Whats the most difficult map types to play on?

[aguliondew]

Been messing around with the map type and was wondering which map types are the hardest to play on(fractal, shuffle, continents). Also what custom maps are difficult to try: Dry, hot, low sea level and old world or Cold, wet, high sea level and new world. I am curious about stuff like that. I know some civ get bonuses on some of the terrain type Kongo and Russian come to mind.

 

[isau]

I find in general the game gets harder as maps get smaller but the number of civs is increased, , although "Harder" is subjective. I am fond of Small Fractal and Continents maps with Low sea level, 8 civs (2 more than usual for Small), Wet landscape (for more trees), and New landscape (more Hills). I don't know if it's "harder" but it closes down on the amount of useless Ocean tiles and makes early boats somewhat more useful, as well as puts most AI civs in a region where they're likely to have enough Production to compete.

 

[Bizrock]

Pangea, AI doesn't know how to play maps with water.

 

[aguliondew]

I like maps with some water so that I can travel to attack civs that are farther away. In Pangaea you can have a few civ angry at you but you would have to trample over another civ to get to them. So maps with alot of production would make the AI have a better chance. Has anyone play on map with low production before how has the AI done on those type of maps? I know desert based map will depend on who gets petra while tundra maps theirs not much to work with on tundra maps. I am going to try a map with high and low production to see how that works out.

 

[Esperr]

Cold, old, dry. You have a snowball with no production.

 

[Japper007]

Island Plates IMHO, the only map where an early rush is not the go-to answer, meaning the game doesn't turn from "can I even win?" to "how fast can I win?" at turn 40. There's also a real tendency for runaways on that map while you have a harder time dealing with them. Also, no production whatsoever and a harder time mass-expanding due to lack of space.

Pangea is the easiest, as long as you keep killing and do not fall behind in tech.

 

[Trengilly]

I find the map settings - hot/cold, wet/dry, old/new have less impact on the map than in Civ 5.

Heck sometimes the map seems so different than what I picked that I start to doubt that I've actually made the selection I intended!

In theory hot and dry and old with sparse resources should provide the least amount of production (less stuff to chop/harvest and fewer hills) (or do you want new for extra mountains resulting in fewer hills - I never know)

Inland sea can be tricky - there is often lots of space for barbs to spawn around the edges of the map and the civilizations don't necessarily settle along the coast to be exploited by a navy. And without map wrapping AI civs on the far side of the map are really far away!

 

[Esperr]

Island Plates IMHO, the only map where an early rush is not the go-to answer, meaning the game doesn't turn from "can I even win?" to "how fast can I win?" at turn 40. There's also a real tendency for runaways on that map while you have a harder time dealing with them. Also, no production whatsoever and a harder time mass-expanding due to lack of space.

Pangea is the easiest, as long as you keep killing and do not fall behind in tech.

I would say that any heavy water map is easiest. The A.I is just terrible at them.they have no idea how to expand. Even on Deity it will be turn 100 and thry still only have four or five citys with a bunch of idle settlers sitting in there capitol.

 

[Trengilly]

I would say that any heavy water map is easiest

Yep - Island Plates is the easiest map by far - half a dozen ships and the world is yours for the taking.

 

[rattatatouille]

Archipelago
World age - old
Temperature - cold
Rainfall - dry
Resources - sparse

I think this configuration will provide the lowest overall production. Hills are rare meaning fewer mines. More Tundra and less Grassland/Plains. Dry means fewer woods and rainforests to chop. Sparse resources is self explanatory.

 

[Portinou]

Try the ones where you are forced to the center (don’t remember the name, 4-something and 6-something). You get quickly cornered on highest difficulty levels.

 

[Naktis]

Islands...AI sucks at navy and water maps , so it very HARD to keep playing a booring run.

 

[Disgustipated]

I find the ai does well on water maps. Sure they can't conquer you, but it is also harder for them to be conquered or lose cities to disloyalty. They have more time to build up.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Does that include mods/maps?

Try Scrambled Antarctica -> https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=933600285

 

[Inlex]

I depends greatly on which civ you´re playing as well. Arid hot new world is perfect for Amanitore, for example. Peter would fare a lot less well..

In my experience, There are two tough scenarios when dealing with AI:
- The above mentioned "Crowded Island", where you simply get beat by AI cause they start with extra settlers. So you don't have room to build cities and will fall behind quickly
- Underpopulated pangea, where AI settles all over the place, and keeps spamming 'don't settle near me' messages until you are a warmonger, despite not starting a single fight.*

*I must say, my current pangea game, Mapuche has a swath of land in his backyard which is not being touched by anybody, despite the many resources, hills, rivers, etc. It's almost as if a hard city cap was introduced recently...

 

[Bizrock]

Island Plates IMHO, the only map where an early rush is not the go-to answer, meaning the game doesn't turn from "can I even win?" to "how fast can I win?" at turn 40. There's also a real tendency for runaways on that map while you have a harder time dealing with them. Also, no production whatsoever and a harder time mass-expanding due to lack of space.

Pangea is the easiest, as long as you keep killing and do not fall behind in tech.

Play Pangea with harder difficulties, AI has a big advantage early and he will use it. In Pangea is where he can take advantage of his advantage

 

[isau]

I think the best way to get the AI active is to go with a Low water table. Without a vast ocean the AI is slightly better about reembarking and spreading to new continents.

Island Plates with Low water is kind of interesting. I definitely prefer it over the standard Island Plates map. Altho I still prefer Fractal or Continents overall.

 

[Softly]

Not sure if this counts as "map type" but turning off barbarians makes the game much harder. This is because (1) The human player relies on the eurekas/inspirations much more than the AI (kill unit with slinger, kill 3 barbarians, clear encampment) (2) The AI often gets builders/settlers taken (3) On higher difficulty the AI can expand much more rapidly than the human player without barbarians holding them back.

 

[Japper007]

Play Pangea with harder difficulties, AI has a big advantage early and he will use it. In Pangea is where he can take advantage of his advantage

Exlusively Deity already, if I even play Single Player at all... So nah... Pangea is the easiest Deity map by far, always a close neighbour or two to eat (meaning AI bonuses=your bonuses), and the AI is still zero challenge on both the war and expansion front.