[NFP] Is a crowded map easier or harder?

[Kotofei]

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.

Well that's interesting because in my current crowded game (on Deity) 3 AI's boxed me in and then were super-friendly and I got alliances with all 3 without even trying that hard. One of them was even Hungary.

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).

I've had good results from that strategy too. If the terrain is cooperative I can pick up 3-4 early cities

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.

Really? I never seemed to have that problem. Destroying a barb camp or two, finding a natural wonder, and putting a city near a volcano or floodplains seem to be all the era score I need. Am I bad at civ and supposed to be getting classic golden ages?

 

[Victoria]

Really? I never seemed to have that problem. Destroying a barb camp or two, finding a natural wonder, and putting a city near a volcano or floodplains seem to be all the era score I need. Am I bad at civ and supposed to be getting classic golden ages?

I have played to many games on deity without reloading to say never and I have seen too many polarised statements to take many anecdotal statements at face value. I just said more chance although of course you get +1 for every civ you meet it does not mean you do not get bad starts and by that I mean being swamped with barb and civ attacks so you do not get a chance to get era points. I did not say anything about goldens and would wonder why that is thrown into the conversation but it is a style of response that is not asking for a fair discussion.

 

[Kotofei]

I have played to many games on deity without reloading to say never and I have seen too many polarised statements to take many anecdotal statements at face value. I just said more chance although of course you get +1 for every civ you meet it does not mean you do not get bad starts and by that I mean being swamped with barb and civ attacks so you do not get a chance to get era points. I did not say anything about goldens and would wonder why that is thrown into the conversation but it is a style of response that is not asking for a fair discussion.

I restart the games where I get bum-rushed by barbs. If you can actually play those out, you're better at civ than I am. I hate that about Civ 6. I wish there was a "barbarians don't bum rush you" option. Alongside the "AI doesn't give up the ghost at turn 200" option. That's part of why I crowd the map. Barbs go after the AI instead of me.

 

[Victoria]

I restart the games where I get bum-rushed by barbs. If you can actually play those out, you're better at civ than I am. I hate that about Civ 6. I wish there was a "barbarians don't bum rush you" option. Alongside the "AI doesn't give up the ghost at turn 200" option. That's part of why I crowd the map. Barbs go after the AI instead of me.

That makes sense, thanks for the honesty. I like the game for the mechanics so I have faced many barb rushes on deity, slipped into dark then lost everything to loyalty. It can be brutal but it’s good to understand how.
It taught me that as Kupe you can land on an island with fish next to someone’s capital and just drown them in loyalty.
Tight maps suit aggressive okay with good diplomacy and for that style are far better than open maps but yes, a plain plain start is not a promising one. Sometimes you get lucky though but a lack of military early on a tight map is just asking for it and without early production you have a massive arrow on your head even Canada is tempted by.

 

[Disgustipated]

Well that's interesting because in my current crowded game (on Deity) 3 AI's boxed me in and then were super-friendly and I got alliances with all 3 without even trying that hard. One of them was even Hungary.

Of course it's always easier for the human to play the diplo game playing as the human against ai. Though certainly not on deity. I haven't played a deity game in a while. So my comments aren't based on that. I was mainly referring to AI against AI. And as in my game below, they did wipe each other out, though mostly early on before walls went up.

But this thread did inspire me to play another Greatest Earth map with all civs like the old vanilla days. I had to get a mod to disable loyalty though. I forgot to enable a mod I think fixes the lack of civ jersey colors, I screwed up on that one. So many civs are "invisible". It can be a challenge fighting a war against invisible units, but that somewhat makes up for the lower difficulty level.

I played as the U.S., rough rider Teddy. I figure I won't conquer too much, it would make things too easy. But I did want go get all 50 states. I capped it off by using Beowulf capturing an Aztec city on the Hawai'i homeland and completing all 50 states. Sounds about historically right. Starting this last war around year 1800 actually sparked a military emergency, and a significant regional war. I was already at war with Maori and the Aztecs to conquer Hawai'i, but then Cree and Canada joined in. Attacks from all sides. I also like this map because the AI builds a lot of Navy ships, and Navy is somewhat important on it. So I had a good naval battle in the pacific against several AI's. Only bad thing is Alaska isn't really represented on the map, except by a mountain, so my Alaska is kind of in Siberia. But I wanted a city up there in case there was oil (there was not).

I didn't include Eleanor since loyalty was turned off, and it wouldn't be fair to her, I had Cathy and Vicky instead. And I didn't include multiple leaders from the same civ, so only one Greece, India, etc. I think I ended up around 45 civs, I'm not exactly sure. I didn't keep track. Germany, Greece, and Alexander were taken out early on. Looks like Alexander had no place to settle, and settled on the Arabian peninsula. Babylon was wiped out as well. Looks like either Persians never built a city or I forgot to include them. I also didn't include Sumeria since Babylon was already in the game.

My screenshot, I almost always include a Las Vegas since that's where I'm from. New Mexico was originally an Aztec city, should have razed it, it was a crappy city. Montana was originally a Canadian city. Cahokia was a city state that unfortunately was in my way. Sounds about historically right.

Spoiler :

 

[Vargas1]

I generally find less crowded maps easier, since there is less of a need to rush to get good spots to settle immediately while also building an army to protect yourself. One underrated difficulty with those maps though is that there are more barbs and they tend to keep growing, so you can get 75+ turns into a game and come across a huge group of barbarians just hanging out. Which is kind of fun, but can also be difficult.

 

[Casualty of war]

My favorite way to play, for fun, is Huge, maximum civs, maximum city states so you have to scramble for settlement locations or fight to expand your empire. It is a slightly different game than just dancing around the AI. Easier in some ways, harder in others.

 

[bonfireg]

Crowded maps with extra civs are 'easier' in the sense that human players have an advantage in combat tactics and strategy and winning territory through combat is emphasized in a map with fewer available tiles.

 

[Cedbird77]

I always add 2 Civs to all of my maps. Along with two or three City States. Too really make it interesting. My games are harder. Which was the goal of adding more Civs.

 

[Socrates99]

Entirely dependant on civ and playstyle. Peaceful players might find it tougher since competition for wonders, GPs and religion Wil be stiffer and expansion is competitive. An aggressive rusher will love it. Plenty of cities to eat and they're close enough you won't have loyalty issues. Easiest deity win I ever had was Monty on an overcrowded pangea.