The great Alexander is dead in Babylon at the age of 32, King of Macedon and Lord of Asia by right of the spear. His friends asked, "To whom do you leave the kingdom?" His last words were, "To the strongest." Can you defeat your rivals and reunite Alexander's empire under your strong hand? Or will you settle for carving out a place to establish your own dynasty? Are you the strongest?

This is a preview of my Hellenistic Kingdoms mod, which covers the period from Alexander's death in 323 to 146 BCE. The map is rather large, at 250x150. I have made every effort to make it accurate for the Hellenistic period; some areas that are desert now were not desert then, for example, northwestern Persia. I have distorted the map a bit in order to make Greece and the Levantine coast (the two biggest battlegrounds) big enough to represent the major cities and leagues and the important terrain. Every city is a victory objective and I have included Alexander's Corpse as a special treat to fight over.

Let me know what you think. I've about got it all set up and am about to start playtesting. I'm hoping to have a version posted for further playtesting by the end of the month. For now I'd like to generate some pre-game feedback.

There are 31 races. This is the lineup at present (notes as to my rationale are found in the second post):

Macedonian: (With starting satrapy)

Ptolemaios (Egypt)
Seleukos (Babylon)
Antigonos (Phrygia)
Antipatros (Macedon)
Peithon (Media)
Eumenes (Cappadocia)
Stasanor (Bactria)
Krateros (Cilicia)
Lysimachos (Thrace)
The Regency (including all other Macedonian satrapies)

Greek:
Athens (the short-lived Hellenic League of the Lamian War)
Aetolian League
Achaean League
Sparta
Pergamum
Rhodes
Bosporan Kingdom

Others:

Persia (Media Atropatene and Cappadocia)
Armenia
Pontus
Paphlagonia (incorporating also Bithynia)
Skythians
Mauryans
Illyrians
Epiros
Thrace
Nabataeans

Later Entry:
Rome
Parthia
Kushans
Galatians

(Some designer's notes on next post)

I have added Pergamum to the starting races because Anatolia would be too crowded to introduce a new race by their historical entry time (281 BCE). I excluded Perdikkas because to include him would be to exclude Seleukos, and that was unthinkable; so I have assigned Perdikkas' satrapy of Babylon to Seleukos instead and taken the old regent right out of the game. Eumenes, the regency's reliable (and brilliant) Greek general I have made a faction unto himself because he was never able to count on the cooperation of the supposedly loyal satraps of the regency.

I included Stasanor in Bactria as a counterweight to fill what would otherwise be a vacuum (and to preclude having to enter Bactria as yet another new race circa 250 BCE). Peithon I included because of the dramatic role he played in the wars of Antigonos and Eumenes, leaving Peukestas, satrap of Persia out because his role was largely negligible.

The Regency accounts for all the neutral satrapies, since I wanted players to have to fight to build their empires, not just expand into empty areas. I have given the Regency a low aggression and few troops to compensate for its size. I did not want it to have much power unto itself but as I said, to simply fill the void. It never really stood much of a chance to keep the empire united in the face of the aggression of the various generals. The Regency also represents the various independent Greek city states, such as Herakleia Pontika, Apollonia, Epidamnos, etc.

Because of the 31 race limitation, I combined Ariarathes in Cappadokia and Atropates in Media Minor into one faction, a sort of Persian Empire Remnant. I made Armenia a separate faction because it was the most aggressive of the three former Persian satrapies and separating it out keeps the Persian faction from being too powerful. Pontus I included as a foil in the north though it did not achieve its greatest extent until the period after the period covered by this mod.

I included the Aetolian League as well, though historically it did not come into existence until later; the limits of the Civ3 engine forced a few compromises. The same holds true for the Achaean League.

Starting forces are based on DBA armies with a few minor changes to make them more historically accurate; for instance, the earliest Ptolemaic armies did not have elephants as per DBA since they were not introduced until Ptolemy II.

The factions are not balanced and are not meant to be. Some will be harder to play than others.

http://www.geocities.com/upstate_pagan/levant.jpg

This is Ptolemaic Egypt, as you can see.

http://www.geocities.com/upstate_pagan/ptolemaic_egypt.jpg

Looks like it could be fun! :)

Your screenshots aren't working (for me at least). From what you have written though, it looks like it might be an excellent scenario.

