quickly learned to move my settler one space before founding my capital, which meant that at least one of the City States could not found its city with its settler. In a few turns I was able to capture the settler and therefore start with two cities by turn 7. This made it possible to take the other two civs out (capture their capitals), then I moved on to Africa and Europe.
In Europe I started as the white or black queen of France (cannot remember). Similar starting scenario but more of a cluster___. Three city states as well as Gaul and Rome. None of the city states had room to found their cities so I ended up swiping three free settlers. I could only settle one of these because there was no more land (all taken up!). I ended up rerolling. Three city states but no Gaul but Spain ( . Swiped two free settlers by turn 6 and able to settle two cities to the East of Paris. Third city state able to settle by where Rome would settle. At turn 7 I had 3 cities.

This is absolutly unacceptable. This map clearly wasn’t playtested once before they yeeted it out the door if this is happening

 

[civac]

This has little to do with playtesting and a lot with the map being far too small.

 

[Linklite]

This is absolutly unacceptable. This map clearly wasn’t playtested once before they yeeted it out the door if this is happening

It's not about playtesting, it's a problem with the makeup of the game, and has been an issue since the game came out (or at the very least since I bought it).

European civs make up 19 of the 50 civs, or 38%. Europe is one of the smallest continents. Combine the two and it's a major issue for an Earth TSL map with random civs. The same problem happened with the other Earth TSL, you had to manually set civs in order to make sure that nearly half of them didn't go into a tiny fraction of the map.

There are solutions:

1. Make the map big enough to cope. Not only would that make it unplayable for many, but it would also result in huge areas of the map being deserted and boring. I was alone in the Americas in my last game.
2. Manually set civs so you get a nice spread (the original solution).
3. Have the ability to ban specific civs and CSs to allow randomness but also to control spread (a feature we received a few months ago).
4. Distort the map so Europe would be disproportionately larger. It will never get large enough and, frankly, we'd just be swapping this complaint thread for one about eurocentrism.
5. Pump the game full of non-European civs so that European civs are less likely to be picked at random. Surprisingly, the reaction to that and similar ideas has been more negative than I expected.

It's not that it hasn't been playtested, we've had the same problems on a similar map for years. The problems are geography, history, technology, the fundamental mechanics of the game and the attitudes of the players. None of that was going to be rooted out by playtesting.

 

[aieeegrunt]

It's not about playtesting, it's a problem with the makeup of the game, and has been an issue since the game came out (or at the very least since I bought it).

European civs make up 19 of the 50 civs, or 38%. Europe is one of the smallest continents. Combine the two and it's a major issue for an Earth TSL map with random civs. The same problem happened with the other Earth TSL, you had to manually set civs in order to make sure that nearly half of them didn't go into a tiny fraction of the map.

There are solutions:

1. Make the map big enough to cope. Not only would that make it unplayable for many, but it would also result in huge areas of the map being deserted and boring. I was alone in the Americas in my last game.
2. Manually set civs so you get a nice spread (the original solution).
3. Have the ability to ban specific civs and CSs to allow randomness but also to control spread (a feature we received a few months ago).
4. Distort the map so Europe would be disproportionately larger. It will never get large enough and, frankly, we'd just be swapping this complaint thread for one about eurocentrism.
5. Pump the game full of non-European civs so that European civs are less likely to be picked at random. Surprisingly, the reaction to that and similar ideas has been more negative than I expected.

It's not that it hasn't been playtested, we've had the same problems on a similar map for years. The problems are geography, history, technology, the fundamental mechanics of the game and the attitudes of the players. None of that was going to be rooted out by playtesting.

Playing two turns on this map would tell you that you’ve put too many city state spawns in Europe. Thirty seconds of editing fixes that

This is a reocurring theme with Civ6; a game mode focusing on barbarians results in them disappearing from the game. A game mode focusing on luxuries results in the AI not improving them.

Hell circling back you introduce loyalty mechanics in a game, and you can’t even replicate basic History. Again literally a handful of turns would have told you to make city capitals immune to loyalty effects.

I agree with the rest of your post. The only way to make the huge TSL map even remotely playable in Europe is having Germany, Russia, Spain and no one else east of the Urals or north of the Med except city states.

This is the civs I play TSL huge earth on

Germany
Spain
Russia
Egypt
Mali
Kongo
Persia
Scythia
India
China
Korea
Mongolia

This sort of gives somewhat of a playable and historical map

 

[blackbutterfly]

This has little to do with playtesting and a lot with the map being far too small.

Yeah, even in the largest real world maps Europe is pretty small.

On this huge ~200x200 Azimuth Equidistant Projection of Earth (The United Nations flag Earth) Europe is tiny and still wouldn't be able to fit 3 cities per civ -> UN Earth Pack with TSL [RF+GS+NFP] | CivFanatics Forums

BTW *any* map you play will be a projection of Earth.
That's cos "the world" is on the surface of a sphere.

 

[Stilgar08]

Haven't tried it yet but will give it a shot, of course.

What if you setup like 3-4 Civs with a Eurocentric-pool and the rest of the world in the other pool? I would play a random civ in this scenario.
Would it give you a "playable" distribution of Civs?

And would you recommend to preselect CS, too? If so, which? It seems like otherwise you might end up with a crowded CS Europe anyways?

...Valetta and Geneva left the Vatican without a settling spot so I saw its settler wandering north and finally settling in Lithuania.

hilarious

 

[Nassim]

Haven't tried it yet but will give it a shot, of course.

What if you setup like 3-4 Civs with a Eurocentric-pool and the rest of the world in the other pool? I would play a random civ in this scenario.
Would it give you a "playable" distribution of Civs?

