Big maps, few players: Balance?

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by PvK:

If the map is so small that there are few armies, few battles, it becomes hard to avoid a single ultra-powerful unit.

That's one of the many reasons I like super large maps. Another reason is huge maps mean there will be huge armies ! Another reason is its very unlikely another human opponent can rush attack you.

[ May 26, 2004, 21:16: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[PvK]

Norfleet: Yep, and yep. I agree.

[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.