comparison game for woodan and whom else

[rah]

I have to agree that turning barbs off helps the human player more than the AI at the upper levels. When the AI starts with archers while you're stuck with warriors, it's no contest.

I believe that is what I did in this post.

And if you recall, you hijacked another thread with your feud so please practice what you preach.

[wodan11]

Brandon, no offense, but don't turn this thread into the same as the last one.

If YOU can't simply post on the games and discuss strategy, then don't post at all. Your own posts, which criticize others posting habits, are waaaay more off topic than their posts are.

You made your point, let it go.

[Norselord]

thx for your opinion , but seeing how this forum is for those who are playing the above mapscript, and not the effect of barbs on or off, this post is irrelevant in this thread . but since these are just your opinions and you think im bloating for some reason (you think im very impressed for some reason, dont know why, you never asked, just assumed) but in fact im just sharing my experience thus far as some others have that are actually playing this map. quick question tho, have you ever played against 8 civs with 40+ cities and have bigger armies than you? if you havent, id suggest trying this map out prior to giving opinions on it. if you dont like the bigger maps or your computer cant handle it, then you have little knowledge to base your opinions in this case.

I DO think you are bloating.

Bigger maps also favor the human, it leaves more room for error, it marginalizes the selection of city placements and dilutes the strategy of the game, it is more forgiving in making errors (1 bad build queue in 50 cities compared to 5, thats 2% v 20%...in other words: it equalizes the play strength of a player who rates 98 out of a 100 and one who rates 82 out of 100)

When you play on bigger maps, in order for the difficulty to scale, it is important to scale the number of civs. 8 civs on a giant map? Cheeeeeeeeez. I think 8 is the default # of civs for the map that is one larger than standard.

Lastly, please try to format your posts and use basic grammar. It is hard enough to follow your logic as it is, without having to trace out the immense run-on sentences and lack of capitalization.

[Brael]

I DO think you are bloating.

Bigger maps also favor the human, it leaves more room for error, it marginalizes the selection of city placements and dilutes the strategy of the game, it is more forgiving in making errors (1 bad build queue in 50 cities compared to 5, thats 2% v 20%...in other words: it equalizes the play strength of a player who rates 98 out of a 100 and one who rates 82 out of 100)

Look at his save, everything save one or two cities which share about one tile is a full fat cross with lots of room inbetween them. My suspicion is he favors large maps because there's less of a distance maintence penalty, and it gives him room to make all these large fat cross cities. When I glanced through his game it looked like he was only utilizing around 40% of his territory before accounting for territory not used due to populations under 20.

Which makes large maps a crutch in one sense since it's eliminating the need for you to really strategize and balance out founding profitable cities with controlling costs and getting the most out of your territory. It also eliminates the importance of specialization. With a large empire you can end up sacrificing say 5% of your cities to pursue a culture or space victory compared to 50% on a smaller map (large and huge suffer from this problem as well, those victories should really require more spaceship components and more legendary cities) so there's a natural push towards military and diplomatic victories. That's not to say there's not strategy on larger maps, but it's a different type of strategy as you can be a generalist while still working towards all the specialized ways to win.

[brandonjm8]

Brandon, no offense, but don't turn this thread into the same as the last one.

If YOU can't simply post on the games and discuss strategy, then don't post at all. Your own posts, which criticize others posting habits, are waaaay more off topic than their posts are.

You made your point, let it go.

im trying but the others arent listening, this thread is just about the game i uploaded, thats all. the barb on or off discussion has already been said in another thread awhile ago, no need to repeat ourselves here. this is supposed to be a thread of the us who are playing the map and not that which has already been discussed somewhere else, makes sense right?

[brandonjm8]

I DO think you are bloating.

Bigger maps also favor the human, it leaves more room for error, it marginalizes the selection of city placements and dilutes the strategy of the game, it is more forgiving in making errors (1 bad build queue in 50 cities compared to 5, thats 2% v 20%...in other words: it equalizes the play strength of a player who rates 98 out of a 100 and one who rates 82 out of 100)

When you play on bigger maps, in order for the difficulty to scale, it is important to scale the number of civs. 8 civs on a giant map? Cheeeeeeeeez. I think 8 is the default # of civs for the map that is one larger than standard.

