What are your prefered map types/size and why ?

[Baron2]

For my part, it's either a smallest size/continent (ideal for intricate build orders, expansion techniques and various ''rushes'', in a extremely peaceful environnement) or largest size/archipellago (the AI skill with sea invasions prevent agressive civs to bum rush small civs earlier on...and it totally prevent me to invade them savagely later on. Yeah. Totally)

 

[Camikaze]

Continents usually. It's a nice balance between land and sea. You can sweep your continent early on with just land units, before building up a navy for an intercontinental invasion.

 

[Baron2]

What's nice with duel continents is that you can very well ignore alltogether the army after building 2, maybe 3 units.

Until it's time to pay a visit to the other continent-when even on King or Emperor, your Stealths make mincemeat of his Rifflemen....if he got lucky.

 

[smallfish]

For standard settings, Continents or Pangaea/Terra.

For Large, because my laptop can't handle those aforementioned two above standard, its usually East vs West, Rings, Great Plains and Highlands.

 

[Bandersnatching]

I usually go for Pangaea, because I don't like not being able to interact with half of the other civs for most of the game.
That said, I like to choose random, and very rarely reroll my starts (mostly when I start in unforested tundra near the coastline with 4+ whales or something).

 

[sumodaz]

Pangaea Plus, Small. I like my game to take me less than half a day with plenty of battles so this suits me perfectly.

 

[Glassmage]

Earth. Huge with 22 civs and max city states.

 

[Securion]

Oval, standard or large, -4 citystates; Thats mostly what me and my wife play when we team up against the computer.

We would love to be able to play custom maps, but that is not possible for some reason only Firaxis knows about (and wont tell us).

 

[alangtknox]

I have found myself enjoying the skirmish map type on standard size with an additional two Civs and maybe a reduction of 4 city states. I do a dry setting with desert the dominant terrain. Korea for science perks or the Ottomans and try to survive until unique units. Have had fun with this on huge maps with no city states and additional Civs again although late game turns take forever unless you go on a total scorched earth policy nocking out other Civs and their game slowing units.

 

[Ighten]

Earth with TSL settings though these seem to have stopped working on my latest start. May aim was to play every civ this way but some don't seem to have a true setting and Im useless when it comes to try to do it myself.

 

[Callonia]

Huge Pangaea with water as low as possible although its now Huge Pangaea Plus with water as low as possible all because of an immensely entertaining pangea plus map i had.

Main reasons:

Having a navy was actually essential on Pangaea Plus Map.

Hiawatha invading an three tile city state with one land route into city and failing miserably I had good time watching that Iroquois carnival at Monaco with a Caravel so many so many dead infantry and riflemen for no good reason even got a popcorn out watching him fail.

Two AIs attempted Naval invasions, Oda declared beforehand while napoleon attempted to sneak attack me together! Yes they coordinated too bad for napoleon I ain't willing to risk to let them pass through my lands because, my capital just happened to be in a general direction they was heading for. BAD NAPOLEON BAD!

And Despite the fact its a pangaea plus map, I'm expanding via the sea instead of the land, all of the land I have is pretty much focused on defense and capable of counter attacking if necessary.

 

[Disgustipated]

Earth. Huge with 22 civs and max city states.

I'd love to have a computer that could run this.

I prefer Earth maps, but I seem to struggle with them. Maybe there's an Earth map mod that is better than the Earth map in the game? (which I seems to struggle with gold income and happiness). If I kick it down a level to play Earth map, then the game is too easy.

So since I can't really enjoy Earth maps like I would like, I go with continents. I like having something Earth like. Although what usually comes out is nothing Earth like.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Continents Plus. I very rarely play Pangaea as I almost never go for Domination victory.

 

[Muskie]

I play on an older MacBook Pro so I play on standard or the one below standard. It has 5 or so other Civs and a dozen city states. I play random maps and seem to get a lot of island or I guess small continent starts, but my most recent game is Pangea.

I almost never restart, my computer is pretty pokey playing Civ as I leave other stuff running sometimes in the background. Maybe someday I'll have a dedicated gaming computer but I doubt it.

 

[noncognosco]

I play on an older MacBook Pro so I play on standard or the one below standard. It has 5 or so other Civs and a dozen city states. I play random maps and seem to get a lot of island or I guess small continent starts, but my most recent game is Pangea.

I almost never restart, my computer is pretty pokey playing Civ as I leave other stuff running sometimes in the background. Maybe someday I'll have a dedicated gaming computer but I doubt it.

Basically the same as this except I have a junky old Lenovo laptop. Even standard is a struggle in the late game so usually small. I like continents or small continents but sometimes I will choose the map based on the civ even though I know it is cheesy. I am still working on beating the game once with each civ so probably once I get past that I will randomize everything except size.

 

[Heerlo]

Almost always Fractal and Huge for me.

I like having a big map and like having more than one continent.

 

[Alrin Kharr]

Small Continents/Standard, usually. I like to be able to conquer my continent (or at least a nice chunk of it) early on, then start working on whatever win condition I want to pursue that game. When I first started playing, I usually would try more of a "peaceful builder" strategy and never declare war at all, but I found that to be untenable as I moved up in difficulty (I usually play on Emperor right now), as the AI would simply outrace me to the best city sites much of the time.

It's also a lot easier to reliably complete RAs when you're signing them with overseas empires who are unlikely to declare war on you, but that's just a nice bonus as opposed to an explicit reason.

 

[Truronian]

Used to play Fractal, but switched to Large/Huge Small Continents with low sea level. Gives much more interesting maps IMO. Fewer gigantic blobs of land.

 

[albie_123]

Always Continents Plus / Large, unless it's my laptop, in which case I'll go with Standard.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Continents plus, huge, with low sea levels.