Map size scaling

[tu_79]

ElliotS is proposing a reversal in map size scaling for influence bonuses.

A quick search gives me this.

They're in <CiV Directory> \Assets\Gameplay\XML\GameInfo\CIV5Worlds.xml:

Duel:      40 x 25  (2 players, 4 city-states, 2 natural wonders)
Tiny:      56 x 36  (4 players, 8 city-states, 3 natural wonders)
Small:     66 x 42  (6 players, 12 city-states, 3 natural wonders)
Standard:  80 x 52  (8 players, 16 city-states, 4 natural wonders)
Large:    104 x 64  (10 players, 20 city-states, 6 natural wonders)
Huge:     128 x 80  (12 players, 24 city-states, 7 natural wonders)

There's other info in that xml file, but those were the things that I personally thought would be useful to pull out for mapping. Also, note that some of the map scripts appear to redefine those sizes, these are just the basic default sizes.

This includes water tiles, which may change in game setup. So I think it's better to translate it into variations.
Map; Tiles; Players
Duel; 1000 - 24%; 2 - 25%
Tiny; 2016 - 48%; 4 - 50%
Small; 2772 - 67%; 6 - 75%
Standard; 4160 - 100%; 8 - 100%
Large; 6656 - 160%; 10 - 125%
Huge; 10240 - 246%; 12 - 150%

With standard maps, there is a big density difference in large and huge, while it's almost equal for the other sizes. Large should be played with 12 players and Huge with 18 to keep density ratio.

But I've not taken city states into account. Let's consider that a city typically occupies 25 land tiles. Let's set water tiles at 50% (it is too low, I know). City states don't expand.

Size; Land tiles; Area for each player; Cities that can be settled peacefully
Duel; 400 - 24%; 200 - 95%; 8
Tiny; 808 - 48%; 202 - 96%; 8
Small; 1086 - 65%; 181 - 86%; 7
Standard; 1680 - 100%; 210 - 100%; 8
Large; 2825 - 168%; 282 - 134%; 11
Huge; 4520 - 269%; 376 - 179%; 15

As we can see, Large and Huge maps play very differently, while the others have a similar density.
Other thing to consider is that most civs expand a little by mid game, taking 25-40% of the map, meaning that in a standard map a successful civ may have 16-25 cities, while only 8-13 in tiny and up to 45-70 in huge.

Hope this helps to set map size scalers properly.

 

[ElliotS]

This is good information. I think that a flat 6% and maybe 7% and 8% on large and huge makes more sense than what we have now. As it is on huge not only is progress and authority buffed by having more room for more cities, but the costs per city are lower. As long as cities don't start hurting you like on 10-7 the increased scaler to slow the snowball makes tall vs wide a bit more balanced.

I think the truely ideal solution would be a scaler that changes with the number of cities you have or era, but I don't think that's possible.

 

[tu_79]

This is good information. I think that a flat 6% and maybe 7% and 8% on large and huge makes more sense than what we have now. As it is on huge not only is progress and authority buffed by having more room for more cities, but the costs per city are lower. As long as cities don't start hurting you like on 10-7 the increased scaler to slow the snowball makes tall vs wide a bit more balanced.

I think the truely ideal solution would be a scaler that changes with the number of cities you have or era, but I don't think that's possible.

I don't think that a flat 6% is good. Unless you play very peacefully, most games end up with two or three civs conquered.

 

[Owlbebach]

This is good information. I think that a flat 6% and maybe 7% and 8% on large and huge makes more sense than what we have now. As it is on huge not only is progress and authority buffed by having more room for more cities, but the costs per city are lower. As long as cities don't start hurting you like on 10-7 the increased scaler to slow the snowball makes tall vs wide a bit more balanced.

I think the truely ideal solution would be a scaler that changes with the number of cities you have or era, but I don't think that's possible.

Actually i don't get why do you want scaling to be flat. Why would it be better?

 

[ElliotS]

Actually i don't get why do you want scaling to be flat. Why would it be better?

Why flat for the smaller sizes makes sense: It literally hurts you to take cities in duel and tiny. Small is only sometimes worth it, but very often not.

