Did you ever play against 13 enemies to the win screen?

[muxecoid2]

With max number of opponents and normal size the map is huge. By the time you reach your remote enemy you want to start a new game so badly.

[GMBarak]

I personally didn't, I usually stop playing at year 1511-1513 after all nodes ruins and towers on the map are cleared (mostly by me), I explored all the map and have an indication how winnable is the game. my goal is usually to reach a state that I know that I will win if I will put time to it. but then I usually just start a new game. I found out lately that my favorite spell in the game is Gaia's blessing, and I start with 1 Nature book, so I usually hunt the map for Nature books and hope to get that spell and Nature book and build strong prosperous cities.

Usually if I make a big mistake at something like year 1507 like losing one of the main heroes I just restart the game because I don't allow myself to reload.

[JustOneMoreTurn]

No. I start games imagining how much fun some combination will be, work through the early stages, then my ratings start rising far more rapidly than the AIs, and it's time to start a new game. My computer is fairly slow, so the new scripts make turn times dramatically much longer, which makes later turns not fun. On normal maps I start reading a book between turns. On huge maps, would I be finishing multiple books between turns?

However, we're all different, so I expect that some people enjoy huge games, and managing hundreds of cities and armies. One of the strong points of MOM/COM is how much you can change it to suit your tastes.

[GMBarak]

No. I start games imagining how much fun some combination will be, work through the early stages, then my ratings start rising far more rapidly than the AIs, and it's time to start a new game.  My computer is fairly slow, so the new scripts make turn times dramatically much longer, which makes later turns not fun.  On normal maps I start reading a book between turns.  On huge maps, would I be finishing multiple books between turns?

However, we're all different, so I expect that some people enjoy huge games, and managing hundreds of cities and armies.  One of the strong points of MOM/COM is how much you can change it to suit your tastes.

computers become cheaper and stronger every day but the scripts will remain the same, so when you upgrade your computer someday, I am sure you will not have this issue. I have a very strong computer (I can afford it) and the turns at about 1511 on large map with 13 wizards only last a few seconds at most.

[Seravy]

When I'm obviously winning, I tend to push anything I can to improve my stats on the chart and play until the Win button becomes available.
That generally means knocking down the strongest opponent's army size, stealing their cities, melding nodes, and building anything that generates magic power, or the strongest normal unit I can, and spamming my best summoning spell.
I don't think I have played past the green win button ever but almost 8 years of CoM development makes me less patient than I used to be.

[Slingers]

Aha. Also, I was the proud winner of Hadriex's worldwide speedrun contest against 13 AI opponents ;p  But I definitely prefer a more relaxed pace.
 
Accumulating resources on larger maps actually increases the pacing of the game, not turn times though ...
 
What will probably happen on maps from Normal x13, if I double these things: Spell Research Costs, EXP required for Levels, AI Elimination Turns, AI Tower Break Turn, Raider and Monster First Turns, Tree of Knowledge Turn, Flat Sagemaster RP … ?

[Suppanut]

I play 13 opponents on maximal map size as my own standard setting. I win several games on fair up to advance difficulty in unmodded CoM for windows. One thing for sure about win the game is that it could be very tiresome experience but late game fight will be truly epic. For person who obsess with wild game of epicness. This would be wildest dream as how much problem and curse could stack up could beyond normal comprehension in CoM 1. (3 or 4 doomsday and Armageddon  stack up or several chaos surge or even off-chart power link or 4 eternal night stack up are possibility of such game that why it is wet dream for me.). And I could gurentee that it could be won but in such game, balance are in favor of realm and strategy that could scale or stack up when compare to game with smaller number of opponents. Global enchantments are more valuable while unit and city enchantment become less valuable as scale of game and opponents get bigger. More opponents also favor playing multiple realm wizard more than single realm one due to diplomacy issue and expansion of spell trade opportunity make play as spell brokers is rather fruitful experience. Game also much less orderly and more chaotic too. Many unpredicting occur and late game powers tend to different from early game agressors and nicest person early game tend to be the most dangerous opponent late game. Although I will end my game once I able to grab green win bottom. To play past that point is longer any challenge for me.

The biggest fun in such setting for me is to solve late game pre-SoM war crisis when gambit of each wizard piling up in disorderly way. Or fight SoM war in very unfavorable position.

[Desertfox]

I wonder if playing against 13 enemy wizards is harder than playing against something like 8 wizards. Since every enemy wizard has less space to expand, they will have smaller empires and will research slower, keeping them away from researching the really powerful spells.

[Suppanut]

I wonder if playing against 13 enemy wizards is harder than playing against something like 8 wizards. Since every enemy wizard has less space to expand, they will have smaller empires and will research slower, keeping them away from researching the really powerful spells.

Actually, map size also scale with number of opponents. So area to expand is consistent no matter how many opponents you have. But what different would be how many front you have to manage and scale of late game enemy's empire. There is also issue of scale of resource and power that make global enchantment more powerful, pace of game is faster due to winning wizards have much more resource and power to put on research. So you could expect spell of mastery come earlier than fewer number of wizards. You could also expect more issue of third person intervention too. Manage relationship and diplomacy also a bit harder. Game also more favorable toward multi-realm wizards rather than single realm wizards diplomatically due to relation calculation make them have less enemy and more opportunity to trade, thus generally more powerful spell power. It is also much harder to win the game early as well due to map size get larger.

So everything boiling down to just difference in balance.