[NFP] Is a crowded map easier or harder?

[Kotofei]

Hi all, I usually play 7-8 civs on a small map, on Immortal, occasionally Deity, thinking that it's easier because it's less space for the AI to snowball.

Lately I'm wondering if I got it backwards, and I'm actually preventing *myself* from snowballing. It's still fun, because it makes me play tall and put more thought into my cities, but....maybe I'm accidentally handicapping myself and not as bad at Civ as I thought.

Yeah I know, it's partly civ dependent. Korea plays just fine tall, Rome has to be as wide as possible.

 

[nauberry]

It affects many aspects of the game. In the one hand, you have a far bigger trouble of getting wonders, religions, great people and heroes. Having a crowded map also hinders early expansion via settling. In the other hand, the AI's will be competing against each other, which hinders snowballing, just as you said.

Thus, crowded maps favor warmongers, as you have more developed and good cities to conquer early on. It also favors civs that can benefit of having less, tall cities. It hinders civs that are oriented to wonder building, religious games or great people games.

The map type also has a big influence. I love to play on splintered fractal, or on continents and islands, as there will always be at least some nice islands to use as later game city locations. On a Pangaea, I'd imagine, that there is less areas to settle later on.

I usually play my games with deity, with max number of civs on the largest map. Many games are lost within first 20 turns due to AI aggression.

 

[kaspergm]

Imo. crowded maps makes the game - much - harder. First of all, crowded maps will put you more at a disadvantage than the AI, because the AI starts with extra settlers which means they can quickly grab what little free land there is, leaving you boxed in. Secondly, being closer to your neighbors will create hostility which makes early DoW's much more likely, which again hurts you more than the AI, at least until you beat the first attack wave back.

 

[iammaxhailme]

crowded is harder imo, at least for me, who usually goes for science or culture victory. I have to waste time building lots of defensive units and sometimes encampments or walls when I just want to be making campuses, trading districts, theater squares, builders, settlers, and religious stuff (depending on what I'm doing)

 

[LMT]

Personally, I've always found a crowded map to be a little easier if you're play the strategy of wiping out your closest neighbor. They are easier to find and usually easier to attack (i.e., you don't need to travel as far to take cities).

 

[Taefin]

Curious what people think about this who play the smoother difficulty mod. They feel pretty similar to me then. Though on splintered fractal huge/max on emperor/immortal I find I often get room for 3 cities max without conquest. The war tends to be more total, since I break their main line by the time I capture the first city. The nice thing about that mod is it seems geared so that your empire needs to be 2-3x larger than your rival to keep up with their science/culture. So crowded maps can me a bit of exciting conquest earlier on, without building such a large empire that it’s too painful to manage.

 

[AntSou]

My experience has been that it either makes it much harder or much easier.

Either you are crippled from the get go with low prospects of turning it around, or the Civ which declares war on you completely botches it and you're able to triple up your empire for little to no grievances (since you start with +150 in your favour) much quicker than on lower difficulties. I haven't played Deity in months, however.

On a different note, I always crowded up the map in Civ IV and V, but have found it to be not fun in VI, due to how crucial district placement is in this title.

 

[bbbt]

Overall harder if you are a peaceful builder, easier if you are an aggressive warmongerer, or like me, start with earlier warmongering and go peaceful builder.

Usually harder if you are going for a religion - can't rush both holy sites and units, # of religions is set by map size not by # of civs.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Crowded map will make AI more aggressive towards you because you are too close to each other. On the other hand, the AI will also become more aggressive towards each other because they are too close to each other as well.

If you can secure friendship with your closest neighbors in a crowded map, you can sit back and watch other AIs fight/hate each other to death. Their cities will be more likely to turn into Free Cities during Dark Age because of the close proximity.

 

[UWHabs]

Crowded map will make AI more aggressive towards you because you are too close to each other. On the other hand, the AI will also become more aggressive towards each other because they are too close to each other as well.

If you can secure friendship with your closest neighbors in a crowded map, you can sit back and watch other AIs fight/hate each other to death. Their cities will be more likely to turn into Free Cities during Dark Age because of the close proximity.

I tend to prefer a slightly more crowded map because I like having action. Although it always sucks to have an AI crowd you out and declare before you can even get a settler out.

 

[Pietato]

Crowded means a lot more wars, and earlier ones. Whether that makes it easier or harder depends on you.

 

[greenOak]

Yeah it really depends on what you're comfortable with. I personally find crowded maps significantly harder but that's because I'm terrible at offensive war. I almost never do offensive wars since I absolutely hate moving each and every unit around the map. I prefer civ 4 stacks of doom tbh.

 

[Disgustipated]

AI is much more aggressive on crowded maps in my experience. Once they run out of room to expand, they will do it with force.

 

[Victoria]

It all depends on what happens around you and how you play that.
Certainly it’s easier to get a dark classic and suffer for it. Lack of era points.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I find one of the places where the AI needs a kick in the [shin] is expanding into open space. I tend to play on larger maps; maybe there's something in the code that tells the AI "N cities is enough", and N doesn't scale up correctly.

For me, crowded maps are harder.

 

[Finvola]

Crowded maps are better if I play a warmonger, but I find them harder if I'm going for other victory types. In those cases I prefer to have some space to expand and play peacefully.

 

[tsf4]

I tend to go for less civs than the max, but usually find that if you leave them too much space they snowball faster than a small playing player.

 

[Archon_Wing]

It's harder if you get neighbors with early civ bonuses, but potentially the easiest if you get potatoes.

But small maps in general are too easy, because the AI can't really reach the critical mass to win; they need more space. You have to realize the nature of the Civ 6 AI is to stagnate after a certain point; it's just that higher difficulties make this point faster. But they will never exceed this point on their own unless they manage to conquer neighbors; lower city counts will favor the human player.

Now large maps with lots of civs, and crowding is another story.

 

[Disgustipated]

I used to love playing Greatest Earth map with all the civs. Sadly, that's not very fun anymore since Rise and Fall and the loyalty mechanic. Loyalty mechanic has had upsides, but there are downsides as well. Playing Earth maps with every civilization is one of them. I should look for a mod that disables loyalty.

I would imagine crowded maps would be a nightmare on dramatic ages mode.

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

Depending on where in the map player starts, and what types of map do you choose. My favorite pick is either Terra or Continents. preferred game generated start is by the mainland edge. Disdainful start is the midlands.