What are your favored settings?

[Deussu]

Hi there all.

I'm wondering what kind of multiplayer settings do you prefer the most. I've been playing mostly with a group of 3-5 friends, 3 persons being a bit superior to the other 3.

We've been playing maybe a dozen multiplayer matches now. Post-patch we noticed how essentialy iron really has become, with the nerfed mounted units (Mandekalu being the exeption). That's one thing about resources, but I'm baffled.

Civilizations: We always play with random civilizations. They are balanced enough to offer intriguing situations.
City-states: With random civilizations Greece and Siam would be utterly obsolete. We leave city-states to the default value.
Map type: Recently Pangaea has received more votes. Archipelago passivates us, and continents often creates secluded groups. Other map types feel unappealing.
Map size: Tiny or small, depends on the amount of players, obviously.
Difficulty level: Since no AI are in play, this is mostly just for the barbarians and happiness levels. We tend to use Warlord (3) or Prince (4).
Game pace: Quick. Other modes feel needlessly slow.
Game era: We chose to begin all of our games from classical. It skips the rather unappealing beginning, which is mostly just clicking "Next turn".
World age/Temperature/Rainfall/Sea level: We leave these untouched.
Resources: Like I said, iron is essential, but the placement of it seems super-random. Actually all resources are placed really weirdly. For example in our last game one city had a total of 7 sheep within it's maximum borders, over a dozen sheep on the continent. It's ridiculous. We've had it on standard, but I'm considering 'strategic balance'. What that means, I don't know.

Other: Disable Start Bias, New Game Seed, No Ancient Ruins. I doubt there's anything to explain here. Sometimes we allow policy saving.

So what are your takes on this?

 

[swordspider]

Hi there all.

I'm wondering what kind of multiplayer settings do you prefer the most. I've been playing mostly with a group of 3-5 friends, 3 persons being a bit superior to the other 3.

We've been playing maybe a dozen multiplayer matches now. Post-patch we noticed how essentialy iron really has become, with the nerfed mounted units (Mandekalu being the exeption). That's one thing about resources, but I'm baffled.

Civilizations: We always play with random civilizations. They are balanced enough to offer intriguing situations.
City-states: With random civilizations Greece and Siam would be utterly obsolete. We leave city-states to the default value.
Map type: Recently Pangaea has received more votes. Archipelago passivates us, and continents often creates secluded groups. Other map types feel unappealing.
Map size: Tiny or small, depends on the amount of players, obviously.
Difficulty level: Since no AI are in play, this is mostly just for the barbarians and happiness levels. We tend to use Warlord (3) or Prince (4).
Game pace: Quick. Other modes feel needlessly slow.
Game era: We chose to begin all of our games from classical. It skips the rather unappealing beginning, which is mostly just clicking "Next turn".
World age/Temperature/Rainfall/Sea level: We leave these untouched.
Resources: Like I said, iron is essential, but the placement of it seems super-random. Actually all resources are placed really weirdly. For example in our last game one city had a total of 7 sheep within it's maximum borders, over a dozen sheep on the continent. It's ridiculous. We've had it on standard, but I'm considering 'strategic balance'. What that means, I don't know.

Other: Disable Start Bias, New Game Seed, No Ancient Ruins. I doubt there's anything to explain here. Sometimes we allow policy saving.

So what are your takes on this?

First off, I don't like nerfing much, but I agree with you, Mandekalu's are WAY too strong for the period in the game when you can get them. Longswords slow them a bit, but swordsmen and anything less are just fodder.