Good heavens, this looks excellent!

Your screenshots aren't working (for me at least).They worked for me the first time i looked at them, but now they don't work... strange...

Hmm yeah, they were up for me too before but are gone now. I had them linked to my website...I'll put links up to the screenshots. Might be a problem at the source.

One problem I have not worked out yet is the starting location for the Regency. Being that Perdikkas is gone and that the Regency was fought over by Antipatros and Olympias (out of Epiros) I was thinking of making Olympias regent (in Epiros) and bringing Pyrrhos in at a later date...but then of course I would run into the problem of their starting location being occupied...

Ptolemaic Egypt (http://www.geocities.com/upstate_pagan/ptolemaic_egypt.jpg)

The Levantine Coast (http://www.geocities.com/upstate_pagan/levant.jpg)

link doesn't work
The web site you are trying to access has exceeded its allocated data transfer. Visit our help area for more information.

Ok, here they are to prevent further bandwidth problems

Those scarecrows in the previews, are they victory points?

I'm using the same victory point markers as the Warhammer mod; they're less obtrusive. Every city is a VP location and there are other locations marked as well where cities were founded during the Hellenistic Era, such as at Antioch in Syria and Berenike in Egypt. Unfortunately they don't show up real well but the Firaxis obelisks stand out too well.

Goodluck with the 31 civs in a huge map, i know it is a huge amount of work...

Yeah...it really is. I figured 31 would be plenty but I started to realize pretty quickly that I was going to have to do some combining and paring.

Nice job so far and great topic !

Personally I would not have bothered with the East because they soon enough went thir own way (except for the brief Antiochus III (IIRC) journey) which means more precision for strategically disputed areas such as the Agean or Koele-Syria.

You don't look like you are lost at all but if you need help for finding city names, I guess I can really help.

Nice job so far and great topic !

Personally I would not have bothered with the East because they soon enough went thir own way (except for the brief Antiochus III (IIRC) journey) which means more precision for strategically disputed areas such as the Agean or Koele-Syria.

You don't look like you are lost at all but if you need help for finding city names, I guess I can really help.

I did consider doing just that, LouLong. I didn't for a couple of reasons:

1) The campaigns of Antigonos and Eumenes, the most exciting of any of the Sucessor Wars, led into Media and Persia.

2) But I needed to include Parthia, since they came into the picture and expanded not just into the eastern satrapies but eventually into Babylonia and Mesopotamia as well.

3) I have a weakness for the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. But as I say, I did consider it and doing so might have simplified my task in many ways.

Finally, I cannot rule out the possibility of doing just what you suggested in the end if this setup doesn't work. The other option is to leave the map long and narrow like it is now, but to include Italy, Spain, and North Africa instead of the east and therefore make Rome and Carthage and the Italian Greek states part of the picture. This is something I was considering as my next project, in fact.

As for cities...I used CivArmy's Kushan cities but pared the names down to eliminate those not actually in existence yet during this era, found a decent collection of Mauryan cities. The main problem is cities for Antigonos, Lysimachos, Antipatros etc, who did not apparently found many cities - or at least not many that went recorded in history. I'll have this problem with Eumenes no matter the setup since he wasn't trying to found a dynasty and wasn't left along long enough to found colonies even if he wanted to.

So what do people prefer? A) The Eastern Option, or B) The Western Option?

I prefer C) no east, no west ! :p
But that is just my opinion.

I understand perfectly your liking for the Bactrians as I have it myself. Nevertheless if you have them you probably need their nemesis the Hephtalits as well.

And if you cut below the Aral sea, that already make the map much smaller and you keep the Parthians (Parnii).

Anyway this is your scenario, not mine so don't feel like you have to respect anyone's wish (ot you won't be able to finish your scenario at all because of conflictual requests).

I just gave this scenario some thought before deciding to turn to the Medieval Pack first. I am glad someone else is planning it. Nevertheless it has to be different from my ideas, naturally.
First because map size, loading times, etc... are a key element for me. Second because I have MP in mind. And this scenario enables a good balance between the 3 main civs (Lagids, Seuleucids, Antigonids). Now of course that means I planned to start later than you do, that is when they are kind of settled and when the small civs (Bythinia, Armenia, Pontus,..) are settled as well.
In this case the East became much less important than the Aegean and Syria, where small islands and cities can be represented (different scale also then of course).

