Richrf

Join Date 04/2006

What size maps do you like to play in?

Also number of opponents

From reading the forum it seems many/most? people like to play with large maps. I myself have played 8 games with medium maps, 2 with small.

Is it true the AI plays better in bigger maps? I was always under the impression that the AI was tweaked with medium maps in mind.

The number of opponents also is a factor of course, the more there are, the more crowded it gets regardless of the size of the map.

My experience with medium map,

1 opponent - You get to develop in peace, you can put in place any strategy you want, before engaging the enemy. Less luck depedent than with more opponents. The AI does a pretty good job expanding without any AI opponents to distract it. But It's easy to win if you do a colony rush strategy and win out just by out expanding the opponent so by the time you two meet, you have 75% while he has 25% of the pie.

2-4 opponents - Quite luck dependent. In some games, the AIs war among themselves, leaving me along to carve up a sizeable big amount of turf, leading to an easy win. Other times, I'm engaged in wars early on, while 1 AI quitely develops at the other end of the galaxy and by the time I am master of my part of the galaxy, he has quite a big advantage in terms of land controled.

4+ opponents - Simply wild. You never know what you are going to get. Probably most challenging to play, you have to be highly adaptable.

Colony rush strategies are less effective, because their are more opponents, planets are grabbed up very quickly, so there is little chance of you building an overwhelming advantage that way compared to with lesser opponents. At best you end up with 1 or 2 more colonies than average.

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bumpy

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Gigantic , 9players random (I usually play custom race) everything else random, blind exploration on, no tech trading , Suicidal.

I want epic showdowns with a true dynamic universe. I find using custom races makes things tougher because everyone has ethical problems with you. Adds spice, I love big whomping war's and enemies on all sides. Winning just becomes so much more gratifying.

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I play medium and small maps. I don't have the time to take on a huge map, and because of who I am, I like to micromanage the planets. I would pull my hair out on a huge map.

I have never played just one opponent. I assumed it would be just too easy. I play typically with 4 on a medium map.

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Mostly I play tiny or small maps. There are so many races/strategies I'd like to try that I find myself starting a new game too often. Smaller maps let me finish the games first. When I feel I've learned enough I might play a bigger map (medium/large) and see it through to completion.

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I like Large and Huge maps, stars occasional, planets common, habitable planets occasional. I like my games to last a while. Once in a while I'll play a Gigantic map.

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I'm only on my second game (just installed it a few days ago).

Game 1: Gigantic, 9 players, Basic difficulty. This was my first game and I played on the lowest difficulty so I could get an idea of the interface and how things worked. After a few years I quit because I already had 40% of the map and was leading in every possible category.

Game 2: Large, 9 players, Normal difficulty. My current game. It is going pretty well. I've shattered the Altarian's military, but I don't have the population to build enough transports to invade all 30+ of his worlds. Then he got the Torians to declare war on me...they have a much better economy and an even military, so it is going to be interesting. I'm worried that I'm going to have to focus on them and the Altarians will rebuild behind my back.

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I hate the small maps, because it doesn't give me time to develop any real civilization before other decide that they don't like me.

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Not keen on gigantic maps on suicide level. AI's churn out loads and loads of ships, faster then i can blow them up. Which is no problem conquering him, i just avoid them and target his planets. But it grinds the game down to a crawl whilecomputer moves all those ships. If i go for anything other then a conquest victory my computer grinds to a halt. Yea, i know, probably should upgrade my system! But no other game i play gives me this problem.

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I randomize it all (as I've already said elsewhere) but I tend to like medium maps the best. I seem to have the most fun on them. Large and larger maps tend to make my empire too unassailable real estate wise and too economically dominant. I'm sure on higher difficulties that wouldn't be as much of an issue. Perhaps I'll try it sometime soon and see how it goes.

As far as the number of races, I think my favorite medium maps have been the ones with 4+. It tends to keep things interesting.

The smaller maps tend to be over too fast for my personal tastes.

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Franco fx

Join Date 04/2003

+59

I like the big maps but I lack the patience to play them often. I currently have 2 gigantic saved games that I may or may not continue playing.

I like the fact that you can play a tiny map game in a couple of hours. Often I will start a tiny map thinking I will play around with it for a few minutes and quit but I wind up finishing the game.

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Gigantic, just because I can... Once I've finished my current gigantic (which looks set to take a while) then maybe I'll try something smaller... Oh and at the moment I'm playing on tough because I'm fairly new to this; but I'm planning to raise the difficulty for my next game... And then see what happens from there.

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For those people who play using gigantic maps....

Don't you find the game a little limiting in only allowing the 9 opponents.? Regardless of the increased time it could take to compute the AI’s moves between turns I would at least like to try and play a gigantic map with a few more races.

