Map size makes too big a difference of difficulty of winning?

I've noticed that most victories are FAR easier on a small to duel map than any other size. With 2 opponent civs, you can get a conquest or a domination victory without even trying and if you take out just one other civ early one you will have enough of an advantage to get the space race with no problems.

Playing on larger maps, other civs invading each other and getting more powerful and just the sheer amount of people and land you need for a domination victory seems to make the game far harder to win, especially if you are planning to win early. I find military games on a big map almost unplayable - vast armies taking hours to move around and build trying to take out 3 or 4 civs to try to get enough land for domination.

It seems odd that the map size you choose makes such a big difference to winning. Before you can feel you can handle a certain difficulty, how big a map should you be able to win on? On Noble/Prince, I find anything small or below a fairly easy win if I start well, but bigger maps are just a pain...

 

Depends on your style once again. I find large maps easy on noble (doable on prince), while small maps on noble or prince get me into problems ...

 

I don't see it affecting the difficulty so much as simple time factor. Personally, I love to play large/huge maps with tons of turns. I actually had my best game on a large Terra map.

If you care about end game score, maybe smaller maps are the way to go. But my preference is actually playing, and when you play on marathon (or realistic, with the mod I'm running now) you get to play for a looong time

 

Map size almost determines what era you will win. The smaller the map the earlier the victory. Smaller maps also tend to promote the warmoger victories, however you can get late game warmonger victories on the bigger maps.

My first conquest was on a prince large continents map (as Mansa). My first domination victory was a monarch large archiplego map (as Washington). The score wasn't as high as I would have liked due to the late game victory, but they were very satisfying. I do not think I will have a civ with 85 cities ever again!

 

Playing as monty on a large (i think) map, and after taking out a couple of civs, with large armies of infantry and artillery, I still only have 45% of the pop and the land mass, and the only place left to conquer is the massive indian empire which has been able to develop while I was at war to having tanks and SAM etc, or some half dead civs who have fled to little islands in the middle of nowhere. The cities I just took from the greeks flipped to indian about 10 turns after taking them, which lost me even more of the pop and I dont think my military is strong enough to take enough of india - though I have about 10,000g and the kremlin, so I should really just rush out some tanks or something.

Dunno, just getting frustrated having so many troops all over the place, its all a bit messy. Think I prefer smaller maps at the moment.

 

Well basically map size needs to be connected to game speed, Because the Primary thing game speed effects is how fast your units move. (marathon speed your units Effectively move faster, Quick speed they move slower)

Map size means more unit movement is needed (at least for a military win)

So
Bigger map or Faster Game speed=harder/slower military win
Smaller map or Slower game speed=easier/faster military win
[faster/slower interms of years rather than game turns]

So for Balance
Tiny Map=Quick Speed
Huge Map= Marathon Speed

 

I hadn't thought of it like that, maybe in my next game above standard map size I will move the speed down. Always just played on normal so far, so many options that I don't like messing with too many of them, but that makes sense.

 

large map - epic is a great combo. build or war, whichever way you want to go.

 

Personally, I think even marathon is too slow
I like the mods that make the turn counts go up, up, and up. As was mentioned, it really does make a huge difference in moving troops. On a large Terra as the Great Kahn I was able to achieve conquest victory by 1556, not early for sure, but definately not altogether late imho.

 

Another vote for large maps here. I don't really care so much about final score; large maps are just more interesting to me. Small maps allow you to smash through your relatively few opponents by blunt force; larger maps require much more consideration so you don't get left behind by the many other civs in doing so. I just find them much more interesting, personally (Besides, how can you get any variety in your troops playing on those tiny maps? Booring ).

I'd be inclined to agree that earlier (and higher-scoring) wins are probably easier on smaller maps, but for the flavor of the game, I much prefer large or better maps. I currently typically play large/epic, as emills recommends, and really enjoy it (and will likely get back to huge maps once I get better adjusted to 4). It just seems more rewarding to get some varied troops and cities to work with, IMO. Maybe I just miss my micromanagement ...

 

I agree with the huge map thing. But I can see the frustration. I just finished a huge map/low sea level/Epic game today. But it really limited my winning options as I had not focused on culture early enough and there was just far too many civs and cities to think about conquering them all. Still good fun. But If I try for a military victory I may try pushing map size down to large at least.