Standard vs Large maps

[RedFury]

Hi every1,

I've started playing large maps recently, on emperor and immortal, and over the course of about a dozen games have encountered something I wasn't quite expecting - significantly increased difficulty. Thats right - with default settings, I have really noticed how much harder than standard maps they can be.

Th reason: simple. The land area in large can be 100% more than standard, yet the total number of civs only goes up from 7 to 9. This means that AI's, on average, get around 40-50% more land. On standard, I thought an AI rexing to 9-10 cities was doing pretty damn well. On large, its not uncommon to see a Catherine/Gilga/etc settling 15+ cities.

What does this translate to? Well, here are some implications:

1) Greater global tech speed: this is something I *really* noticed when stepping up to large maps. Emperor AI's on large can feel a lot like immortal on standard. Of course, I may get a few more cities myself on large maps to help maintain a tech lead, but..

2) Military tech obsoletes faster. Just like going from epic->normal speed, with global research moving much faster, there is noticeably less time between significant military techs, meaning the "war window" is smaller and you need to move quicker. This is greater compounded by ...

3) Each civ has more land. This means I have to spend more turns covering the distances I need to cover when invading them to get the cities/capitulation I want. The land-mass is so much bigger that effective "speed" of my units is slower. Again this is the epic->normal effect happening, and when combined with 2) is quite profound.

Having come from a standard/normal background, and having played over a dozen games on large/epic now... I would even say that the combination of points 2) and 3) make large/epic easily on par difficulty-wise with standard/normal. I would even say sometimes it can be a bit harder, and large/normal is certainly significantly harder than standard/normal.

Anyone else been pleasantly surprised by the added challenge in moving up map sizes? In some ways its made me realize how easy standard maps can be, particularly for domination.

I'd hate to see what huge is like ..I don't think my poor cpu could handle that though.

edit: for immortal players, if you're finding the jump to Deity too large, you might try moving to large/immortal if your computer can handle it. It'll provide a bit of extra challenge without feeling like you're banging your head against a wall moving to standard/Deity.

Large/Deity or Huge/Deity would just be frightening - especially multiple continents where REXer's on other massive landmasses have time to expand. Would lead to most games being just about impossible I would think.

 

[naterator]

I think bigger maps also increase the chances your game will advance past the industrial age. If you're one of those "who cares about bombers, my games are always over by then" people, then bigger maps could remind you that the tech tree goes farther than assembly line.

 

[FriendoftheDork]

I can understand the difference, but to be honest I switched to huge maps as soon as possible. However, going to 18 civs or even more balances it out quite a bit. It still provides some of the problems of high tech rate, slow window of opportunity for units, long travel times, everything except more space for the AI. The natural step after that is of course epic or marathon speeds which fixes 1) 2) and 3) pretty well, but offers new problems, and makes production that more significant. Buildings that takes more than 10 turns on normal takes too long time to consider on marathon unless they are super wonders. A city that can't produce a unit in less than 10 turns won't be making units on marathon, it's measly production rather aimed at building commerce-boosting buildings. Basically you need more of everything to do anything in a decent amount of time.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I think bigger maps also increase the chances your game will advance past the industrial age. If you're one of those "who cares about bombers, my games are always over by then" people, then bigger maps could remind you that the tech tree goes farther than assembly line.

Mmmm. I play small maps quite a bit, and most of my games get past the industrial age. I do agree with you to a point, however. Having more civs pushes the tech rate in the game higher, and as FotD said, it makes the war window smaller.

I solved some of my problems by scaling the map appropriately if I choose to play a larger map. As the OP said, a Large map can be 100% or more than that of Standard. To maintain the player/civ ratio, you would need to scale the map to have 14 to 16 opponents, to maintain the "ratio to map size" balance that the game uses on a Standard map.

Increasing the map size and number of civs this way eliminates the "Land grab bonus" that the AI gets when moving from Standard to Large, but introduces a new wrinkle. You now have 14 to 16 civs trading, teching, and "gettin' all diplo on ya." You suffer less from FotD's idea of increased travel time and reduced movement "speed", but you have less room to REX yourself, and you need to REX in order to have enough land to keep up with the AI in tech and with your economy, particularly at higher levels. My solution on a map like this is to rush at least one, or maybe two of my neighbors ASAP. This is often a warrior rush for the first civ. I'm currently playing at Prince, so I know this isn't going to work when I move to Monarch.

