What map scripts/settings do you play/'test' with?

[Thonnas]

As per the title, I'm curious to know which map scripts and settings, or pre-made maps everyone usually plays, and especially what the team usually uses for testing. Also, maybe some explanation of why you may choose certain settings.

As for myself:
I used to try playing with the tectonics map script, but I only ever finished a few games using it, as I would get frustrated with some of its "wonkynes." After being totally fed up with that I tried smartmap, but obviously lack the patients and determination to figure out the right settings for a decent game.

Now I pretty much stick with the basic continents script, with a low sea level and either standard size and 12 civs, or large with 14 or 15 and no special settings.

Occasionally I'll play a game using the Earth Ice age map, and maybe require complete kills.

 

[Kolath]

I use balanced or continents usually. I've played around with smartmap some but I find it doesn't produce enough of certain critical resources: mana, reagents, incense.

 

[CuteKills]

No particular order:

Highlands
Inner Sea
Achipelago

Ring and Wheel are quite fun too, as they're less suited to a landgrab.

(I like maps with some choke points, by and large)

The "Greek World" map is also good.

Settings wise, Raging Barbs, Aggressive AI. No AL/Time victory.

I'll set high levels of resources, too as I don't like messing around trying to find obscure resources.

 

[snarko]

Pangea. AI doesn't know how to handle sea and I don't much like all land maps.
Size anything but duel. Usually with more than standard number of civs, raging barbs (due to overcrowdedness) and aggressive AI (wars more important as there's less space for each civ. Not sure if it helps or just creates more useless wars.)
Always permanent alliances on. Huge wars at the end of the game are fun.
No time victory. I don't like time limits in games.


I would like to play an ultra-mega-hyper-extra-super-giga map with hundreds of civs that's all but impossible to conquer and you might have a border that consist of 10-15 cities with each turn taking a day or more, but alas, even a standard map will become slow late in the game. Such a large map would crash. And marathon/epic to slow things down just doesn't do it for me. Problably because I'm too impatient to play the first hundred turns or so.

Since I prefer civs over space I almost always use more than the standard number.

 

[onedreamer]

Standard Highlands, Balanced or Inland Sea; this because I find them to be the most balanced maps. All victories but the Altar, sometimes with raging barbs, sometimes not.

 

[Grey Fox]

Small or Standard Pangea. Most things random except my own civ.

 

[Shadius]

I pretty much always play with the FFH_Smartmap script (can't imagine playing with a vanilla script, really. I'd probably go nuts the first time I'd see a Doviello capitol in the middle of a desert, or something) using the following settings;

-Small map with 8-9 players (What can I say? I like 'em crowded)
-2 Huge Lands
-75% Ocean (Like to have at least two distinct "worlds" to develop independantly off one another)
-Medium forests, light jungle
-Heavy rivers, light lakes (Smartmap's default for lakes is pretty much insane)
-Very round, heavy fragments (Generally causes for the most interesting land structures and a few god colonization places, I find)

Used to play on larger maps, but found that my games slowed down to a crawl during the lategame, so, yeah.

 

[wicshade]

I mainly play standard contients 10 players raging barbs,

but sometimes i like to play on the terra map script, i like starting out with all the civs on one contienet and then having a race to get to barbarian infested contients, (i Only play this map when im in the mood for playing with a strong navy)

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

I would recomend this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=226062

Cause this is really a strategy/tips talk, not a design problem.

 

[Civkid1991]

I pretty much always play with the FFH_Smartmap script (can't imagine playing with a vanilla script, really. I'd probably go nuts the first time I'd see a Doviello capitol in the middle of a desert, or something) using the following settings;

-Small map with 8-9 players (What can I say? I like 'em crowded)
-2 Huge Lands
-75% Ocean (Like to have at least two distinct "worlds" to develop independantly off one another)
-Medium forests, light jungle
-Heavy rivers, light lakes (Smartmap's default for lakes is pretty much insane)
-Very round, heavy fragments (Generally causes for the most interesting land structures and a few god colonization places, I find)

Used to play on larger maps, but found that my games slowed down to a crawl during the lategame, so, yeah.

where can u download the ffh smart script?

 

[iamjooish]

starting locations almost never encompass 'inhospitable' terrain. I've yet to see a civ start point out that didn't have a surrounding two-tile radius free of ice, snow, tundra, desert, and peaks. There's usually a river nearby each of them, too. So even if the starting location is in the middle of FFH-anartica, it'll have a mysterious hot patch in the middle allowing the capital city to grow normally. Still, being plonked on the articbands, with so little fertile land in sight can stunt a civ to the bottom, so I tweaked the necessary xml file in the vanilla assets folder, to turn it off, and now maps only generate a narrow 1-tile band of ice and snow at top and bottom, just how I want it, and AIs starting out in the cold regions now make for better competition... unless you choose 'cold'.

I've been playing on oasis, lakes, and occasionally inland sea. I mostly play temperate, though arid can certainly be fun since it produces a ton of flood plains for most start locations. Low sea level, even lower than most since I lowered the appropriate setting in the xml as well. I usually place the max # of civs on the map... makes land grabs interesting and you tend to get better 'clumps' of of resources in or near your starting loc, and some really crazy yields if you monopolize world wonders and build it up wisely.

I'd hate playing as a builder civ (as I usually do( and being placed on the same island/continent as doviello.. doviello is a puny late-game civ to start with but building up all those stacks of beastmen at the beginning of the game can keep you from staying at the top of the totem pole, tech- and economy-wise. Edit, and their always at war with someone, usually the guy with the weakest military, me. o.O

I'm thinking about trying out archipelago with tiny islands and low sea level, eventually. Kinda hard to find access to river tiles though. Miss out on a good bit that way.

 

[Jean Elcard]

Map Script:

My favorite is the the FFH_Tectonics flavour map script. I really like these huge mountain ridges between collided continents and sometimes along coasts. Link to the Flavour Map Scripts

Map Size:

Usually normal or large for performance reasons.

Other Settings:

- raging barbs
- no technologie trading
- no ice. There was a thread suggesting some improvements to ice to make it more dangerous to travel there, but at the moment it's quite senseless.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

I prefer Fractal, or sometimes Pangaea if I'm playing MP. Aside from that... I tend to set the sealevel to low and add an extra Civ.

 

[felwar]

Generally tectonics maps for me, of varying configurations with 16 players on large or standard. Regular civ maps don't feel realistic enough (I can't stand evenly spaced square continents and islands), and what is a fantasy world without mountain chains?

 

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

I prefer land-heavy maps, especially Pangaea, Highlands, Inland Sea, and Oasis, because-as Snarko noted-the AI does very poorly with oceans, and there is a lot of interaction on these maps. However, I hope that the colonization aspect of the AI can be improved, as Terra offers a lot of late game exploration and animal capturing opportunities (which are currently lost on the AI).

I play Prince/Monarch depending on whether I'm trying something new and untested, I prefer crowded maps, and I only use Aggressive AI and Raging Barbarians if I have some reason to suspect that there will not be enough wars or barbarians.