what are the best custom game settings to play the game on?

[bds]

what are the best custom game settings to play the game on?

EDIT:

Also give reasons why you chose those particular settings.

My Current Game Settings:
- Huge Map Size (i like exploring)
- Tectonics Map Script (my favourite map script)
- 4 Civs (more room to expand, more room to explore, more room for barbs)
- Conquest only victory (The only real end for a civ should be if its wiped from the face of the earth)
- Random AI (default AI personalities annoy me)
- Marathon Game Speed (better warfare)

 

[Moon Pine]

My favorite: ^^
Prince
Large Map
Normal Speed
10 Players
3 Continents
All Victory Conditions
Others Default

 

[Quintillus]

Aggressive AI - makes foreign policy a bit more difficult, and more wars going on is just more interesting

I also like No Tech Trading, but this is a significant difference from a regular game. It's great when your opponent is 300 years behind you on tech, although it's not quite so great when riflemen invade you and your best units are still macemen.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Huge Map Size (Anthing less is just far too small)

Random Civ/ Shuffle Map Script / a dozen other civs / random personalities / aggressive ai ( all make for completely varying and different games, where strategy must be worked out "on the fly" as such)

Super Marathon Speed (My own even slower gamespeed with research 50% slower for example---I like eras to actually be eras )...

And Permanent Alliances (Makes the late game more unpredictable)

 

[bds]

And Permanent Alliances (Makes the late game more unpredictable)

Maybe i should try that setting after all, it always sounded like a bad one to me.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

Maybe i should try that setting after all, it always sounded like a bad one to me.

What it often means, is that two neighboring ais that are really pally, but no real worry to you, suddenly become one nation with a decent military and teching power lateish in the game....it spices the latter game up quite a bit when it happens like that. But some games, you get no perm alliances forming at all.

 

[Elkad]

I typically use huge/epic/fractal/18civs/random personalities

In general I like crowded maps. I tend to piss off all the AI civs anyway, so aggressive doesn't accomplish a whole lot. I've actually never played WITHOUT random personalities, so the Izzy the Zealot and Monty the Psycho comments don't mean a whole lot to me.

 

[Maverick667]

I tried out slowing the game speeds for a while...

but the big problem is, not only does science drop, but production drops as well...

I would be way better if science would drop but production didn't

 

[marioflag]

These are the options i always pick:
Huge
Marathon
18 civs
No Tech trading

About Map it's usually Pangea,Fractal or Continents
I also play usually with raging barbs and Agggressive AI for the sake of realism

 

[Munch]

Currently I really enjoy:

Prince difficulty, because I'm not good enough at diplomacy and managing specialists etc to move up to Monarch yet (nearly).

Large map with the usual 9 players including myself, although occasionally 1 or 2 extra AIs to make diplomacy more complex and war more frequent. Never less than the recommended amount though! Standard is too small I think, no enemy civ can be formidable if it only has 6 or so cities. Huge is good sometimes, but only if I've got the time to spare!

Epic speed, so my army doesn't become obsolete too soon, but it also doesn't take most of the session to research one or two techs.

Mastery victory by Sevo, because it makes a nice change from the usual ones. Makes capturing/razing enemy holy cities more desirable, allows you to get any number of legendary cities, blah blah, this isn't an advert.

Archipelago with snaky continents and low sea level. A recent change as I got fed up with the predictability of Continents/Pangaea, and Fractal often leaves at least one poor chap isolated miles from anyone else. Lakes with high sea level was good for a while!

Oh and Warlords expansion with my own (minor) mod.

I always used to play with Random AI personalities and Aggressive AI, but recently I've switched that off to check that my Lenin, Kim il-Sung etc AIs are behaving properly.