Number of civs in your game

[King Useless]

I was wondering how many civs you like to have in a game. Right now I'm playing a game on huge map and I have 13 opponents (12 after I wipe out the Chinese).

 

[Strider]

16.... Much Funner when you have a huge number of Civs... I would play with 24, but that severly over-balance's the game.

 

[Ankka]

I'd play with 16 and Huge map, but my computer is too slow for that, the loading times are ridiculously long.

 

[DS_Legionary]

I'd play 16 on a hge map, but my comps a bit to slow (I hate waiting 5 mins for my turn) So i play 12 civs on Large maps. Still very fun.

 

[Mano3]

I play against a random 7 civs. Only reason being that I like seeing everyone on the Foriegn Advisor screen at once. Playing with lots of civs is more fun, but diplomacy can be tiring...

 

[King Useless]

For some reason I thought people would be playing with fewer civs. I'm still pretty new to Civ3 and I thought 13 might be too much before I started the game, but it's fun with a lot of opponents. I'll try even more in the next game.

 

[farting bob]

i play 31 civs on a tiny map, usign the ditor to add civs. its really funny, cassue on the second tun, there is no gaps in culture, so it is basically luck if you get a good starting place, you build 3 or 4 units, kill a few civs, then you suddenly become 3 times bigger than anyone else, which basically means you can control the game because you can build so much more than the AI can and take over huge amounts of civs in a very short time. although if that first war goes wrong, then it is a real challenge to stop the dominate 1 or 2 civs.
however, normal games i play are often large map, 10 civs. nice balance between empire building and close quarters early war.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I play on standard maps with the standard number.

 

[superslug]

I play huge pangaea's with either 8 or 16.

 

[Krayzeenbk]

Small, 6 civs.

 

[Alone]

Originally posted by Krayzeenbk
Small, 6 civs.

Same as me.

 

[slothman]

I usually play huge with 8 but if I played 16 on huge would war be inevitable? I don't like war but don't mind if others fight each other.

 

[100games100days]

I usually play standard map with 6 AI

 

[cracker]

When you manipulate the number of civs on a map you should make sure that you are basically aware of how this will effect the game.

On any given map size, the technology research pace has been balanced by some setting for that map size. You can see these settings under the "World Sizes" control tab in your editor.

The number of civs and the tech rate for the map size are balanced by some testing that Firaxis did in the game development.

If you leave all the standard settings alone and just select a 60% water map you will end up with 37% land area for the available civs and if you select 80% water your will end up with 17% land area for the same number of civilizations. The rate of contact and conflict will be faster for the map with less land area but the rate of technology development and the overall speed of the game will be faster for the larger land area.

If you artificially reduce the number of civs on the map (so, for example you only have 2 opponents instead of 5 or 7 or whatever is normal) then you might unwittingly slow down the game and make it harder to accomplish certain early objectives quickly. Many new players make the mistake of reducing the number of opponents in an attempt to make the game easier only to find that it lags and drags plus is very difficult to get up to speed with some of the more exciting game results they have seen reported.

If you artificially increase the number of civs above the expected number for that map size and design tech rate, then you will speed up the technology progression and also increase the rate of contact and conflict.

There is a relationship between the available land tiles per civilization in the game and how well the AI opponents have a chance to succeed in playing you like something other than Jello brand pudding. The AI does not have the ability to assess big picture map characteristics so when you unbalance the number of civs with the land tile ratios, OCN, and tech rate numbers then you can get games where you have essentially turned off the ability that the AI may have to play a semi-functional game on the difficulty level that you have chosen.

 

[Silica_Pathways]

31 civs

 

[Ville]

I usually play on Standard map so 8 civs

 

[Tatran]

I prefer a huge map + 8 civs.
Every civ has enough space to build up
his/her empire.More than 8 civs slows
down the game.I hate to wait between
5 and 10 minutes for the next turn.

 

[YNCS]

Huge, 12-16 random.

 

[vbraun]

Tiny, 3 random.

 

[Superevie]

It depends on what level I'm on and how I'm learning. If I'm trying to learn the game, too many AIs is intimadating and annoying. I like have about 6 civs on a standard, me being the 7th.