180x180 map: Too much large for a 16 civs game?

[Asesino_Virtual]

Ive been doing some math, check this out: For a 16 civs game, the standar map is 180x180. So, 180x180= 32400 squares. Lets say, that its covered by 70% of water, like ur planet. That left for building cities, about, 9720 squares. Now divide it by 21, the number of squares that an average city occupies, thats about 462 squares. Now lets divide for the number of civs, 16: 462/16 = 28,87. 29 cities per civ!!! thats crazy!. It should be, 15 cities for each civ!. What do ya think?

[Dimorier Maximus]

Just imagine 16 civs on a 256x256 map!

[Akron]

good point.... but that doesn't account for space left between cities, bad, uninhabitable terrain, or ocean squares in city radius. Huge size is about 3x civ 2 large, with a little more than double the civs. If all the civs survive, then 16 on huge should be fine. But i don't really care, I'll play it anyway! Bring it on!

[Skanky Burns]

Ok, on the maximum size map: 256 x 256!!
Thats 65536 squares. Assuming 70% water, thats 19660 squares (rounding down). Dividing by 21, thats 936 city sites without overlap (and no ocean usage ). Now, dividing by 16 civs, that 58 cities per civilization!!! Now That is crazy!!

And in reality, there are plenty of cities that sit on the edge of continents, using ocean squares as well, but then again it probably balances out with the bad terrain, gaps, etc. Just an indication of howbig these maps will be!!

On an aside, i hope Firaxis have included a large list of city names for each civ.

[alva]

london4, paris8, L.A.5 spring to mind

[Skanky Burns]

Reminds me of a Civ 2 game im playing, 4th Berlin, 4th Hamburg...

[Stuie]

First of all, many people have been begging Firaxis to make the game maps larger - and they have delivered. Let's not complain.

Second, I'm looking forward to the additional space so that I can place my cities in a more intelligent manner rather than just plopping them down every five squares or whatever.

Finally, go see Uber's no life thread for some fine city counting on a 140 x 140 map:
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=27868

[jadlakha]

Normally I only play with a tiny few major well developed cities(I hate ICS). But the extra space makes things more fun because now I can have a large empire with lots of well developed major cities. I only hope the movement points are increased by alot cause I dont want it to take forever to explore and settle the world.

[monkspider]

i concur, I am staunchly anti-large map

[Barshy]

Sorry here's a stupid question (i literally don't own civ2 anymore) -- how big are the map sizes in civ 2? I just want a point of comparison.

[Sarxis]

I love large map games. I can play with smaller map sizes, but I prefer the large maps.

And 29 cities per civ doesn't sound like a lot to me (though I myself don't 'always' build that many cities).

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Barshy
Sorry here's a stupid question (i literally don't own civ2 anymore) -- how big are the map sizes in civ 2? I just want a point of comparison.

The largest possible map was 100x100. The "large" map was, I believe, 75x120. So it's a huge difference.

[Akron]

I just hope that its possible to make the ai very expansionistic in these games. I want to play on these large maps but still limit my empire to maybe 20 well developed cities. If the ai is able to find me, that will be great.

I can't wait to get my hands on this game!!!

[Pingu:]

I always prefer really crammed in games, makes things a challenge, and more realistic too. Lots of little civs warring over everything!

If I play CTP on a lrage map I like to have loads of Civs (at least 30+), which makes taking turns really (REALLY) slow, but the game is great! (except CTP would always crash at some point, as it had to be a Scenario, and that was very poorly done indeed).

With only 16 civs I think that the medium maps will be best.... the huge maps will just be far too big for my taste.


Pingu:

[Roman]

Well you don't have to play on the large maps.

Myself, I like large maps and many civs. In civ 2 I usually played 32768 tile maps with 7 civs and I found them too small .

[Adagio]

29 cities are not that much, but by 58 cities then we're talking

Yeehaa, can't wait to get the game and play on the really huge maps

[Roman]

Originally posted by ADG
29 cities are not that much, but by 58 cities then we're talking

Yeehaa, can't wait to get the game and play on the really huge maps

Well, you can now have large undeveloped areas and neutral zones.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Roman
Well, you can now have large undeveloped areas and neutral zones.

Yeah...imagine how large the desserts or seas will be

oh yeah, and try to play on that map with 2 enemies...the whole world will then be undeveloped until far into the game

[HalfLotus]

Originally posted by jadlakha
Normally I only play with a tiny few major well developed cities(I hate ICS). But the extra space makes things more fun because now I can have a large empire with lots of well developed major cities. I only hope the movement points are increased by alot cause I dont want it to take forever to explore and settle the world.

I agree.
Large maps will be fine with me so long as the strategy of more cities=better is less effective. I dont like keeping track of 30-40 cities, though it ought to be easier this time around.

[Roman]

You see, people, you don't have to play such large maps. I for one am happy I will have the option.

[Andrew_Jay]

I'd probably just play English on the huge world maps and 16 civs. That way I don't have to worry too bad about expanding, I just stick to my little island.

Yeah, I'm just lazy sometimes when it comes to expanding and managing an empire

[Lorizael]

21 tiles per city? But what about culture, that will make cities much larger and you will have to space them out. Combine that with the fact that not all terrain is usable, and I think it evens out.

You also have to remember that population was very inacurate in Civ 3. More cities means higher population. Also, with the new, wonderful AI Governors it might not be so difficult to manage all those cities anymore.

[Roman]

Originally posted by Lorizael
21 tiles per city? But what about culture, that will make cities much larger and you will have to space them out. Combine that with the fact that not all terrain is usable, and I think it evens out.

You also have to remember that population was very inacurate in Civ 3. More cities means higher population. Also, with the new, wonderful AI Governors it might not be so difficult to manage all those cities anymore.

All very good points.

[Roman]

Originally posted by El hidalgo
The largest possible map was 100x100. The "large" map was, I believe, 75x120. So it's a huge difference.

This is simply not true. The largest map size in Civ 2 was 32768 tiles, with no dimension greater than 250 tiles.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Lorizael
21 tiles per city? But what about culture, that will make cities much larger and you will have to space them out. Combine that with the fact that not all terrain is usable, and I think it evens out.

While culture does make ur cities take up more space, in this case its Good for them to overlap!! The population can only work the full 21 squares in a city, but the cultural border is 'the territory you claim to own', meaning the Indians cant go and plonk a city down in the middle of your empire.

Its true that not all terrain will be suitable (initially ) to settling, but i didnt count any cities as being near the ocean, when in reality about 40% or more would be. So I think it balances out.
But we wont know until we actually try a 256 x 256 game