Are huge maps harder?

[Joonie73]

I've only played on the biggest map & I always get slammed. I've tried Jotunheim, Ulm, Arcos, Marignon, Man, Pythium. I am not competitive at all with Ulm or Jotunheim. Marignon and Man works a bit better but not much. Arcos and Pythium Lasts a while but at the end game, I just get overwhelmed with the AI, which seems to bring 500+ unit armies every where on the map and seem to dispel any global spell I cast. It is so frustrating. Are huge maps just harder? Maybe I take too long. I tend to move out very very slow...

[Teraswaerto]

Long game & lots of AIs is more difficult than short game with few AIs, and usually a game on a huge map will both have lots of AIs and Last long. So in a word, yes.

[Gandalf Parker]

The AI is NOT a bad AI. But it does seem to be written for a certain layout. Some of the nations seem to try and reach certain spells and use them. This means that it uses gold for mages when (in quick small games) it would be better to use them for heavy troops.

In games where it can reach its goal it can be pretty rough. Large maps, few opponents, or maps with hard indep settings allow that more.

Personally I really like huge maps. What we have now are some great theme-based maps but I feel all played-out on the maps we have. Im really looking forward to someone breaking the random-map barrier.

[Mortifer]

Indeed, huge map + lot of AIs = you will have hard days, since some AI(s) will become very strong.
Smaller maps with a few AIs is lot more easier of course.

I've already won 2 games on the biggest map with lot of AIs, and lost 1. I guess this is a good record so far.

[ November 28, 2003, 10:23: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

[Elmo]

Waiting impatiently for my copy of D2 to arrive in the mail. Can someone tell me how many maps come with the game? I don't see it listed on the Features page. Thanks.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Elmo:
Waiting impatiently for my copy of D2 to arrive in the mail. Can someone tell me how many maps come with the game? I don't see it listed on the Features page. Thanks.

Well there's 7 .tga files (map images) and there are 12 .map files (text files with game scenarios). Which means there are 12 choices for starting a game on. Such as, when you make a game you can select between Orania and War of Orania to play on. They both use the orania.tga to play on but orania.map is standard scrambling of whatever players you pick and oraniawar.map gives everyone 5 starting provinces and other setting changes for a very different game.

By the way, I fully expect alot of both to appear from the players. The "paint program" Users will (should soon hopefuly please) provide new playing areas for the "strategy role playing" ones to create game stories around. Doing the game story stuff only reqeuires a text editor like Word, WordPad, Notepad, (vi?). In Dom1 people tended to do both but I think in Dom2 we will get much better results if people are willing to stick to one or the other. PLEASE some paint people, upload some tga stuff.

[ November 28, 2003, 13:42: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Elmo]

Thanks Gandalf. From this thread it sounds like the AI plays best on huge maps where it has time to build up. I'm not a fan of rushing anyway, even in MP, so hopefully there are a couple of huge maps included with more coming from the community.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Elmo:
Thanks Gandalf. From this thread it sounds like the AI plays best on huge maps where it has time to build up. I'm not a fan of rushing anyway, even in MP, so hopefully there are a couple of huge maps included with more coming from the community.

The AI is definetly misleading in that area. A new player might feel that building his nation around rush tactics will be workable in multiplayer games but they tend to only be able to take maybe one or two players that way.

[ November 28, 2003, 14:05: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]