As far as settings, here's my take-

Civilizations: Random civs is a good way to go sometimes. If you want a real test though, letting people pick the civs they think they are good at can make the game harder. If it is unbalanced like you said, then mix up the teams or make the good players go random.
City-states: City states are part of the game just like social policies, I think if you take them out you are removing an important aspect of the game. They are removed a lot though to make mulitplayer games run smoother.
Map type: Pangaea is always a staple, it gives a random tactical setup and forces strategic decisions based on the land. Four Corners is always a nice balance and a good battle for the middle. East vs West and Inland Sea can provide fun 6 player games.
Map size: Anything over standard will crash after about 60 turns unless everyone has an awesome rig. Stick with tiny or small, there is plenty of space and plenty of fun.
Difficulty level: Prince is the online standard. If you up your resource abundances though, you should be upping your difficulty level because you're automatically upping your happiness with extra luxuries.
Game pace: Quick is good for fun games. If you want an epic battle, go standard.
Game era: I disagree with Classical, it allows iron to be revealed too quickly and it gives you all of the early techs taking away your need to specialize to get your local resources. I agree it gives a quick jumpstart, but I think it takes away a lot of the fine-line selection to get what your civ needs to grow.
World age/Temperature/Rainfall/Sea level: I leave these standard too. Sea level gives you more land though if you feel like you are getting cramped on small or tiny maps.
Resources: Strategic balance theoretically gives all civs a 'fair' amount of resources. I have played it many times and one drawback I see is that the computer seems to consider 'iron' and 'aluminum' or 'oil' of equal value, but we all know in multiplayer getting to oil and aluminum is not very common before someone is dead, so I'm not sure how balanced it really is. Standard resources is the way to go in my opinion. If you don't get iron, you *should* be forced to figure out what tech route to take (pikes/knights) to defend your civilization. Yes iron is key, but at the same time it is also key to know how to defend/attack without it. Abundant and Legendary Start are ridiculous unless you are playing on Diety. It basically makes Price level the equivalent of Settler.
Other: I typically choose Disable Start Bias (because I've noticed it helps spread people out more rather than try to stick them in their correct region, which may be right on top of another civ when someone else is off by themselves); I like ancient ruins personally, I think it makes for some interesting early game dynamics but nothing game-changing. I think policy saving is ok but not promotion saving. In games I play, turn timer is a must because people forget, get up and go take a wizz, etc and everyone else just sits there. We had a guy leave for 10 minutes to take his dog out and everyone else had to just sit there.

Anyway, that is my take.

 

[Deussu]

The Game Era question actually rose when one of the players asked for it, and the rest of us didn't feel it to be a thing that'd sour the experience. I admit it removes a part of the crucial beginning, but we've growed accustomed to it.

Ah, so strategic balance doesn't aid the abundancy of iron at all. Wonder if I can XML edit my way to happiness in multiplayer games...

We haven't used a turn timer, as some of our players aren't all that familiar with civ-style games and need their time to think. And we are connected via TeamSpeak, so we (actually just me) often ask whether they are ready, how long it will take, or whether they've forgotten.

 

[swordspider]

Ah, so strategic balance doesn't aid the abundancy of iron at all. Wonder if I can XML edit my way to happiness in multiplayer games...

I am not certain about that, I was just letting you know what I have seen in my experience in online games- but I believe that to be the case.

 

[Smote]

Personally, I do not like any start past ancient, as civilization tends to lose a lot of its diversity. The number of decent strategies goes down from about 5-6 to 2-3 by removing ancient start.

In ancient start, the first 5 techs you research matters a lot more than in classical start.

 

[Tabarnak]

I play only Ancient start. I like to manage all little details that can give me an edge later and be rewarded for it. Details are less important from Classical to later eras. I like to adjust my game at best when i discover iron....

 

[Smote]

Sometimes I try to optimize total hammers produced. This strategy usually wins.

Other times I try to optimize beakers while restricting number of cities (1 or 2). This strategy is fun and easy but should only be used vs new players (skilled will out-tech you with more cities). I have gotten 2 eras ahead of new players with this (GDR vs rifles or infantry). This strategy helps them not leave the game, because your lack of cities causes your score to be comparable to theirs, so you do not win a "score victory."

Sometimes I will try to optimize number of longswords/rifles on turn X (like Tabarnak does with swordsmen). This strategy usually wins also.