I'm trying to get the game set up to play out more the way I want.

My first game (of Legendary Heroes, second counting Fallen Enchantress) took 30 hours to finish and that's just too long. I tried setting the tech and build speed faster, but I was half way through the tech before anything really happened. I've since tried just the 25% thinking developing cities faster will allow me to get technology faster anyway.

Also I went with a small map because I don't want to manage too many cities, time consuming. What happened was the guy with the biggest army came after me and once I overcame the armies they sent I decided to just go after their cities and won by diplomacy. They all hated the guy I beat. Seems to be going that way in my recent game, where the biggest guy comes after me and since I'm winning I might as well take out everyone.

So does anyone know how I can make sure the first war doesn't win me the whole game? More players would help that but it would be cramped on a small map. Tried that and it just forced me to whack the first guy I met when we had the same near by potential second city site and he planted it first. I could use a bigger map with fewer than normal players but then we'd all have a lot of cities which I don't want. So maybe I can pick a dessert or swamp map to have fewer city sites. Dessert says it lacks fertile land but swamp doesn't and neither does ravaged so am I right that dessert will have the fewest city sites? The mountainous option mentions fertile land to that might mean more choke points but still lots of city sites. Wildlands would take up some space too, but it might make it too easy if I can get their prizes.

Maybe I just need to keep upping the difficulty.