This has developed out of the discussions I've been having with various people about this topic. Everyone has different opinions about this so I've come up with something which I hope can be tailored to suit individual tastes.

It's still very much in the testing stage so nothing is definitive yet. At the moment I'm using a modified version of Marla Singer's excellent map, but I may well make a map of my own specifically for this scenario, a bit smaller and using a different projection.

http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/rsn.gif

I have modified some game rules, but I don't really think of this as a "mod" as such, I think it's better described as a scenario, although it's not really that either. It's basically a normal game but with certain nations crippled and some disallowed.

It can be downloaded here or from this page on my site (along with a few other things);

http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk/civ.html

rsn_v1.0.zip deleted after 591 downloads.

I've made some small changes, primarily adding a strip of sea around most of the coastlines and removing mapmaking from the Celts and Japanese. Also increased optimum cities to 40 (to reduce corruption) and increased tech rate to 240 (default for huge maps) since it seemed a bit fast.

I've attached the file to a later message (page 2) because I can't add it to this one for some reason.

Paul

================
DESIGN OBJECTIVE
================

The main objective of this scenario is to begin the game with only the oldest nations, leaving the Americas empty, and altering the map slightly to prevent anyone reaching there until magnetism is discoverd.

Although this isn't strictly realistic, the reason for this is to recreate the "Colonisation of the New World" phenomenon later in the game, which never really happens in Civ games because America is over developed by the time the European civs reach there.

The American tribes/empires are simply represented by barbarians and goody huts, leaving the continents in pristine condition for exploration and exploitation by the European tribes. Of course, there's nothing stopping the Chinese and others exploiting the Americas too once magnetism is discovered.


MAP CHANGES
===========

I'm currently using Marla Singer's map as modified by Scipio. Further modifications are as follows;


Coasts, Seas and Oceans
-----------------------

I've made major changes here because I disagree with Marla's representation of them. Marla has used them to represent the depths of the water, and therefore produced a Mid-Atlantic Ridge of coasts and seas for example.

I instead think that the depth of the water is irrelevant, and instead prefer to use the literal meanings of the words. Coasts are exactly that, coasts, so they only occur next to land.

Seas correspond to real world seas, such as the Mediterranean Sea, North Sea, Arabian Sea, China Seas, Coral Sea etc. These are usually bodies of water that are enclosed by land on at least three sides, thus protecting them from major ocean currents.

Oceans are obvious, and do not have any "shallow" patches of water in them. It's still possible to go island hopping in the Pacific, but some islands are now more risky to get to, as it should be IMO.


Ocean barriers either side of America
-------------------------------------

In order to keep America inaccessible early in the game I've inserted ocean barriers of roughly 7-8 tiles wide on each side. I know this is not realistic but it's the only way to ensure that the "Colonisation of the New World" can happen later in the game.

Greenland has been shrunk slightly (resulting in a more realistic shape since the projection Marla used resulted in a very stretched Greenland) and Iceland moved further west as a result. This has created a larger gap of ocean between Britain and Iceland.

The eastern tip of Russia has also been shrunk so that it doesn't touch the edge of Alaska anymore. The Aleutian Islands are still there but they don't link up with Asia. Again this has resulted in less-stretched more realistic shapes, with a gap of ocean in between.


Africa
------

I've made quite a few changes to Africa to make it far less hospitable to colonise, and harder for the Africans (Zulus) to develop.

I've restored the native jungle so there are no nice grassy patches available there, you'll have to chop the jungle down to get these.

I've removed most of the wheat and cattle resources, but left the fish resources behind. Starvation is commonplace in Africa so I really don't think it should be possible to build huge cities there.

I've also removed the patches of forest that Marla added to the plains to simulate savanna because I don't think they were realistic (each forest tile represents about 10,000 square miles of woodland).


The rest of the world
---------------------

Most of the rest I've left untouched, although I've added more floodplains to the Nile and also the Euphrates.

I've added some extra patches of forestry in Europe and Asia, removed the Aluminium from New Zealand and added/deleted various barbarian tribes here and there.


NATION CHANGES
==============

The Africans
------------

In many Civ games, the Zulus often develop into an "unstoppable world power" as one person put it. Rather than excluding them and leaving Africa empty (and too easy to colonise, even with barbarians) I've decided to include them but to cripple their capabilities.

I've changed their name to Africans and changed their start location to southern Ethiopia, since this is where the Africans first originated (the earliest remains of Homo Sapiens were discovered in the Omo Valley, north of Lake Rudolf).

I've prevented the Africans from building any city developments, air units, naval units, artillery and workers. Due to the lack of available food this will prevent them from developing large cities. Even if they do, happiness problems will stunt their growth. They will be unable to develop culture and unable to leave Africa, except through Egypt (which is unlikely).

They will be able to build settlers and offensive/defensive units though, so they can expand and colonise much of Africa and put up more military resistance than mere barbarians, although they'll never advance as much as the other nations.

One key factor is that they can't build workers. This means that they'll never be able to build roads, irrigate land, chop down jungle etc. This will also seriously limit growth. With no roads they'll have no trade network. Although they do start with one worker, nearby barbarians will destroy it before they can build a warrior to protect it.

The lack of roads and culture will mean that the Africans will function like scattered tribes rather than a coherent empire, and should in effect make them rather like "super-barbarians" who are capable of settling and building better military units.


The Aztecs and Iroquois
-----------------------

I strongly recommend that you don't use these tribes since doing so goes against the whole design principle of this scenario. However, some people feel very strongly that they should be included so the option is there if you really must have them.

I've crippled both of them in the same way as the Africans, except that the Aztecs don't have barbarians too close to them so their one worker usually survives and is able to irrigate and build roads. Having only one worker does seriously limit their development however.

It may be that I've crippled these three tribes too much. Any comments or alternative suggestions welcome.


The Celts
---------

Much as I like the Celts (I am one), I think they should be excluded from this scenario due to there being too much competition in Europe. However, I've included them as an option for those who want them. I've changed the English into the Celts and left their starting location as London for now. In this way they can represent the Ancient Britons when the Romans and Germans arrive there.

