Prefered Map Size, Style, Pace

[apuks]

Well?

 

[Tylerryan79]

I'm still figuring that out, I'd like to try each setting atleast once(size/speed). I usually stick with the main maps, like continents, archipelago etc.

Right now Im playing standard, continents on epic.

 

[Syiss_]

It feels to me like the maps are bigger than in Civ IV. Maybe thats just because city spam isn't as much of an issue and cultural borders are much less defined though. I've played only small and standard so far, but the 2 games I played on standard felt really big.

As for map style, I've only experimented with Pangaea and Oval (which is just a different version of Pangaea). I'm dislike archipelago and the one time I played on Continents I ended the game pretty early on.

 

[HamTard]

I've always been fond of Pangea because I didn't like sending stacks overseas. Now that armies are smaller I may reconsider that.

 

[Shillen]

I like continent maps because I'm not a warmonger so I don't want easy access to all the AI's or for all the AI's to have easy access to me. I like normal speed because that's what the game is balanced for. Slower speeds kind of break the game in my opinion because of the difference in troop movement. I like any map normal or bigger.

 

[Roconar]

I started out playing games on medium sized continent maps.

More recently, I've played a couple games on duel Pangaea maps, starting in the medieval era,
and found that I really like the pace...

-You start with 2 settlers, 1 worker, 2 spearmen and a scout.
-All techs up to the medieval era are researched, so you see iron/horse right away.
-The production costs are different: most units and buildings are cheaper than on a normal start, but settlers are much more expensive.
-Most of the purchase costs are higher than normal.
-Techs have a cheaper that normal cost, but your economy is also much less developed. The upshot is that it takes longer than usual to research the medieval/early rennaisance techs, but the later techs are faster.
-You start with enough culture for three civics. (This may be a bit broken: You can get the +3 production in coastal cities right away...)

Pangaea on a duel sized map seems to generate some pretty cool geographies:

-one game had an Australia shaped continent cut in half by a mountain ridge
-another game had a horseshoe ('U' shaped) continent, with one of the city states (Sidon) separating the two sides. There were also a couple of high yield islands.

P.S.: standard game speed, emperor difficulty

 

[Kordanor]

Does anyone have detailed numbers about how big the different map sizes are? Like X * Y Tiles?

Playing on Epic atm. Marathon seems a little too extreme.

 

[Daniel D]

Does anyone have detailed numbers about how big the different map sizes are? Like X * Y Tiles?

Size -Grid Width/Height
Duel - 40 by 24
Tiny - 56 by 30
Small - 66 by 42
Standard - 80 by 52
Large - 104 by 64
Huge - 128 by 80

 

[WuphonsReach]

I'm trying Large, Marathon, Fractal with 8 civs and 20 city states on Warlord.

Pacing is okay if a bit slow, but it makes wars more interesting because you don't blink and suddenly find yourself with outdated units.

Large map + Warlord difficulty = tricky to balance gold production, happiness, military and expansion all at the same time. I'm doing okay in my first game, but I have enemies on 2 sides and the four major civs are all about equal score. Survived my first war (attacked by 2 different civs) with a bit of foresight to bottlenecks along with using combined arms tactics.

What I want to see is "here's what continent maps look like", "here's what fractal maps look like", etc so that I can get a better feel for how the different map scripts work.

 

[Onionsoilder]

I like Epic speed because the techning is way too fast otherwise, though it also slows down production which is in my opinion, way too slow.

I like standard/large maps, but also with a couple extra civs on them. Usually I add 33%-50% more than the default amount. Otherwise it just feels too empty.

I've found that King is rather easy, but Emperor is too difficult. Thus I've been playing Emperor, and losing, but it's better than blowing the AI away on King.

 

[Kordanor]

I like Epic speed because the techning is way too fast otherwise, though it also slows down production which is in my opinion, way too slow.

I like standard/large maps, but also with a couple extra civs on them. Usually I add 33%-50% more than the default amount. Otherwise it just feels too empty.

I am thinking exactly the same. The area is just too huge for normal settings. Unfortunately we can't change the amount of Civs in multiplayer (not more of them at least).

Therefore I asked how big the map sizes are.

Size -Grid Width/Height
Duel - 40 by 24
Tiny - 56 by 30
Small - 66 by 42
Standard - 80 by 52
Large - 104 by 64
Huge - 128 by 80

Thank you very much. Now if we do some math we get:

Duel: 40*24=960 with 2 Civs that is 480 tiles per Civ
Tiny: 56*30=1680 with 4 Civs that is 420 tiles per Civ
Small: 66*42=2772 with 6 Civs that is 462 tiles per Civ
Standard: 80*52=4160 with 8 Civs that is 520 tiles per Civ
Large: 104*64=6656 with 10 Civs that is 665,6 Tiles per Civ
Huge: 128*80=10240 with 12 Civs that is 853,33 Tiles per Civ

So unless the map script is not putting more water and mountains into the maps when they are bigger, the space for each Civ becomes more and more.
This limitation in MP really sucks, but at least we can put as many City states into it as we can in SP.

 

[Gath]

I'm playing quick games on standard. Anything slower is just too tedious.