24 Civs

[roadcage]

The Deity Demogame is playing 23 oponnents, huge map. Seemed interesting so I have tried a few games with all opponents selected. (You do this in the Editor, rules, world sizes dialog.)

I comment here not because of how to do it, but rather the results I have had. I fully expected more opponents to make the tech trading even more furious, and therefore more challenging. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Circus......

In the beginning, the tech trading about the same as with 15 opponnents. My feeling is that the civs were becomming land locked sooner at smaller city counts and hence longer turns to market researching. Yes there were more civs out there potentially studying more paths, but there are rarely more than a few research lines of interest. And the tech prices were naturally the same as before so once the initial flurry of techs from huts etc got passed around things semed to die down.

My experience suggests that increasing the number of opponents gives you a better chance to out trade 'em. Initial world map pricing is outrageous. I try to spend my coins on Embasies which gives you the City radius map view. This lowers the world map price significantly, especially from a Civ that does not yet have contact with whomever you built the Embassy. Once you get ANY world map, the rest including communications tend to snowball into place. And yes, I usually end this trading cycle with more contacts, more map, more coins, and more techs than I started the cycle.

I believe that this is due to how poorly the AI's trade Communications and Maps. They over value them and hence don't trade them as agressively as they do techs. And once you get control of the map 'business' you are well on the way to victory.

Would anyone who has played 23 opponents care to chime in with their experiences?

roadcage

[vmxa1]

I only tried it once and it was not fun. It was 250x250 so I am not sure it is even relevant.

[sabrewolf]

i always like playing on crowded maps. i've tried 24 civs on large too... it's about the same as 12 on standard by empire size.

techs usually doesn't change too much. there may be more civs that research a wider variety, but otoh, the tech trades don't sink too much when more civs have the tech (so no big difference if 2 or 5 have it).

for military conquests it's imho a lot easier. you can pick out one at a time and can end the war in 2-3 turns (with cavalry and other fast moving attack forces), so even war at democracy is very good. as i like industrial/commercial trait combination (meaning french), you don't need to worry about changing governements in bigger wars.
the disadvantage are the many possible MPPs and alliances. even the smaller civs find a partner. and you can't "outbuy" alliances, because they are too many. so sometimes you have prepared for an invasion, but have to stick back, because they just signed MPPs with several nations (meaning wars tend to go on a lot longer).

i just started my first huge (160x160) game with 24 civs. it's not much different to the large map, but you do need slightly longer to meet the first civs.

i guess i like this, because i don't like managing gigantic empires. and on huge with just 16 civs or less you have a lot more space for REXing.