Largest Map possible while playable

[Da_V_Man]

like my civ 3 games big. As big as they can be, with 32 players on a huge map. But I want the map to be a little bit bigger. I know that I once made that map as big as possible and I couldn't settle most of it because of a 512 city limit. Unless there is a way to remove that limit, can anyone recomend as to how big of a map I can get with specific settings (ie. land/water ratio, landmass type, if it matters, tech rate) and without reching the city limit with unsettled land? I am using a public computer so I do not have a lot of time left. Thanks in advance.

 

[T.A JONES]

226x226, 24 civs, 60 ocean, wet percipitation, midclimate

distance between civs= 40

Tech rate= 780

Turns = 740

Best played on Balancer Reloaded, Far Horizons, Medevil mod or Rise n Rule

Note: more then 24 civs great negative pressure on any map size mainly due to congestive demands and disintrest in trade dealings oer time

 

[Red Door]

362x362 is theoretically possible, but I don't recommend that.

 

[Orthanc]

I hit the unit cap (8000-ish, cities would make units, but they don't appear at all, you have to disband or kill other units if you want new ones the next turn) in the last century of a 300x300 map. That was the most epic game I've ever played, don't think you'd need bigger than that.

 

[Mithadan]

Holy guacamole.

 

[WildWeazel]

Huge (160x160) maps with 70% water can approach 512 cities by the modern age. Anything bigger than 200x200- which is more than 50% larger by area than 160X160- is likely to have significant unsettled land. Unless you limit cities to certain terrain types, giga maps like 362x362 can easily hit 512 cities long before national borders even meet.

 

[T.A JONES]

Huge (160x160) maps with 70% water can approach 512 cities by the modern age. Anything bigger than 200x200- which is more than 50% larger by area than 160X160- is likely to have significant unsettled land. Unless you limit cities to certain terrain types, giga maps like 362x362 can easily hit 512 cities long before national borders even meet.

WAit I see what your sayin. If you put up citys intruding everywhere to work all tile like Hall of fame guide says you should, then you have a chance at hittin 500 on as small as default huge, right?

See cuz Heres a 186 x186 map with even more land being set at 60% oceans not 70%. and the world is middle aged(not that much mountains)
This is the Medevil mod so Forests and Flooplains are still ok to build on.
Notice IM spread out pritty good and you can't control AI, they spread out good aswell. My total cities are less then 400 at endgame .

The highest ive played without the city error is same variables, but 220x220 map. This came to 480 cities. Going on this I gave a 226x226 ceilin estimate to the OP

 

[WildWeazel]

I'm playing a huge 70% water map that has almost 450 cities in the early Industrial era (all known land is claimed, except for some gaps in culture where I recently butchered Carthage). The cities in my games may be more densely placed than most because I usually play with all 31 civs, and tend to fill in my territory fairly tight in the later eras. If your 2 quoted city densities are about average (approx. 35 land tiles/city), then yes, 226x226 is a good estimate for max size

 

[T.A JONES]

Yes I can see that they are spaced far better .This means you maximize more efficantly so technicaly are playing better as far as score is concerned. I guess If one is to try their best at total utilization like they should, then you estimate rings more true.

MY idea is taking large sums of land even if not 100% worked. This still deprives the AI from contriving any benifit from them. Later I sometimes fill in the blanks but prefer to expand since this means weakening the enemy while I grow.
Hmm got me thinkin, those two tile enterprises so close to previous radius, They should call em suburbs not citys, NO? What da ya say, CIv5? material?

Also I remember now some AI citys were knocked out durin my end count so this would add 2% or so to my initial estimate.
ANyway Thanks for the screenie. I like seein games taken to the limits. Hope your games going good timewise

 

[Samez]

What machines do you use for that time of "endgame" and what are the turn times? Esp with random games at standard huge size my turn time explodes as soon as the ai can build airports...

 

[WildWeazel]

My computer has a dual-core Athlon64 2.4GHz processor and 2GB RAM. The inter-turn time for that game is just a couple minutes right now, but there are no airports yet.

 

[T.A JONES]

My computer has a dual-core Athlon64 2.4GHz processor and 2GB RAM. The inter-turn time for that game is just a couple minutes right now, but there are no airports yet.

Wow That AThlon sounds like the chipset to get. Didn't they use that for the ultimate mono game rig called the 'FX'? If so you must fly by lategame. I guess your not countin AI battles in the turn equation cuz sometimes I watch battles for 5 minutues when big wars are going on.

Elimating the "please wait' when your staring at nothing is whats awesome to skake. Worth every penny it was. Anyway ya, your running pritty close to my Cedarmill 3.4ghz, 512mb ram, 2mb L2 cache.

Still Im testin the 220x220 right now the results are pleasing with Balancer Reloaded good with Heart of Destiny but ive yet to m ake it to endgame since I bought it (if you know HnD you know why )

Other then that all my times are based on the 3.2 ghz Prescott with only half the L2 cache It was doing under a minute when I took the photo of the map shown. Obviously the MIddle age mod example shown was less crowded and had less means of trading and no railroads..being its all middle ages

 

[WildWeazel]

It turns out it was even faster than I thought... ignoring all the city production popups, that turn took only 95 seconds, including a handful of AI moves. But I miscounted the number of cities when I scanned the Locate City menu- there are around 350, not 450. (which is good, because I can play bigger maps )

 

[T.A JONES]

It turns out it was even faster than I thought... ignoring all the city production popups, that turn took only 95 seconds, including a handful of AI moves. But I miscounted the number of cities when I scanned the Locate City menu- there are around 350, not 450. (which is good, because I can play bigger maps )

Thats funny I did the same thing before I actually keep journals every 100 turns or more of stuff I can't prnt scn (gives an early forcast to see if I'll hit the ceiling)
Somewhere at turn 400 I miss qued so like you ,was major relieved before I started thinkin buyin the better rig was a dumb move
Its hard sometimes counting all the citys from scrach with the "goto city window .Oh well dosn't mean you can't squeeze alot more in there if you tried right?