Fraidy-cat Lemon has to wait for a bit before she treads those waters.

@FotD:

In reference to your ideas on game speed. I would agree, but I find that Epic is actually more balanced than either Normal of Marathon, as it seems to scale better with maps and difficulty level. Just MHO.

 

[FriendoftheDork]

You suffer ess from FotD's idea of increased travel time and reduced movement "speed", but you have less room to REX yourself, and you need to REX in order to have enough land to keep up with the AI in tech and with your economy, particularly at higher levels. My solution on a map like this is to rush at least one, or maybe two of my neighbors ASAP. This is often a warrior rush for the first civ. I'm currently playing at Prince, so I know this isn't going to work when I move to Monarch.

Fraidy-cat Lemon has to wait for a bit before she treads those waters.

@FotD:

In reference to your ideas on game speed. I would agree, but I find that Epic is actually more balanced than either Normal of Marathon, as it seems to scale better with maps and difficulty level. Just MHO.

Well actually more civs doesen't reduce travel time at all, I can assure you that the huge huge map is still as big with 37 civs as it is with 7. Each faction may be quicker to conquer, but you often have to travel through alot of neutral territory or sea in order to get to your enemy. Sometimes you can simply expand outwards, but even so travelling through your own empire takes time until railroad, and even afterwards.

The only thing that fixes this is to increase the cost of techs, units and buildings (epic or marathon). I like Epic as well but Marathon better is it slows technology the most while still retaining some production ability for units. It makes for bigger armies, and more era specific ones (muskets etc). The AI also spends a long time getting to you but usually not so long that you can build a large army or tech ahead considerably more.

The only real drawback to Marathon IMO is that it slows down the stone and bronze age alot so that you spend a long time having nothing but arcers and really low production cities and after a couple of games it gets really stale. Which is why scenarios set forwards in time appeals to me alot.

Right now I play huge map, 37 civs historical scenario set in 1784. I played until 1830 with normal speed, then changed it to marathon wich worked very well (the world was too ahead of tech before) and actually started WW1 in 1918 with germany with very appropriate tech (early aircraft, newly upgraded infantry and early tanks vs France's machineguns and infantry. I was actually somewhat behind as I didn't have any dreadnoughts or modern naval units while france had heavy cruisers (wolfshanze mod).

Lemon head: You could try the earth 18 civs on monarch to test yourself, the AI won't get their extra archers so you could even pull off the early warrior rush (just don't try it with Huyena Capac). In any way it's a good experience and it's also a but easier when you know the map layout but still challenging as the AI can keep up in tech.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Well actually more civs doesen't reduce travel time at all, I can assure you that the huge huge map is still as big with 37 civs as it is with 7. Each faction may be quicker to conquer, but you often have to travel through alot of neutral territory or sea in order to get to your enemy. Sometimes you can simply expand outwards, but even so travelling through your own empire takes time until railroad, and even afterwards.

Oops. Yes, point taken. I was referring to the civs being closer together, and I forgot about the seas and neutral territory travel time increase. My bad.

Lemon head:

You could try the earth 18 civs on monarch to test yourself, the AI won't get their extra archers so you could even pull off the early warrior rush (just don't try it with Huyena Capac). In any way it's a good experience and it's also a but easier when you know the map layout but still challenging as the AI can keep up in tech.

I might give that a go, thanks. But why doesn't the AI get Archers to start? It's Monarch.

 

[LegionSteve]

I might give that a go, thanks. But why doesn't the AI get Archers to start? It's Monarch.

I think it's because it's a scenario, the starting units are all predefined and don't change with difficulty. It took me by surprise first time I tried it. Rome, on monarch level. I whipped about 6 or 7 axes expecting to lose at least half of them, and headed for Paris to find it defended by ... 1 warrior. I killed France and Spain and took 1 city from the Germans. And that was before the Legions started rolling.

 

[FriendoftheDork]

Oops. Yes, point taken. I was referring to the civs being closer together, and I forgot about the seas and neutral territory travel time increase. My bad.




I might give that a go, thanks. But why doesn't the AI get Archers to start? It's Monarch.

OK.
Heh, sorry meant Lemon Merchant. Somehow I was thinking about Lemonhead from Monkey Island when I read your post

Legionlover already answered the second point BTW Huyena Capac is imprisoned in Peru/Chile without access to the rest of Latin amerca (map design flaw). Either edit the map beforehand and remove a peak, or just let Capac stay in stone age . If you do however, Capac will probably rule most of Southern America and being financial.. well you know.

