Small maps are so much better!

[Sal]

I thought it would be worth mentioning for those people who have not tried it yet, the game seems a lot better on the small map - almost like it was designed for it.

A lot of the issues with trade routes are better as there are obviously fewer of them. AI gets aggressive more quickly. You don't know which AI you will get and the ones that don't land crop up in nice quests. Also with frenzied aliens on the space you can move in at the beginning is so small it actually feels like it is their planet.

Anyone else got settings they found that improved the game?

 

[Xenotitan]

I also play on small, but mostly because only having 6 sponsors prevents one of the early quest possibilities from bugging out.

I also try to set the biome type to lush, and I prefer legendary start for resources.

 

[Bandobras Took]

The reverse for me, actually. Every small map involves you having a close neighbor, which is likely to involve beating on them at some point or another. It also diminishes the value of having extra modules for your explorers, and intercontinental travel is way too quick.

And even the trade routes thing is a double-edged sword; on a nice massive map, the odds increase that you won't get good early external trade routes.

 

[Rakshasa72]

There is an appeal for both. I've been playing massive marathon maps on my desktop and, tiny/duel maps on my tablet.

 

[cakes]

yeah i've been playing the 4-player sized map with 6 sponsors and high sea

 

[KingCraig]

I've noticed a big difference between Civ5 (G&K) and CivBE for map sizes. I'm not sure about the actual size differences, but in 5 I found, as soon as I had 4 cities, I was totally crowded out by AI and City-States. After 4 cities, I either had to conquer or build on snow, basically. (And I'm not a 4-city guy - I like playing wide.)

In BE, there is still lots of room left over after I've got 10-20 cities on a "Dwarf" map. The AI seems to prefer playing less wide, but even then, there just seems to be a lot more room. Maybe it's because stations die and disappear, whereas in Civ5, CityStates expanded and stayed in the game (even when captured).

 

[Xenotitan]

Well, the default settings for Civ V have twice as many city states as civs. There aren't nearly as many stations, and while stations block settling in the same radius they don't take tiles like city states. I also find myself okay with settling cities closer to each other than I did in V because cities tend to not get as tall. In addition to that, flat desert has been improved and thus no longer makes for terrible city placement.

 

[Tiedote]

The AI is really hesitant to expand even if there would be space to do so and the Standard maps tend to feel really empty. I think it might be some sort of Civ 5 AI legacy, treating Health like it was Happiness.

Small maps feel more suited for the game but they are maybe a bit too cramped, at least on non-Protean maps. I think they'd be about perfect if you could ignore the build range restrictions for Stations.

 

[Prophet Skeram]

The AI is really hesitant to expand even if there would be space to do so and the Standard maps tend to feel really empty. I think it might be some sortquite iv 5 AI legacy, treating Health like it was Happiness.

Small maps feel more suited for the game but they are maybe a bit too cramped, at least on non-Protean maps. I think they'd be about perfect if you could ignore the build range restrictions for Stations.

The AI seems quite city spammy in my games, even on Mercury - guess it depends on a lot of factors, including starting position, the sponsor etc. I've even gotten forward-settled on quite often.

 

[vahouth]

I prefer small maps too. A Campaign on a bigger map, is very chaotic and long for me.
Small map also feels like Standard from Civ5.

 

[Mustakrakish]

Small maps FTW.

 

[Tiedote]

The AI seems quite city spammy in my games, even on Mercury - guess it depends on a lot of factors, including starting position, the sponsor etc. I've even gotten forward-settled on quite often.

I guess the amount of aliens might have something to do with it too...I've noticed that the sponsors who spawn next to obviously alien filled areas have hard time expanding.

The AI seems pretty conservative when it comes to expansion even in pretty optimal conditions though.

I don't usualy get forward setled...but every time I do, it's always Kavithan Protectorate doing it.

 

[Mustakrakish]

What I noticed though, is that AI loves to land near me. They just looove it.

There's this one relatively small continent on which I land, yay. And there's a pack of 1 giant (twice as big) and one small (maybe 25% smaller than mine) continents, with 1 hex of water between them, across the ocean. What do you think? Maybe one lands on mine and other 4 on that other one with one of them on that smaller one? No, 2 land on my small continent and other 3 get all that land across the ocean. Poor Barre only managed to squeeze one city besides the capital before migrating across ocean. And of course ACR (the second unexpected neighbor) attacked me as soon as because...

Second example: standard map, atlantean, plenty of little continents snaky and slobby. Surely my tiny continent can only fit one, me, right? No, here's Kavitha six hexes away from your borders, here ARC on that that neighboring little continent and there's Hutama on that other one, oh and Kozlov on that other one. 3 decided to have space and settled all across the map with all dat space.

Yeaaaah, that's right, you just got boxed bhoy! On a standard atlantean, with 70% of map untouched and unspoiled... deal with it.

 

[Mikee]

Agree regarding playing on small maps, my PC specs exceeds the recommended specs, and I have always thought that to play on bigger maps I would need a PC that far exceeds the recommended specs not the minimum specs? When I paly on maps larger than small the games reach a pointy where it simply cannot crunch the numbers and gives up / crashes. This is a shame as I would like to play a single game for months.

Cheers Mikee.

 

[Xenotitan]

If your PC meets the specs it should be able to handle all the map sizes without crashing. There might be a fixable problem there.

Also, if you want to play a single game for a long time try the marathon setting. It has more affect on that than the map size.

 

[Ryika]

Playing a huge map, domination only, with 22 sponsors, that's where it's at. :> Tons of popups and sloooooow turns, but the chaos that is going on in the world is just fun to watch.

 

[Carl_Bar]

What I noticed though, is that AI loves to land near me. They just looove it.

There's this one relatively small continent on which I land, yay. And there's a pack of 1 giant (twice as big) and one small (maybe 25% smaller than mine) continents, with 1 hex of water between them, across the ocean. What do you think? Maybe one lands on mine and other 4 on that other one with one of them on that smaller one? No, 2 land on my small continent and other 3 get all that land across the ocean. Poor Barre only managed to squeeze one city besides the capital before migrating across ocean. And of course ACR (the second unexpected neighbor) attacked me as soon as because...

Second example: standard map, atlantean, plenty of little continents snaky and slobby. Surely my tiny continent can only fit one, me, right? No, here's Kavitha six hexes away from your borders, here ARC on that that neighboring little continent and there's Hutama on that other one, oh and Kozlov on that other one. 3 decided to have space and settled all across the map with all dat space.

Yeaaaah, that's right, you just got boxed bhoy! On a standard atlantean, with 70% of map untouched and unspoiled... deal with it.

Yeah there's a huge issue with the placement code atm. there need a to a be a minimum 15 to 20 tiels between capital IMO, not the 6-8 that seems to be the minimum.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Small maps are so much better!

Ummmm.............No!

They have a place and a time but not as a whole.

JosEPh

 

[Dishonor]

There are only small and very small maps in the game. Yeah I like "Massive" maps too.

 

[manu-fan]

Yeah, I think I better move to small maps. I'm playing at the one above that, and trying for a domination win. But it's taking me ages to get to and take over my continent before moving in on the other one. By the time I've done it, I could probably have the Promised Land victory already.