Number of opponents?

[Gazaridis]

I think the minimum number of civs should be raised to the default. The reason for this is because having fewer than the default makes the AI much more pacifist and renders it effectively a no-war game. The AI aims for however many cities it can cope with while keeping its economy ticking over, and if there are too few opponents then every AI has easily enough space to expand peacefully (as long as they're not boxed up) so war is taken out. This would make a much bigger (and a better) difference than forcing barbarians on.

 

[Chris105]

For my two cents, I will say I have no opinion about the minimum, but there shouldn’t be a maximum if you also decide to require barbarians to be on. On a large or huge maps, the overwhelming amount of grey space when there aren’t enough AIs makes it impossible to use any strategy but military conquest on higher levels since you will be dealing with a lot of barbarians every single turn.

 

[Orca]

AIs settle very fast on higher levels so with standard amount of AI players it doesnt take too long until all good places are taken.

 

[Smirk]

Why do people continually restate what reducing the number does in game? Don't you realize that the people reducing the number know exactly what its doing? Of course they do, thats why they are doing it.

So now that we all know what opponents does in a game, post some good reasons why that is a bad thing. Why is it that a war monger can choose to quickly end a game and ignore almost the entire builder aspects of the game, but if a builder choose to ignore the war aspects of the game it needs to be fixed?

 

[superslug]

Why do people continually restate what reducing the number does in game?

Smirk, have you been paying any attention to the join dates of posters lately? There's a lot of welcome newcomers to our family, who don't yet have the experience of those of us who have been around a while.

 

[Shillen]

Sorry, but if you require more civs on a map then warmongers won't be able to ignore technology on the higher difficulties. They won't be able to conquer the world as quickly. Playing with fewer civs makes the game more predictable and trivial. It makes both war and technology victories into a short sequence of steps that you know will work before you've even done them, because the game isn't going to throw any surprise at you ever. It makes the game not fun. I don't know about you, but I play for fun.

 

[Svar]

The number of AI opponents sets the domination limit regardless of the map size. If you have 1 opponent the domination limit is 74%. If you have 17 opponents the domination limit is 51%. If you have the default number of opponents on a huge map the domination limit is 56% but if you have the current HOF minium number of opponents the domination limit is 64%. So naturally you can get higher scores with a higher domination limit. BTW I used the 51% domination limit on duel maps to submit wins all the way up to Prince that were before 1000 BC.

Allowing players the choice to pick the number of opponents they play against gives them the option to set the domination limit from 74% to 51% of duel maps. If you require the default number of opponents you will restrict the domination limit on a huge map from 56% to 51%. Currently the domination limit range on a huge map is 64% to 51%.