npburg
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2001
- Messages
- 52
Has anyone tried playing with less AI civs in a game?
I was testing how the age progression mechanic works with different numbers of AI civs (it doesn’t appear to scale at all) and found with a Standard size map and just 6 civs (instead of 8) that 4 AIs and myself are on the Homeland and just 1 AI is in the Distant Lands. This was not what I was expecting since I thought it might reduce the default split of 5+3 to 4+2 but instead it was changed to 5+1. So my next game I tried a Standard size map with just 4 AIs and myself and it spawned everyone in the Homeland and none in Distant Lands. I.e 5+0.
Since this discovery I have played a bunch of games with no AI Civs in Distant Lands, mostly on Fractal maps, and found the games very interesting and many of the system mechanics and some of the Civilizations/Leaders work much better with this setup.
Exploration Age is when you see the biggest impact of reducing the number of AIs since the Distant Lands are open to colonization and you don’t have any existing AIs already spread out all over the continent.
In a normal game, exploration often leads to having to pick up many small islands or get lucky by grabbing a handful of land tiles on the edge of the continent to get a few Treasure Fleet Resources. Going to war to make inroad is possible but the challenge of doing this in any meaningful way against well established Civs in Distant Lands is often not worth the resources and effort.
By having no AIs on the other continent means that the Distant Lands feels much more like a true second age following Antiquity to explore and expand into as you are racing with the AI to find good locations for Treasure Fleet Resources and good city sites for growth into the Modern Age.
The Economic Legacy Path is definitely much easier with this setup. Getting 20+ Treasure Fleet Resources developed is manageable in the time frame and worth the effort. (Not just 20 TF points but 20 actual resource tiles.)
The Military Legacy Path becomes easier to make progress without having to conquer. Making settlements and spreading your religion can generate a lot of points and you can still choose to go to war with the other AIs as you compete for the same Distant Lands settlements.
The Culture Legacy Path is about the same. Converting settlements in Distant Lands for relics takes longer as there are no established settlements at the start of the age; however, the other methods for acquiring relics still work just as well as before.
The Scientific Legacy Path remains largely unchanged as it is mostly focused on your Homeland cities. It is possible to find an amazing Distant Land settlement with a 4+ adjacency but getting that up and running in multiple sites might take too long.
With no AIs in the Distant Lands means that you will encounter many Independent Peoples. It doesn’t appear that additional IPs will spawn to fill in more of the map but none will get eliminated before you encounter them. This is great if you like to play the diplomatic game and engage with them. Many will also be hostile as you explore or become hostile as you make settlements so you might need to interact with them with military force. If you built a solid diplomatic foundation in the Antiquity Age, you can get big rewards from it in the Exploration Age.
Civilizations / Leaders that interact with IPs in the Exploration age feel meaningful and fun to play instead of a huge disappointment when you get to the Distant Lands. Furthermore, since most of the Distant Lands will remain unsettled by the end of the Exploration Age, then you will continue to have many IPs at the start of the Modern Age as well.
Some Civilizations play better with this setup. The Inca’s special scout unit is very powerful when you have a largely empty Distant Land you want to quickly explore. Many goodie huts to find, many prime locations to settle. Spain’s Conquistadors are a good investment. Shawnee’s bonus with City-States is powerful. Siam in the modern age is also really strong since many IPs will actually spawn at the start of the age instead of getting squeezed out. There are likely many more examples I haven’t tried yet.
By the end of the Exploration Age, the Distant Lands will have many cities but still largely empty which means there is still room to expand and fight over in the Modern Age. The Modern Age still has its pacing issues especially if you beeline for a win condition but having room to grow and compete makes it much more compelling to play.
Modern Age Culture victory takes a bit longer since all the cities in the Distant Lands were settled during the Exploration Age so very few developed into cities with University built (if any at all) so it may not be possible to research to unlock artifacts until new cities build Museums.
Modern Age Economic victory might be faster since you will likely have more factory resources and more settlements that can grow into cities to quickly generate points.
Military and Science Modern Age victories should play the same as before.
Even for those players who mostly like playing in Antiquity, this setup might be of interest as you should be able to win a conquest victory in Antiquity as all the AI civs are in the Homeland. I have not yet tested this so it might be a corner case that doesn’t work.
Overall, this game configuration works so well with the system mechanics it feels almost like the devs wanted to have the game played this way but decided against having it as the default setting and didn’t advertise it. I am curious if anyone else has tried this and what their experience is.
As a caveat, I have also been playing many of these games with a mod to increase the Exploration Age length from 200 points to 240 but keep Antiquity and Modern Age at 200 points. This tries to help competence for how the Exploration Age Legacy points are worth much more than the other ages. As an example, in my most recent game, Antiquity lasted 140 turns with default settings while Exploration Age still only lasted 99 turns despite requiring 40 more points and not coming close to finishing the Tech or Civic trees.
