Continent Maps - An Analysis

[Gherald]

Originally posted by mike2h
bottom line, any land mass worthy of being called a continent should have at least 2 civs on it.

So Antarctica, with 0, clearly isn't a continent? Not quite.

Number of civs does not determine whether something is "worthy" of being called a continent. Landmass does.

But for game balance reasons, a /typical/ continent should have at least 2 civs, otherwise you have the equivalent of an "Islands" map setting, which should be distinct.

[CerberusIV]

I've just been through a few days of trying to start a new game on a standard continents map and abandoning numerous starts. The reason is that I mostly get either one other civ on my continent or 4 when I really want 2 or 3 others. Maybe it's just a run on the RNG on my computer but I don't seem to be getting 4:3 or 3:2:2 games - which is what I am looking for as I think they are more balanced without the continent with 5 civs running away tech-wise.

[Willem]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
I've just been through a few days of trying to start a new game on a standard continents map and abandoning numerous starts. The reason is that I mostly get either one other civ on my continent or 4 when I really want 2 or 3 others. Maybe it's just a run on the RNG on my computer but I don't seem to be getting 4:3 or 3:2:2 games - which is what I am looking for as I think they are more balanced without the continent with 5 civs running away tech-wise.

Yes there is a distribution problem with the 1.52 maps. It's a known issue and will no doubt be dealt with in the next patch. In the meantime, have you tried my suggestion of lowering the sea level? It helps. The problem is that the smaller continents being formed are two small to really hold any civs, so the civs tend to get lumped together on the largest land masses.

[Mace]

Another thing I have noticed in Civ4 (or Civ3 for that matter) is that in a case like Map 3, I can bet that much of the time, the civs that started alone (on those western smaller continents) would be major world powers....especially if they could communicate pre-Optics...

...whereas the 5 civs that were stuck on the large continent, would be competing amongst themselves for scarce land, scarce resources, etc. Granted, they would have more contacts, but the 2 isolated civs would likely have pre-Optics contact with each other, so...

Basically, it seems like any "fairly" isolated civ (2 or 3 civs around each other) tend to get strong, whereas the totally isolated ones do not. And the civs that are in crowded areas tend to be a bit limited in their overall strength by the crowd.