I've made them religious and expansionist, starting with pottery and ceremonial burial. I've also given them mapmaking so they can build galleys immediately. This seems logical since they must have known how to build boats in order to get to Britain in the first place.


The Japanese
------------

I've added mapmaking to their starting techs too. Being an island nation I think early knowledge of boats is important, so they can try to colonise the mainland (Korea?) early on should they so desire.


Barbarians
----------

There are many barbarians on the map. Most were there already but I've added a few more in selected locations, like southern Africa (where the Zulus don't start) and North America. Also some in France.

They've been set to restless rather than roaming, so they occur in greater numbers than usual.

Most significantly, I discovered that the player receives a large bonus against barbarians, especially on the lower levels. The bonus is 800% on Chieftan level and 200% on Regent (which is supposed to be the level at which the player is equal to the AI. Only on Deity level is there no bonus against barbarians.

I've changed this so that there is no bonus against barbarians from Regent on up. I've set a 100% bonus on Warlord and 200% on Chieftan.

Some have complained that barbarians were too easy to kill. Well, they're not anymore!


THE MAIN STARTING NATIONS (9)
=============================

My recommendation for starting nations is as follows;

Romans (also symbolising the Greeks)
Germans (representing the Germanic tribes)
Russians (representing the Slavs)
Egyptians
Persians (also symbolising the Babylonians)
Indians
Chinese
Japanese
Africans

These nine nations give the best balance for gameplay IMO. There are too many nations available in Europe and the Middle East and including them all creates too much conflict in too small an area. This stunts the growth of the Europeans and thus gives too much of an advantage to the Indians and Chinese IMO.


OPTIONAL NATIONS (5)
====================

For those that disagree with my choices and/or want more conflict in Europe, then feel free to add any of the following nations;

Celts
Greeks
Bablylonians

For those that insist on having civs in America, then you can choose;

Aztecs
Iroquois


FORBIDDEN NATIONS (2)
=====================

Do not include these nations if you want to play this scenario in the way it was intended;

Americans
French

Having said that, the options are still there, so there's nothing stopping you from playing the game that way if you really want to.


CRIPPLED NATIONS (3)
====================

The following three nations are crippled, and therefore should not be chosen by the human player;

Africans
Aztecs
Iroquois


HOW TO START THE GAME
=====================

You must choose the nations you wish to play with before you start. See included Readme.txt for exact details on how to setup the game.


FINAL NOTE
==========

In order to play the game in the spirit in which it was intended, the human player should not attempt to reach the Americas before it is safe to do so. You might get lucky and get a galley and a settler across, but that would ruin the whole point of this scenario.

Any comments and suggestions welcome.

I've posted this to another thread but I wanted to get your thoughts. Is there any way to prevent settlers from building cities on tundra, just as they can't build on mountains? This would prevent the AI from settling places like northern Russia, Canada, and Greenland, and IMO would make the map/scenario more realistic. Thanks...

I was thinking exactly the same thing myself. I had a good look through the editor options but I couldn't find anything there.

Perhaps there's a flag that can be changed in a file somewhere? Maybe someone can find it if there is?

I also think that cities shouldn't be founded on desert tiles.

In my current game there are almost as many cities in the Sahara Desert as there are in Europe, with strings of roads and irrigation connecting them together. This is just plain silly.

I hope someone can figure out how to stop this.

Paul

I definitely like some of the adjustments you have made to Marla's map. The way it was set up before, it was way too easy for the european countries to make it to North America, way too early in the game (too much coast for the galleys to travel on). Because of the easy travel, that is probably why she said the AI settles everywhere!
However, although it seems logical to give the Celts and Japanese map making at the start, the problem I see is that it allows them to build the Great Lighthouse before any other nation had even discovered Map Making. The Great Lighthouse built before the Pyramids!?!? And any civ that did build the Great Lighthouse would be able to colonize the Americas well before any other nation.

It might be good to move the Great Lighthouse to a later tech to prevent an unfair advantage. Also, I agree that the AI should not be allowed to build cities on desert. There must be some way to make tundra and desert behave like mountains. Also, it's important to keep in mind that catapults and such are unable to travel on mountains. I'm not sure if this would make sense for tundra and desert tiles.

Why don't you make desert and tundra not have any food? As it extremely difficult to take food out of the sahara (i should know i've been there.) This alter discourage ppl from settling on unfit land.

I'm in a really bad mood today (my teacher gave me an unfair grade):cry: , I'm going to be really annoying...

I'm half Viking (Norwegian) and half Irish.
It just so happens that both a Viking explorer (Leif Erikson, look him up), and an Irish saint (Brendan the Navigator), made it to the Americas before 1000 AD. As did Breton fishermen. AND there have been made subsequent expeditions to prove it. They found Viking settlements on Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. So you're not all right there. The reason they disappeared was because they weren't interested in staying. The natives were too dangerous. But I do see your reasoning, however. It would be boring if the Americas were colonized too early. It's more fun this way.

I'm half-norwegian, by the way. Yes, I knew about Leif Erikson, never heard of Brendan the Navigator, and there was someone else (Eric the Red?), that had made it to Greenland and Newfoundland and there was a settlement in Greenland (perhaps a few grassland squares should be added to a tip of Greenland). However in this game's setup, once a city is there it is there for good (unless razed by another civ), the AI won't ever abandon a city, and the barbarians can't capture it, just pillage it. But what I am is saying is from there it is way too easy for them to settle further south (just follow the coast), to let's say Cuba, Panama, or Brazil. The Japanese would have an equal chance of settling Alaska, California, etc.

map of Piri Reis (1513)


http://www.dataxinfo.com/hormuz/icons/pirireis.jpg


"The content of the map was amazing: it focused on the western coast of Africa, the eastern coast of South America (!) and the northern coast of Antarctica (!!!). The most flabbergasting point is that Antarctic had remained undiscovered until 1818, but its northern coastline, perfectly detailed, was shown on this map drawn in 1513."

it seems America's were only a mystery for "western european" civilizations. There is also a theory that argues north america native tribes are Turkic nomads passed through the bering strait.

Erics dad was exiled from Norway as a result of a few harmless murders, and moved to Iceland.

