Even Large Maps Are Just Way Too Small

from Elemental Forums

I only play on large maps and I've started a lot of games (because of patches, trying to learn the game, dissatisfaction with the map setup, etc.).  The conclusion is pretty clear: I run into the AI too soon (even with just 4 opponents) and my empire ends up being 3-4 cities at most before I have to start thinking about war.  This goes back to my earlier complaints about just how small this game feels overall (few cities, few units, small maps). 

Combine this with a hyper-aggressive AI (even on easy) and the game has a rushed, almost Starcraft feel to it.  Build up fast, build up units fast, and await the initial rush of AI attacks (usually from Kraxis, if they are in the game, and they seem to be in every game). 

The maps are also bare wastelands too often.  In my latest game (which I gather I'll have to abandon), I managed to "control" a large portion of the land area of my bizarre, thin continent, but it's completely empty -- and this is AFTER pushing the adventure line of tech to show more resources.  There were only 3 viable places to build new cities (and by viable, I mean simply in range of at least one resource).  I found a horrible location for a fourth when a shard was located pinned against the coast by forests (and that city is quite terrible). 

I have other map-related complaints:

1. Too much of the surface area is usually filled with forests, hills, or other things that slow movement.  It makes exploration tedious.

2. The shape of continents is counter-intuitive and nonsensical.  I should take screenshots of the game referenced above -- the portion of the land mass I control looks like a great worm with several bulges in it. 

A lot of this would simply be fixed by having an actual, large map -- not the smallish map that is posing as a large map now.  Considering how big galaxies could be in Gal Civ 2, I'm stunned that this is how Elemental turned out.

elemental
34,522 views 58 replies
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top


I only play on large maps and I've started a lot of games (because of patches, trying to learn the game, dissatisfaction with the map setup, etc.).  The conclusion is pretty clear: I run into the AI too soon (even with just 4 opponents) and my empire ends up being 3-4 cities at most before I have to start thinking about war.  This goes back to my earlier complaints about just how small this game feels overall (few cities, few units, small maps). 

Combine this with a hyper-aggressive AI (even on easy) and the game has a rushed, almost Starcraft feel to it.  Build up fast, build up units fast, and await the initial rush of AI attacks (usually from Kraxis, if they are in the game, and they seem to be in every game). 

The maps are also bare wastelands too often.  In my latest game (which I gather I'll have to abandon), I managed to "control" a large portion of the land area of my bizarre, thin continent, but it's completely empty -- and this is AFTER pushing the adventure line of tech to show more resources.  There were only 3 viable places to build new cities (and by viable, I mean simply in range of at least one resource).  I found a horrible location for a fourth when a shard was located pinned against the coast by forests (and that city is quite terrible). 

I have other map-related complaints:

1. Too much of the surface area is usually filled with forests, hills, or other things that slow movement.  It makes exploration tedious.

2. The shape of continents is counter-intuitive and nonsensical.  I should take screenshots of the game referenced above -- the portion of the land mass I control looks like a great worm with several bulges in it. 

A lot of this would simply be fixed by having an actual, large map -- not the smallish map that is posing as a large map now.  Considering how big galaxies could be in Gal Civ 2, I'm stunned that this is how Elemental turned out.

End of quote

 

I just wanted to point out that you get to choose which AIs you fight. So Kraxis is in every game because.... you put them there. :P

 

I also want much larger maps though so you're not alone.

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top



Combine this with a hyper-aggressive AI (even on easy) and the game has a rushed, almost Starcraft feel to it.  Build up fast, build up units fast, and await the initial rush of AI attacks (usually from Kraxis, if they are in the game, and they seem to be in every game). 

End of quote

 

While Agree in the case of AI agressive behavior, which should be maybe at elss around novice less aggressive, I am not sure if you know that before you start a game you easily can remove Kraxis from the enemies you fight against. Or du you mean a minor race?