Lastly, please try to format your posts and use basic grammar. It is hard enough to follow your logic as it is, without having to trace out the immense run-on sentences and lack of capitalization.

well for one this isnt english class, two: if your confused on a post ask for clarification.

in some ways it can be easier for the human on bigger maps, but also the AI gets alot bigger and can send bigger SoD's at you since they have more cities. and conquering them is harder since they have so many, for the most part on my exp's with bigger maps the AI sends huge SoD's towards you, now if say another or two equally powerful AI's jump in doesnt that add to the challenge? when i play these bigger maps, i go for the domination win, it aint easy with these size maps but i like it that way, i only slide into a diplo or space or CV win. as far as civs in this map, if you read my first post you'd know there are 12 civs in this map not 8. i used 8 since there are 8 huge AI's in my game and im fighting two of them right now. the other 3 are not bigger than me.

since you bring up "defaults", for this map its 11, i put 12 in, next game after wodans will be 13 or 14. please pay more attention prior to postng, there are 12 civs in this game.

and like i said, im not bloating, just sharing my progress, if thats bloating then id have to disagree.

[brandonjm8]

Look at his save, everything save one or two cities which share about one tile is a full fat cross with lots of room inbetween them. My suspicion is he favors large maps because there's less of a distance maintence penalty, and it gives him room to make all these large fat cross cities. When I glanced through his game it looked like he was only utilizing around 40% of his territory before accounting for territory not used due to populations under 20.

Which makes large maps a crutch in one sense since it's eliminating the need for you to really strategize and balance out founding profitable cities with controlling costs and getting the most out of your territory. It also eliminates the importance of specialization. With a large empire you can end up sacrificing say 5% of your cities to pursue a culture or space victory compared to 50% on a smaller map (large and huge suffer from this problem as well, those victories should really require more spaceship components and more legendary cities) so there's a natural push towards military and diplomatic victories. That's not to say there's not strategy on larger maps, but it's a different type of strategy as you can be a generalist while still working towards all the specialized ways to win.

but with these size of maps, the AI's get BIG, really big. their armies can and will be bigger than most you've fought against adding to the challenge. im trying to find the optimum number of civs for this map style. next game i play on this map will have more civs, adding to the challenge. like i said earlier they dont put the human by himself often, i shouldve regenerated another map since 90% of the time im fighting early. this style has some easier points but does have some harder points. if your good at war, even at this size you can win via conquest or domination, which is what i go for. i just play with these settings only adding more AI's til i reach deity then i'll switch up the settings and go back to prince or monarch whichever and go to deity again, its my habbit.

i try to maximize cities, size and tiles, i hate overlapping and only do if needed, i also like to keep them close WHEN possible, if our continent had more resources spread out, my city placement would be alot different, as you can by my last save i have all resource already and just adding good potential cities for building units and adding to the economy. i like them to have fat crosses, they are more productive hammer wise and gold/science wise. i specialize my cities, so that when the need arises i can amass an army quickly, at my current point im before 1600 A.D. with 35 or so cities and half of them are building cavalry in 9 turns or less most of them in 6 or less and that at marathon speed. in 20 turns i will have a SoD of 50+ easily, i just didnt build early since we had our own continent.

[Brael]

Big is relative to the map size. On one map 10 cities is large while on another map 100 is large.

[brandonjm8]

Big is relative to the map size. On one map 10 cities is large while on another map 100 is large.

you shouldve seen my last game, pacal has close to 70 cities, the other two other than toku have 40+ just on my continent. a few others have 50+, im dismantleing one of them now (or was, that games on hold for now). size is relative but this is only the mid gigantic map, the biggest can easily support 1000+ cities .

[Brael]

1600 ad. Other civs are starting to get astronomy so they're going to start making demands of me. I used the apostolic palace to shut mao off from trade, I just need to spread religion to a few other civs with atleast 1 hindu city to make it more effective. It seemed the best way to eliminate him, and it only cost me a -1 you stopped trading with us.

Ragnar will potentially take a shot at me, he's making demands and he's too weak for me to care about (and isolated religiously), resulting in his requests being denied so I expect a handful of berserkers to show up on my continent in around 150 turns. Mansa is on track to build a spaceship so I'll have to do something about him. Without espionage my only real options will be to either bribe someone into war with him, war with him myself, or just slow him down by cutting his trade routes. No one can out vote me.

My next goal is to found a few corporations I'm after. I'll worry about the issues with getting resources for them later. First will be Sid's Sushi since I'm already generating great merchants and have some sea resources. I suppose I'll blow my treasury up by setting several cities to make a couple settlers each, then just run negative. By my estimate I could handle -100/turn for about 340 turns before having to turn my science below 100% so I'm not concerned about the economic side of things at all.

I figure by 1700 I should have a minimal number of defenders in every city, a force that can counter attack incase of war, atleast one corporation, and about 60% of my continent settled. I do need to start mapping more cities out though. Also, I'm deliberately avoiding astronomy. Due to running mercantilism I see no need to rush for foreign trade routes, and I quite like my wonders that it obsoletes.

[wodan11]

im trying

No, you're not. You're going out of your way to pick a fight.

but the others arent listening

I said many times what others do don't justify what you do.

this thread is just about the game i uploaded, thats all

Then don't post anything but that.