Eric successfully got himself exiled from Iceland for killing a man (never learn, do they?) and, foolishly, headed west (must have had a bad sense of direction...). He lucked out though, and landed on what was at that time a green land. It's not really very green anymore, due to climate changes, but whatever.
His son however, Leif "The Man" Eriksson, went west again (I read somewhere that he missed Greenland when sailing from Iceland. It seems a bad sense of direction is hereditary too) and landed in Vinland, the land of vines, which is considered by most to be Newfoundland. His settlement only lasted three years though, an insignificant time period in civ III. They were literally wiped out by the Skraelings, the Native Indians. Talk about living in perfect harmony...

So I completely agree with the reasoning as regards the whole uncrossable thing. I said so the other time as well. All I'm saying is that historically we're not entirely correct here...

PS: Qelebex, it's not a legend. There was a time when the Bering Strait was crossable, and that was the last Ice Age. There was an awful lot of water caught up in those glaciers, you know. At that point, hungry hunters chasing their quarry ventured across and entered a completely virgin land. They WERE the original Native Americans. How else do you think they made it from the Great Rift Valley to Tierra del Fuego? They had to come from somewhere... There is also a whacky theory that european stone age fellahs sailed across in leather canoes. Believe it if you will.

There is so many claims by different people-
>Chinese-Buddhist monk described an Eastern Land, probably California by the description, jade sculpture found in Mexico!
>Japanese-I think this may merely be nationalist bullsh!t.
>Carthage-Coin showing an Western Land beyond the straights of Gibraltar
>Romans-Piece of Roman pottery found in Rio de Janiero bay, may have been dropped by early immigrants.
>Breton-Wild stories of an western land
>Irish monks-Many monks in the 7th-9th century seeked isolation from sin by heading the ocean, good description of voyage to an Western land
>Vikings-Claims of finding Vinland, west of Greenland. Scandinavian immigrant found stone tablet with Nordic runes on it-many scientists reject this as a fake, though not 100% certain. Vinland meaning wine-land, there is no wine in America, maybe Cranberries(?).
>Aborgines-Some people in the very south of Argentina have Aborgine looks and genetic, unfortunately, wiped out by small pox, accept the ones who were sons of European. Wiped virtually out in B.C. by mauraving American Indians.
>Turks-Dunno about this one,
>Egyptians-Egyptian mummies found with minute traces of the Coca plant-coca plant only found in S. America.
>Polynesians-Very possible due to there knowledge of the seas, though evidence found in America.
>Knight Templars-15th Century(?) trying to seek land away from persucuting catholic church. Picture of a man dressed in armour on a horse found somewhere on west coast. Colombus sailed with the descendent of the Templars, the ships he was sailing in, had the Templar sign on the sails.
>Asian-Thats not forget the original inhabitants. At very early age whilst the Alaska was connected to Siberia. There is traces of Caucasian blood in some tribes, but they are refused any chance to look at skeletons due to stupid ignorant "Native Americans". This is probably due to that they believe if they find non native americans, the governments will take away there rights as a minority group/original inhabitants. Stupid.

Has anyone else heard of any other people reaching america prematurely? Has any one heard recent info about burrows (earth mounds) on east coast of America?

Originally posted by Qelebex
map of Piri Reis (1513)It seems America's were only a mystery for "western european" civilizations. There is also a theory that argues north america native tribes are Turkic nomads passed through the bering strait.

That's pretty interesting, but I've seen better including ancient maps of Antarctica's entire coastline. Which is only available to us now in modern days due to imaging techniques that can see through the ice sheets!

The image you've posted here - it could be argued that the coastline extending from South America was in fact, just more of South America's southern coastline, just depicted in a distorted way.

I for one agree that the Vikings did reach North America, and I think also that there was interaction between Africa and South America especially. A recent science article I saw somewhere suggested (probably, not the first time) more evidence for a Western Mediterranean island nation beyond the rock of Gibraltar that perhaps disappeared when world ocean levels rose after the last great ice age. It has been suggested that is what we may now know as the myth of Atlantis, and they could well have traded between South America and Ancient Egypt, the Meroë Kingdom and perhaps also early Greek and Latin settlements. There are other civilizations around this time that I'm omitting as I don't really know enough about them to say anything - yet! ;)

I've played the Egyptians but renamed as the Atlantians before, it was quite interesting. My capital of course was Atlantis, and I founded Egypt and conquered the Babylonians! :D

Ash

Fascinating stuff this...

But seriously, the viking settlements in North America have been dug up, and loads of items were found, incl. coins and axeheads, etc. There is a statue to the archaeologist who did the dirty outside the Viking Ship Museum (biggest collection in the world!) here in Oslo. That Vinland means wine land is a common mistake. It could mean Vine-land, and vines (kreepers) grow everywhere. I also happen to know that the word originally could have meant a great many things (including "great flat open grassy land"), and has probably been adulterated by history anyway. So the viking colonies in America 500 years before Colombus are historically proven to have existed. The real question is how far south the vikings actually went...

Thor Heyerdahl (another norwegian) sailed across the Atlantic in a leaky papyrus raft called the Ra. The first one sank, allright, but Ra II made across, proving that there is a theoretic possibility of trade between the two parts of the world...
There is a museum for Thor Heyerdahl in Oslo as well.
The Breton stories aren't wild---they would sail off for long periods and come home with their boats loaded full of fish. They themselves kept their fantastic fishing grounds a well guarded secret, but they may well have gone as far as the Grand Banks, only a short hop from the eastern seabord really...

There is of course the ridiculous theory that aliens made humans in the first place and then scattered them at random throughout the world:rolleyes: , but we don't believe in stuff like that.
Do we?

"starvation is commonplace in africa"

Actually Africa has enough food to support all of its inhabitants, but because of war, corruption etc the food cant reach everyone. According to Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen starvation is caused by despotic governments. Democracys never experience starvation.

So, what is the point of making all Africa starve?

Originally posted by ezzlar
Actually Africa has enough food to support all of its inhabitants, but because of war, corruption etc the food cant reach everyone. According to Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen starvation is caused by despotic governments. Democracys never experience starvation. That's an interesting point, because that is in effect what is happening in the game.

