This is a big (84x52) map of Europe, North Africa and the Near East.

The latest version of this map is 3!

There are 11 civilizations unlocked, they are: Arabians, Carthagians (by Jecrell's mod!), Egyptians, English, French, Germans, Greek, Persians, Spanish, Romans, and the Russians.

As always I appreciate comments on balancing, input on historic topics, and anything else related to this map. I will keeping updating this to make it more fun, realistic, and balanced based on your comments. Please mention the version number you are using, or just make sure you have the latest. I am especially interested in multiplayer critism! Private message me or reply to this topic. I check both regularly.

I thank all of your for your contributions and I hope that you enjoy the map!

Version 3 updates
- Made eastern russia less habitable (tundra, plains, and desert).
- Chopped down alot of the forest in Germany and Russia using patches of plains with hills.
- Fixed early victories of epic games, and long victory on fast games. They all end on 2050.
- Strengthened England, Carthage, Rome and Greece areas.
- Made map contain less team/player/scenario information to let game setup more like a custom game. This unlocks the AI advantages on harder settings.
- Jecrell's Carthage mod integrated.
- Added furs and deer (forgot them).
- Added floodplains for Egypt, but remove oasis to balance the new food output.
- Turn more desert into plains for Arabs and Persians (They actually are pretty balanced against each other, but not the rest).
- Made AI more likely to build on the coastlines where applicable.
- Sorted empire list by name.
- Improved habitability of central Turkey.

Version 2 updates
- Added many fishies
- Removed lots of ivory
- Added oasises for Persians, Carthagians, and Arabians.
- Put more wine in (Spain esp), and fixed Spain's northern coast.
- Many more tweaks for the weaker civs, including more bonus foods.
- Put goodie huts in game (d'oh).
- Also let the game place the starting location units so that different difficulties have different amounts of units at start.

Known Issues
- You can't select a specific leader for those civilizations who have 2.
- If the Jecrell mod is active when you are at the main menu, you can't select this map. You have to restart Civilization 4, or go into "Advanced" then "load a mod" and finally select "none".
- People are reporting problems with the Jecrell Carthage Mod. Try to unzip it into the main game directory ("C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\Jecrell [Carthage]"). You may have to remove the old install from your "My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods directory" if you had put it there.

Important Install Instructions
Unzip to your "My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\PublicMaps" folder. You will also need to download and install Jecrell's Carthage mod from this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=139107.

How to play
Run the game, click "Single Player" and then "Play a Scenario". Then pick "Lehawk's Ancient World Freeplay ver3" and then you are off.

Downloads
I keep old versions on here for archival purposes, the latest version is "Lehawk's Ancient World Freeplay ver3.zip". Please download only that version unless an earlier version is needed.

Version 4 to-do list (due late November):

- Add aluminum (and concentrate most of it in Greece and France).
- Add grasslands in and make Turkey habitable.
- Consider adding Turks civilization.
- Turn most of nile desert to fix potential floodplain issues (debating).
- Try to get Rome not to build so close to France for its third city.
- Get Google Earth and be more accurate about grasslands/plains vs desert.
- Since I may add the Turks, I should just make an installer that will install the map and the new combined mod.
- Nerf Egypt. Whoops!

Yes it is minor stuff and if I wanted I could fix all this by the 16th, but I want to wait for newer versions of the Turks and Carthage mods and the official patch from Firaxis since this will most likely be the last version unless Firaxis breaks it later.

This is the minimap of version 3.

Awesome! *Exactly* what I've been looking for--hoping someone would post, but too lazy/inept to actually do it myself.

Thanks!

WOW nice!

I was hoping for just europe but this works too thanks

LOL whoops, I forgot to add goodie huts on this version! I'll have to do it tomorrow, looks like ver2 is sooner than I though :(. Any other requests are welcome.