That is all I'm going to say on the topic.

the AI gets alot bigger and can send bigger SoD's at you since they have more cities. and conquering them is harder since they have so many

I have to disagree with that. More does not make it harder. The human ALSO has more cities and has bigger SoDs.

All the bigger map means in this regard is that armies are bigger on both sides. That doesn't make it harder. It just makes it taker longer, with more micromanagement.

for the most part on my exp's with bigger maps the AI sends huge SoD's towards you, now if say another or two equally powerful AI's jump in doesnt that add to the challenge?

Not any more than it does on smaller maps.

but with these size of maps, the AI's get BIG, really big. their armies can and will be bigger than most you've fought against adding to the challenge.

And my armies will get big, really big too. My army can and will be bigger than most I've ever done, reducing the challenge.

i just play with these settings only adding more AI's til i reach deity

You really think you'll get so you win on Deity on these maps? What makes you think so?

[Boracks]

Although generally avoiding the discussion, I do have to agree with Wodan on a point here. Bigger armies does not make it harder, rather the reverse.

The human can generally, assuming they are competent, use their armies better than the AI, if they are near the same size. Actually, a good player can have half the size of the AI (talking SoD only, not all troops) and beat the AI up.

It doesn't matter if you're talking 40 units versus 20 or 200 units versus 100, the actual size doesn't matter, its the relative size that counts. And, IMHO, if the stacks are larger, it favours the human who will use his forces more effectively.

[Brael]

I agree with you in principal Boracks but siege changes the game. 20 or 200 in a stack, it's not that much of a difference to siege (even with the max target limit on siege attacks), and once stuff is wiped out, the absolute size does come into play more.

Oh, and here's a 1700. My military is absolutely pathetic but I'm not too concerned about it. I'm trying to go for a peaceful win. A map this size is too much of a hassle to conquer. It's a shame really, first to steel probably by a good margin and I'm not even using it. And not a single cottage built.

If you're comparing my games you'll see my treasury is a lot smaller now. I decided it was better to spend it than let someone demand it and have to make a tough decision, so I went to universal sufferage, spent it on infrastructure (courthouses, and state religion buildings) and then switched back. I figure it will pay for itself in 85 turns. At the point of this save, it's about 50 more turns to make up that anarchy.

Lets see some saves from a few other people.

[brandonjm8]

1600 ad. Other civs are starting to get astronomy so they're going to start making demands of me. I used the apostolic palace to shut mao off from trade, I just need to spread religion to a few other civs with atleast 1 hindu city to make it more effective. It seemed the best way to eliminate him, and it only cost me a -1 you stopped trading with us.

Ragnar will potentially take a shot at me, he's making demands and he's too weak for me to care about (and isolated religiously), resulting in his requests being denied so I expect a handful of berserkers to show up on my continent in around 150 turns. Mansa is on track to build a spaceship so I'll have to do something about him. Without espionage my only real options will be to either bribe someone into war with him, war with him myself, or just slow him down by cutting his trade routes. No one can out vote me.

My next goal is to found a few corporations I'm after. I'll worry about the issues with getting resources for them later. First will be Sid's Sushi since I'm already generating great merchants and have some sea resources. I suppose I'll blow my treasury up by setting several cities to make a couple settlers each, then just run negative. By my estimate I could handle -100/turn for about 340 turns before having to turn my science below 100% so I'm not concerned about the economic side of things at all.

I figure by 1700 I should have a minimal number of defenders in every city, a force that can counter attack incase of war, atleast one corporation, and about 60% of my continent settled. I do need to start mapping more cities out though. Also, I'm deliberately avoiding astronomy. Due to running mercantilism I see no need to rush for foreign trade routes, and I quite like my wonders that it obsoletes.

our games have developed very differently, for one survayaman(?) did not sprout up on my game, no extra AI's on mine. mao is alot stronger and bigger, as with darius. i spread my religion very early to those who didnt have one, brennus/ragnar/churchill/mana musa/hannibal and since then my 4 religions have been spreading on their own like crazy, i can have a 100% science rate with +50 gold/turn and im generating 1130 beakers when at 100 but since i got riflemen/cavalry now im running at 0 but w/ rep gov't im still over 600 beakers. i didnt expect there to be such disparity/differences between us. goodluck, i think im in the tech lead too by number but they do have ones i dont yet, i went for riflemen/military and they went const/demo.

if you want to compare my 1600 with yours, here it is.

[Theben]

Also, I'm deliberately avoiding astronomy. Due to running mercantilism I see no need to rush for foreign trade routes, and I quite like my wonders that it obsoletes.

I always found that Astronomy & foreign routes >>> Colossus & Stonehenge. It's Scientific Method that's always the one I have to make a hard choice about if I have a lot of monasteries and/or ToA-Parthenon-Great Lib.