So, what is the point of making all Africa starve? But I'm not making all Africa starve, I'm just making the Africans starve by stopping them from producing workers. Without workers they can't irrigate the land and they can't chop down jungle to get the grassland underneath.

Also, since they're not likely to advance very much they aren't likely to change to a more advanced form of government.

When another civ colonises Africa, they can use workers to irrigate and chop down jungle. They can also build harbours to get more food from the sea and lakes.

What I have done is removed the excess food from Africa that would enable the Africans to build large cities. There is enough food potential there with irrigation de-forestation but it's not exactly overflowing with the stuff.

There are some good bits though, it's not all bad.

Paul

This is a beautiful idea. I love the idea of handicapping the Africans, Aztecs and Iroquois. Although I think that I will play with the Aztecs and the Iroquois in the game. There were tribes here when the Europeans got here after all.

I am currently working on my own modification of the Singer map. I have concetrated on making certain areas of the map look more like their actual earth counterparts. To this end I have redone Italy, Sicily, and Corsica. I have modifed England in order give the Brits some more room to work with. I reworked Greenland, placing mostly mountains with a touch of grassland around the southern and southeastern edges. I have reworked the Great Lakes Region of the United States. I am from Green Bay, Wisconsin (thats the state just to the left of lake Michigan, for those of you out there who are a little rusty on your U.S. states) originally and I'm sorry but there was some work that needed to be done. I also rebuilt Norway and Sweden, Denmark and the Iberian Peninsula.

I realize that in some places i have put plains when others might think that grassland would be more appropriate but I was really going more for asthetics. There isn't that much of a difference between the two in the game, but the appearance on the map is amazingly different.

I am at work right now so I can't put a picture of the map in this thread. I will post a pic when I get home.

My next task will be to take a look at what you have done with your map and try and combine the two.

Like I said, i love this idea. I think it is the ideal way to play the game if you are going to play on an earth map.

Thanks.:goodjob:

Here are some pics of the Singer's Map after I have made some adjustments.

Here is the italian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula

The British Isles

The Japanese Islands

Here is the map. If you have already downloaded the latest version of Marla's Map with Vonotar's civ placement utility this map will work with it.

I think you have to rename this map to "Marla Singer's World Map 1.13" in order for the civ placement program to work.

After doing some editing I have moved the map to its own thread. There are more pics there.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12771

The civ placement doesn't require the map (.bic file) to be renamed.
You just need to load that custom version of the map and then save the game as FIX.SAV.
The placement will put each civ to their correct locations.
:)

Marla, thanks for the heads-up on that.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
I definitely like some of the adjustments you have made to Marla's map. The way it was set up before, it was way too easy for the european countries to make it to North America, way too early in the game (too much coast for the galleys to travel on). Because of the easy travel, that is probably why she said the AI settles everywhere!
However, although it seems logical to give the Celts and Japanese map making at the start, the problem I see is that it allows them to build the Great Lighthouse before any other nation had even discovered Map Making. The Great Lighthouse built before the Pyramids!?!? And any civ that did build the Great Lighthouse would be able to colonize the Americas well before any other nation.

After playing on this map for a while, I think I should add a thin strip of sea around the coasts, just to give early boats a bit more room to manoeuvre around one another and to help stay out of other nation's territory.

I agree with what you're saying about giving the Celts and Japanese mapmaking. It does give them an unnatural headstart. In my current game the Japanese did indeed build the Great Lighthouse before anyone else, yet seemed strangely reluctant to leave their islands, preferring to colonise crappy tundra islands before sailing to the mainland. No point giving them mapmaking in that case.

Paul

Originally posted by Blakis Maximus
There must be some way to make tundra and desert behave like mountains. Also, it's important to keep in mind that catapults and such are unable to travel on mountains. I'm not sure if this would make sense for tundra and desert tiles.

Well we don't want to make tundra and desert act like mountains, we just want to prevent anyone settling there. There's probably a flag which controls this. I've been looking at the .bic file with a hex editor and I think I've found the part that controls it, unfortunately I don't know what the numbers mean. Maybe time for a bit of experimentation?

Anyone experienced with hex editing out there who could figure it out?

Paul

Originally posted by redtom
Why don't you make desert and tundra not have any food? As it extremely difficult to take food out of the sahara (i should know i've been there.) This alter discourage ppl from settling on unfit land.

Well desert doesn't give any food anyway, so I doubt that reducing food to zero on tundra would help. I know tundra looks like ice in the game, but it's not frozen all year round.

The key problem is that whenever you settle a city, it automatically gets at least two food and one shield, no matter where you build it. This is why it's possible to settle on desert and tundra in the game.

This is wrong IMO. How can deciding to make a city in the middle of the Sahara suddenly make the land underneath magically fertile? This is just stupid. And I imagine this would be difficult if not impossible to change.

So the only way to stop it is to prevent settlers from building cities on desert and tundra in the first place.

Paul

Originally posted by wilboman
I'm half Viking (Norwegian) and half Irish.
It just so happens that both a Viking explorer (Leif Erikson, look him up), and an Irish saint (Brendan the Navigator), made it to the Americas before 1000 AD. As did Breton fishermen. AND there have been made subsequent expeditions to prove it. They found Viking settlements on Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. So you're not all right there. The reason they disappeared was because they weren't interested in staying. The natives were too dangerous. But I do see your reasoning, however. It would be boring if the Americas were colonized too early. It's more fun this way.

Well I'm not saying they didn't get there, but they didn't built up a civilisation there. Maybe they could have, but they didn't, and that's what this scenario is trying to represent.

Paul

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
there was a settlement in Greenland (perhaps a few grassland squares should be added to a tip of Greenland).

Yes, there should, Greenland is not all ice. Unfortunately the grassland in the game represents rich farmland, whereas the Greenland grass is just thin topsoil, just tundra really, I doubt it could support farming. The sea would be the main source of food.

I tried placing plains tiles there but the game wouldn't allow plains next to tundra, it insists on putting grassland in between, and I think grassland is just too good to put on Greenland. I don't think civs should be encouraged to settle there.