I am both glad (and curious) you had the Romans but I wonder how you will make them "wait" ? Tech-tree ? And how do you with the Galatians ?
I would probably have incorporated Regnum Bosphorii into Pontus (even if it happened only later) for simplification.

How will you do for the buidlings of hoplites/phalanx ? Use mercenary resources located in Greece ?
Then you could make wheat both a luxury and a straegic resource for improvements (enabling higher populations) or maybe 2 different ones that would be mostly in Regnum Bosphori and Egypt.

If you use flags for leaderheads, may I advise the rose for Rhodes ?

About cities, I was just asking because I saw lots of empty spaces in Levant and in Egypt (but of course in what I had in mind, the tetrapolis would already have been built...). Kushansor other "barbarians" I would not know very well.

Thanks, LouLong, I appreciate the feedback. I'm going to run a couple of errands and when I get back I'll write a response and give you some of my ideas and solutions to the potential problems.

Wow, this sounds like an exciting project. I can't imagine how much work it's is. Good luck and may it all work out well. :)

I prefer C) no east, no west
But that is just my opinion.

Well ok, that's another possibility lol.

I understand perfectly your liking for the Bactrians as I have it myself. Nevertheless if you have them you probably need their nemesis the Hephtalits as well.

Yeah, the Bactrians get pretty much ignored in wargames so would be nice to see them. I was originally going to include, besides the Skythians, the Massegatae and the Iazyges and Rhoxolani but I ended up placing barbarian camp to account for some of the barbarian activity and just making the Skythians the umbrella race for all the other hostiles.

And if you cut below the Aral sea, that already make the map much smaller and you keep the Parthians (Parnii).

I looked at the map and that might be do-able. Without a threat to the Seleukids from the east, they might be (or get) unrealistically strong. If I could shorten the map a bit I might be able to "zoom in" so to speak and the small size of Greece would not be as much of a problem.

Anyway this is your scenario, not mine so don't feel like you have to respect anyone's wish (ot you won't be able to finish your scenario at all because of conflictual requests).

True, can't please everyone. But I'd like to put out a scenario that has more of what people would like than less, obviously, and I value the opinions of those here, and hoped some fresh ideas might resolve some of the problems I was still facing.

I just gave this scenario some thought before deciding to turn to the Medieval Pack first. I am glad someone else is planning it. Nevertheless it has to be different from my ideas, naturally.
First because map size, loading times, etc... are a key element for me. Second because I have MP in mind. And this scenario enables a good balance between the 3 main civs (Lagids, Seuleucids, Antigonids). Now of course that means I planned to start later than you do, that is when they are kind of settled and when the small civs (Bythinia, Armenia, Pontus,..) are settled as well.
In this case the East became much less important than the Aegean and Syria, where small islands and cities can be represented (different scale also then of course).

I will leave the later period for later, or to someone else. I really wanted to look at the struggles between the original batch of generals. It was by no means certain the big 3 would end up the big 3, and except for Demetrios' error at Ipsos, Antigonids might have ended up with an Anatolian successor state rather than a Macedon-based one, and if Lysimachos had not killed his son Agathokles, he might have stuck around with a state occupying the same areas that came to comprise the so-called "Byzantine" empire.[/quote]

I am both glad (and curious) you had the Romans but I wonder how you will make them "wait" ? Tech-tree ? And how do you with the Galatians ?

The Galatians won't be a problem. They can enter from the mostly unoccupied north as historically. There are no victory points to be found up there so I don't suppose it will be too tough. The Galatians crossing the Hellespont are another problem, however, since historically it was the Bithynian navy that ferried them across. So many things cannot be duplicated becaue of Civ's limitations, so they'll have to have the ability to build ships. Maybe I'll give them a special type of ship called a "borrowed" ship :D

Rome is more of a problem. I won't know until I try how their entry will be affected. I considered leaving Rome out altogether and it's possible that may be how things end up before the end.

I would probably have incorporated Regnum Bosphorii into Pontus (even if it happened only later) for simplification.

That's not a bad idea, really. I did consider it but hesitated because I figured there might be some objection at Pontus being included at all, given that early on they weren't much of a factor. But it would free up another slot at the worst, or even reduce the number of races and thus speed play a bit. I had also considered putting them in a locked alliance but I like making them part of Pontus better. Simpler is usually better.