A good starting position if you haven't played the map before is probably Egypt. Early marble and stone, horses so you can crush Mansa Musa in Timbuktu easily, and secure Palestine early on. My first win in Civ4 ever.

Other nice starts are: Rome, China, England, India, Japan and possibly Persia (haven't played em yet). France, Spain, Greece are a bit hemmed in and required early expansion (warrior rush) to get a foothold, but have otherwise nice capitols.

Russia had alot of space and usually rex too much and loses in the tech race, although I suppose a cottage loving player could turn it around Germany gets their lebensraum in the east and north.

 

[7thGate]

I found that the nicest start on earth 18 civs was either america or aztec. If you kill the other one, you end up with all of north and south america to colonize. If you're fast about it, you can even finish before europeans start trying to colonize your territory. You get behind on tech due to lack of trading partners, but once you stabilize on 25+ cities you'll start to pull ahead. There are some real beauties of city spots too; the spot around where chicago is in the real world can support a population in the high 30's, low 40's with sid's sushi. I ended my last game as america with 12k beakers/turn in 1932--I could have space raced a long time before that, obviously, but decided I wanted a domination victory instead.

I have also noted that playing huge/18 civ maps is like playing up a level, or part of a level. More competition makes it tougher, as does having to conquer so much land if you want a conquest victory. I like it better that way though.

 

[nephrahim]

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! It is MUCH harder.

I normally play on Small maps beacuse hey, why not? Nice, quick domination victories. I descided to try something different, and went with a HUGE Terra map yesterday, and it is destroying me. I'm constantly getting declared war at, often by civilizations on opposite sides of my empire. I'm slowly managing to turn the corner by biting off small chunks every time someone decides to try attacking me, but even with that, I find I can barely keep ahead of the others.

 

[FriendoftheDork]

I found that the nicest start on earth 18 civs was either america or aztec. If you kill the other one, you end up with all of north and south america to colonize. If you're fast about it, you can even finish before europeans start trying to colonize your territory. You get behind on tech due to lack of trading partners, but once you stabilize on 25+ cities you'll start to pull ahead. There are some real beauties of city spots too; the spot around where chicago is in the real world can support a population in the high 30's, low 40's with sid's sushi. I ended my last game as america with 12k beakers/turn in 1932--I could have space raced a long time before that, obviously, but decided I wanted a domination victory instead.

I have also noted that playing huge/18 civ maps is like playing up a level, or part of a level. More competition makes it tougher, as does having to conquer so much land if you want a conquest victory. I like it better that way though.

Good work. I tried America myself but I thought it got boring after awhile. Monty was a [female dog] to fight, and after a bloody war I just managed to get peace with some advantage. And when the europeans came I was behind in tech and no real possibilities of catching up much

Those times I've seen Monty eliminate USA and settled all of north america he still was far behind in tech, usually longbows vs rifles so I thought that would be the case for me as well.

 

[eoc]

I'd played huge, and I was crashed, I was defeated by my poor body after 5 days and nights continuous gaming. Zzzz....

 

[FriendoftheDork]

I'd played huge, and I was crashed, I was defeated by my poor body after 5 days and nights continuous gaming. Zzzz....

Ah yes it can be tough. Although there IS a save function in the game and with the extreme application of willpower you can actually stop playing and not ruin your sleep

 

[BufordTJustice]

Ah yes it can be tough. Although there IS a save function in the game and with the extreme application of willpower you can actually stop playing and not ruin your sleep

Where is that button...? Where?

 

[FriendoftheDork]

Where is that button...? Where?

It's a fairly large button on the computer near that green light on your pc box cabinet

Warning: Using it may cause severe psychological problems and suicidal or tendencies. But still it's alot better than having a mother, spouse or significant other use it instead which causes outright homicidal tendencies, known as going "Cival."

 

[nephrahim]

Just finished my Huge experiment. Got a space race victory. Things settled down around the modern era, helped by a massive spamming of Machine gunners and infantry in industrial to make sure NOBODY could think I was weak.

Speaking of crashing, it managed to crash my computer three times. Twice just the program, once the BSoD. Definitely not bothering with that again.

Now to delete my 100 MB in saved games... gotta love 1000k save files.