Paul

Originally posted by wilboman
Eric successfully got himself exiled from Iceland for killing a man (never learn, do they?) and, foolishly, headed west (must have had a bad sense of direction...). He lucked out though, and landed on what was at that time a green land. It's not really very green anymore, due to climate changes, but whatever.

I don't think climate has changed that much in such a short time. I was taught at school that Greenland was purposely named in order to encourage settlers, to make people think they were heading to a "green" land.

So I completely agree with the reasoning as regards the whole uncrossable thing. I said so the other time as well. All I'm saying is that historically we're not entirely correct here...

True, but hey, it's just a game, and it's not particularly realistic anyway. I'm just trying to make it play in a reasonably "realistic" way.

Paul

Originally posted by Kal-el
This is a beautiful idea. I love the idea of handicapping the Africans, Aztecs and Iroquois. Although I think that I will play with the Aztecs and the Iroquois in the game. There were tribes here when the Europeans got here after all.

Well that's your choice, but I don't really agree. By the way, I've just reached America first as the Germans (actually my settlers were mostly built in Britain and France so it's really the British and the French who are colonising America's east coast), and I'm having a hard time settling there.

After thousands of years the barbarians have built up into significant numbers and my early settlements are being hammered by wave after wave of barbarian horsemen. Washington has been sacked a number of times, my workers and explorers are afraid to leave the settlements and many of my settlers are still waiting on galleons anchored just off the coast while the remainder of my fleet is racing back for reinforcements. Britain and France are desperately churning out more galleons to get troops over there as quickly as possible.

It seems I underestimated the barbarian (Red Indians) threat. I should have taken an army over there first to clear some space before taking the settlers (I did take some troops with them but not enough).

I'm guessing that if I'd played with the Iroquois in the game, they'd have dealt with the barbs as and when they'd appeared and the whole area would now be covered with small cities and few, if any, barbs.

Attacking any of these cities would constitute war (not good for a republic, soon to be a democracy) and it would be a war against a whole civilisation rather than just scattered tribes. So far I think the barbarian idea is working very well. I shall have to see how it pans out.

I am currently working on my own modification of the Singer map. I have concetrated on making certain areas of the map look more like their actual earth counterparts. To this end I have redone Italy, Sicily, and Corsica. I have modifed England in order give the Brits some more room to work with. I reworked Greenland, placing mostly mountains with a touch of grassland around the southern and southeastern edges. I have reworked the Great Lakes Region of the United States.

Great Lakes: very good, I like it, much better.

Italy: Mm.. maybe.

Britain: I think you've overdone it a bit, it may be a slightly better shape but I don't think the size of Britain should be overemphasised. There definitely shouldn't be any plains there, it's all rich green grassland. And if you're going to put oil there, it should be in Aberdeen (north-east coast) because that where it arrives from the North Sea Oil Rigs.

Spain: Sorry, but I don't like the shape of this at all, I think Marla's was much better. And what happened to the Pyrenees? There's a major mountain range separating Spain from France.

Japan: You haven't changed the shape of the land much, you mainly seem to have added more resources, especially whales. I like it.

I realize that in some places i have put plains when others might think that grassland would be more appropriate but I was really going more for asthetics. There isn't that much of a difference between the two in the game, but the appearance on the map is amazingly different.

I think there's a big diffence in the game. Grassland allows for fast growth and big cities, plains are better for mining resources, and are more difficult to get food from. Mined grassland is the same as irrigated plains, but irrigated grassland and mined plains are very different.

I'll be honest, I think Marla's map is pretty definitive in that it was copied square by square from an actual map. I think that altering the shape of things here and there in a localised way is a bit dubious, and doesn't necessarily fit well with the overall design philosophy.

It's impossible to design a truly realistic world map, so much depends upon the projection used and the way features are interpreted by the designer. I don't think anyone is really right or wrong about how an area should be represented, it's all down to personal intepretation, and we all have different ideas about that.

I personally think that much of Southern Europe (Mediterranean climate) should be represented by plains rather than grassland, since the soil is thinner and drier than northern Europe.

Paul

Ok, now that I have played on this map for awhile, I have two comments. I played as America (I know I'm not supposed to, but I wanted to see how the AI developed Europe, Asia and Africa, with no interferance from me).
#1. For some reason whenever I tried to settle on the Aluetian Island (Alaska), that was farthest west, the game crashed. I looked at the editor rules, and the setting for Huge was 180X180, so I changed it to 255X204 (the size of the map), thinking this could be the problem, but then I had also changed the island one square over so it had a 0 coordinate, instead of 255, so I don't know if changing the rules actually solved it. But it worked after that.
#2. This is more my fault, because I didn't use the right program. I used the map with Paul's changes, but I used her program (the fixed.sav one) for the starting locations. Africa was limited to only one city (in South Africa it couldn't grow past a size of 2 to be able to build a settler!) No tiles produced more than one food.

Oh, yeah almost forgot, yeah, it is a good idea, to add perhaps one square of sea to separate between the coast and the ocean. This would allow coastal and island cities to be slightly more valuable by producing a little more commerce (working ocean tiles suck!)

Well I've been playing the Germans and have been stuck in Northern Europe for most of the game, so I think I've seen a fairly realistic development, although the Romans and Russians might have been a bit more successful without me there, I've absorbed a number of Roman cities and captured a couple of Russian cities. (I'm not a warmonger type player.)

Currently my score shows me 6th out of 9, with the Egyptians in the lead, closely followed by China, Russia and India. Japan is 8th, only slightly ahead of Africa.

The score is very misleading though, it's calculated mainly on happy citizens and territory controlled. I've got the smallest land area of anyone except the Japanese, but I have the largest population, the most money and the highest production, and I'm only slightly behind in tech (I can catch up easily but I'm building up my treasury at the moment). I don't think the score is a valid representation of who's actually winning. My culture is way ahead of everyone else and I've colonised America first, so my future is secure.

Thanks for pointing out that map problem. I hadn't realised I should set the map size. I reverted to the default rules before modifying them and I forgot to change that.

As for Africa, yeah, you should have used the file I supplied because I changed the start location for the Africans. I started them on a grassland tile with a lake full of fish next to them. Nearby are another four grassland tiles and a couple of lakes with fish, an excellent location for a second city, and good for churning out settlers.