Amazing work Lehawk. I'm going to try it out right away and I'll tell you what I think. =)
(Oh and if you like I can help you mod in Carthage a little better)

Looks like a nice map but why do people only make huge maps?

I have been working on a standard size Europe/Near East map.

Judging from the look of the mini-map in the pic you posted, it looks like the Near East might be a little under powered but perhaps that is for the purpose of the scenero that you are working on.

I might give it a shot but my machine desires a smaller map.

Looks like a nice map but why do people only make huge maps?

I made this huge because I really wanted the Roman and Greek Empires to be more than a single city or two. They always get shafted as far as normal maps sized maps go. Can't tell you how many times in Civ2/3 that the historical map would put Rome too close to Greece and France.

I'm thinking about making a smaller map for the punic wars though (A nice two civ duel).

Judging from the look of the mini-map in the pic you posted, it looks like the Near East might be a little under powered but perhaps that is for the purpose of the scenero that you are working on.

I tried to add oasis and more condensed resources for Persia, Arabians, and Egypt. Egypt may even be overpowered at this point. It will get balanced if needed, I assure you!

(Oh and if you like I can help you mod in Carthage a little better)

Thank you. If you know of someone else doing it too, maybe I can just attach their mod to my map. The less mods, the easier for the players.

Looks good. I played for a bit as the Romans and noticed a few things about resources you might want to consider. First, in classical times Sicily was one of the vital sources of grain for Rome. Second, you might want to add some marble to Italy; aside from all the great ancient/classical monuments, there're things like the Sistine Chapel to consider. I would put the marble in north-western Italy where the famous Carrara quarries are.

First, in classical times Sicily was one of the vital sources of grain for Rome. Second, you might want to add some marble to Italy; aside from all the great ancient/classical monuments, there're things like the Sistine Chapel to consider. I would put the marble in north-western Italy where the famous Carrara quarries are.

I did the grain for Sardina, but I forgot Sicily good catch.

I didn't know about the marble (I just now researched it myself), I just thought it was imported from Greece. I was right, but later they did find that marble in N. Italy.

Thanks for the input, I've added both and will come out in Ver2 (80%).

More input always appreciated!

Indeed Lehawk. I also noticed that Germany had a hard time getting an economy going early in the game (classical/medieval). It really made researching techs difficult.

But anyway, Carthage is well on its way. In-fact I am mostly finished at this point, I just have to transfer Hannibal's dialog from the Greek World. Most of the conversion came from Civilization III. I also included the Numidian Mercenary for a full custom civ effect. However, it is virtually alike to the Phalanx in skill until I can come up with something fair that differenentiates the two.

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/7563/civ4screenshot00246un.jpg

Great map for ancients but I was hoping for a more "European" map of Europe more suited for Napoleonic times with more of Scandinavia. Maybe with starting points for Austria (George Washington-Creative,Philosophical) and the Turks (Saladin-Religeous,Expansive). Denmark also a possibilty.

Great map for ancients but I was hoping for a more "European" map of Europe more suited for Napoleonic times with more of Scandinavia. Maybe with starting points for Austria (George Washington-Creative,Philosophical) and the Turks (Saladin-Religeous,Expansive). Denmark also a possibilty.

If you use PlanetShifter and move the map 20 tiles downwards, you'll have plenty of room to add it all in. Most of it the new area will be water which will help keep the job simple.

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/8076/civ4screenshot00244tz.th.jpg (http://img6.imageshack.us/my.php?image=civ4screenshot00244tz.jpg)

I dumped the Numidian Mercenary and went with the Carthagian War Elephants because the Numidians just didn't make me happy. I'll send you the mod in a moment LeHawk. =)

Lehawk, this scenraio ends in 1873. Is there any possibility to let it end in 2050?

Adler

And LeHawk, a bit of personal advice I suppose. Lay down a plan for your next version before you release a new one. If you keep updating it every time you change it just a little people may not be able to understand the differences between them and may start bringing up some serious problems that you may have already corrected.

