Optimal Game Settings... What's yours?

[Jaroth]

I'm trying to create the most optimal world and settings (along with some personal tastes of my own which do not hamper that goal).

Please, feel free to post your personal settings with explanations on why you choose them... I'll do the same!

Here is my typical setup:

• 10 civs total (myself included)
  
  The games seems to default to 7 when choosing a standard size map, but I prefer an even number which can be divided evenly between 2 continents.
  
  I feel with a standard size map, 10 (5 on each continent) gives adequate space for civs to expand. Too few civs makes it quiet and hurts warmongers... especially civs with early, unique units. Too many civs makes it very tight and can hurt civs who favor peaceful measures more. It also makes too many capital city "power" resource/tree sites when there's too many civs.
  
  I try to choose a total civ number which will allow all civs to easily obtain at least 6 cities (while still remaining "choosey" with terrain). That way, those civs will be able to build enough buildings to get their national wonders. (Ex. at least 6 banks for Wall Street on standard size maps.) I also want to divide up the resources enough among civs, but also want them each to have a good chance at getting necessary resource tiles like oil.
  
  
• Map: Hemispheres
  
  I just love this script. The maps look somewhat natural with some randomness too. They're balanced and will produce as many continents as specified... with a surprise, large island here and there.
  
  
• Size: Standard
  
  I prefer to manage less cities. This also makes the magic number "6" for natural wonders and "3" for cathedrals. Also, I feel with larger sized maps, I'm not "involved" much with some civs or regions far away anyway. I'd rather keep things smaller and more personal.
  
  
• Climate: Temperate
  
  For a balance of all terrain features and resources.
  
  
• Sea Level: Medium
  
  For a balanced map. Experimenting with Low though for more land mass and maybe squeezing in another 2 civs. However, I find that sometimes with low sea levels the ocean paths are cut-off on northern and southern ends which can handicap the mobility of naval units for civs located there.
  
  
• Era: Ancient
  
  Gotta start from the beginning!
  
  
• Speed: Epic
  
  My preferred speed. Others are too fast and Marathon just feels too long. I also feel Epic gives a good amount of mobility on standard maps... Marathon would be pushin' it.
  
  
• Continents Size: Normal Continents
  
  Just regular ol' continents.
  
  
• Islands Size: Tiny Islands
  
  I don't see much difference between the two options - can anyone clarify? I just go with the default. I'd rather have speckled, tiny islands than island masses which could trap a civ at the beginning.
  
  
• Number of Continents: 2
  
  Two, nice continents... 5 civs on each trying to get along, lol. First half of the game is dealing with your own continent, then the second half is for each side to discover that "new world" and to deal with even more personalities. I feel any more continents would be unnecessary, and would decrease the number of neighboring civs at the beginning because of the division among different continents.
  
  
• Raging Barbarians
  
  They "spice up" the early game and keep me on my toes. I feel they also balance out the map. If a civ is getting squished in by another civ's cities, at least they won't have to deal with too many barbs. If a civ is a bit further from the other ones, and has a lot of terrain to play with (which means more fog of war) the barbs will keep them busy.
  
  
• Aggressive AI
  
  My personal preference. I like big battles, and I want to get my butt whooped if I don't maintain my army. I feel if I'm going to attack civs when I see the opportunity or have an advantage, regardless of my relations with them, then the civs should try to do the same to me.
  
  
• Choose Religions
  
  I choose this just to mix up the religions each game. It gets old seeing Hinduism and Buddhism all the time during the beginning.
  

 

[azzaman333]

I vary it all the time.

 

[Cashew]

• 6 civs total (divided into two teams of 3)
  
• Map: Inland Sea
  
• Size: Small
  
• Climate: Rocky
  
• Sea Level: High
  
• Era: Ancient
  
• Speed: Quick
  
• Barbarians/huts/random events/vassal states/ tech trading all off
  
• 2 city elimination, Blazing timer

That's pretty much your standard teamer right there. I occasionally play on TBG with the same settings.

 

[lilnev]

Usually Fractal, random climate, random sea level, random leader -- I like variety. Sometimes I play Tectonics or PerfectWorld, too.

Immortal, Aggressive AI, Large w/ 10 total civs -- These settings give me a game that is challenging throughout (also, all victory conditions are enabled, but I play for domination unless something goes badly wrong). Agg AI makes rushing difficult/expensive/unwise. I'll have to war at some point, but timing and diplomacy are critical. The increased AI-AI warring slows down the tech race, but also means (in conjunction with the large map and extra civ) that someone somewhere has collected a couple of vassals and can give me a serious late-game challenge.

Ancient, normal speed -- Anything else just feels wrong (Epic is okay for challenges and such, but I don't choose it offline).

 

[DaveMcW]

Size: Duel
Speed: Marathon
Civ: Inca

 

[Earthling]

@ lilnev sound like good games
at Dave too. You forgot to pick your opponent though (Gandhi maybe...)

My settings:

Huge map size, 11 civs

Tectonics/Fractal map

Normal Sea level/aridity/climate (I'll do 70% or 60% water, the best thing I do though is right at the start of the game I just look at tile count/percent land area and regen if it's off, no matter how my cap looks)

Immortal-Deity find Immortal fun and almost always a good win; Deity for challenges or particular things I want to try (and competition...)

Default Barbs, Tech Trade, Vassals, Victory Conditions (My #1 option if it existed would be just to eliminate the AP...alas) etc...

