I feel as though since not as many people play treaty games that this issue isn’t getting the attention it needs.
Currently, the build radius is so small that even when buildings are condensed down to the bare minimum and buildings not needed (once all upgrades are purchased) are deleted: Church, Capital, Arsenal, etc. There is barely enough room for military buildings, and walls.
1A) Also, because the radius is so small there is no way to block your opponent from staging a military inside your economy or right outside your walls. There is no way to make a “Half Map Wall” like on New England for example to keep your enemy away from your economy while you continue to build.
Water maps. Look at the map New England. In a treaty game with a Nomad start, you can either move to the water, or move to the natives, you can’t have both.
Germany and Sweden are practically un-playable in treaty: Due to the Germans being able to have 20 set wagons and 99 settlers, and Sweden only being able to build the Torps inside the radius. These two Civs have very little room for walls around their economy when you take into account the amount of mills, and estates there are once the wood around your TC has been chopped down.
Non-Nomad Start: I have yet to play a ranked game because I can’t seem to find a 1v1 or 2v2 when I try to search for one so I am unaware if ranked games start in Nomad or with the TC already built. That being said, if any treaty game does not start in nomad it is impossible to get trade routes, natives, or move towards your team member to be more condensed and harder to eliminate.
Fix: Divide all maps in half. This allows everyone the ability to build walls, make their economy as big or as small as they please. Trade routes are able to be taken, natives can be used, the water can be reached. I would suggest this because if the radius was simply doubled then on Nomad starts the possibility of someone taking advantage of the greater radius would move their TC closer to the enemy and block out the majority of the map.
As a treaty40 player, the build radious is normally not problematic. Having your town center on a bad spot is (close to map boarder, close to impassable terrain, to close to trade route, etc)
I agree that civs that need to build buildings close to gold mines are at a disadvantage, map can screw you. And also faced some difficulty with germans sometimes, mostly on 3v3.
I disagree with giving half map to build, people already build 5 to 7 walls, with half map would be 30walls full artilhary lol plz don’t
Btw, ranked tr40 you start with your town center already build
Half map may be too much, but on maps like New England people should be able to build the trade routes, natives, and get to the water as well. Maybe set it up to were its a 40%-20%-40% split where in that middle 20% you cant build anything but trade posts. I have played a ton of 2v2 40min games and there always seems to be one spot in a players defenses that is weak because of the limit on building. They may have 7 walls, but if you traverse around to the side where they were only able to build 2-3 and you have taken out their factories within the first 10 minutes of the game.
To be honest I would be more happy about preventing military units cross half the map before the 40mim mark than to increase to mutch the build radious. Normally at 40mins your priority is to micro army and to build walls preventing the enemy from reaching that weak spots. I believe is part of treaty skill, the map macro control while you are still fighting. Moving forward step by step, controlling natives, etc.
What is annoying was players doing oprichnik box (thx God no more box) on the side, or enemy placing the army inside your base before 40mins
Increasing build limit radious would be a nerf to running civs that need that “surprise” factor to deal damage
Edit: attention, you are still right, some map placements are crap and should be improved
I played a 3v3 team, where sweden only had one single mine inside his radious (only 1 mine inside each player radious, there were more on side and middle of map, but outside the radious)
Economic buildings like that should be allowed half map on my opinion
I think most of the issues you describe are more to do with map balance and consistency than build radius. I think the radius could increase a little bit, but I dont think its an issue tbh. I dont think the #5 is a very good idea, it would extend game times and on some maps it would be horrific. Players would just turtle and thats bad gameplay. I think the issue is the maps.
Even funnier : if your army is on the opponent side of the map at 40:00, it gets auto killed. So you can still explore/find treasures around but have to go back home before treaty ends.
But how to make half map fair ? Should the maps be perfectly symmetrically generated ?