Bigger is better.  Bigger armies would be better too.  Think "Total War" for the game scales I prefer. 

I'd give up Havoc physics for a 64-bit executable.

Medium but, once in awhile I like huge size maps.

I like them like I like my men, bold, beautiful, colorful, interesting, dangerous and most important...as big as possible!

largest vs. others 52:8 

I play strategic/RPG games because I like being drawn into the world they're creating.  For me that means epic pacing and huge maps so I can spend weeks immersed in the experience. 

If I want a 30 minute quickie I'll crank up a FPS. 

Hehe, seldom do you see this unanimous vote from the community.

I like larger maps too, and I always wish the games would be made with focus on keeping things interesting even if the opposing players aren't near you and most important of all not make you completely overpowered when you finally meet the AI. I use smaller maps only when a game fails to keep things interesting in the larger maps. I usually see this as a fault in the game.

Let's start a new question... how many of you guys that play on large maps actually finish the game?  I'm with Heavenfall...  Mopping up the map after you're the clear winner is tedious but I still do it to be legit.  It's painful enough on a medium map, but that would be a huge pain on the large map.

Finished only two maps. Most of the maps I stopped around season 300/350. Because of this....

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I tend to play small or medium. I prefer being able to finish a game in one night or two.

I only play on the biggest map size available, I like LONG games.

Me too, huge maps, epic long games! And I want to play games like that in multiplayer as well!!!

But I hate the map spammed with cities in a fantasy game. New ideas in the expansion sounds great, building a more mysterious world with wild untouched land. Perhaps it should only be possible to build cities on some pockets here and there of special fertile land?

Kadrium wrote: Additionally, on extreme map sizes, there's just so much work to do every turn to keep dozens of cities running it can get in the way of fun. The worst part is if you have monster respawning on and some stupid darklings keep showing up and destroying detached resource node improvements or killing caravans. I just don't have the patience to go searching through scores of cities on even a modest sized world to find the oasis they destroyed or which caravan to or from which city needs rebuilding, and then pull troops out of a nearby garrison to go kill them, only to have it happen again 8 turns later, and for this to happen in several places on the map.

That's tedious.

It's not the huge map, but the gameplay allowing city spam that is the problem!!! You shouldn't be able to have more cities then in games like Heroes of Might and Magic, still the maps should be huuuuuge.

I prefer the largest map with most AI I can get and the slowest rates of advance for tech. I like the feeling of an epic story, not a fast paced path to victory. And Trojasmic does have a point, I rarely play to see a game to it's bitter end if I am dominating, too boring. I actually prefer games where I am in constant danger of  losing and am fighting tooth and nail just to survive.

Hence, why I always play games like Europa Universalis as very minor nations.

The bigger, the better.

As big as I can get using what ever setting makes for a long game length. Honestly, I kinda feel like the largest Elemental maps are kinda small, if not in physical size than in feel, compared to other games.

I enjoy large maps, that take a bunch of sessions to finish.  I try to finish most games, or more exactly, play until the next patch comes out, then make another to test out the changes on!  I kind of like mopping up when it gets to that point.

When I play Civ, I usually go for the largest map possible.  Elemental I usually play medium.  This is because the world and cities do not feel as unique, so I don't get the same rush of exploring new territory.  Instead the fun is competing with my opponents.

I play small maps because I do not like to have to micro-manage the build queue in multiple cities. I only want to play a map where I have 3-4 cities and I'm able to cover all the surrounding area in my influence.

Elemental has a poor build queue system.

1. You can only add items to your build queue if you have the money up front.

2. If you want to grow your city in a certain shape (to encompass a resource node, for example), you have to place your buildings manually after each subsequent one is placed (building chain). You can't zone areas for future development.

3. It's easy to miss idle cities; you have to be very proactive about it.

Basically, I can't queue up a bunch of buildings if I'm not rich or if I'm trying to shape my cities. Rather than play a large map, I play a smaller one.

I would be interested in hearing what makes the difference.

- Civilization is based on real life cultures.  This means when I see a new city, like Singapore, the name evokes some emotion.  When a city has built the Pyramids, the same thing happens.

- Civ has major unique landmarks, like Mt. Fuji, that I recognize.

- Civ shows visually the different environments, like tundra, and it corresponds to where that space falls on the globe.  

The bigger the better.  Unfortunately, the largest maps in War of Magic seem more medium sized then large.  I realize of course this is due to memory limitations though.  I always played gigantic maps in Gal Civ 2.

That game can be brutal.

I remember a game I took The Palitanate in EU3 and set a personal goal of unifying Germany.

Sheez, it was WORK. Even went bankrupt at one point.

The only thing that needs to happen with this is the AIs need a threshold that once reached they ally together against the player so that you aren't running around crushing one faction at a time, but are at war with most/all.

Having the AI ally with each other a little more easily would be a plus.

It depends..

It depends on how interesting you end up making the world. I usually prefer as large as possible (well, larger than possible, even), but in Elemental I prefer medium as the world is too much of the same otherwise, too much boring moving around.