Map size and difficulty

[JoeBlade]

Inpired by this thread over in the Warlords forum, I wanted to ask about your feelings concerning map size vs. difficulty.

Since I've purchased my new PC I've finally been able to play large and huge maps at reasonable speeds but find them a whole heap harder than the standard or smaller-sized ones. Here are a few of the main differences I've encountered:

Resource scarcity: resources seem somewhat more dispersed, making for less of those juicy 4+ resource sites. However, that is not the crux of the problem. I often find myself in a corner of a map with only about 5-6 types of resources (all flavours combined), leaving me struggling with unhappiness, unhealthiness or both for quite some time.
Wonder races: world wonders seem so much harder with more civs in place, which makes sense when you think about it. There's an increased chance that several civs will be gunning for the same wonder and more of them will have access to strategic resources or have the industrious trait.
All in all any wonder seems a big gamble even on large maps, let alone huge.
Religious blocks: with the same amount of religions available to more civilisations, there's an increased chance of several sharing the same religion. This, in turn, makes them more willing to trade techs and assist one-another against common enemies (in casu, me)
Additionally, founding my own religions seems virtually impossible on larger maps for the same reason as world wonders: too many competitors.
Upkeep scaling: this could very well be misinterpretation on my behalf but it feels as though city upkeep doesn't scale all too well with map size. On a large map I only seem to be able to found one, maybe two additional cities before I crash head-first into the maintenance cost wall. Cranking out settlers at high rate and settling to and fro doesn't appear to be a viable option, in other words.
Warmongering: playing Epic solely the "outdated upon arrival" syndrome isn't much of an issue for me on larger maps. Early wars however, are.
The closest capital is typically about 20 tiles away on a large map and with such a distance being able to reach enemy cities before decent defenses are in place (walls, culture, upgraded units) is quite the challenge indeed. At the same time copper is frequently not within easy reach either.
Moreover, even when my axeman army does reach enemy borders in a timely fashion I'm usually unable to keep few, if any, of the cities I conquer due to maintenance cost.
Finally, wiping an entire empire off the map is a hassle. Those AI's always seem to find an empty spot to crawl into and found an additional city just as I'm about to eliminate them. Essentially, I very rarely manage to conquer a competing empire in one swift stroke as I would on a standard map. Consequently I tend to have on-and-off wars, racking up quite a few "you declared war on our friend" relation modifiers in the process (mainly due to religious blocks mentioned above)
Vassal states: this one's a kicker since Warlords. When I finally start to get ahead and become strong enough to quickly eradicate an opponent most of them will have researched or traded for Feudalism and, again, are often buddy-buddy with at least two other civs. Thus when I'm about to put my target out of its misery I'm suddenly pitted against a vassal AND their newfound master, usually with less-than-pleasant results.

In short: my old strategies don't work very well anymore and I'm being trampled far more frequently than on smaller maps at the same difficulty level.

What are your experiences? Do you find larger maps more difficult as well? Any advice on overcoming the issues I've outlined above?

 

[Landstander]

I agree about the competitive disadvantage that comes from too many opponents (regardless of map size). If I'm feeling cheap, I will select all opponents without the Spiritual (or Industrious) trait to give myself an edge.

As for resource allocation - I am becoming increasingly convinced that it is a thoroughly random component of the game - as perhaps it should be.

 

[Proteus]

Don´t forget the barbarians.

In large/huge maps they are much more of a problem than on smaller maps (and remain so for a longer time) unless, of course, you were successful in building the GW

 

[weasel77066]

Dont forget the cash inflation. Everytime you go for a wonder (as wel as everyone else) and don't get it, you get that gold reimbursement instead. So everytime anyone gets a wonder, four or five or ALL of the civs get cash, sometimes gobs and gobs of it, if it is a close wonder race. So if you shop around your tech its possible to claim all that money for research upgrades hurrying production etc.. I think the human has advantage over AI in handling cash, so this turns into a big advantage if you can play it well, and the AI doesnt seem to be bashfull about handing over money for tech, or even tech and money for tech. Just have to decide if its worth giving up the tech across the board.