I was testing how the age progression mechanic works with different numbers of AI civs (it doesn’t appear to scale at all) and found with a Standard size map and just 6 civs (instead of 8) that 4 AIs and myself are on the Homeland and just 1 AI is in the Distant Lands. This was not what I was expecting since I thought it might reduce the default split of 5+3 to 4+2 but instead it was changed to 5+1. So my next game I tried a Standard size map with just 4 AIs and myself and it spawned everyone in the Homeland and none in Distant Lands. I.e 5+0.
Since this discovery I have played a bunch of games with no AI Civs in Distant Lands, mostly on Fractal maps, and found the games very interesting and many of the system mechanics and some of the Civilizations/Leaders work much better with this setup.
Exploration Age is when you see the biggest impact of reducing the number of AIs since the Distant Lands are open to colonization and you don’t have any existing AIs already spread out all over the continent.
In a normal game, exploration often leads to having to pick up many small islands or get lucky by grabbing a handful of land tiles on the edge of the continent to get a few Treasure Fleet Resources. Going to war to make inroad is possible but the challenge of doing this in any meaningful way against well established Civs in Distant Lands is often not worth the resources and effort.
By having no AIs on the other continent means that the Distant Lands feels much more like a true second age following Antiquity to explore and expand into as you are racing with the AI to find good locations for Treasure Fleet Resources and good city sites for growth into the Modern Age.
The Economic Legacy Path is definitely much easier with this setup. Getting 20+ Treasure Fleet Resources developed is manageable in the time frame and worth the effort. (Not just 20 TF points but 20 actual resource tiles.)
The Military Legacy Path becomes easier to make progress without having to conquer. Making settlements and spreading your religion can generate a lot of points and you can still choose to go to war with the other AIs as you compete for the same Distant Lands settlements.
The Culture Legacy Path is about the same. Converting settlements in Distant Lands for relics takes longer as there are no established settlements at the start of the age; however, the other methods for acquiring relics still work just as well as before.
The Scientific Legacy Path remains largely unchanged as it is mostly focused on your Homeland cities. It is possible to find an amazing Distant Land settlement with a 4+ adjacency but getting that up and running in multiple sites might take too long.
With no AIs in the Distant Lands means that you will encounter many Independent Peoples. It doesn’t appear that additional IPs will spawn to fill in more of the map but none will get eliminated before you encounter them. This is great if you like to play the diplomatic game and engage with them. Many will also be hostile as you explore or become hostile as you make settlements so you might need to interact with them with military force. If you built a solid diplomatic foundation in the Antiquity Age, you can get big rewards from it in the Exploration Age.
Civilizations / Leaders that interact with IPs in the Exploration age feel meaningful and fun to play instead of a huge disappointment when you get to the Distant Lands. Furthermore, since most of the Distant Lands will remain unsettled by the end of the Exploration Age, then you will continue to have many IPs at the start of the Modern Age as well.
Some Civilizations play better with this setup. The Inca’s special scout unit is very powerful when you have a largely empty Distant Land you want to quickly explore. Many goodie huts to find, many prime locations to settle. Spain’s Conquistadors are a good investment. Shawnee’s bonus with City-States is powerful. Siam in the modern age is also really strong since many IPs will actually spawn at the start of the age instead of getting squeezed out. There are likely many more examples I haven’t tried yet.
By the end of the Exploration Age, the Distant Lands will have many cities but still largely empty which means there is still room to expand and fight over in the Modern Age. The Modern Age still has its pacing issues especially if you beeline for a win condition but having room to grow and compete makes it much more compelling to play.
Modern Age Culture victory takes a bit longer since all the cities in the Distant Lands were settled during the Exploration Age so very few developed into cities with University built (if any at all) so it may not be possible to research to unlock artifacts until new cities build Museums.
Modern Age Economic victory might be faster since you will likely have more factory resources and more settlements that can grow into cities to quickly generate points.
Military and Science Modern Age victories should play the same as before.
Even for those players who mostly like playing in Antiquity, this setup might be of interest as you should be able to win a conquest victory in Antiquity as all the AI civs are in the Homeland. I have not yet tested this so it might be a corner case that doesn’t work.
Overall, this game configuration works so well with the system mechanics it feels almost like the devs wanted to have the game played this way but decided against having it as the default setting and didn’t advertise it. I am curious if anyone else has tried this and what their experience is.
As a caveat, I have also been playing many of these games with a mod to increase the Exploration Age length from 200 points to 240 but keep Antiquity and Modern Age at 200 points. This tries to help competence for how the Exploration Age Legacy points are worth much more than the other ages. As an example, in my most recent game, Antiquity lasted 140 turns with default settings while Exploration Age still only lasted 99 turns despite requiring 40 more points and not coming close to finishing the Tech or Civic trees.