Why a reversed curve makes sense: Meanwhile in Large/Huge not only can you settle/take more cities, but each city costs less. That's two buffs to wide strategies. If you could settle/take more cities but each costed more, then that's a buff and nerf to wide strategies which would balance tall vs wide among map sizes.

Alternative Why flat makes sense argument: The whole point of the % scaler is to offset the benefits of having more cities, keeping tall viable. Your huge-map cities don't produce 1/2 what they produce in standard, so they shouldn't increase cost by 1/2 of standard's price.

The only argument for the decreased scalers I've seen is a parroted and baseless "More cities so lower scaler" argument. That argument makes no sense when you think about it, as the whole point of the scaler is to balance having more cities to maintain balance for tall players. Find me a real argument for this and I'll consider it.

 

[ashendashin]

This doesn't make any sense...More space = more cities . I like increasing the map size so all 22 civs have space to suit their needs. Tall definitely still has its place, you just need to consider what tall really is. Centralized power. A smaller penalty is even more important for tall civs on huge because at some point they might start warring due to a potential threat or simply being in a good position for it. With all the extra land and civs a tall civ would very quickly get crippled with a higher penalty compared to smaller maps. Sure wide gets to have a lot more land, but if you really want to nerf that for larger maps then don't start off on scalers in this manner.

 

[Gazebo]

Why flat for the smaller sizes makes sense: It literally hurts you to take cities in duel and tiny. Small is only sometimes worth it, but very often not.

Why a reversed curve makes sense: Meanwhile in Large/Huge not only can you settle/take more cities, but each city costs less. That's two buffs to wide strategies. If you could settle/take more cities but each costed more, then that's a buff and nerf to wide strategies which would balance tall vs wide among map sizes.

Alternative Why flat makes sense argument: The whole point of the % scaler is to offset the benefits of having more cities, keeping tall viable. Your huge-map cities don't produce 1/2 what they produce in standard, so they shouldn't increase cost by 1/2 of standard's price.

The only argument for the decreased scalers I've seen is a parroted and baseless "More cities so lower scaler" argument. That argument makes no sense when you think about it, as the whole point of the scaler is to balance having more cities to maintain balance for tall players. Find me a real argument for this and I'll consider it.

Taking cities on smaller maps is way more swingy. It needs to hurt the conqueror more, otherwise conquest snowballs too much.

G

 

[Txurce]

Gazebo, does the chart that tu_79 posted help you envision some change in this area?

I always liked the idea of playing on larger maps, but quit because of the imbalance with Tradition. No real problem here -- I accepted that balancing off standard made the most sense in what is already a ugely complex balancing situation. But it would be great if a simple adjustment made enough sense to implement.

 

[ashendashin]

I always liked the idea of playing on larger maps, but quit because of the imbalance with Tradition. No real problem here -- I accepted that balancing off standard made the most sense in what is already a ugely complex balancing situation. But it would be great if a simple adjustment made enough sense to implement.

Imbalance. I'm not sure if that's right. Have you considered that Tradition remains a good kickstarter for wonders, GP, and golden ages? All of those things help more than just your capital. Pick the right civ or find yourself in certain starts and you should have no issues with Tradition on huge.

 

[Gazebo]

Imbalance. I'm not sure if that's right. Have you considered that Tradition remains a good kickstarter for wonders, GP, and golden ages? All of those things help more than just your capital. Pick the right civ or find yourself in certain starts and you should have no issues with Tradition on huge.

Yeah, I don’t really see the issue unless you are trying to OCC on huge. Small/tall is relative to map size.

G

 

[ElliotS]

Taking cities on smaller maps is way more swingy. It needs to hurt the conqueror more, otherwise conquest snowballs too much.

G

Let's look at this on each map. Duel: Authority-favored and near impossible to balance for. I don't really care for discussing this.
Tiny: This is very close to duel, and both of these maps are almost 100% unused by the community.
Small: This map sees some play by people, so we'll discuss this.
Taking a city is more swingy: Sure, because you only need to conquer 6 people versus the normal 8. However this isn't the right way to handle it IMO because it hurts progress too. Much like wonders are easier to get with less competition, I think you just need to accept that warmongers complete a higher % of their VC whenever they take a city. I don't play this map-size, but I'd bet that progress is fairly bad in it. (Given that both Tradition and Authority are buffed.)

