Preferred # of civs per map size/type?

[IDSmoker]

I have principally played Huge/Pangea games... love watching my enormous armies/stacks march across the world!<grin>... but a recent change in personal circumstances (finally found a job!!! maybe the tech industry is finally pulling out of the slump... WorldCom not withstanding)... has forced me to realize that I'm going to have to severely curtail my Civ3 playing time in the near future!

So, I have decided to drastically change my mode of play by reducing the map size I play on.

I realized, from reading many posts on CFC (something else I'm not going to have as much time for ), that the play experience changes a great deal when changing map sizes and difficulty level.

I have a very good feel for the settings that work well in Regent/Huge/Pangea games... generally, even with max land, it still feels a little cramped with max civs, so I normally go with 12 or 14.

I've also found that the 'Optimum Number of Cities Number' has to be increased, no matter what type of victory I'm going for... depending on victory type, I'll typically raise it to from anywhere from 50 to 175 (for Conquest).

My AI to AI trade rate is set 125 (for Regent) which seems resonable.

The tech rate (for Huge maps) is set to 400. Which seems really slow! It seems to take me forever to get to the Modern Age.

In my current game (nearing completion), I have also lowered the corruption slider to 80%, which seems to work pretty well, though I may lower it to 75% or 70% in my next game (I really hate waste, which seems to have been addressed pretty well in 1.21f).

Other than Unit changes, whose affects should not alter the game much, these are pretty much the only changes I've made to the game.

So, given all of this explanation of the way Civ3 works for Regent/Huge/Pangea/Min Water games... How should I set things up for my next game to get a similiar feel?

For a Monarch, tiny or small, pangea game:

• Max # of civs that will still allow reasonalble peaceful expansion?
• What should the ulitimate optimum city # be set to?
• What should the AI to AI trade rate be set to? (the same?)
• Should the map's tech rate be adjusted? (to what?)
• What about the corruption slider for a tiny map?

What should these settings be for a Monarch, tiny or small, archipeligos (sic) game (something really different for me <grin>)?

Thanks for any and all help...

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

IDSmoker, congrats on the job!!!!!!!

I just realized that it's a good idea to LOWER OCN, because of more 'realistic' AI expansion - then curtail corruption @ 75%.....

Small maps are fun for Immortal rushes and such stuff.... Go try deity, too lotsa Civs, little land, Pangaea, if you get iron, you reach 10000 points no sweat jsut an idea, a little diversion... games tend to be over after an hour.

 

[IDSmoker]

Originally posted by Lt. 'Killer' M.
IDSmoker, congrats on the job!!!!!!!

Thanks! I've been looking for >6months!

I just realized that it's a good idea to LOWER OCN, because of more 'realistic' AI expansion - then curtail corruption @ 75%.....

Lower the OCN???? Is this peculiar to the size of maps you play, the difficulty level, or a combination of the two? Considering that Firaxis thought that 32 was the correct number of cities a winning civ should have on a huge map (even the reduced huge implemented in 1.21f), I can not believe that they got the number right for any of the other maps. Could you explain your reasoning on this one?

Small maps are fun for Immortal rushes and such stuff.... Go try deity, too lotsa Civs, little land, Pangaea, if you get iron, you reach 10000 points no sweat jsut an idea, a little diversion... games tend to be over after an hour.

Could you expand on this concept as well? I'm not sure exactly what you meant (except for the time it takes to play a game, which is the reason I'm headed in this direction).

How about my other questions... How many civs would you recommend for a tiny or small map?.... AI Trade Rate?... Tech Rate?

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

on the OCN thing: I set OCN to 16 for huge map and then play 8 civs. they end up not trying to settler diarhea you to madness, but you get the territory filled up slowly and nicely. Also, ancient wars are fewer (no longer do 20 Horsemen march for thousands of years to the other end of the world, followed by 20 settlers....), and they usually do not mean the winner keeps cities in ridiculous places - they raze them. neighbouring ones are kept though.
the more the game progresses (the better corruption control due to better government and existing courthouses gets) the bigger the empires get - and in the later phases they start filling up every nook. but this is historically correct - you can have colonies like the british ones in america, and in modern times, it gets more and more global


the small Immo rush:
on tiny mpas, little or normal land mass pangaea, 16 civ there's onyl room for one or two cities per civ. so the biggest AI advantage, rapid expansion is countered. Then, if you play persia, you can usually kill a civ off in 1 or two turns with immortals FUN!

hope this helps, I can mail you a starting sav for an Immo rush game if you want...

 

[IDSmoker]

ahhh.... that's much clearer! Thanks.

Though I understand what you are saying about lowering the OCN.... I still think that OCN=16 for a Huge/Pangea is NUTS! <grin> (unless you lower the corruption slider so far as to do away with corruption entirely).

Personally, I think that the concept behind the corruption associated with the OCN is flawed, actually the entire corruption model is flawed... I think that the original OCNs would be fine... if the game doubled the OCN every time you acheive a new age (to reflect a more advanced civ's ability to integrate larger empires. And the distance portion of the corruption equation shoudl go away entirely when a civ reaches the modern age... in the modern age, a city's corruption has nothing to do with it's distance from the nation's capitol (Lousiana versus Hawaii, unless you think we have a FP in Los Angelos! <grin>).

whoops...

rant off

sorry... didn't mean for this to become yet another corruption discussion!

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

@ FP in LA

good idea on lower corruption per age! I think that's somehow in the lower corruption per government, just not enough! And I do stick to halved OCN, it makes the game so much more playable. But then, i do see your complaint, it depends so much on playing style, and mine is so adapted to lower dorruption while ignoring other aspects....


do try the Immor rush thing and tell me how you fared. It will take some tries until you get a starting pos with iron, but in time you will even learn how to GET iron

I especially remember a game where the next iron was in enemy territory, but not directly touching an enemy city. I saved a settler and lots of money and lots of Warriors in the capital, then moved the settler (unprotected) into their territory, next to the iron. I made sure that the city radius would cobver the iron. They asked me to leave, but friendly like, because there was no military unit with the settler. Instead, I plunked down a city, upgraded all my Warriors right away, and moved a Spearman into the city.

They destroyed the city, but i had 16 Immortals by now - guess what happened next


These are the games that you will remember for all times, and these are a lot more likely to happen on small maps, where every single move and fight has a LOT more meaning than on huge ones.