What "custom game" features do you usually play with?

[IAM]

Almost every game ends in war so recently been playing isolation settings to work on building.

no barbarians
no tech brokering
no tech TRADING
no tribal villages
huge map with 6 continents and six players

so far it's still is always about war.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Almost every game ends in war so recently been playing isolation settings to work on building.

no barbarians
no tech brokering
no tech TRADING
no tribal villages
huge map with 6 continents and six players

so far it's still is always about war.

Couple things that will help hopefully:

1. If you disable trading, there's no point in disabling brokering .

2. Whether the map goes to war or not has far less to do with trades than which leaders you're up against. Putting shoveovers like gandhi/asoka/frederick/lincoln/etc on the map will mean virtually no war unless you initiate it.

If you're going to play a map like that an early astro bulb will put you lightyears ahead of everyone BTW. The trade route commerce will be obscene and without being able to trade even the higher-level AIs will seem weak, although with that much land available to everyone it'd certainly play a little differently than usual. I'd probably push UN in such a game unless the game shook out some *really* unfavorable leader/religion combos. Very rare - UN is actually quite easy once you get diplo down.

 

[PreLynMax]

Always
-No Tech Brokering
-Random Seed on Reload
-Contients or Custom Contients map

Usually
-Raging Barbarians
-Huge Map, 11 civs
-Huge Map, 40+ civs
-Marathon Speed
-Terra Maps (especially under Revolution mods)

Occasionally
-Jungle/Tundra/Desert starts
-Random Personalities
-Aggressive AI

Rarely
-Epic or faster speeds

Never
-No Tribal Villages
-No Tech Trading
-No Espanage
-No Random Events
-Always Peace
-Always War
-Large or smaller maps
-Choose Religions
-Archepelo or Lakes (or simular) maps

I hope I'm not missing anything... if not I'll edit this thread.

 

[Sisiutil]

• Choose religions (for flavour)
• Random seed on reload (so in case I reload a previous save to try a different strategy, not everything is predictable)
• Random personalities

I've tried no tech brokering, no tech trading, and aggressive AI and find that each one tends to give more of an advantage to the human player at considerable expense to the AI, at least in the long run. Aggressive AI especially helps the AI at first, but by mid- to late game, supporting all those extra (often unneccessary) units puts the AI way behind you in techs. The AI also doesn't take good advantage of advanced start (though it's a boon to get through the first few otherwise-boring turns on Marathon speed, so I sometimes use it).

Of all the custom settings, I find that Random Personalities is the one (besides the difficulty level itself) that introduces the biggest challenge to the human player without adversely affecting the AI. You have to watch your diplomacy carefully and don't know who has Monty's/Shaka's personality and who has Mansa's/Gandhi's until well into the game, if at all. The AI, on the other hand, bases its diplomacy entirely on what happens in-game rather than on pre-determined notions, so it adjusts to RP perfectly well.

 

[Gooblah]

• Choose religions (for flavour)
• Random seed on reload (so in case I reload a previous save to try a different strategy, not everything is predictable)
• Random personalities

I've tried no tech brokering, no tech trading, and aggressive AI and find that each one tends to give more of an advantage to the human player at considerable expense to the AI, at least in the long run. Aggressive AI especially helps the AI at first, but by mid- to late game, supporting all those extra (often unneccessary) units puts the AI way behind you in techs. The AI also doesn't take good advantage of advanced start (though it's a boon to get through the first few otherwise-boring turns on Marathon speed, so I sometimes use it).

Of all the custom settings, I find that Random Personalities is the one (besides the difficulty level itself) that introduces the biggest challenge to the human player without adversely affecting the AI. You have to watch your diplomacy carefully and don't know who has Monty's/Shaka's personality and who has Mansa's/Gandhi's until well into the game, if at all. The AI, on the other hand, bases its diplomacy entirely on what happens in-game rather than on pre-determined notions, so it adjusts to RP perfectly well.

OMFG! SISUTIL:"S BACK!

 

[Joshua368]

OMFG! SISUTIL:"S BACK!

He's been around a while now poking around in odd threads.

Just not doing anything fun.

 

[Scoottr]

No Tech Brokering
No Vassals
Raging Barbarians
Aggresive AI

And I always add 4+ more civs to the map, always play on Large and Fractal and Marathon.

 

[Chiyochan]

aggressive AI
choose religions,
no tech brokering

I cant stand multilayer anymore because everyone turns off random events, they must really suck at Civ =/

 

[Sisiutil]

He's been around a while now poking around in odd threads.

Just not doing anything fun.

My new year's resolution is to pick up the Boudica ALC game where I left off.

I forgot to mention that I also usually play a large map and add a few civs to it. How many depends on how warlike I'm feeling (very = more).

 

[CCRunner]

My new year's resolutions areto pick up the Boudica ALC game and my story, Princes of the Universe where I left off.

Fixed. We haven't forgotten you know

 

[Maximillion]

I generally play with Raging Barbarians....and occasionally I'll play with the Ramdom Personalities feature on as well.

I haven't figured out a Mapping type that I like, so I generally end up modifying the map to add a couple of minor land masses or islands to spruce things up a bit.

 

[Benford's Law]

Sisiutil,

Wouldn't leaving tech brokering "on" (ie. unchecked "No tech brokering") help counteract the Aggressive AI's falling behind in research later on due to excessive unit maintenance? Would an 18-civ game guarantee a wider variety of tech paths for the AI to follow and trade?

Most of the experts say marathon is helpful to the human player, and I'm trying to figure a Huge Map/Marathon game's settings that would keep it at the same level of challenge as a standard map/standard speed game on the same difficulty.

I don't speak from a lot of playing experience but raging barbs, leaving tech brokering on, 18 civs, and random personalities would seem to balance the difficulty out compared to higher speeds/smaller maps of the same difficulty level (albeit with completely different challenges & a much longer game).


My 0.1

~Benford's Law

 

[Ramesses]

- Unrestricted Leaders, with no opponent leaders or nationalities specified.
- Random Personalities, because it's just not crazy enough.
- Choose Religions
- No Tech Brokering
- No Tribal Villages

 

[Kip Beagle]

Unrestricted leaders
Random personalities
No tech trading
No tribal villages
Modern age start
Choose religions (although with modern start, I guess this isn't necessary)
Raging barbarians
Aggressive AI
No espionage
Marathon speed
Small continents map

 

[Faramel]

I always play with raging barbarians

 

[Snowman084]

i just finished a game with no tech trading and wow what a huge difference lol

 

[Onionsoilder]

Always:

Unrestricted Leaders
Random Personalities

Sometimes:

Raging Barbarians

 

[AncientPlayer]

I usually play with
- no tech brokering
- choose religion
- raging barbs
- no goody huts

I sometimes play with
- no espionage
- aggressive AI

Dick