No Reloading/New Seed Yeah, it's not exactly setting, but I try very hard to never do so - if I lose a game I don't reload to an earlier point or anything, just consider it lost and quit. Therefore only if the game crashes or something I want the same seed to repeat everything.

Ancient Era, Epic Speed (Normal is fine for other game settings but usually Huge/Epic)

Whatever Leader I feel like - sometimes I go random a couple times until I get one I like and stop there. Never choose AI opponents.

All of the above is all SP, for my (still limited) MP experience obviously everything is different (but I couldn't stand going back to Non-Pitboss lobby type games, gave up on that way back in vanilla civ4).

Finally, a quite honorable mention to anything Erebus related - it's always a little disappointing now in vanilla civ to "Press enter to end turn..." What, no AC?

 

[assass1n]

LOL
10 zxhzshasha

 

[PhroX]

Difficulty: Emperor
Just made the step up from Monarch, and it's a good challenge for me.

Speed: Marathon
Because I haven't got ADD

Map: Perfectworld
Realistic and unpredictable. Makes for really enjoyable and varied games. Sometimes I'll play Big and Small or Tectonics, but most of the time it's Perfectworld.

Map Size: Normal
I'd love to play larger, but my computer slows down too much in the late game, particulalry as I think Perfectworld is a bit larger than usual for each size.

Map Settings: New world varies depending on my mood. Break Pangeas usually on, though I might disable it with NW off. Land area incresed to ~30%
Never been a fan of pangea type maps where everyone's one the same landmass. I like having to use ships.

Custom settings: Chose religion on, nothing else.
Just adds a little variety.

AIs: 7-8 with a new world, 9-10 without.
Gives a good range of opposition without crowding you out.

Civilization/Leader: Random.
Variety is the spice of life.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Difficulty: Immortal

Speed: Normal just SLIGHTLY favored over epic.

Map: Fractal #1, Continents #2, Hemispheres #3, Tectonics #4, else whatever

Map Size: Standard. I'm flexible though.

Map Settings: Random

Custom Settings: *Always* No Events, No Tribal Villages (might as well have no tech brokering on by default too if crap events and villages are on...), *Sometimes* Choose Religions.

AIs: Random, defaults

Civ/Leader: Random.

 

[popejubal]

I'm trying to create the most optimal world and settings (along with some personal tastes of my own which do not hamper that goal).

• 
  New Save on Reload checked
  No Goodie Huts not checked

Pretty simple for optimal success rate. This works best on Pangea with civs that start with a Scout, but any other settings will also do just fine when the two above are checked.

 

[popejubal]

My own favorite settings are a little different than the "optimal" ones, though. I like having the opportunity to mess around with things.

I've been having a lot of fun either rampaging my way through Earth, 18 Civs (every civ has an easy start in that map if you play them right) and I've also had a lot of fun playing Archipelago. In particular, I like playing Archipelago with low water levels to see if I can win the "mini-game" of achieving circumnavigation with just work boats.

My own favorite part of Civ IV is setting goals for a game and then seeing if I can achieve those goals. One might be a Cathedral of every religion in my capital. Another might be owning the Shrine of every religion. One might be an Atheism game where I found every religion on Noble or Chieftan and then arrange for the holy city to be destroyed before it can spread.

 

[futurehermit]

Monarch/Hemispheres or Big&Small/Standard/Normal/Rest default. I should be playing probably immortal level, but I don't like a challenge More seriously though, I am having fun mastering monarch level playing with many stragies and all leaders.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Monarch/Hemispheres or Big&Small/Standard/Normal/Rest default. I should be playing probably immortal level, but I don't like a challenge More seriously though, I am having fun mastering monarch level playing with many stragies and all leaders.

Close to what I like, just add Continents and Tectonics to the map list. I'm not focused enough for Immortal though. Emperor is as far as I can go without losing interest. I just tried my first Tectonics map and it is really nice how it is turning out.

 

[ml3js]

B]Difficulty:[/B] Emporor if I want to play without paying too much attention, Immortal or Deity if I have lots of time to spare (and no gf around).

Speed: Almost only played Normal, trying on an Epic now though.

Map: Pangea or Continents... somehow I get bored with Archipelago maps too soon.

Map Size: Prefer bigger maps.

Map Settings: Random

Custom Settings: Random Personalities and Choose Religion is always on for variety and to avoid knowing too much how they will act.

AIs: Random, defaults

Civ/Leader: Random.

 

[TheLlama]

What is the perfectworld map script?

 

[Gliese 581]

Fractal or Tectonics mostly
Standard Normal
Immortal Deity
Huts and events: Sometimes on, sometimes off, independently.

10 civs on a standard map that's..crowded. If you don't want to hamstring the AI turn vassaling off.

 

[Calder]

Level: Emperor/Immortal
Speed: Marathon
Map: varies, usually Fractal, Toroidal
Size: Huge
Climate: Temperate or Tropical
Sea Level: varies
Custom Settings: Choose religions, Tech Trading off
No. of Civs: 13+

 

[WickedSmurf]

Emperor
Marathon
Huge
Archipelago
No vassal states
Random personalities

 

[Bostock]

Monarch
Epic
Standard size, occasional large if I want to face more barbs (never really played out Large though)
All map types (I like to vary them a lot)
Standard settings for events, huts, brokering, etc.

 

[Killroyan]

Monarch, great plains, normal speed, normal amount of advisaries.

I just love this map because of the overpowered amount of cows you can get in this game

Also fantasy maps with crazy resources is fun. Gogo corporation powah!!!