How will you do for the buidlings of hoplites/phalanx ? Use mercenary resources located in Greece ?

This was the first issue I looked at when I started planning the scenario. Obviously, manpower (of the correct type) was a huge factor for the Successors. I went with Varwnos' little helmets - one representing a Greek resource and the other representing a Macedonian resource. I placed these on the map at their proper locations. Greek resources were easy, Macedonian a little more difficult as some of the actual Macedonian settlements had not been founded at this early stage, and I have no way to allow them to be placed later. But one of the motivations for the early Successors was to secure sources of manpower so something of the sort had to be done.

I have two types of phalangist (or phalangite, if you prefer): the Macedonian and the "Native" or Pantodapoi. You need access to Macedonian resources to build the former but you can build the latter anywhere. I also made the Macedonian phalangist more expensive (besides being better quality). You need Greek resources to build Hoplites, and there are 3 types of these - Citizen, Mercenary and Militia. I tried to cut down on the numbers and types of units and the DBA system allowed me to do this. These are the common types:

Psiloi Archer
Psiloi Javelinman
Light Horse
Cavalry

Almost every army has some of these types so that helped a great deal. The Macedonians also have their Companion Cavalry, and I used CivArmy's Skythians and Kushans, and one of the cataphracts. I used the Firaxis legion as the "Imitation" legion raised by the later successors.

Then you could make wheat both a luxury and a straegic resource for improvements (enabling higher populations) or maybe 2 different ones that would be mostly in Regnum Bosphori and Egypt.

That's a good idea regarding the wheat, LouLong. I hadn't thought of doing that. I'll look into doing something with it. You have any specific ideas regarding that type of improvement?

If you use flags for leaderheads, may I advise the rose for Rhodes ?

I'm open to suggestions re leaderheads. Frankly, that's my biggest problem. I'm forced with the necessity at present of using Alexander for all the Macedonian factions. There just aren't enough to go around. I thought about the 16-point Macedonian star for those factions. Not sure what I'd use for Athens, Aetolia and Achaea, etc.

About cities, I was just asking because I saw lots of empty spaces in Levant and in Egypt (but of course in what I had in mind, the tetrapolis would already have been built...). Kushansor other "barbarians" I would not know very well.

Yeah, some of the empty spots are from cities not yet established. Berenike wasn't built yet, or Ptolemais, or Antioch, Apamea, etc., so I just made them victory locations to lure settlers to those spots. I left out "Byblos" and a couple other cities in the Levant because with the struggle for territory to support population they'd all be pissant little villages.

Wow, this sounds like an exciting project. I can't imagine how much work it's is. Good luck and may it all work out well. :)

Thanks, it's been a killer so far. I read here about people bemoaning the 10 hours they spent on a map and I think, how do you make a realistic map in 10 hours? I spent two weeks on mine and I'm still not satisfied!

Well making a perfect map takes time, the map i have made for the doomed peloponnesian war was being perfected as the scen went on, finding important mountain locations and naturally defendable areas etc. But your map has a vastly bigger area so i am not sure if any such idea would really be workable. In a quite large map of half of Greece it was. :)

This looks intriguing!

Did you drop your peloponnesian war idea? I was looking forward to it. And yeah, I'm not satisfied just placing a few mountains and hills and calling it even. The trouble is that topographical maps differ so much and they might show elevation but not the actual nature of the terrain (plateaus vs. hills, etc). It's tough translating real world terrain into the limited choices offered by Civ3. And the map is huge, I admit...but to make Greece a playable area, it has to be.

Thanks, TLC! If you have any suggestions for any of the problems we're discussing, I'd be happy to hear them. I'd like to make this work because it should be a frenzy of fighting if all goes as planned.

How are you intending to make the Romans et al turn up later?

Yeah the pw scen is dead, and i do not think that i will ressurect it ever, because it can never be really complete. Just imagine how much work the lheads would take alone. Also unit dynamics were a problem, and so were te wonders. Really your scen is even more epic, so if you keep on working on it i suggest that you either find some team to help you with it, or you consider limiting its scope a bit. But in the end it depends on how commited you are on a scen, although if i ever try to make a scen again i will have 8-10 players at most

I'd suggest that the key to getting it finished is to concentrate first on actual mechanics - map, techs, units, etc - and leave gfx and the like as a secondary priority. Good gameplay with bad gfx beats the reverse.

