Favourite map?

[simonjp68]

I am fairly new to the game, though not the genre (I played a bunch of CIv, with 4 easily being my favourite). So in this game I am still looking for me preferred map type and size and was wondering what people liked and why. I have so far tried Seaside, Mediterranean, and Bay at either medium or large size.

Any reply would be most welcome. Cheers.

[Salty Biscuit]

At the moment, Mediterranean, small map. Enough water to make navies interesting, and small doesn't get as tedious late game, or lag to the point of unplayability (though there is still annoying late game lag).

[mk11]

The predefined large map (Imperium Romanum?)

[paulomlf]

Mediterranean.

Maps with seas in the middle are the most interesting ones.

[IceMatrix]

I always go seaside. But I will try Mediterranean, that sounds fun. Never even messed with different maps.

[Mel Gibson]

I also haven't played in most of the maps yet, and I usually just set it to random to slowly get to know all of them.

I also enjoyed my Bay/Mediterranean games, especially while learning the game, as they are very forgiving while you learn to deal with the domestic affairs without having to worry too much about rival attacks, even in harder difficulty settings.

Of course, this means water maps have the (potentially undesirable) side effect of making the game a lot less challenging, like when you are going against all nations with the AI aggression mode turned on.
The inevitable late-game war against the world as you get closer to the victory line in these settings is pretty much a non-issue when you only have 2 neighbors to worry about in your doughnut-shaped world, as opposed to land maps where you get thrown in the middle of the map and have to deal with rivals from all directions, including the little annoying ones you made the terrible mistake of not finishing off early.
Isn't this stress-inducing, ulcer-prompting, baldness-causing, IRL-lifespan-reducing situation the true Old World experience? You'd be missing out by not losing playing some FFA The Great land maps once in a while.

Water maps are probably good candidates for trying to go for the Hardcore achievement without going insane. Kinda cheesy, though.

[Twelvefield]

I'm not sure I have a favourite map, either. I play Random.

Fractal was the best Civ map, but Civ is dead to me now. I have biases against water maps because much earlier on Ōld World AI had some problems with navies. It's a groundless prejudice: last game I ended up on a Mediterranean map (chosen by Random) and I never build a single ship. I dominated Greece and the Hatti, and was about to conquer Rome, but Carthage had a magnificent warfleet and won the game easily, ugh.

[IceMatrix]

Originally posted by Mel Gibson:

I also haven't played in most of the maps yet, and I usually just set it to random to slowly get to know all of them.

I also enjoyed my Bay/Mediterranean games, especially while learning the game, as they are very forgiving while you learn to deal with the domestic affairs without having to worry too much about rival attacks, even in harder difficulty settings.

Of course, this means water maps have the (potentially undesirable) side effect of making the game a lot less challenging, like when you are going against all nations with the AI aggression mode turned on.
The inevitable late-game war against the world as you get closer to the victory line in these settings is pretty much a non-issue when you only have 2 neighbors to worry about in your doughnut-shaped world, as opposed to land maps where you get thrown in the middle of the map and have to deal with rivals from all directions, including the little annoying ones you made the terrible mistake of not finishing off early.
Isn't this stress-inducing, ulcer-prompting, baldness-causing, IRL-lifespan-reducing situation the true Old World experience? You'd be missing out by not losing playing some FFA The Great land maps once in a while.

Water maps are probably good candidates for trying to go for the Hardcore achievement without going insane. Kinda cheesy, though.

Great point. I think I will stick to seaside or similar type all on one area maps. I really like the threat from all directions aspect. But I will explore similar map types until they get the navy aspect fixed and can do successful consistent land invasions.

[Conquistador_514]

This game desperately needs a continent's and islands map like civ used to have back when that game was still good

[IceMatrix]

Originally posted by Conquistador_514:

This game desperately needs a continent's and islands map like civ used to have back when that game was still good

agree, but civ naval battles had better AI I think

[Conquistador_514]

I disagree about civs handling of naval battles, I never saw an amphibious landing like D-Day even on civ 4 which had the best AI... I still haven't seen a D-Day type landing with Old World either but I have seen the AI display some behaviour that was about 10% approaching the battle of Inchon ( Korean war).

[Salty Biscuit]

I think the anchoring mechanic (where you have to commit to an anchored ship to move units and protect that ship from attack) is a pretty good abstraction of ships actually ferrying units. I did like the CIV mechanic of having land units stop on water (as scouts do in home waters in OW) added a challenge in that you had to protect individual units.

[Twelvefield]

Originally posted by Conquistador_514:

I disagree about civs handling of naval battles, I never saw an amphibious landing like D-Day even on civ 4 which had the best AI... I still haven't seen a D-Day type landing with Old World either but I have seen the AI display some behaviour that was about 10% approaching the battle of Inchon ( Korean war).

I'm trying to think of a D-Day style landing in antiquity. I should have paid more attention in History class, but my prof always put me to sleep. Caesar describes some hot action invading Dover, but he had trouble assembling his fleet. Maybe some Greek battles concerning the Peloponnesian wars? or the Greco-Persian wars? The Phoenecians? My understanding was that fleets normally landed somewhere quiet and established a beachhead, and then the fighting occurred away from the beach.

I'm not saying that there could not have been D-Day in the Classical times, nor that we shouldn't have D-Day in the game, just that I can't think of great examples.

[mk11]

The one big D-Day like landing was the Battle of Marathon.

I remember on Civ 3 the AI would launch amphibious invasions. I particularly remember a case where I had an Island with two cities on it. By alternating which city I left empty the AI would head for that and then the other and never actually make the landing.

[simonjp68]

In my limited experience, the AI in Old World doesn't handle naval movement well - on conclusion of an archipelago map, I found the the AI nations had not expanded far at all, something I put down to the anchoring mechanic. Has anyone else seen the same thing?

[Salty Biscuit]

Originally posted by simonjp68:

In my limited experience, the AI in Old World doesn't handle naval movement well - on conclusion of an archipelago map, I found the the AI nations had not expanded far at all, something I put down to the anchoring mechanic. Has anyone else seen the same thing?

Yes. Only occasionally do I see AI nations expand over water, and rarely aggressively.