 

[JoeBlade]

As for resource allocation - I am becoming increasingly convinced that it is a thoroughly random component of the game - as perhaps it should be.

Oh, you're no doubt right on that point.
Like I said, the main problem is not the amount of resources but the variety of their types. Keep in mind that many resources are region-bound; e.g. Gems will only show up in or near jungle. The larger the map, the larger those regions become, the more cities it takes to cover different regions and connect more types of resources.
Incidentally, this is another added difficulty for larger maps IMO. On a standard map starting near tundra is not gamebreaking as one can typically bridge the gap to a nearby arid region with one or two cities. On larger maps this becomes more difficult however, as it'll either take several less efficient cities or more spacing between them to reach another region. In either case maintenance will quickly become an issue.

And I definitely concur with the inflation and barbarian points brought up by Proteus and weasel, although barbarians are seen as an advantage by some players (= easy, early promotions)
Since Warlords the barbs seem even more on edge than in patch 1.61 however so I'd rather leave the fellas as few opportunities to pop up as possible

 

[Corporal Kindel]

Inpired by this thread over in the Warlords forum, I wanted to ask about your feelings concerning map size vs. difficulty.

Since I've purchased my new PC I've finally been able to play large and huge maps at reasonable speeds but find them a whole heap harder than the standard or smaller-sized ones. Here are a few of the main differences I've encountered:

I've always played with Huge maps, though I recently switched from Huge-Medium sea-level to Huge-Low sea-level. I didn't notice much of a difference between the two sea-level types. Maybe there are more opponents? don't know, seems like there's always around 11 opponents. It seems like the land masses were roughly the same amount to me between the two types, but I don't know if there is some way to account the number of land tiles between each of the two game types, maybe there's some way to do this?

I have noticed that it's tough to build many wonders, usually I'm doing good if I can two of the early 4 wonders. I kind of got used to the barbarians now, and noticed that they can actually be beneficial. Several games I've captured barbarian cities with AI' city names, so the barbarians had done their job hindering my opponents. Several of these games I've had a very easy expansion with more room than I could possibly expand into (because of city maintenance costs, etc). land of which I would definitely be taking if I could figure out someway around the costs .. the thing I've been doing is trying to kick out the courthouses & money generators (religions, markets, banks, etc ...). But, it's been my experience that building enough of these buildings takes quite a bit of time, even with chopping & whipping, and I never seem to be able to break the 4 to 5 city margin until mid game somewhere. Games that I've had 12 cities in them are usually quite expansive for me, typically I'm just at the 9 city mark for culture winning.

But yeah, barbarians can be tough, but they're definitely doing their job against the AI's, so I don't feel quite as bad about barbarians as I first did.

I haven't played on the smaller maps, I've always felt it was probably too easy to win against just two or three AIs. My starting philosophy was: I'd rather start at Huge maps on Noble and work up from there.

 

[cabert]

and I never seem to be able to break the 4 to 5 city margin until mid game somewhere. Games that I've had 12 cities in them are usually quite expansive for me, typically I'm just at the 9 city mark for culture winning.

Try the pointy stick funding
Attacking a neighbour can be a good source of gold (and razing cities brings just as much as capturing, only with less maintenance).
You're running a deficit?
who cares?
Just keep attacking, and you're fine.

By the way, if you're new cities can work some cottages, they'll pay for themselves.

 

[Tyrant Roger]

Even small map choices can have large effects. I play standard size maps - usually continents or pangea. Recently I played standard lakes and saw a major difference in game play. On Lakes the AI's were much further away than on continents or pangea. This made early wars slower and more difficult. For related reasons, the barbs were more active because there was more fog space between the civs. For these reasons, I think lakes standard is noticably harder than continents standard or pangea standard.