Whats your favourite type of map to play on?

[drewisfat]

The only big reason I feel that makes Pangaea easy is because it's smaller than most scripts of the same size. But outside of that I think most reasons favor Pangaea being more difficult. Sharing an island with only 1 or 2 AIs makes it much easier to conquer, and that it's hard to imagine losing once you have an entire island under your control. And being separated by water will always seriously impede an AI's ability to fight a war.

It's true that for all you know one continent could have a runaway, and it's also true that the other continent could be a bunch of backwards people in a stalemate war for millenia. I think that's the biggest thing Pangaea has going for it -- the results are more balanced and can be influenced by the player, vs random dice rolls the AI have made against each other thousands of years before you met them. And ofc you can't start isolated, which most find boring and gameruining.

Still it's very hard to imagine losing a map with a lot of water, as the AI can build all sorts of things and you can level the entire civilization with transports, subs and nukes on the first turn of a war. Pangaea it's more likely the AI will have much of its civ not vulnerable to turn 1 nuke invasions.

 

[Manco Capac]

Spoiler :

 

[pandamancer]

For me it's archipelago and the landmass type is snaky continents.

The reason is because you get to have lots of coastal cities and land tiles to improve on. So it's best of both worlds! Additionally IMO, this also allows you to build most of your cities in single continent if the stretch of land is big enough.

Continents is also good due to the same reason but it is harder to box-in the opponent than archipelago.

 

[georgjorge]

On lower levels Pangea might be easier than other maps, but on Deity Pangea the AI will settle "your" land so fast that you'll be lucky to get four or five decent cities on many starts. For that reason, I think that Deity Continents or Hemispheres is actually easier than Pangea.

I like Pangea a lot, mostly because of the tech trading opportunities and the slightly more complicated Diplo. And since I don't have the skills of the Deity gods around here but still want a share of land to settle, Pangea with low sea level it is.

 

[alex15]

I like huge maps with 18 civs like that - i.e Archipelago low/medium sea level landmass type:snaky continents,

and Hempshires medium/low/high sea level, landmass type snaky continents/normal continents with number of 3 or 4(but not 2)

Because in pangea and normal continents - your home landmass is too big so you can kill all civs at your home landmass in the beggining of game without naval units and naval invasions = and make rest of the game too easy, by owning a big continent alone from the beggining of game

 

[plastiqe]

^ Agree, again.

Any time I can win the map simply by conquering my own starting continent I find the game too easy - and boring. Sure you can argue that a Pangea only lets you settle 4 cities and you share borders with 3-4 AI, but you could do the exact same thing with two big continents (it's like two Pangeas!) and still have to deal with another 6 AIs that you can't rush/choke/bribe/etc until Optics.

Meh, perhaps I'm just biased from not playing dumb ol' basic BTS.

 

[TheIO]

I play FFH mod, but when I do, I use the Erebus mapscript.

 

[alex15]

Hardest maps is probably Huge 18civs maps when player starts isolated until optics/astronomy on a small island, and AI starts at medium landmasses with couple of civs like 3 civs on 1 big isle

something like that islands and archipelago with high sea level

As for AI Naval Invasions - unlike Civ4, and Civ4Warlods they was improved a bit in BTS

 

[drkodos]

~ huge tectonics with max civs low sea level
~ huge fractal 15-18 civs low sea level

 

[Linux0s]

Always play Totestra map on epic speed w/torroidal wrap. I'm pretty sure Totestra is a modification of the PerfectWorld map script.

 

[Kastiael]

I just started playing civ in general a few weeks ago. Civ4 (obviously) in specific. I like not knowing whats what so i usually play on fractal. I do play Pangaea maps for some practice cause I keep getting owned on fractal because i am really bad at running my empire lol. On Noble Difficulty

 

[Robo-Star]

I just started playing civ in general a few weeks ago. Civ4 (obviously) in specific. I like not knowing whats what so i usually play on fractal. I do play Pangaea maps for some practice cause I keep getting owned on fractal because i am really bad at running my empire lol. On Noble Difficulty

Welcome to CivFanatics!
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I'm only just getting to grips with Warlord difficulty. I do play with K-Mod AI though, which some have said is like playing a whole difficulty level higher. That's my excuse, at least.
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[alex15]

http://www.civfanatics.com/civ4/strategy/map_guide.php The Complete Guide To Map Creation

awesome guide for people who havent tryed generating all possible map/landmass combinations with like 50-60 images as examples of generated maps

 

[Yxklyx]

Always play Totestra map on epic speed w/torroidal wrap. I'm pretty sure Totestra is a modification of the PerfectWorld map script.

