Is it just me or are the default settings really "sparse"?

I feel like if you play say continents with the standard settings for opponents (8/16) the world is way underpopulated.

And I feel like large at 10/20 is just ridiculous. Am I the only one, or do other people also feel this way? Maybe you have more realistic empty spaces, but it also seems like you get to 8 or 9 cities before you run out of land.

I guess I like a more crowded map.

Anyway I would be interested in people's thoughts on this issue.

 

My experience hasn't been the same - in fact I think there are way too many city states and on continents I tend to find them crammed in in groups of 3 or 4 all together! To be honest, although I love IV, the one thing I really disliked about it was the relentless land grab, especially on higher levels. It's one of the reasons why I generally play OCC games in IV So I am welcoming the fact that there is a little more space to play with in V.

But of course you can always add in more civs or city states in the advanced set up screen to get a more crowded map if that's how you like to play?

 

I just tried a game on a Large map, with no city states and 22 civilizations and I thought the spacing came out perfectly. Everyone had room for about 4 or 5 decent cities before they started to touch shoulders so to speak.
I'm going to try the same thing when I get Polynesia with 23 civilizations, but I might go Huge for that game.

 

I've found I enjoy the game a little better without the city states too. They are always in the worst places (read 'spot i want to put my city').

 

there is a solution to a city being where you want to put one.

 

Will it allow another civ? Last I knew the max was 22. One for Babylon, one for Spain, and one for Inca, and now one for Polynesia (+18 normal) = 22
Edit: Nevermind, forgot the Mongols

 

I don't get that sense at all

From what I can see it looks like they went to great pains to balance the map size to number of civs and cs so that you always have about the same amount of empty space to expand into

 

I agree with the OP, I like to add a few extra Civs. I generally leave the default number of city states though.

 

I tend to add +1 Civ / +2 City States to small or standard maps. Maybe even +2 Civs if I'm feeling frisky.

With the new patch, though, I think the city spacing takes care of this. In the first game I loaded my capital was founded in the middle of a9 tile high landmass -- I couldn't put another city along the same river at the coast because it was too close.