I do like that you have a bit of a changelog, that is a good idea.

Keep up the good work.

And LeHawk, a bit of personal advice I suppose. Lay down a plan for your next version before you release a new one. If you keep updating it every time you change it just a little people may not be able to understand the differences between them and may start bringing up some serious problems that you may have already corrected.

I do like that you have a bit of a changelog, that is a good idea.

Keep up the good work.

I have been. I have lots of unreleased intermediate versions, like 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2. 2.0 had a lot of changes, because I forgot some important stuff. 3.0 will pretty much be done, and I'm not probably going to release version 4(final) for at least a month in order to get the most of the feedback. I guess I jumped the gun a bit on my initial release, and now I'm paying for it. Version 3.0 will fix alot of problems and should be extremely playable.

Will it run in epic mode to 2050?

Adler

Will it run in epic mode to 2050?

Adler

Yes it will! I just checked my fix on version 2.5, and it will now always end in 2050! It will be in version 3!

Can you please replace the pig resources in the Arab, Carthage and Persian areas with sheep? Pigs are forbidden (TRAYFE) in this part of the world, but sheep and sherpards are all over the place.

Also can we get multiple leader options so we can play as Elizabeth, Frederick, Peter, etc?

Just some feedback!

Thank you!

Lehawk fan forever!

Nick

Can you please replace the pig resources in the Arab, Carthage and Persian areas with sheep? Pigs are forbidden (TRAYFE) in this part of the world, but sheep and sherpards are all over the place.
Treif is a Jewish term; the Islamic term is haraam. Are you sure that consumption of pork was prohibited in pre-Islam Carthage and Persia?

I'm Jewish but wasn't familiar with the Islamic term. Thanks.

Consumption of pork wasn't prohibited pre-Islam. But since Lehawk can't program pigs to disappear when Islam is founded, I think he should just replace them with sheep.

Thanks.

Nick

Can you please replace the pig resources in the Arab, Carthage and Persian areas with sheep? Pigs are forbidden (TRAYFE) in this part of the world, but sheep and sherpards are all over the place.

Actually, I wasn't aware that I had put pigs there. I should've only had sheep, so I'll so through and get rid of the stragglers. Thanks for the input!

Also can we get multiple leader options so we can play as Elizabeth, Frederick, Peter, etc?

I just made a topic on this subject. I tried alot of things to get it to work, with no luck. :(

Thanks for replying!

I left more input here
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=3297223#post3297223

:)

playing the map as England as we speak!

No problem and good luck as the English! They do really good, but the AI can't seem to win as them.

Lehawk, I must say I absoluely love this map :goodjob: .

I'm not much a random map player - for some reason Earth-based maps seem to be more fun. So you can imagine how excited I was to be able to play as a European - finally. Most other maps just squeeze em in there. My biggest concerns were with Carthage, but it seems as though those issues will be addressed in v3 - can't wait!

Any thoughts on putting your skills to work on Asia & Oceana?:worship:

Agreed. Nothing beats Earth regional maps. If it's not real, it has no appeal. (new jingle)

Lehawk = best civ4 map maker

My personal wishlist would be:
South / Central America
Asia
an ancient bible world map (middle east / egypt / greece)
Roman Empire map
West/NW Europe (English vs. Vikings vs. French vs. Germans)

Wow, great looking map Lehawk. I can't wait for version 3.

Hey, I noticed one glaring problem that I just HAD to mention.

Though turkey is extremely mountainous, central turkey is extremely productive as well. I just finished up a world civ class (pesky gen ed requirements) at my university and we learned for some time about the byzantine empire. Here I have a quote for you straight out of the textbook.

The byzantine emperor lost the battle of mazikert in 1071, his larger army was annihilated, and the empire never recovered.

Turkish troops, the seljuks, seized almost all the asiatic provinces of the empire, thus cutting off the most prosperous sources of tax revenue and the territories that had supplied most of the empire's food.

