So why are the Earth maps so much more difficult than the regular game?

[Dis]

Any idea? And I'm not talking about the huge one (which suffers from massive barbarian problems). I was playing the standard sized one. It still has a lot of barbarians, but nothing more than I could handle. I had to drop down a difficulty level to beat this thing.

I would say it's the terrain (and lack of variation compared to random maps). But then the AI should suffer the same problems. Or possibly the starting positions aren't balanced. I've played as both the Mongols, and Americans. Perhaps they do not have as good of starting positions.

I just haven't figured it quite out yet.

[Blake]

Well Rome is INSANELY strong.. and I hear China has a good start too. I've only played as Rome so I can't really compare the startpoints.

[ipggi]

I found Rome very easy to play even on the large earth map due to its ocean bordering and mountain defenses. Plus it has a large number of key resources near by. All you needed to expand quickly.

I found Egypt hard, as there would be hordes of barbarians attacking you from deep, dark Africa.

Japan was interesting as you are isolated to an island. And by the time you could settle the mainland you would be in competition with China etc. So I often tried to settle Indonesia, Australia etc instead.


Obviously the starting points are not balanced and they were not meant to be I think. Just like in real life some Civilizations had different advantages to others. And I think that is the intended challenge to players.

[Mayfield]

I have been playing the standard sized one, and some Civ's just have an initial starting place that is too advantageous. Like Persia or the Mongols.

The North American Civ's are too isolated and can easily build their way to superpowerhood.

I have tried playing as Egypt and Greece and the only way to be competitve is to be aggressive and knock out your neighbors.. immediately.

[Badtz Maru]

Colonizing Australia is a good idea when you are playing as Japan on Earth maps. You can get there with galleys so you can start early, though it's a good idea to wait until you have some good cash flow as the maintenance costs are going to be high because of the distance. Every time I've played as Japan I got the entire continent of Australia to myself, as well as a good portion of the islands between SE Asia and Australia (though India tends to get a lot of those).

[Zorkk]

I just recently played a earth game, on monarch, as china, and let me tell you, they have an amazing location. right around where you start there's enough room for 4 high production, high commerce cities, with tons of resources available. The only real snag i found is that the mongols start really close to you, so I ended taking some of their cities early, which really helped my expansion

It was a really good game for me won by diplomatic victory a few turns before i woulda been done the spaceship.. hehe

Z

[Dis]

yeah China seems easier (just got to deal with the nasty Mongols). But at least you have a buffer from the barbarians.

Barbarians always seem to give me the most trouble. They really slow up my research when I have to devote so much resources to military units.