To be able to place your opponents start position would be useful as well, I get a little fed up with pressing CTRL-N.

Perhaps just as important as map size....

What settings do you use for habitable planets, number of planets, stars etc do you choose..?

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I like gigantic maps. On Macho or harder.

But I find 3 opponents is the most challenging. They tend to concentrate all their efforts in the direction of your empire and not worry about each other until later in the game. If you have more opponents, they start stealing resources and planets from each other instead of concentrating on your area, making the end game easier for you.

I must admit I was surprised the first time I played a gigantic map on suicidal. I had played a couple of easier level medium maps to learn the tech tree, etc when I first got the game. But I was not ready for the onslaught of colonizers that came my way. My scout picked them up about 20 turns away from my home planet but I simply did not have the resources to build colonizers to get to those planets first. I had to expand into an empty corner of the map, regroup and slowly fight my way back. Way fun.

Right now I am playing a huge map (on obscene) because of the 'Out of memory' bug that crashes the game when you try to save playing gigantic maps. Hopefully they will fix that problem soon as I prefer the largest map possible.

Cheers

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I played small map first game at normal difficulty and all default setting.

It was too easy. I like micro management and when there is none it's boring for my part. So when I have over 20 planets I enjoy it

This is what I got in my second game on a large map, with all the same setting.

Now I'm playing on a huge map with 9 civilization (used to play against 5 and 7)
Setting are almost the same except for star system wich I setted common.
In this map I'm playing at challenging difficulty, and I think I'm going to lose... the drengin empire eleminated the yor, the iconian, the torian, the thalan and the drath with 3 minor race. (something like 5 are staying)
Me (terran) the altarian and the arcean are allied in a super war against the drengin empire who control more star system than our 3 allied nation.
And, at the opposite of the map, the korx are isolated and fighting their own war against drengin empire. I dont know if they ever going to survive.

It's a damn game

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Yeah I find that on medium and smaller maps the game is over just after researching planetary invasion. I like games to last a bit longer so I play huge maps mostly.

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Hi,

I am interested in playing on Gigantic. But to get used to the game first I thought I'd play my first few on a Large map, which is what I've done so far. I have played them with 7 Civs at the Challenging level of difficulty.

The game I am playing right now, altough peaceful for my race so far, has been interesting. It is the year 2231 and I am now ready to start war. The Korx and Yor have been eliminated by other races. The Torians are dominant right now and currently at war with and taking over the Drengin. Allied with the Torian's, the Drath, are joining in the takeover and assimilation of the Drengin. First I am going to attempt to intercept and get a couple of those Drengin planets before those guys have snatched them all up. Then it's onto war with them. I'm pretty confident I'll win as I've learned a fair amount about how to play the game at this point and my economy and military infrastructure are pretty ramped up in this game now. Also I 'discovered' a Precursor Ranger ship not to long ago.

When I am done with this game I will then start playing on Gigantic maps and eventually try out Metaverse.

Cheers

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At the moment I am playing on Gigantic at the Tough level.

The larger map gives me a chance to establish my economic and industrial base before going to war.
The longer time also means you can explore more of the research available.

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Gigantic! Slow tech! Tough! All races and minors, rare everything, scattered systems, and blind exploration.

It's nice to be three years into the game and not know where the hell the Drengin are. And to have wiped out the Yor without ever seeing them. It's only fun if you like epic battles, but micromanagement isn't an issue.

It's a bit like in galciv1, when researching a new ship meant you were running the universe now, and there were the ship ages.

You get plasma? Then you're in the lead now. Nothing will stand against you. BUT WAIT: The bloody Yor have shields

and declared war

So you buy ships off the Terrans, who use mass drivers. I won't drag on, but it's immense fun.

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Majority of my games are medium so far. Perhaps I'll goto large, but I don't like Gigantic way too big hard to keep tabs on micro, remember where stuff is..

Tiny was never for me, medium's problem its too cramped, maybe I pick too many opponents at 5 or 6.

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I like Medium maps on all Abundant settings. Let those Economy starbases rake it in!

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Abundant settings pretty much wipe out the need to scout. Every star system you visit has pretty much a good planet or two, so colony ships can be cranked out blindly and sent ASAP to star systems.

The aim is to extend your reach as far as possible with a string of colonies...

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I usually at least at this point play a gigantic map with all nine players it is quite a tustle in the beginning of the game getting everything rolling and grabbing the best planets with my ion drive ships my opponets are at intellegent i find it to easy to grab things quickly if you are not placed by any opponets so you just expand and economize in peace and if you are the Terrans with a diplomacy bonus you can declare war on the Torians for a Military Resoure they just won't sell you. Everyone else will ally with you and you now have a massive military force to crush any Torian mongrols that get in your way.

by the way what i am describing is my current game which i am winning so very easily!!

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