Looks interesting but I don't think it's supported by Map Script Tools - which gives me Expanded Coast among other features.

 

[Olson]

Myself, I can't get away from Terra maps... as I like to be the first one to the "new world"

and since I'm at work right now and can't boot up civ4 to try the other maps...

what's everyone's preference to play on and why?

I've not yet played any map that has an emphasis on naval as I don't think the AI would do it well compared to it's land game and I really don't want to bother with the logistics of it. Besides, C.IV favours the defender and combat is nearly an all-or-nothing endeavour (the unit either dies or doesn't) so no, "hit the beachhead, boys" for me.

Pangea is ideal for a conquest/domination handicap.
Continents is better than pangea for a diplomatic/religious handicap.

Those are the two I play the most for an all Standard/Random game.

Since discovering CFC I've checked-out Kal-El's C.III maps. Very nice.

 

[alex15]

AI may suck at Naval invasions (horever AI naval invasions was improved in BTS a bit) but still maps with 3-4-5 landmasses like huge 18civs Hempshires and Snaky Continents is harder to play then maps with 1-2 landmasses like normal continents or pangea

Because in pangea player can easy conqueror many civs in the begging of game and become strongest civ on the map, and naval invasions and number of 3-4-5 will slow down player expansion alot, beceause player will be requed to build navy, and also transporting troops to another landmasses takes some time (if u playing huge map)

When you playing Huge 18civs map with 3-4 landmasses conquering AI takes more time especially if AI got tons of vassals on his landmass

 

[enKage]

1) Global highlands!!!!
2) Medium and small with max landmass
3) Fractal

All of them are very suprasing in terms of landmass and early/late contacts with civs

 

[alex15]

Also i found that playing Huge maps with 18civs is alot harder then playing Standard with 7 civs. Especially Huge18civs map is something non-pangea like hempshires with 3 landmasses - because at huge maps 18civs maps you need more time to transport your units from 1 landmass to another, and AI can use this time to build more units.

And also outteching AI at Huge18civs maps is also harder - diplomacy also becoming alot harder.

I suggest anyone who havent played Huge map 18civs, trying it at least for once with something like Hempshires with 3 big landmasses.

And also when u play huge18civs game feels more epic, simply because evrything is bigger, you have to control more citys,more units, and deal with more AIs

 

[Drakarska]

Try a giant with 32 civ's, get's really exciting at times. I'm 0 for 5 on Vincentz Global challenge so far on his mod.

 

[drewisfat]

You've said like 5 times now this week that 18 civs and more landmasses makes the games harder. I just think this is simply wrong. It might take longer.... in the sense you have to conquer more civs... but that's different from being harder.

1. The main way a human techs on higher levels of tech trading. Unless you straight up turn tech trades OFF you are giving an insane advantage to the human by giving him potentially 14 trade partners. Usually on a pangaea map you might hit the WFYABTA limit around liberalism..... boy it would be great to find another 10 civs willing to trade again.

2. Having to conquer an island with only a few people on it before conquering other islands isn't an additional "challenge" -- it's a handicap if anything. A lot can go wrong in Pangea..... not much can go wrong in a continent with three people on it. Similarly it becomes pretty hard to lose the game once you have your entire continent to yourself -- you will be much larger than the remaining AIs.

3. Fighting by sea is extremely rigged for humans, especially late game. The WORST thing that could ever happen in a navy war with an AI is you don't see an attack coming, and he's able to kill one coastal city. With no reinforcements, even your backwards nonexistent army retakes it a few turns later.

Yes you have to spend a few turns more to reach the AI and it's harder to reinforce, but fighting from the sea greatly increases your flexibility and you can attack whatever target you want whenever you want.

If you establish naval supremacy you can really punish an AI. He can dump hundreds of transports on a transporting ship, that die immediately. Or you could play the other way and build virtually NO navy and let the AI waste a lot of hammers in a navy. On turn one you drop off your army on his continent. The AI then uses his massive navy to destroy your... fishing boats. Oh no !

But the most important thing in playing water maps is that nukes just completely obliterate the AI, like in one turn. Then all you need are some subs, transports loaded with like 1 unit each, and a bunch of tat nukes. AIs with triple your power are eliminated before striking back. On pangaea nukes are less effective.

The hardest part of non-pangaea maps is they usually have a slightly bigger ratio of land to # of civs than pangaea -- however you seem to be promoting settings that decrease this ratio, like high water level, archipelago like maps, etc.

Being isolated also hurts, but beelining like optics/astronomy and then trading it to over a dozen civs sounds fun...