There is then a map that shows the swath of land taken by the seljuk turks, and it happens to be the area of all of central turkey. They didn't even bother trying to conquer the coastlines.

So somehow, this region of the world was extremely prosperous and must have had rich soil in order for it to be the breadbasket for the byzantine empire. (which at the time, still was a major world power). So, if you could somehow work that into your map, thatd make it much more accurate, plus make a large region open for settlement

Oh yea! Is anyone planning on making a middle ages scenario for just europe, like there was in civ 3?

Actually, Asia Minor was not the breadbasket of the Byzantines, but their main recruiting grounds. The breadbasket was Thrace, the most prosperous (tax revenue-wise) part northern Greece, Crete, the Aegean Islands and Cyprus.

The place - the Anatolian plateau - is (and was back then) mountainous and fairly poor. The rich part is (and was) the Aegean coast (and secondarily the black sea coast - that remained in the hands of the byzantines as well) and the Turks certainly didn't neglect it - it's just that the Byzantines took those parts back very soon after Manzikert.

Also, your civ class ain’t much worth if is says that the Byzantine army was “annihilated” at Manzikert – the losses were minimal (perhaps barely in the thousands) but the real problem was that it came due to treason and that the emperor was captured.
The ensuing civil strife led to the demise of the Roman power. Despite that, Roman authority bounced back and the Byzantines controlled the western part of Asia Minor once more. But they were cut off the Anatolian plateau, which was back then home to the most hardened troops they could amass.

A historical textbook is written by a historian, then sent to a publisher where it is then sent to usually 3 or more other history scholars who confirm the information and send it back to the publisher. The publisher then sends the copy back to the first historian who edits and fixes it. This means it goes through atleast 3 revisions and is seen by atleast 4 scholars.

What I'm trying to say is that if the byzantines weren't defeated soundly in turkey, 4 historians wouldn't have let it slide. If it wasn't an important source of food and troops, it wouldn't have been allowed to be published. Simple as that.

Just incase, I did some research online, where I can only find one source that agrees with you. The majority agree with my textbook.

You are correct that the seljuk turks eventually did gain the coast lands and then did lose it again.

As I searched online I kept finding sources over and over again that said the Byzantines lost important sources of food and troops due to that battle. From what I can find, the soil in anatolia is poor, but a large amount of it is great for animals. Today one-third of Turkey’s sheep and three-quarters of its Angora goats are raised there. If modern turkey relies on it for a majority of their animal resources, the ancient people probably relied on it just as much, if not more.

You were right on a lot of things, and I think I found the answer to why my book said it was important for food (the book never said 'breadbasket', I was just using a term to describe the importance of the region.) But, for the results of the battle (which is the least important part of this whole conversation) there are 3 possibilities: A) you are wrong, B) the historians who wrote my textbooks are wrong, or C) there is enough debate over the topic that both points of view can be published and neither side can be proven fully. I'm inclined to believe scholarly sources over internet sources though. So unless you have something out of a historical journal or other similar source that sides with you, I'm going to have to stick with my textbook.

Either way, who won what battle when and where isn't important for this. The point is that central turkey shouldnt be useless, it should have possibly important sheep and goat resources. Southeastern anatolia is barren pretty much though. Eastern anatolia isnt much of a food surplus region either, but not as barren as the southeastern region.

I have released version #3, see original post for information. I couldn't find pigs or cows in Africa or the Near East in the latest version so I may have already took them out.

I couldn't figure out how to let you pick leaders without screwing up starting locations so that couldn't be fixed for now.

The chartage mod does not work.

Playing first game as England, think the map is great for them taking into account that there is not vary much room for expansion. Have 4 cities on the island and 1 i scandinavia.

carthage works great for me

The chartage mod does not work.

I'm beginning to find out that mods need to be put in the main game folder, not the one in the "My Documents" folder.