I've just checked and they currently have 24 cities, covering almost the entire southern half of Africa (the Egyptians have the north half, mainly in the desert). Most of the African cities are size 2 or 3, but they have one 4 and two 5's.

Yes, I will add an extra strip of sea next to the coasts.

As well as taking mapmaking away from the Celts and Japanese, do you think I should start the Celts in Europe instead? After all, they didn't originate in Britain, they moved there like everyone else. In fact, should they be in it at all?

How many European nations are you playing with? If a lot, are they all wiping one another out and letting the eastern empires get too powerful?

Paul

I've attached v1.1 here because I can't attach it to the original message for some reason.

Paul

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Paul Saunders


I don't think climate has changed that much in such a short time. I was taught at school that Greenland was purposely named in order to encourage settlers, to make people think they were heading to a "green" land.


Actually it has... Greenland was more arable 1000 years ago.

British fishermen were travelling quite frequently between British Isles and New Foundland and even Nova Scotia coasts. The climate of those areas has changed as well - the climate change is described in the book mentioned later. Markku Henriksson estimated the frequency of those trips (IIRC, I'm not totally sure) to be 100 trips per year at the time when Columbus made his trips. The reason why outsiders knew very little of these trips is that fishermen want to keep their best places a secret :)

I don't know if Henriksson's book is translated into English or other languages, but for those who can read Finnish I recommend a book (I believe at least a Swedish version should be available):

Markku Henriksson: Toinen Aalto: Eurooppalaiset löytö- ja ryöstöretket Amerikoissa

The name could be freely translated as: The Second Wave: European exploration and raiding in America. The first chapters describe nicely pre-Columbus voyages to America. The rest is quite detailed description of different expeditions throughout the continent also giving some background to the expeditions. Mr. Henriksson has made some throughly exhaustive research on the matter. Fashinating reading :goodjob:

- Janne Keskinarkaus

Well if that's true it's very interesting. Thanks for pointing it out.

Paul

Paul:

I have been playing your version 1.0 of this scenerio and it's been a lot of fun. Problem is, my computer is choking on the game. Each turn constitutes a coffee break.

I really love the concept of developing nations in europe and colonizing the americas later,- is there anyway you could scale the whole map down while keeping the spirit of the idea intact.

Someday when i get a faster computer i love the earth bit, but for now i would settle for a map that kept the spirit of mid-game colonization and the existence of a "third-world" like civ (your africa).

Thanks for creating this great scenerio, hopefully you'll make some more.

Originally posted by jpippert

Someday when i get a faster computer i love the earth bit, but for now i would settle for a map that kept the spirit of mid-game colonization and the existence of a "third-world" like civ (your africa).

Hey jpippert!

Just a suggestion for you. After you've chosen this as the scenario to make a new game out of, you've probably noticed you get the option for Civ3 to create a random map instead of the map in the scenario. You could even choose to have less Civs involved, changing the scenario completely to your liking. That way you can still have the special aspects and rules of this scenario, including the racial restrictions while still being able to play on a smaller map that won't slow the computer so much. Could be worth a try.

Ash

Originally posted by jpippert
I have been playing your version 1.0 of this scenerio and it's been a lot of fun. Problem is, my computer is choking on the game. Each turn constitutes a coffee break.

Are you using the latest patch? You can switch off the graphics and animations for the other nations, it speeds up the turns a lot.

I really love the concept of developing nations in europe and colonizing the americas later,- is there anyway you could scale the whole map down while keeping the spirit of the idea intact.

That was the original idea, but I haven't got around to doing my own map yet, so I used Marla's for now. What size would you prefer? It's currently 256x204. I was thinking one of the two largest sizes would be best, either 180x180 or 140x140. What do you think?

Thanks for creating this great scenerio, hopefully you'll make some more.

Yeah, I plan to, but I have trouble finding the time at the moment.

Paul

I'll have to try turning the animations off the other nations. I'd really like to finish the game. I am playing the Romans and really got squeezed in Europe. I'm just as advanced as everybody else (more so in most cases), but am ranked above only the Africans and Japanese. I just started colonizing the Americas (Egypt and I are the only ones there at this point), but I really underestimated the barbarian presense.

As for the map size for a future version, the 180x180 is probably required to keep the detail. Don't know how my computer would handle it though.

In the meantime, I broke open the editor tonight for the first time and created my own 100x100 map w/ 5 civ.'s. I tried to set up similar situation where all the civ.'s start on one side of the map and have to cross ocean to get to the other half of the map. Haven't messed with the civ. settings yet, i'm going to try it with default rules first.

Has no historical significance which takes some of the fun out, but I'll give it a go:)

Happy New Year!

For he who asked, Greenland WAS much greener and more fertile when it was first colonized. That was proven by archaeological digs on the former Viking sites.

BTW,

I think it is stupid that hills are just hills no matter where they are in the middle of: jungles, deserts, forests, etc. A hill in the Sahara desert, for example, does NOT produce food the same way a hill does in the middle of Europe.

Erm.....this may be just a stupid newbie question, but i downloaded the map and read the read-me file attached and it says to copy the saves and scenarios folders to the Civ 3 folder. Wont this copy over the existing saves/scenarios folders? And can you rename the folders so they dont? Sorry for being so dumb.:confused:

just copy the files from the folders to the existing folders.

that's how i did it and it works fine

enjoy:)

Ok thanks for your help, tried it and it works:D

Just a very quick and minor question please - what was your thinking regarding the removal of aluminium from New Zealand? It happens to be quite a major product of the country...:confused:

Enough to supply an entire civilisation in the modern era? COMEON!

Australia is by far the largest supplier about 2.5 times larger than its main competitors in northern South America...I'm pretty sure that Jamaica is more significant by far than New Zealand in terms of aluminium production.

My information may not be very recent but I am sure I am right in playing down the significance -if any- of New Zealand's aluminium deposits.

Just a word about balance. . .

Japan has NO chance to do anything on that island, especially if China is in the game.

I suggest you give Japan FOUR free tech advances in the Editor, and one of them should be map making. Thus, Japan MAY have a chance to be more than a minor island country.