Yeah the pw scen is dead, and i do not think that i will ressurect it ever, because it can never be really complete. Just imagine how much work the lheads would take alone. Also unit dynamics were a problem, and so were te wonders. Really your scen is even more epic, so if you keep on working on it i suggest that you either find some team to help you with it, or you consider limiting its scope a bit. But in the end it depends on how commited you are on a scen, although if i ever try to make a scen again i will have 8-10 players at most

I'm sorry to hear that, Kyriakos. It was a good idea and would have been enjoyable. I agree that leaderheads are a problem. As I said, I'm going to have to either use Alexander for every Macedonian or go with flags/symbols for leaderheads. On the other hand, I'm determined to finish the scenario, whatever it's final form. I've already worked on it for about a month, including the 2 weeks on the map (which I'm still tweaking). If I could make leaderheads it would help, but I'm satisfied with the units available here.

I'd suggest that the key to getting it finished is to concentrate first on actual mechanics - map, techs, units, etc - and leave gfx and the like as a secondary priority. Good gameplay with bad gfx beats the reverse.

Thanks, TLC. The map is going well (assuming I keep it as it is and don't shorten it's length, which would set me back some). The units are in good shape. I have a tech tree fleshed out but really, it will be rather minimal compared to a full mod. It was a very creative time period but so much of what was done by the great minds of the age had little technical application. I am in whole-hearted agreement with you about gameplay vs. gfx.

Oh, as for the Romans et al, I'm hoping nobody nabs their starting locations. The Romans are going to start with enough triremes to transport a couple of consular armies across the Adriatic. With no VP locations at the various starting locations, I hope nobody crowds them out. I hate this sort of staged entry (though it worked well for Plotinus!) but I'm going to try it anyway. At the worst, I'll end up cutting down the map or putting some of them into the game at start, like I did with Pergamum. There are just so many limitations with Civ...like somebody said once at Apolyton, the designers seem to have done all they can in some ways to stymie mod makers.

By the way, Kyriakos...speaking of ancient Greece, have you played any of the Perfect Captain's games? He has one called "Hoplomachia" based on DBA and a campaign system for it called "Stratiotika." They're free - all you need is a decent color printer to print off map and units and then mount them. Great stuff and I highly recommend it. The link is

http://perfectcaptain.50megs.com/hoplomachia.html

For the natives, I would rather have used the term machimoi (basically fighters) as it was the one used for the most famous of them, the Egyptian phalanx for the battle of Raphia (218-217).

But it is really late in the period. Before that troops were made mostly of mercenaries (Greeks and Macedonians of course but Celts, Jews, Syrians... as well). On the other hand I don't think Babylonians were ever recruited.

My idea for the wheat was to have 2 wheat resources (to increase the importance of trade and stress the importance of wheat).
1 would be a luxury
1 would be a straegic resources for improvements such as granaries (which would be needed to go from town to city (6-->7 pop).
With the two it would really have an impact on population in Greece I think.
The two areas where these resouces would be present would be mostly Egypt (hence the importance of Aegean islands for the Ptolemees) and Regnum Bosphorii (hence the importance of the straight of Byzantium).

Does this answer your question ?

I am really looking forward to playing this scenario !

Hey LouLong,

Thanks for the response. I went with Pantodapoi because it was the term used in DBA. Another point of confusion is the different terminologies used by Seluekids vs. Ptolemies. I am half tempted just to go with the good old English term "Native."

One idea I had, because I did a board game on this subject years ago, was to place unit/race resources in each area. In my board game, each province had various types of units it could raise. The problem with Civ in this regard is not having provinces and having to more precisely locate these various resources.

So in Civ I'd place some Skythian archers in the general areas they were recruited from (even Athens used these), peltasts in Thrace, cavalry in Thessaly, etc., which would limit the creation of units in areas where, historically, they could not have been raised. So instead of a Macedonian and Greek resource, I'd have "phalangist", "native phalangist", "elephants", "cavalry", etc., etc. This would certainly eliminate the possibility of equipping those unwarlike Babylonians as phalangists. On the other hand, there would be a lot of resource clutter on the map as a result. What do you think? The only problem is that unless the units are produced by an improvement or wonder, roads make it possible for those resources to travel, so again we're fighting the Civ3 engine in a losing battle for realism.