Also the structure should look like "\Mods\Jecrell [Carthage]" after you unzip it.

nice map i know nothing about programming but someone should try and only allow certain religions and get rid of some like buddhism in hinduism and add add some from the greek world senario...

About the central turkey geography; I'm not a scientist but i lived there for around 6 years and traveled across the plateu called Anatolia (Asia Minor) and can share my observations if you care;

Anatolia is a highland seperated from the mild Mediterranean climate by Tauros Mountains in the south, and sheltered from the rough Siberian colds coming through Russia by Caucasian and Pontic Mountain ranges. It's rugged in the west, with hills and mountains cut in valleys by Gediz and Menderes rivers that flow to Aegean Sea. Kizilirmak, Yesilirmak and Sakarya are other major rivers that flow to Black Sea, creating large arable zones perfectly fit for grain production. Moving toward the east; the altitude rises and valleys become steeper as mountains rise until they form the majestic Mount Ararat on the easternmost point. These glacier covered mountains provide the sources for two major rivers that has given birth to countless civilizations throughout history: Euphrates and Tigris.

I don't want to go through every minor detail here, but if you want an ideal simulation of Anatolia in limited game tile description; you would have graaslands in the coasts, seperating plains through lines of mountain ranges in the south and the north, and hill ranges parallel to the mountains seperating coastline in the west (vertical towards Aegean Sea). Depending on your space and design, Mount Ida (Kaz Dagi) to the north of Izmir, right below Dardanelles strait; Mount Olympos (Uludag) south of Marmara Sea; and Bolu Dagi, to the east of Marmara Sea could be added for a nice flavor.
The above mentioned rivers are important to place, and those concerned about space should at least add Sakarya and Kizilirmak rivers along with Tigris and Euphrates. Lake Van to the east is a major lake not to be skipped, while the Tuz Golu (Salt Lake) is optional as it dries up in the summer, but you can place it along with other minor lakes of the south west.

The mountain ranges in the north are covered with thick coat of forests as well as parts of north Thrace (west of Marmara), while Aegean and Mediterranean coasts are mostly covered with pine forests. Originally the entire penninsula was covered by forests in history but through heavy human settlement and widespread animal husbandry (especially goats, see Angora goats) the bulk of the highlands have become deforested.

Grain is a major product of Anatolia along with animal husbandry which should give plenty of sheep, chicken and cows to the highland plains.
Aegean and Marmara coastlines are famous for quality wines, grapes and olives (not a civ4 resource).
Mediterranean coastline around the rich and warm grasslands of Adana region (Iskenderun Korfezi - Alexandretta Bay) is a major cotton plantation area (again not a civ4 resource), where rice and sugar beets are also cultivated.
Black Sea coastline, which is filled with fisheries are perfect for peanuts, tea and tobacco (none available in civ4).
The area around Marmara Sea is very rich in marbles, hence the name Marmara (marmora) derives from marble itself.
Stones are probably one thing you can find in every part of Anatolia as there's plenty of hills and mountains to quarry.
East of Marmara, on the mountains of Black Sea coast, coal is abundant. Also in the mountains of the eastern Anatolia, copper, iron and aluminum are being mined since the early records of history (except for Uranium which is a later discovery, yet still plenty of resources exist in the same region). Copper is also to be found in the western hills and mined along with gold and silver.
Silk has been a major export material of Bursa, just south of Marmara Sea and an important resource for the textile industry. Bursa silks were a heavily sought product in the markets of Europe for many centuries.
Salt is needless to say a natural product of the massive Salt Lake that lies in the center of the highlands. It is also harvested from the minor salty lakes along the Aegean coast.
Horses have first been domesticated by the Turks in Central Asian steppes, but soon became a major commodity of the ancient world; Perisan; Mesopotamian and Anatolian civilizations being the first to utilize them in wars pulling chariots, while the nomadic steppe peoples; turks; mongols and scythians were natural born horse archers.
Potassium nitrate, commonly known as Saltpeter, can be found along the Aegean hills or the mountains to the east.
Another major production of the whole region is various kinds of fruits (apples troughout the lands and fine oranges and lemons to the Mediterranean coastline), hovever the only fruit in civ4 is banana which is native to South East Asian jungles.
Like the tobacco, corn is another foreign resource to Anatolia brought from the Americas after the age of discoveries.