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I assumed if I did nothing, it randomly picked races when I started a game.  I'll watch this more closely.  I started picking my own races to have more Kingdoms in recent games to avoid the early war problem.

Still, don't lose the forest for the trees.  The point is: Give us actual large maps. :)

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Annatar11, reply 1
See this thread about how to satisfy your desire for huge maps

https://forums.elementalgame.com/389679
End of Annatar11's quote

That's incredibly complicated to follow.

 

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

I will agree on the point that the maps are largely too barren. It is the equivalent of playing CIV on all desert maps and having cities clustered around oases. Yes it fits the "lore"; however the whole world will feel so blah and you do not get the sense of control of your expansion. It almost feels like one is colonizing on rails - going from hotspot to hotspot. 

I think it would be really nice if the spell or civics trees allowed for skills/spells that could improve all terrain not just the nodes to make all lands potentially viable in some ways. Thsi would at least allow smaller maps to actually have more meaningful land use. I think a part of what makes the maps so small is how much of the terrain is useless!

RAT

 

 

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

How about hitting shift + tab (within the game) and downloading one of the large maps from impulse?

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Unless users can create templates for random maps, I've never found user-made maps of much use in games like this.  The game needs to have the ability to generate maps that are actually large (not just called "large") randomly.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Btw AI never attecks me on normal ...

In several games it never did.

Only pb is i got maps with lots of ressources to start with and others with just a mine at most...

Plus if you find a sand golem amulet soon, you are the king of the mountain and can start crushing opponents 1 by 1 ..

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting searro, reply 10
Plus if you find a sand golem amulet soon, you are the king of the mountain and can start crushing opponents 1 by 1 ..
End of searro's quote

Happily I found 2 of those for my sov in game last night. With 1 familiar 2x sand golems, her rampage in the next 20 she did to the AI is a major felony in most states in addition to just plain old war, 8(|

 

RAT

 

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

I was honestly hoping for a huge or insane scale random map, it's not like Galciv where you have to worry about if your ships can travel that far, or if your going to have to daisy chain star bases along the way, if anything it would encourge setting up outposts so you could teleport your army around the map quickly.

 

I mean I want to play a massive weeks long campaign, not something I can wrap up in a few days.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jscott991, reply 9
Unless users can create templates for random maps, I've never found user-made maps of much use in games like this.  The game needs to have the ability to generate maps that are actually large (not just called "large") randomly.
End of jscott991's quote

 

I'm not sure I'm quite getting what you're saying. The resources and quests/locations are randomly spawned. So you can create a map with nothing on it, and you will still have things the do on the map (granted, there will be less).

 

Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

What exactly is meant by 12x14 (etc.) for maps. This cant simply be tiles. What is the scale refering to ?

RAT

 

Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top

Well the large maps really aren't that small. Its more that the civilizations all seem to be bunched together on one end of them. My most recent game (over 1000 turns) is a large map. I've explored the boundaries and the map is absolutely huge. But all of the civs seem to be clustered at one end. It'd be nice if they were more evenly spaced for the size of the map, but starting locations are pregenerated and randomized. I think the game generates a total of 10 spots (or something) and places the 5 civs (or however many you've chosen) randomly at various spots. I could be wrong, but thats how it appears from my experience.

I wish there were more options when setting up a map. Maybe even a slider for how far apart civs start from one another. Then again, if they were too far apart, no real battles or diplomacy would occur until late game.

Overall on a large map, I think you could confortably fit more than 50 cities. I dont consider that too small. Perhaps change the game speed to epic if you want to increase the time or edit some of the files as previously mentioned.

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

To the OP, change your build order to build more defensive troops sooner and the AI will never attack you. They've left me alone while I pursue a mastery victory in every game I've played because I always make sure I have a sufficient deterent. It slows down your initial building construction slightly, but makes no long term difference. On the other hand, getting out enough troops and pioneers early on to get all the good resource spots and keep the AI out of your hair makes a huge difference long-term.

