What is your favorite standard or large map that's the most balanced yet fun?

[Animorganimate]

I know there's some older threads about favorite maps, but I figure there's new players and new opinions. So what's your favorite map and settings for a fun, balanced game against the A.I.

I understand Communitas is supposed to be pretty balanced for Vox Populi, but I'm looking for otheer suggestions for a map script that gives an epic real-world feeling that allows for some expansion and exploration and weighty world battles later in the game.

Or is Communitas considered the best for this?

 

[glider1]

Frontier map. Best map I've ever played in years for largish continents with decent separation and with small islands and a lot of randomness with good distributions of different biomes that respond well to the different map settings like world age, rainfall etc . Fabulous map script. The Pangaea is great too but these days with VP the naval aspect of the game has to be utilized. The sizes are one size smaller than normal so small = standard = 8+16.

 

[Animorganimate]

Frontier map. Best map I've ever played in years for largish continents with decent separation and with small islands and a lot of randomness with good distributions of different biomes that respond well to the different map settings like world age, rainfall etc . Fabulous map script. The Pangaea is great too but these days with VP the naval aspect of the game has to be utilized. The sizes are one size smaller than normal so small = standard = 8+16.

Cool! Thanks for the reply. I'll give Frontier a shot for my next game, maybe with the Shoshone.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

PerfectWorld3 map script.
The most world like script with fascinating diversity. Much more rivers, mountain rifts, diverse areas and organic looking continents. I can only suggest to atleast try it one time. Starting from standard, the maps are a bit bigger, so I suggest atleast 1 more civ and 2 more CS. Unfurtunatly you can't use the script in multiplayer.

From the standard maps, Arborea is my new favorite map. In the advanced setting, you can pick from Islands over continents to Pangäa, but it's always very well forested. Gives you the option to cut only the stuff you need and work great lumbermill hammer tiles instead being forced to play on plain Grassland.

 

[azum4roll]

It's always possible on multiplayer if you start a game by yourself and then load the turn 0 autosave with your friends.

 

[Owlbebach]

I know there's some older threads about favorite maps, but I figure there's new players and new opinions. So what's your favorite map and settings for a fun, balanced game against the A.I.

I understand Communitas is supposed to be pretty balanced for Vox Populi, but I'm looking for otheer suggestions for a map script that gives an epic real-world feeling that allows for some expansion and exploration and weighty world battles later in the game.

Or is Communitas considered the best for this?

As a player who spent probably more than 1000 hours in this game i found out that simple Pangea (not Pangea+) is the best. Believe me it has enough Naval battles and it is just the most balanced of all.

One map that i consider to be better than Pangea is HellBlazer's Pangea, which is balanced even better and has great algorithm for placing players according to their starting bias. Unfortunately it does not work with VP. If someone can fix that - would be great.

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

Frontier map. Best map I've ever played in years for largish continents with decent separation and with small islands and a lot of randomness with good distributions of different biomes that respond well to the different map settings like world age, rainfall etc . Fabulous map script. The Pangaea is great too but these days with VP the naval aspect of the game has to be utilized. The sizes are one size smaller than normal so small = standard = 8+16.

I second that. Frontier is a very good map.

I also like Highlands a lot. However, it is a no wrapping map. Also, as there is very little water on this map, there is space for a lot of cities, which can lead to heavy burden on your machine in the later stages.

 

[Questdog]

Pangaea feels like cheating to me, not balanced....anyone who gets a lead on me can be reached by my military. Not so when they are on the other continent until Astronomy.

Planet Simulator, modified to give a bit less Tundra, Desert and Jungle, is what I play on almost exclusively anymore. It makes the prettiest maps. If you like PerfectWorld, it is actually a continuation of that with improvements. It has a Pangaea setting , if that is your thing.

 

[Animorganimate]

I

Pangaea feels like cheating to me, not balanced....anyone who gets a lead on me can be reached by my military. Not so when they are on the other continent until Astronomy.

Planet Simulator, modified to give a bit less Tundra, Desert and Jungle, is what I play on almost exclusively anymore. It makes the prettiest maps. If you like PerfectWorld, it is actually a continuation of that with improvements. It has a Pangaea setting , if that is your thing.

I like Planet Simulator myself. What settings do you use? And how do you tweak the biomes? Do you have to edit the .lua?

