Tall vs Wide on Huge Maps - An Issue of Scale

[superfeds]

Ive been experimenting with several different civs and strategies on immortal to get a better grasp of how I want to tackle deity. While looking at threads on this forum, it seems the majority of information is based off of standard size maps with standard pace. I prefer to play huge maps, with an epic pace. I used to go marathon, but found the games taking too long to actually finish.

My question is how a 4 city tradition starts compares to a wide liberty based start on a huge map and if any information on this exsists and Im just not seeing it.

Most strats dont seem to take into account the expansion needed to keep up with the expansion of AI when there is a ton of space for it to work with. Limiting yourself to only 4 small cities on maps of this size is not completely viable in my opinion. You will most likely be missing key resources, and your 4 city economy just wont be able to compete with that of a civ with 20+ cities. The science output runs into similar problems.

In my experience, it seems to order to gain enough control of these maps, you need a flurry of expansion. Either quickly after establishing your national college...or skipping it entirely. When maps are this size...isnt the value of 50% science in your capital devalued compared to that of a smaller map? It will represent a much smaller percentage of your overall bpt.

Anyway Im just looking for some additional thoughts to help guide my thinking. I feel Liberty is better on bigger maps. While tradition is better on normal and smaller sizes.

 

[Tabarnak]

To make Tradition appealing for huge map, i think you need :

-Pyramids
-Lot of gold to rush buy settlers
-early cs allies

Otherwise get Liberty it's easier. But...it's more powerful(less energy consuming) to conquer cities than build a ton.

Instead, you can :

Use Liberty and get a lot of cities by yourself
or pick one of these trees and get some puppets.

So yeah Liberty wins in most occasions. And that's perfectly normal and natural, like playing epic or marathon speed on this map.

 

[attackdrone]

I just started a huge map playing as Siam. I rushed for the Great Library to bootstrap me to Philosophy and the Oracle + National College. For social policies I am going -both- tradition and liberty! I bought one settler with gold, picked another one up from Liberty, and built one with my capital. The Great Library and National College were completed before building the second city, and my strategy is to rush towards Universities and Oxford University.

I also happened to start in the Jungle, which helped a lot! Sacred Path helps with the culture. Plus I went with Siam, so I'm trying to complete quests for Cultural City States to gain extra culture, and plan on using the Tradition tree to pick up four free Wats (University Unique Buildings that also give +3 culture for Siam).

 

[aguliondew]

Well you have not played on immortal if you can build the great library. Around turn 30-40 someone will have it built Attackdrone. Anyways Tall vs wide.

With a wide empire you will have more happiness issues and chances of a DoW increases since you will have to expand to lockout areas of the map for yourself. With a wide empire you make more gold and production overall. A tall empire will have to trade for some of its strategic resources but your cities are safer from attack. You can still get a science vic on any difficult with a tall korea/babylon empire and a couple of recycling plants/city-states for aluminum. Also not having national college early only hurts if you are going tall. The 50% science lost in your capital should be made up with your expansions.

 

[superfeds]

Would you guys suggest standard size maps and scale then? I like to have time to use early uu's. The start on marathon on immortal+ is rough.

 

[aguliondew]

It just depends on how much time you want to take to win a game. 300-350 turn to win a standard setting immortal/emperor map. The delay you get from your turn time increases with a larger map. The last time I played on a huge map by the end their were 3 superpowers all at war and it took a couple of minutes between each turn. If you want to make greater use of your early uu's marathon/epic does help.

 

[CMKMStephens]

Completing Tradition certainly seems a bit better than Liberty now, though I'm not sure how applicable my current Emperor game is given that it's on Epic speed. The problem is all about location, my first two cities are absolute powerhouses better than anything anywhere. This is due to the growth bonuses from tradition, and 2 religious beliefs combined with flood plains. My other two cities were more marginal (1 lux, 1 resource, 1 good food each, and more road maintenance).

Playing as Theodora, I also got a massive boost from the +1 faith from desert tiles (about half the tiles in my two good cities got that) I added as my bonus. Went with Piety to capitalise on culture and religion, then Order.

After fending off the usual early harassment and conquering Gandhi (5 cities) after he randomly DoW'd (I had set him up as one opf my two best friends =/) I can basically do anything on cruise control now.