As for map size, I don't think the game is ready to go any larger than it currently does. There just isn't enough content for it yet. All the tech trees are too light with the possible exception of warfare/conquest. All it takes is a couple lost libraries and you'll have gotten through all the techs in all 5 trees in no time. I completely agree that a better algorithm to space the AIs out on the map better would be nice. And perhaps changing the pacing to epic instead of normal would help, I haven't tried that yet. But at least on normal pacing all you really need is 4-5 cities with a good mix of resources to have the best economy in the game and make your way to the victory of your choosing. This is easy to do unless you get a really bad start with no resources nearby or are boxed in somehow. On a large map, once you have the few cities you need that leaves lots of (mostly worthless) space left over for spawning ogres and shrills and such to harass your borders.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

CWG,

You really just highlighted the main problem I'm having with the game.  It is shocking to me that on the largest map size available, I can really only expect to have about 5 cities.

This really isn't an epic or grand game at all.

But, that being said, I still think the game needs to be able to generate larger maps and support longer games.

I'm trying to like this game.  I'm trying to get into it.  But it's just incredibly hard to enjoy.  If it isn't bugs, it's the insanely aggressive AI, and if it isn't the AI, it's a barren wasteland of a map, and if it isn't the content of the map, it's that I'm right on top of every AI empire even on a "large" map. 

I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to like in this game.

Sigh. Is Victoria's 1.2 patch out yet?

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

I created a great 20x20 tile map that I play on all the time, you want to try it? It is really good.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jscott991, reply 19

Sigh. Is Victoria's 1.2 patch out yet?
End of jscott991's quote

Lol. No, not yet, I'm waiting for that patch too.

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

To be honest I don't mind the low number of cities, but I do get annoyed by the amount of impassable mountains. Less hilly terrain would help the map feel more open. I'd also like to be able to build on forests; I mean usually a forest anywhere near a town tends to become fuel for expansion rather than an impediment.

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Wow, are we even playing the same game? I've started 3 games (with each patch release), all on Large maps, with all 7 AIs added at Ridiculous difficulty and I keep finding that I'm too far away from the AIs to make the start interesting. In the most recent game I had to build 10 cities to get close to the nearest AI. And after all that, right after I declared war it sent its sovereign with one accompanying unit into my territory to commit suicide so that empire promptly disappeared. Now I have to go searching through more wasteland for the next guy.

Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Archonsod, reply 22
To be honest I don't mind the low number of cities, but I do get annoyed by the amount of impassable mountains. Less hilly terrain would help the map feel more open..
End of Archonsod's quote

Yes this is a serious PITA. There is nothing quite as fun as getting a quest to go clear out some rats 10 tiles away - only to find a mountain which reuires you to walk half way around the world to get to. I think it also creates far to many bottlenecks which is why AI wars may be, at times, trivial as defending your realm is a lot easier.

RAT

 

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting falconne2, reply 23
Wow, are we even playing the same game? I've started 3 games (with each patch release), all on Large maps, with all 7 AIs added at Ridiculous difficulty and I keep finding that I'm too far away from the AIs to make the start interesting. In the most recent game I had to build 10 cities to get close to the nearest AI. And after all that, right after I declared war it sent its sovereign with one accompanying unit into my territory to commit suicide so that empire promptly disappeared. Now I have to go searching through more wasteland for the next guy.
End of falconne2's quote

 

I think more of us are having the opposite problem you are, I just had a full AI stack and 4 of them were within spitting distance of me (and all of them instantly hostile towards me.)

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

It's too sides of the same problem. The AIs are not getting distributed evenly on the maps so you end up with a lot of them getting bunched up on one side of the map.

Also, I don't know what exactly I'm doing differently, but I've never had the AI become instantly aggressive, they seem to ignore me all game long unless I take the initiative and decide to gobble them up. From my perspective the AI is way too passive. Playing on hard currently (and it's not).

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

I wish I had taken screenshots of all my games.  In most you can see the AI's zone of control from my capital because of how close they start to me.