Ya your turns sound a lil more like what I though it could do. I hear that athlon was the best for the mono process. I never tried cuz of brand loyalty I guess but heres to Cedarmill n' Atlon FX and all other rigs that pass the fast turn test

 

[T.A JONES]

What machines do you use for that time of "endgame" and what are the turn times? Esp with random games at standard huge size my turn time explodes as soon as the ai can build airports...

WHats you Pentium model? Heres how you find out.
in Civ3 once you have 512mb ram the turns go up on this level

1.Northwood (130 nm) L2 512mb 1.7 ghz SLOWEST

2.Prescott (90 nm) L2=1024

3.Prescott 2M" (90 nm) L2= 2048

4.Cedar Mill" (65 nm) L2= 2048 3.6 ghz TOP LEVEL!!
3.0ghz to 3.6ghz


Each codename has ranked models each faster then the previous based on ghz clockspeed..EX My Cedermill is a top tier model but only 2nd fastest civ turn cruncher in a series of 4. The Northwood alone had over 10 levels of civ3 turn perfomace and Prescott over 20 speed levels you could choose from! ( levels are based on assumption ram is above 512mb on all models with each not using a onboard gcard)

THe top tier takes away virtualy all deley on any map that hold the 512 citys without going over.
L2 is what processes the tasks fast without asking virtual memory for help. Yes it above VM! The less going to VM the more time you save. A 2048mb CPU compared to 512mb saves huge time spans durin the span of one turn by never having to put on the breaks you could say.

ANyway IMO Thats why Intel hangs tight with Athlon even when they have IMO slower clocking CPUs then AMD. Highend INtell has crazy amounts of L2 for its time and in many case more then the amd packs in later models

 

[Da_V_Man]

Well, I think I'd either play 70% continents or Archipelago because I'd prefer not knowing everyone before astronomy. Anyways, I just started playing again, and I'm still on my first game. I'm just wondering how big a map I can get without ending up with unsettled land. Also, how can you tell how many cities the world has?

 

[T.A JONES]

THe answers are all in there man..somewhere! lol

OK I'll repeat but its opinionated. If you read I seems we agreed through photo weilding that a 226x226 will set you up largest without hittin the ceiling, thus, preventing empty spots

Since you want 70 as opposed to 60% then you can raise it to 232x232. This is a under estimate so you will be safe.

Check out GOTO CITY in map to count them. Remember its easy to lose count at the end

 

[WildWeazel]

And one other thing... If you do hit the ceiling, you can always reduce the number of foreign cities on the map.

 

[Goldfool]

With hugh maps, if you declare war on someone tha is not adjacent to you, by the time you reach each other the units are obsolete.

Could be a strategy to declare war and then wait for them to get to you years later, kill them all and then negotiate a good deal.

 

[T.A JONES]

With hugh maps, if you declare war on someone tha is not adjacent to you, by the time you reach each other the units are obsolete.

Could be a strategy to declare war and then wait for them to get to you years later, kill them all and then negotiate a good deal.

That depends Goodfool. It depends alot on what the techrate was set at. This is the CnC forum so I presume youve played a mod or two.
THe most common mistake is not uppin the tech rate to match a increase in the map size

THe deafult for 'huge' is 400. I play on atleast 650-700 when I go 186x186.
I bet a 800 or so tech rate would be nice fit for a 'no city error' max size of 226x226.

BIg maps mean bigger econmy thus faster turnover. The mod Balancer Reload increased the "COST"of its techs and the techrate
It has 1000 units and many great upgrades lines. For instance with tanks, say early tank-light-mid-heavy-postmodern-hovertank. Why go to work fillin out all those distinct pedia entrys and cultural distinctions set with smooth graphics if you not given the player a chance to play with all these new toys

ANother crucial tip. Rival tech advancement comes early on huge maps and can discourage. THe key to solving this (making it more real ,therfore fun, by steadying the flow) is by making the civs a lil bit more spread-out at the start. This has two positve effects :

1.Makes the amount of early trade encounters more rare.

2. Later down the line You will have better compitition and even sized nations in relation to eachother will fill your world. Wait n see! THis Results cuz They had a chance to establish themselves before early war switched them to military production so have built up a nice econmy to keep pace with the tech race down the road where the majority would have started to slow down. (giving you an edge by ringing in mega gold by obsolete tech sales, RIght )

With this change there won't be such a gap between world powers. Since most form to be even sized before the 1st wars break out, if they conquer another its usually by using allience., meaning more then one civ will benifit. Whats best is Some great battles will ensue and more real action(IMO) will result from you havin to be careful with more of you neighbours.

THe default distance between is 24. On a map over 180x180 continent I suggest 35-40 is ideal