May I confirm that people are talking bollox when they say that New Zealand has any substantive aluminium ore deposits e.g BAUXITE.

Why posters in apolyton AND civfanatics have this notion I can't imagine...

hey,

Kitten is correct in New Zealand we dont have much (if any) bauxite deposits from which aluminium is produced.

However, the nor east coast of Australia is very rich in bauxite and they ship it here to a production plant (Comalco) which churns out alot of aluminium (like BigDog said). I think the plant was set up here in the 1980's when we were booming and had cheap labour costs (bound to other cost factors... im a geologist not an economist :) )

Anyway, the point is do you have the aluminium where the ore deposits are (NE Aussie) or where it is produced (top of NZ)?

hope that is of some help

some ideas about the "AI settles on every damn tundra/desert tile"-problem. what about increasing the foodrequirements per citizen up to 3 instead of two. than reduce food in the desert to zero. not allowing to irrigate. increase food on plains and normal terrain to 2/3 adding a higher bonus for irrigation. this also prevents AI from building cities on forest/tundra combinations.
so the standard 2 food per city tile wont be enough for a city.

ill try this later on. i just had this idea while reading the entire thread .-)

/hanZ

hanZ,

Please post the results of your experiment. I would be very interested in knowing how well your idea works. I'm not sure if it's possible to change the food requirements of a citizen, but if it is, this sounds pretty good.

I suspect the AI will still be able to build cities on tundra and deserts, but the cities will not be able to grow past size one...

Blakis

I just tried something like what hanZ suggested. It works, sort of. The only changes I did was: Make sure tundra had 0 food, and then upped all the other terrain that currently produces food up by one (grasslands 3, plains 2, etc.). And you can change the food consumption per citizen (under the general settings), changed it to 3. You still start with just 2 in your starting square, though. This sucked under despositism (until you irrigate some tiles), even on grassland the city was limited to 2. So definetly need to either add even more food or give irrigation bonuses, like he said. However, planting on all tundra starves the one citizen! So if your capital is there, you lose at 3950 B.C.

Paul, you scenario is truly a work of art. I love it! :D.

I'd just like to suggest 'handicapping' Babylon too. They never developed to much more than a city state, let alone an empire reaching from Saudi Arabia to Finland.

Other than that, terrific. I really enjoy this one.

hi everyone:

just noticed this "bug" if you will - after I ran rsn.bat and created rsn2.sav and entered the game. I can no longer change my current researching technology in the tech advisor. Also, right click on the technology in the technology tree will not bring up the civpedia entry.

anyone has a similar problem? Should I be using a particular version of patch for this? My CDROM drive does not support the safedisc so I had to crack it, could that have anything to do with it?

Thanks!

David

just noticed this "bug" if you will - after I ran rsn.bat and created rsn2.sav and entered the game. I can no longer change my current researching technology in the tech advisor. Also, right click on the technology in the technology tree will not bring up the civpedia entry.

This is a well known problem with v1.07f, anytime you use the editor to change the rules this happens. It's been fixed with v1.16f which you can find in the General Forum.

Paul, I just wanted to thank you for the great map! It reminds me of playing Civ 2, which is great.

However, I wanted to say that you CAN play a great game with France on this map. I'm currently playing France and it is going just fine. You can also have Britain (Celts) and others, too and have quite an enjoyable game. In fact, I'm playing with 14 civs and it is going great. My scenario reflects the struggle between colonial powers versus ancient civilizations and tribal peoples.

Here is the list of civs I'm using:

France
Britain
Germany
Italy
Russia
Japan
China (never build "happiness")
India (never build "science")
Egypt (never build "workers")
Greece (never build "settlers")
Iran (never build "settlers")
Ethiopia (never build "settlers")
Iroquois (never build "settlers")
Aztecs (never build "settlers")

I keep all of the handicapped civs (except China and India) from building most kinds of city improvements that are not related to their civ characteristics. The civs that never build settlers end up with only one city each. However, Ethiopia often gets two or three cities because it is "expansionist" and more likely to get settlers from goody huts. I've seen Greece get an extra city this way, too.

Even so, they seem to generally keep up in techs and play an important role in the game despite their limitations. In fact, I haven't had any civs destroyed yet (I'm only at about 1 AD though). Keeping these smaller civs in the game is quite fun and allows for other civs to grow big.

The one annoying thing is when Britain, Germany, and Italy start colonizing tundra near Russia. I've tried to stop this by limiting food production in tundra and desert areas, but it doesn't seem to do much.

Also, China and India ALWAYS emerge as the largest and most powerful civs even with their handicaps. I think their power will be tapered eventually and I try to team up the Europeans against them anyhow.

In addition, Japan needs a lot of help with getting going in Southeast Asia, but Britain seems to colonize Africa readily.

Regardless, I'm having A LOT of fun with this map. Thanks, again.

The reason one would ship bauxite to NZ would be for Electricity as it takes a ****load to turn it into aluminium.I live in Quebec were there is a huge smelting plant.The bauxite either comes from jamacia or saskatewan,neither produce aluminium as they don't have cheap electricity like here.

So it follows that the person who said NZ is not a significant producer of aluminium is wrong.Area's that produce bauxite do not produce aluminium as there is usually no cheap source of Electricity.I assume Australia has no significant electricity plants.
if you've got the electricity they'll ship the bauxite to YOU...

I really thought it was a good idea to give Japan and Celts Galleys when they started, but the whole Colossus thing was unfair. So I cooked up a quick solution to the problem.

First, you use the CopyTool or the hacked editor and add a copy of the Galley. If using the Copytool, just make an exact copy. For the Hacked editor, add a new unit, rename it to Galley, and make sure everything is the exact same as the old Galley. Now , in the editor, set it so that the Original Galley cannot be built by the Celts or Japan. In the new Galley, set it so that it can only be built by Japan and the Celts. Now, set the New Galley's advancement requirement to "None", and Voila! Celts and Jpan have a Galley but can't build Colossus until they discover map-making.

I've been playing on this map a few times since I downloaded and it's been great. But I didn't like how Russia was not moving fast enough to the east and Japan was not colonizing enough, esp. on the Asian mainland. I finally got a game that works really well by downgrading the UU's for China and India and upgrading the UU's for Russia and Japan.

