Big maps, few players: Balance?

[Chazar]

Following this forum I got the impression that people tend to prefer larger maps, albeit this seems to unbalance the game in my opinion. At least I got the impression that quite a lot of threads discussing the game balance might be due to people using big maps with too few players.

E.g.: I wouldnt play Ulm versus Caelum in a 2player game on a large map, since this leaves Caelum too much time to develop their magic weaponry, which is their strength.

There are certainly much more balancing issues related to the size of the map played on.

(What else can you think of? Are non-recuperating combating pretenders like wyrm or cyclops more useless in bigger maps, as they have to fight more in a longer game, hence getting more afflictions? Are researching/rainbow pretenders less useful in smaller maps?)

So I just want to see how people are really playing the game, whether they follow the games recommendations and whether someone has already thought about altering the game settings to offset these issues. The poll is rather meant to be some additional statisitcal base for the discussion - and whether the problem exists only in my mind.

[Chazar]

Oh, I actually forgot to ask what people are really doing to balance a game with too few players on a big map:

- Number of staring provinces?
- World Richness?
- Research complexity?

What are good values to use?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

For me (and for many other players I know) it's the provinces/player ratio that's the most important factor, and the size of the maps is dependent on that ratio and the actual number of players. I suggest you reformulate your poll to take this into account.

[Chazar]

Very nice so far thanks! Hmm, but the polls seem to say that people are not playing with too few nations on too big maps. So I guess its not that much of a general problem. Nevertheless I am interested in this topic, as I want to use a big map with few friends playing PBEM and we decided against the AI, and as the game takes some time to play I want to make sure it will be interesting and that no one gets a disadvantage by not following the game's advice on the number of players...

What about magic resources and research? Some nations depend more on gems and/or magic research than others. I expect a large map game to Last longer, so should one alter the settings as proposed by Cohen?

This would also mean something about pretenders: An immobile pretender offers better blessings/scales/research, hence they would be much more useful on a larger map. As additionally the dominion spread of the pretender is less important on large maps as well...(which keeps me from using immobile pretenders on small maps)

@PvK: forgive me my bad english. I guess I wanted to say "less useful" rather than "more useless" (I guess I slipped into german-language thinking of "nutzloser")

@Gandalf: Actually I knew your page, but I had forgotten about it at the time I posted this poll. Sorry for not using your size-terminology...

[ May 27, 2004, 09:56: Message edited by: Chazar ]

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Chazar:
This would also mean something about pretenders: An immobile pretender offers better blessings/scales/research, hence they would be much more useful on a larger map. As additionally the dominion spread of the pretender is less important on large maps as well...(which keeps me from using immobile pretenders on small maps)

Really? Hmmm. I always liked immobile pretenders on small and tiny maps. I figured that Id be attacked in my castle before I had a chance to make much use of any other type of pretender. And they make good "front line" defense for an archer/mage backgroup. But then I tend to play defensively anyway.