Not fully, Arabia and Egypt still spawn too close, Vietnam and Khmer too, same things if you get both India in the game, and Middle East (even counting Ottomans and Byzance as European) can easily get clustered too as there are quite a few city states in that area.

I'm in a Khmer game currently and it's going great, their TSL start is fantastic for their new playstyle, with lots of rivers, mount Everest nearby (as well as Ha Long with doesn't hurt), and Kandy nearby to stack relics !

Are there civs whose abilities really don't fit with their TSL start ? I would assume Lady Six Sky must struggle to get a lot of cities in a 6 tiles area given how narrow central america is.

 

[Uberfrog]

Playing two turns on this map would tell you that you’ve put too many city state spawns in Europe. Thirty seconds of editing fixes that

I prefer that they have spawns for all the city states programmed on the map, rather than Firaxis picking a select roster. This way I can select which ones I want to play with, and can also avoid having those that are too close to civs or other CS.

Some cherry-picking is unavoidable with TSL.

Are there civs whose abilities really don't fit with their TSL start ? I would assume Lady Six Sky must struggle to get a lot of cities in a 6 tiles area given how narrow central america is.

It’s not too bad, as she can settle the Southeastern US and be within six tiles. Lots of coast though, and nothing to settle to the south west but the Pacific Ocean!

 

[Evie]

The idea that "excessively close start locations" would have been solved with playtesting is lackdaisical.

It's a true start location map. Having civs and CSes spawn where their capital historically was is the whole point. No amount of playtesting can fix that, because spawning where they do is not a bug, it's the core feature of the map.

They would have had to code a whole new civ selection system that load the map, then select the civs and city states so there is no start location overlap. That's a massive investment of time and resources when a solution (let players pick which civs and CSes they want) is already in the game.

 

[Socrates99]

Not fully, Arabia and Egypt still spawn too close, Vietnam and Khmer too, same things if you get both India in the game, and Middle East (even counting Ottomans and Byzance as European) can easily get clustered too as there are quite a few city states in that area.

I'm in a Khmer game currently and it's going great, their TSL start is fantastic for their new playstyle, with lots of rivers, mount Everest nearby (as well as Ha Long with doesn't hurt), and Kandy nearby to stack relics !

Are there civs whose abilities really don't fit with their TSL start ? I would assume Lady Six Sky must struggle to get a lot of cities in a 6 tiles area given how narrow central america is.

There's a few islands in the Caribbean that might be in range if she settled on the east coast of Central America. Don't know if Cuba is in range but it has tobacco and sugar on it which would make it a nice place to drop a city.

 

[Mr_PeaCH]

Doesn't everybody control which Civs/Leaders are in their games now? It's already been said but if you leave it to chance there are WAY too many European-based civs to disperse equally/fairly across the continent. So hand pick a few as well as a few for Africa, a few for Asia, the Americas, etc. The balance in terms of numbers is the thing.

I am playing Spain and I restarted on the TSL map a few different times before settling in. Sometimes England was there, sometimes not. Sometimes Rome, sometimes not. Had Brussels city state once, not another time, etc.

 

[Linklite]

Doesn't everybody control which Civs/Leaders are in their games now? It's already been said but if you leave it to chance there are WAY too many European-based civs to disperse equally/fairly across the continent. So hand pick a few as well as a few for Africa, a few for Asia, the Americas, etc. The balance in terms of numbers is the thing.

I am playing Spain and I restarted on the TSL map a few different times before settling in. Sometimes England was there, sometimes not. Sometimes Rome, sometimes not. Had Brussels city state once, not another time, etc.

I use the leader pools, since I quite enjoy the unknown aspect of not knowing who will be there or where. Could do with a few more pools though, ideally.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Doesn't everybody control which Civs/Leaders are in their games now? It's already been said but if you leave it to chance there are WAY too many European-based civs to disperse equally/fairly across the continent. So hand pick a few as well as a few for Africa, a few for Asia, the Americas, etc. The balance in terms of numbers is the thing.

I am playing Spain and I restarted on the TSL map a few different times before settling in. Sometimes England was there, sometimes not. Sometimes Rome, sometimes not. Had Brussels city state once, not another time, etc.

You basically have to pick them yourself amd hope the city states don’t end up in dumb spots and have a “no poaching settlers” house rule.

A good rule is “no adjacent Euro civs”

So for example if you pick Germany no France, Poland, Rome, England or Hungary but you could have Spain, Scotland and Russia

 

[0urBall]

Has anyone tried to play with Lautaro/Mapuche? I've tried to start a couple of games(I only have Vanilla & R+F), and he doesn't seem to have a starting spot?

 

[Mr_PeaCH]

Has anyone tried to play with Lautaro/Mapuche? I've tried to start a couple of games(I only have Vanilla & R+F), and he doesn't seem to have a starting spot?

Yes! I am doing that right now. It's all about getting the natural wonder Torres Del Paine; for me it was two moves to the south to find it. Double yield is great but also there will be more 'breathtaking' tiles to create their amazing unique building.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Yes! I am doing that right now. It's all about getting the natural wonder Torres Del Paine; for me it was two moves to the south to find it. Double yield is great but also there will be more 'breathtaking' tiles to create their amazing unique building.

I too just finished a game as Mapuche on TSL Huge Earth.
And yes, placing a city by Torres Del Paine allows you to spam chemamulls around it.

Having Auckland in game also helps

I played vs. 2 other American civs and the rest Europeans knowing full well that they will fall into free cities esp. in Dramatic Ages mode.
FYI The Mapuche really shine in Dramatic Ages mode. I think it fits in very well with the ethos of DA mode, if you like playing it.

The Apr 2021 patch really did fix Lautaro.