Btw, is anyone going to make a large size map with realistic starting locations and lots of European and Asian civs instead of the Iroquois, Zulu, etc?

I just tried starting a new game w/version 1.21 and saved as instructed. When I tried to reload after running the batch program, I was told that it was an invalid save file.

Marc

i also have a prob with this scen.

when i tried to use the rsn.bat file it came up with a message as follows:


Cannot find the file 'C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.com'
Make sure that the file exists on your system and that the path and filename are correct.

sry pressed submit too soon

is this just my comp or did i do sumthin wrong

plz help i really like ur idea and would like to play

Been playing RSN for a while now, since i first got it a few months. i LOVE the way its turned out, definately my favorite way to play civilization now, except for a few problems. Like another person, its going incredibly slow on my computer now, i'm playing with about 9-10 nations, with all graphics/animations off -and yet it will take me 10(!!!!) to 15(!!!!!@#$!@$!@$) minutes per turn, though most of the waiting time has came in post Medieval era. I'm playing as the romans, and just for grins decided to recreate the roman empire (conquering what was Carthage, Briton, and most of Gaul - later removing the Germans Completely) everything has squared out quite nicely, I'm tied with India for the highest score. I conquered America as early as possible, controlling almost all of North America (which is now my national powerhouse, producing much more than my European countries) and sharing it with the celts, russians, and japanese (controlling Seattle up) Its now in the modern era, researching Fission but its gotten to the point where i can't play the game anymore because of the obscene lag. I too would like to vote for a smaller version, if possible, or a new computer =) i'm only running a P500 w/ 280 ram. I'm only using 1.07 however, sine the newer patches seem somewhat pointless to me, but if anyone has pointers aside from the graphic disabling (some way of handicapping the AI's redundant movements or something like that?) Anything would be greatly appreciated.

Kudos for the incredible map, though =) Made civ3 much more enjoyable.

Originally posted by PimperC
Been playing RSN for a while now, since i first got it a few months. i LOVE the way its turned out, definately my favorite way to play civilization now, except for a few problems. Like another person, its going incredibly slow on my computer now, i'm playing with about 9-10 nations, with all graphics/animations off -and yet it will take me 10(!!!!) to 15(!!!!!@#$!@$!@$) minutes per turn, though most of the waiting time has came in post Medieval era. Its now in the modern era, researching Fission but its gotten to the point where i can't play the game anymore because of the obscene lag. I too would like to vote for a smaller version, if possible, or a new computer =) i'm only running a P500 w/ 280 ram.


I've nearly done a modpack of this kind which will have the following features:

-Both for Civ3 and PTW
-Reduces loading times up to 90%!!!! :cool: Yes, I'm not joking, I've done many tests, and consider to wait one minute or so instead of 15 even in modern times
-Changed rules made in collaboration with Paul Saunders which are adapted to work to a smaller world map
-Inca civ, with animated leaderhead (from Sween32) and UU (from JimmyH)

I'll release it uhh I think at beginning of February (now I've too much to study :cry: )

Hi Rhye,

how did you manage to reduce the load times for these kind of maps? Can you please describe it?
The knowledge of doing this would be very interesting for all of us, who are annoyed of having to wait that long between each turn.

everything goes fine in your instructions up until step 7 at the end."to save you have to do it manually" do what? when I close the dos window and go back to the game, rsn2.sav is a choice, but if i choose it, the game says it is not a valid file. I tried playing rsn1, and it is really cool, but for the fact that the egyptians keep spawning right next to me, as german in germany, as celt in britain, etc.

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, But I saw on a television Program, where some Celtic tribes left messages in a runic writing in the Rio Grande area around 800 Ad, I believe. The River was redirected so the writing refers to the old river line. It talks about meeting dangerous tribes. For anyone interested, is was on Shepard's chapel. They had video.

Originally posted by FatherOfGod
how did you manage to reduce the load times for these kind of maps? Can you please describe it?
The knowledge of doing this would be very interesting for all of us, who are annoyed of having to wait that long between each turn.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46415
Here you'll find the readme. It explains everything about it. And loading time cut reached a nice 96% :crazyeye:

That link is "bad".

fixed the link

I would suggest making the incans (with PTW) and aztecs/mayas all be included in the standard game. They should be crippled somehow, but they DID create some nice monuments in their time so they should not be disregarded.
I think Egypt grows too strong on any world map, they manage to spread to north and central africa too quickly. Hopefully; the zulus and carthaginians of PTW will help that.
I think Japan and Britain should have boosted UUs and extra good tiles on their islands. Otherwise these powers simply have no chance.

Originally posted by Paul Saunders
I've attached v1.1 here because I can't attach it to the original message for some reason.

Paul

You should link the download to the first post :)

Like this:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?s=&postid=144402

NM.

I just downloaded your map, looks great. But I've got some questions. When I opened your map with civ3Edit (the one that comes with the game) the locations were not assigned to a certain civilization. For example: When I look at the starting spot for Germany, there was a starting location there but it wasn't assigned to Germany. So everytime I try to play that map.....If I pick Germany or who ever, I start some where else. So if the map is supposed to be like that, can you tell me what civilizations go where. Some are obvious but some aren't.
Secondly: You didn't put Egyp. Why?
Third: How did you put barriers? Did you use another program?

This is a request. Can you make a large or standard map of this, but with no barriers. I want it to go faster. I want to play the game with all the civilizations or most of them including the "New World." So what I want is that I can play with most or all civilizations in their proper spot from 4000 b.c to the end.

Hello all,

I haven't played your mod yet but i can help you with all the settling in tundra and desert. To get rid of it: in the editor go to the terrain tab, select desert and tundra and uncheck 'allow cities' for both, that should do the trick.

Cheers

Hello all,

I haven't played your mod yet but i can help you with all the settling in tundra and desert. To get rid of it: in the editor go to the terrain tab, select desert and tundra and uncheck 'allow cities' for both, that should do the trick.

Cheers

Lol, I've been reading this thread for about ten mins (multi-taskin) and I was wondering when someone would point that out. :crazyeye:

why are you bumping this 3 years old thread?