The grain idea is great, LouLong. I am definitely going to incorporate that, as well as combining Pontus and Bosporus. That frees up one race. I'd originally desired the Maccabees but in crowded Palestine it would be hard to find a safe start location for them...any ideas on how best to use this freed up race slot?

I've resolved the Rome entry issue. I'm giving them their own flavor and branch of the tech tree and they'll be on the map at start, stuck on the heel of Italy. They should have enough strength to defend themselves but until they've gained some ships through tech tree advances, they'll be stuck there.

About natives I think you have two cases IMHO :

- small areas famous for their mercenaries (Jews, Thracians, ...)
- main natives of Syria, Babylonia and Egypt : the mass of possible recruits but mostly as lowly qualified levies (and apart from Egyptians I don't think they were often used).

Maybe you can check the system Calgacus used in this scenario (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=80721). It can definitely be perfected (don't really know how though) but it has some interesting ideas.

Troop types and their points of origin can be interesting. I've seen an argument advanced for instance that the Persian Kardakes were Kurds; Crete had excellent archers, Syria had archers, Thrace had peltasts, and of course, Greece was famous for its mercenaries in this period. The Romans made a point of cutting Antiochus off from this source in their treaty with him. I'll check that thread and see what he has set up there. I've made the two changes previously discussed. As I want to keep unit numbers down I am also charging population points to raise non-mercenary units.

Ah yes, that's the one between the Persians and Romans with Heraclius saving the day. I believe he tied units to wonders or improvements in that game. I had considered going that route as well. Originally, I had intended that Macedonian phalangists would come only from colonies but this attempt at limits could be overcome by building many colonies, so I dropped it early on. In order to prevent city-building madness with the AI populating every square inch of the map, I've limited settlers to palaces. I'm going to play with the # of turns required to produce one. I realize this seems a bit of a contradiction since the Hellenistic kings were known for their city building, but the AI takes it to extremes. I've even considered making settlers (and by consequence, palaces) unavailable to the less expansionst races (Sparta, Athens, etc).

I think Calgacus had a good idea, but I think Civ3's inflexibility places too many limits. I'd like to see units tied not just to civ advances but to improvements, and not just in the sense that the improvement provides a unit every 5 turns or so, but more along the lines of Warcraft, Total War, etc. where having an improvements makes it possible to build a unit.

Considered limiting city-building by drastically restricting what terrains can support cities? I believe the old Alexander scenario restricted cities to one terrain sort that was then only found on historical city sites.

I solved the issue of overcrowding with this:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/000001signs.jpg

You can only build cities on terrain with the little signs.

Great idea, but a few questions:
- how does that sign-thing work? is that some sort of landmark-terrain or what?
- isn't the shadow is pointing to the wrong direction :p

Great idea, but a few questions:
- how does that sign-thing work? is that some sort of landmark-terrain or what?
- isn't the shadow is pointing to the wrong direction :p

Hadn’t even noticed the shadow. :lol:


Anyway... Landmark sucks, so I had to change the terrain. The signs are actually forest terrain. It’s quite a sacrifice, I know, but all forest terrain (including pine-forest) have been made into signs. Jungle was made into forest, and swamp can be turned into jungle should it be necessary.

Obviously, this is only something that works within scenarios.


The new terrain is called… *drum-roll* ...City-Site.

Do you remember what terrain that was, TLC? I had considered that myself...limiting cities to grassland or something. I wish landmark terrain was more useful but whatever limitations are placed upon the main terrain type remains true for the LM as well.

Did not see your post before I answered TLC, Cimbri. Sorry. I am going to have to do something like you both suggested, because I hate the computer players sending settler after settler across your border to colonize that marginal square at the far reaches of the map that can only be reached through your empire. In the Warhammer mod I've scored some great slave labor scooping those guys up but I don't want the game to be about that.

And I agree, the LM terrain does suck. It's next to worthless in my experience.

I think the Alexander scenario used Plains, but I suspect Cimbri's Forest idea is simpler to implement, since Forest is a kind of "overlay" terrain.

You should probably disable chop and plant forest if you go with this!