 

[black213]

I enjoy Continents+ (modified to remove city-states being forced to start on islands) but I must say that when I play on it I really miss the ocean rifts of Communitas.

 

[Questdog]

I

I like Planet Simulator myself. What settings do you use? And how do you tweak the biomes? Do you have to edit the .lua?

Yes, you have to edit the .lua, but it is not difficult. If you cannot figure it out and want a script that gives less Tundra, Desert and Jungle, I can shoot you mine.

I play with the default settings for continents with islands set to random. I am not a big fan of the tiny islands, but there is no way to just randomize between the ones I like. I used to set the coastal tiles to Narrow to make it harder to sail around the world in a Trireme, but I do not think that is much of an issue with the Normal setting for Coastal tiles. I just set it to narrow originally because I was used to Fractal maps where you could almost do that most of the time. When you can make it a long way every once in a while, it is kinda cool. If you can do it all the time, it is just not right.

P.S. The version I use is LL3 by Bobert13. IIRC, it was not easy to find on the forum.

 

[KaoticKanine]

Have played Communitas for the longest time, but recently started playing Frontier after @glider1 's post. And I think I'm becoming a fan of Frontier as well! All the maps I've played always felt small, with the exception of YnAEMP's Giant Earth Map, but Frontier feels like just the right size, allowing enough room for each Civ to place at least 8 cities before anyone else can intrude. And so far the resources and terrain seem very balanced

Though I don't know if this is just me, but it feels like Barbarians are mega abundant on Frontier, with camps spawning on every corner in quick succession. While this was a great help when playing as the Aztecs, I'm almost inclined to enable 'Chill Barbarians' when going for Tradition/Progress play, which I don't like doing since I don't want to play with a handicap (and it weakens AI that go Authority)

Nevertheless, I can recommend Frontier

 

[Minh Le]

I always add 1 or 2 more AI when play on Frontier, theres too much land.

 

[intelli]

I always add 1 or 2 more AI when play on Frontier, theres too much land.

Ended up with about 1/3 of a Pangaea to myself as the Aztecs, so many barb camps to stomp out. Snowballed so hard I got bored and quit. Definitely going to try with extra civs next time.

 

[Rekk]

If there's tons of space for you to settle, you will have tons of barbarians around to keep you from settling it.

 

[azum4roll]

I edited Communitas myself to make it as large as Planet Simulator, and then played a Huge map, low water level with 15 AIs and 30 City States. The map was so packed that by Industrial all land save Desert and Snow had been settled (Desert only unsettled because my cities surround it), and once Atomic Theory was researched even those Snow plains were settled for the Uranium abundance there.

Everyone but poor Polynesia had more than 10 cities, and everyone had border disputes with at least 4 other civs, so the game was very action packed especially in late game. Strangely there's no military runaway. Maybe it was because Global Peace Accord was passed long time ago? Does the AI actually refrain from capturing cities when it's effective?

Because it's low water level and Communitas, the water there was mostly one-tile wide "rivers" that form a maze that's super difficult for ships to traverse. Maybe I should've set it to medium instead.

 

[EriktheRead]

If Im looking for a balanced, vanilla sized map, I go for communitas. Its gorgeous. I much prefer Tectonic these days, as it can build a truly massive map sometimes. However, balance goes out the window with a map that sized, even with 16 civs there is a ton of room and one or two civs get ideal conditions to explode, leading to few wins. Still a fun map.

 

[chicorbeef]

The thing I don't like about Communitas are the abundance of rivers/lakes/resources...a little too much. The one-tile intertwining rivers in particular. However it's still a nice map overall.

Good old Continents does the trick for me. I like the element of mystery of who is on the other continent, I feel like there is a bit too much land exploration in general. In addition I often find myself land-locked or out of trading range of many civs (realistic I suppose, but not fun). Amphibious invasions are fun, both when the AI does it and when I do it.

 

[Txurce]

I play Communitas, but with sparse resources. One big difference from Continents is that the capital only gets two of a single luxury (as opposed to two).

 

[black213]

I play Communitas, but with sparse resources. One big difference from Continents is that the capital only gets two of a single luxury (as opposed to two).

I tried sparse Communitas as well but it seems that it also affects the quantity of strategic resources. All the iron I saw was 1 per tile. Big no from me.