Never any good places to settle?

[Strifeboy]

Is this just me? I find myself trapped by 4 civs with no room or never a good settlement spot with recourses like amenities. The only places are slithers between civs from recommended which look pretty terrible, am i meant to just build anywhere or something? Surprisingly hard to find hills.

[Iron Monkey]

It seems that way most of the time even with low sea level. But I have been now changing it to where whichever map size i pick I take off two civs. I seems to give everyone some decent space for like 2/3 cities. In Civ V I would usually knock off two city states instead, but no option here for that.

[Ensign]

Agreed, sort of.

It depends on your map. Ive only played 2 games over 300 turns each. Its true, space is little. Both games were on continents map which means sea tiles took most of the valuable settling space.

I wanted 8 players so i chose the apporopriate map size and found myself in your position, starting close to 3-4 other civs.

Today in my second game though i went large, 8 players but with a map size that supports 10. I STILL started close, sandwhiched next to 2 city states and 2 civs so no space. BUT when i scouted out i found a LARGE swath of land with 3 city states and no other civ there, its as if the game is designed to start you out next to eachother to promote the new continents mechanic, forcing you to expand out with colonies rather than have contiguous empires.

[Strifeboy]

Yeah i tried the same Ensigh, huge map removed half civs, all hugging me. Though i really don't get the whole colonies thing, am i suppose to be expoloring the sea to find more lands or something to settle?

[Ensign]

Well unlike civ 5 where we had ample room, all im saying is get used to building lone cities halfway across the map.

Basically yeah, explore the seas and all land to find more land to settle elsewhere. There seems to be an emphesis on "colonization" this time around what with england, wonders, trade, and a few policy cards being dedicated to it. It seems the days of settleing 4-8 cities close by for one big splotch on the map isnt possible anymore.

Now its about exploring all game long (nothing wrong with that and is kind of fun to find tribal villages/city states no one has seen on turn 80) and sending settlers to settle near luxury resources. Even the new strategic resources that appear pretty much require you to settle new land mid game or hopelessly flounder with swords while your enemies get gunpowder units.

That they even added an industrial upgrade to the scout just cements the fact that we must always be exploring and always colonizing. Playing a single city challenge is that much harder, as is a contiguous empire.