[quote="The Last Conformist"]LOL um, yeah. To do otherwise might have tragic consequences.

You can also disable the "sow fields with salt" :D

Love that sow the fields with salt feature lol. Damn, Varwnos, I wish you could have finished that scenario. I'd love to have played it.

Ok, I have decided not to mess with my forests so I've prohibited cities being built on plains or in deserts and on mountains and hills, and I will mark as many historical city sites as I can (and here it's a shame we don't have more knowedge of city locations east of Parthia, Media and Babylonia!). I can always modify things later if this doesn't work, but it's a point of departure at least.

Hm well i could release the scen as a general greek-cities-at-war scen. The main problem is that there is no way one can make a real historical scen for civ3... i still dont understand why firaxis didnt have any events editor............................................ .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..................................... the guy who proposed that civ3 should have no events editor should be shot!

I agree, Kyriakos...Civ has some severe limitations that restrict realism. About all you can do is create a historic setting that provides a civ game with the flavor of the period you're representing. It's discouraging, and I hope Firaxis makes huge improvements in Civ4. Certain eras really do cry out for random events. I'd like to see cities become unhappy enough to outright rebel too, so you could send the legions in to crush the citizens. Good times!

I have made a few changes to the scenario after some further thought and experimentation:

1) I have limited the period portrayed to 323 (Alexander's death) to 280 (Seleukos was the last Successor to die, in 280). The turns are (so far) monthly, making the game 516 turns long.

2) I have taken the following races out of the game as a result, since their arrivals in the game date after the period now under consideration:

Rome
Kushans
Parthians
Galatians

3) I have left the Bosporan Kingdom part of Pontus as suggested by LouLong, but have made Media Atropatene (under its satrap Atropates) independent, and Kappadokia (under its satrap Ariarathes) independent, thus splitting the Persian faction into two.

I have made these changes primarily because they needlessly complicate the central aspect of the scenario, which is the struggle of Alexander's successors to dominate his empire. Since a single life-span is now portrayed, I can also add in some of those tidbits I'd taken out - namely, Alexander's family, who will be worth victory points to whoever controls them, making them the valuable pawns they were historically.

The main problem was proving to be the Romans. It was impossible to conceive of a scenario continuing into the period Roman interferences began, without the Romans. And the Civ machine is so limited that the various techniques I'd have to use to get the Romans into play and then make them behave even remotely realistically would have taken up far more time and energy than they were worth.

The Galatians were another problem, in that they originally crossed into Asia at the invitation of the Bithynians and on Bithynian ships. Since you can't do this in Civ, that created some problems - namely, not only how to lure the Galatians INTO Anatolia, but how to get them there.

Hopefully, this streamlining of the scenario will only make it better and more intense - a fast-paced struggle for control of territory within a realistic time span: a general's lifetime. And this, more than anything else, is what motivated the men who followed Alexander.

I must say I agree with your choice. Seems more reasonable to have one such scenario and maybe another one for the later period rather than trying to combine the two... IMHO.

Yes...to leave it as it was would be to attempt too much. I had to decide what I really wanted the scenario to be about.

I have played Rhye's epic game and found that his solution of making settlers very expensive combined with limiting building sites seems to work very well in controlling city prolifteration. I had already made the terrain changes but I am going to make the settlers expensive now too.

This move has allowed me to tie up a couple of other loose ends as well.

Since Pyrrhos did not rule Epiros until the period now covered by the scenario ends, I have been able to remove Epiros and give its cities to the Regency, which lacked a starting location.

I have made the regent Olympias, who was a native of Epiros and who fled there to get away from the man Alexander left in charge, Antipatros. Making her regent plays again with history a bit, but she was allied to the actual regent, Polyperchon and it has a couple of advantages, one of which I have mentioned, and the other of which is that it enables me to add a female leaderhead, the lovely Zenobia, made by R8XFT. Anyone who has seen Oliver Stone's movie "Alexander" will see that this is a nice fit.

I can also remove Pergamum as a faction, since it did not come into prominence until the Galatian invasion. These deletions will speed game play since it reduces the total number of races to 27, even after adding Peukestas (satrap of Persia) as an additional faction.

Glad to see you've managed to split Atropatene and Cappadocia, as well as get rid of some dead wood :) So what are things looking like now?