This doesn't make any sense...More space = more cities . I like increasing the map size so all 22 civs have space to suit their needs. Tall definitely still has its place, you just need to consider what tall really is. Centralized power. A smaller penalty is even more important for tall civs on huge because at some point they might start warring due to a potential threat or simply being in a good position for it. With all the extra land and civs a tall civ would very quickly get crippled with a higher penalty compared to smaller maps. Sure wide gets to have a lot more land, but if you really want to nerf that for larger maps then don't start off on scalers in this manner.

Let's discuss this point by point.
1- More space for more cities is better for Progress/Authority. I don't know how you can disagree with this, but tell me if you do.
2- A lower per-city penalty benefits Progress/Authority more than Tradition.
Even if you argue that Tradition benefits from a lower per-city penalty, I'm 100% sure that they benefit LESS than Progress and Authority. The whole reason the % costs were added was to combat ICS. (Infinite City Spam)

Acting like a mechanic designed to help tall compete with wide being reduced/removed would help tall MORE than wide is ridiculous and factually incorrect.

If you can't disagree with points 1 and 2, then explain to me how two relative buffs to progress/authority purely based on map-size aren't an issue.

Furthermore Tall can still take puppets in the situation you described, and puppets are better for tall than wide. (Tall has more happiness to spare, and a lower % increased cost making the puppet's flat yields worth more.)

 

[DarkZero]

Agreed whit everything ElliotS said, while someone always comes up whit that old argument of "I beat deity whit 10 cities tradition", its undeniable that the more cities you have the worst tradition gets and the better progress and authority get, progress being the winner if your peaceful, authority if you're a warmonger, and if you compare a 10 cities tradition to a 10 cities progress you will see by score alone how ahead the progress civ would be, while I played pretty much on all difficulties and maps map size is a setting I never really experimented whit, but it is undeniable that despite the fact that bigger maps have more civs and city states it also has much more land to settle than the standard and in the end you end up whit much more cities.

 

[ashendashin]

Let's discuss this point by point.
1- More space for more cities is better for Progress/Authority. I don't know how you can disagree with this, but tell me if you do.
2- A lower per-city penalty benefits Progress/Authority more than Tradition.
Even if you argue that Tradition benefits from a lower per-city penalty, I'm 100% sure that they benefit LESS than Progress and Authority. The whole reason the % costs were added was to combat ICS. (Infinite City Spam)

Acting like a mechanic designed to help tall compete with wide being reduced/removed would help tall MORE than wide is ridiculous and factually incorrect.

If you can't disagree with points 1 and 2, then explain to me how two relative buffs to progress/authority purely based on map-size aren't an issue.

Furthermore Tall can still take puppets in the situation you described, and puppets are better for tall than wide. (Tall has more happiness to spare, and a lower % increased cost making the puppet's flat yields worth more.)

With all the extra land and civs a tall civ would very quickly get crippled with a higher penalty compared to smaller maps. Sure wide gets to have a lot more land, but if you really want to nerf that for larger maps then don't start off on scalers in this manner.

Look, I get that you're saying that tall doesn't get as much benefit on larger maps. It's kinda true, but it isn't so imbalanced to justify switching the scale. I've seen the AI do tall perfectly fine and I've done the same. Wide is generally more reliable and is the stronger option of the two, sure. If you want something to counteract that, please don't go for the scaling. The important part is that increased scaling would make tall even harder on huge when balancing against wide, since the land's still gonna be there for those that can support it.

 

[Txurce]

Look, I get that you're trying to say that tall doesn't get as much benefit on larger maps. It's kinda true, but it isn't so imbalanced to justify upending the scale. I've seen the AI do tall perfectly fine and I've done the same. Wide is generally more reliable and is the stronger option of the two, sure. If you want something to counteract that, please don't go for the scaling. The important part is that increased scaling would make tall even harder on huge when balancing against wide, since the land's still gonna be there for those that can support it.

Whether ElliotS's proposal is the way to address may be debatable, but the underlying problem isn't... which is what I pointed out above. That there are occasional, situational exceptions to subpar tall Tradition play on larger maps doesn't make the imbalance less problematic from a conceptual perspective. Why not try to find a way to smooth it out?

