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I've been playing on very small maps lately and it may be that Civ 2 "works" better under such conditions. The AI's tactical ineptitude is minimized, for one thing, and land pressure forces the creation of genuine borders with rival civs. That is, if you want to grow and then feed your cities, you'd better create a border that keeps AI units out. Concepts we all like but rarely see in practice come up more, like trade bonuses for road/rail connections, and they get put into play in a more "natural" way. Of course, this puts stress on the diplomacy system, since if you occupy a fort in a square within the radii of two cities belonging to rivals, peace treaties won't last more than two turns. Also, rivals tend to reduce each other to two or three pretty quickly even with respawns. But anyway, the friction caused by proximity makes it possible to play a non-early conquest game (too hit-and-miss for my taste) with a military paradigm that seems closer to what the designers were trying to achieve. I find myself using units formerly considered useless, like the fighter vs. ground, the marine (to occupy forts and only pay one support instead of having a cav and a rifle, and be cheaper than tanks), the legion/knight (if i end up with chivalry early enough) even partisans for getting in there and ripping up terrirtory I dont really want to occupy. The AI military, though still retarded, does manage to attack in force, pillage infrastructure, sometimes stack its artillery with infantry. Not to mention, smaller map means fewer cities/units, less mind-numbing micromanagement.
Playing this way has me calling into question the validity of "daisy-chaining," or exploiting the fact that you can always move a unit into a square you already occupy, regardless of ZOC considerations. I might try to play without the daisy-chaining from now on.
What would be a truly fantastic achievement is if we had Civ 2 remade to allow for dozens of civilizations. That way, these same advantages of the small map could be had on a large map; civs would eat each other and then find themselves bordering up against other civs in turn as the game progressed.
Playing this way has me calling into question the validity of "daisy-chaining," or exploiting the fact that you can always move a unit into a square you already occupy, regardless of ZOC considerations. I might try to play without the daisy-chaining from now on.
What would be a truly fantastic achievement is if we had Civ 2 remade to allow for dozens of civilizations. That way, these same advantages of the small map could be had on a large map; civs would eat each other and then find themselves bordering up against other civs in turn as the game progressed.
I wonder if the gigamap/no-limit mods for MGE and ToT would allow maps smaller than the minimum, the way they allow larger maps? Gonna have to try that...
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