I am reworking the tech tree now that the Romans are gone, and I have to rename the eras, though I'm not sure its worth splitting the limited techs up between them. It probably makes more sense to keep all the techs in the first era. They will not play a huge role anyway.

There is a very nice little tale by Lukianos (i think the same who wrote the story of the youth who got transformed into a donkey) about that invasion of asia monor by the galatians. In that it is noted that Antiochos Soter (i think he was called Antiochos) managed to defeat the galateans not due to having a more disciplined army, or better weapons, but solely due to the fact that he was also using some war-elephants, and the galatians had never seen any such animal before, so were very frightened. The moral of the story was that sometimes one manages to be victorious not because of his own powers, but due other people's lack of knowledge.

btw Soter=Saviour. To give a bit more encylopedic value to the post :D

A very belieavable story if one considers how the Macedonians themselves first responded to the sight of elephants arrayed against them. It would be nice if we could translate these events into a Civ game. There are so many intangibles in life that cannot be portrayed in any game.

Btw, I thought the movie "Alexander" did an excellent job of showing the terror of troops facing elephants for the first time.

I have been playing with the graphics a bit to find what works best, and this is a shot of JJansen's improved territory borders showing the most border-intensive region on my map. The borders are not final as I've yet to plug in culture values but it gives a good idea of how these borders look next to one another:

http://www.geocities.com/upstate_pagan/Hellas.jpg

:bump:!

Been lurking your thread, and I am kinda worried about the lack of activity!

Keep it going!

Also, why not replace volcanoes with this city site terrain rather than forests? Forests are good and useful! Volcanoes... not so much ;p

Occam's Razor and all that haha

You would probably have to turn off eruptions though... that could get a bit weird...

Anyway, I like this idea and I like the looks of it and I want you to get back to work... or else Vinny is gonna show up at your house... and you dont wanna meet Vinny

hahaha

I'm still on it! I have a few projects to complete for work and have had a sick baby at home, but I'm back on track now. I also had a problem with an error message showing up while debugging the game. Said an entry was missing in the pediaicons.txt file but did not tell me which one, and IbnSina's pediaicons checker showed no problems. I haven't run into this before but needless to say (if you know me) I got busy with the pediaicons file and civpedia entries. I had originally thought to put out a playtest version like LouLong's "Reconquista"; it will now be a bit more complete than originally planned!

As for cities, I am keeping forests in the game. After playing Rhyse of Civilization, I've decided to take his approach, which seems to work rather well. Namely, settlers will be more expensive and terrain types for cities less limited. I think with the higher cost I can get by without the "city specific" terrain type. Fortunately, neither volcanoes nor plagues played a role in the Diadochi Wars so I don't have to bother with either of them.

Thanks for giving me a nudge. I'd hate to get the kiss on both cheeks from Vinny. I know the Mafia types don't mean it the same way as the French!

I have put a screenshot of the error message in the post below. Have you ever seen one like this?

http://www.geocities.com/upstate_pagan/error_message.jpg

That is certainly a weird one! I have no clue what it means. Did you have an extra entry that was empty or something?

PS: that pediaicons thing is a Godsend! I keep meanin to thank the guy who made it... but he prolly already knows the world loves him ;p

i had that error while making my scenario, it was an empty entry like:

#ANIMNAME_PRTO_Unit


and nothing in the next line

hope it helps :)

Thanks for the tips, Aeon and krazydude. I would imagine that the pediaicons checker would find anything like that, but I don't know all the ins and outs of it, so anything is possible. I have checked and rechecked the txt file but I'll go back and look for anything like that. I've never had this happen before and it's frustrating because at this point, it's the only thing holding me back.

How are things going? :)

http://www.geocities.com/upstate_pagan/error_message.jpg

I'm sure I've had that message before and it was improvements in the editor itself and not the txt file. I'd check in the editor that all your improvements and wonders have a valid entry in the "Civilopedia entry" field.

Sorry to bump an aging thread - but hopefully, you will renew your interest in this project (or tell us how it's progressing if the interest is still there ;) ).

Thanks, I appreciate the input. I haven't given up on it though it's been pushed to the back burner by a few things. I did go through and check on some suggestions another forum member made but without success. I'll go through and check those entries again. It's frustrating that Civ can't do better than a partial error message like that. There is so much to check it could take a lifetime with that for a clue! :(