 

[ashendashin]

Whether ElliotS's proposal is the way to address may be debatable, but the underlying problem isn't... which is what I pointed out above. That there are occasional, situational exceptions to subpar tall Tradition play on larger maps doesn't make the imbalance less problematic from a conceptual perspective. Why not try to find a way to smooth it out?

Well yeah that's fine. I'm saying saying that it isn't so bad in practice and the thing discussed so far is a bad way to go about addressing tall vs wide when both still work. Maybe give a backwards trade(direct economic?)/espionage bonus or something like that related to city count. You know, neutral Switzerland style.

 

[ElliotS]

The important part is that increased scaling would make tall even harder on huge when balancing against wide, since the land's still gonna be there for those that can support it.

Increased scaling would hurt tall a tiny bit, but wide a lot more. A civ with 5 cities will see a 20% increase in costs going from 4 to 8, and a civ with 20 cities will see a 100% increase. That's 100% undeniably a buff to tall.

I simply don't understand how you can think that this proposal isn't a buff to tall on large/huge. It's 100% undeniably a buff to them, because large/huge bring them out of line with standard.

 

[ashendashin]

Increased scaling would hurt tall a tiny bit, but wide a lot more. A civ with 5 cities will see a 20% increase in costs going from 4 to 8, and a civ with 20 cities will see a 100% increase. That's 100% undeniably a buff to tall.

I simply don't understand how you can think that this proposal isn't a buff to tall on large/huge. It's 100% undeniably a buff to them, because large/huge bring them out of line with standard.

It isn't fun for one thing. I have no issue with the current scaling. There's better ways to go about it and I enjoy being free to do as I like either tall or wide. Also Deity AI would continue to eat up land regardless and taking their cities would be a pain.

Edit:
Remember that VP has plenty of options open to the player. Limiting expansion on huge is counteractive to that. Since, you know, everything's friggin bigger.

 

[CrazyG]

It isn't fun for one thing. I have no issue with the current scaling. There's better ways to go about it and I enjoy being free to do as I like either tall or wide. Also Deity AI would continue to eat up land regardless and taking their cities would be a pain.

Edit:
Remember that VP has plenty of options open to the player. Limiting expansion on huge is counteractive to that. Since, you know, everything's friggin bigger.

This kind of a false dichotomy though. I don't think ElliotS is saying that tradition is totally nonviable on huge or large maps, only that its weak compared to progress/authority. If the trees are well balanced at 8%, wouldn't they be less balanced at another %? When the % was 13 on standard maps I felt that tradition really beat the other two. Its an interesting question. If 8% (or whatever %) is the most appropriate value for an 8 player game, does this change for a 6 or 10 player game?

One thing I'll point out is that currently on huge you should be reaching ideologies much faster than one standard. With the same number of cities you outright earn policies faster, and you have the option to pursue even more culture positive cities. Science should be faster as well

 

[doublex55]

This is an even bigger reason why the scaler should be the same.

 

[tu_79]

I've been dreaming about this thread!

My pillow says this: We can't balance across maps with only one penalty per city. There are three main strategies. Tradition tall is the same in every map, though in smaller maps, with fewer civs, there's a higher chance for wonders. Progress benefits mostly from the free room for settling. If the space is enough, Progress can stay or expand. Aggresive Authority doesn't care about free space for settling, but looks at the projected empire size, since it can cut through early neighbours.

So there are two steps. Considering that standard size is balanced, and that we want to scale all maps to behave similarly, we need to scale Progress first, with the penalty per city if that's what we have. In this case, ElliotS proposal will work well. Same penalty from duel to standard, higher (??) for bigger maps (the exact number needs more theory crafting). Then, in order to balance for aggressive expansion, we need to look at the penalties for puppets, and more importantly, courthouses. I'm still not certain if aggressive civs are stronger in bigger maps (more cities, more strength, more units, but longer distances, more cities to conquer, more unhappiness to endure), but in any case I think it can be properly scaled with puppet penalties and scaling courthouses.

Brief.
1 Scale penalty per city based on the free area per player.
2 Scale penalty per puppet and courthouses based on map area.

(*) I don't know if it's easier to scale courthouses or owned cities settled by other civs.