Along with it's unique strategic location as a bridgehead and crossroads between East and the West, North and the South, Christianity and Islam; all of these resources both natural and mineral, should be easy to explain the major conflicts on the Anatolian Penninsula through the ages and why it was the homeland to the first civilizations as well as how they grow to become mighty empires. The riches of Anatolia draw many colonizers and invedors from Celts to Greeks; from Persians to Romans; from Arabs to Vikings; from Turks to Crusaders; all of them fighting their way into Anatolia, settling and establishing their own cities, founding empires and fighting the next wave of invaders over and over again for many centuries with the last major war for grabbing Anatolian land fought between Turks against British and French as well as their allies Greeks and Armenians between 1919 and 1922.

For game balance purposes you can take some of them out of course, but the real life is not so perfectly balanced as we know and those who would prefer historical and geographical accuracy should be given the option.
The first war ever recorded in history was the Battle of Kadesh fought between Hittites and Egyptians (Ramses II). The peace agreement written in both languages that established the borders of both countries can be seen on the wall of main hall of United Nations; (a gift from Turkish Government).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/Anatolia_composite_NASA.png

Boy, was I ignorant of Turkey!

This makes me wonder if I should (for version 4 due Dec 10ish):

- Include Turks into the map
- Make Turkey and parts east way more habitable.
- Maybe even remove the land bridge between Turkey mainland and Europe.

I didn't know it was so green around there. Definitely going to have to include the green, and since multiplayer supports 12 civs I can add one more civ. hmm.

Thanks for the input. I will have to do something about this.

This makes me wonder if I should (for version 4 due Dec 10ish):
- Include Turks into the map
- Make Turkey and parts east way more habitable.
- Maybe even remove the land bridge between Turkey mainland and Europe.
Thanks for the input. I will have to do something about this. Thanks for the nice map and if you ever need anything please don't hesitate to either mail or PM me. I have some information in my sig as per database you might need to add a new civ, or the Turkish Mod to add them directly to your map. Looking forward to play your map. Cheers.

v.3

just stopping by for a quicke suggestion, the map lacks the crab resource and there is to few aluminium.

Played a complete epic game as england, seems like egypt was totaly overpowered but that could be due to that there where no chartago cuz of the mod error.

v.3

just stopping by for a quicke suggestion, the map lacks the crab resource and there is to few aluminium.

Played a complete epic game as england, seems like egypt was totaly overpowered but that could be due to that there where no chartago cuz of the mod error.

Yeah, I've been trying to find information on crabbing in europe. I did finally find some so I will add them.

Aluminium? Yeah I do. I counted only 6 for 11 civs, so they'll be more.

I did some research, and bauxite is the ore used for it. France and Greece are the only ones mentioned to have it... I may have to concentrate it just in those areas and force trading...

Also, Jecrell released a new version that has an installer. Could you try to delete the old folder and reinstall his mod?

Hello,
I must say this is a great map. Can you tell me how did you manage to disable the globe view? I'm working on my own Europe map (a little smaller) and you can cross from England into Russia :) .
Also the starting locations for each civ are determined by placing the settler on the prop you want or do you have to do something else?

Hello,
I must say this is a great map. Can you tell me how did you manage to disable the globe view? I'm working on my own Europe map (a little smaller) and you can cross from England into Russia :) .
Also the starting locations for each civ are determined by placing the settler on the prop you want or do you have to do something else?

Sure I can tell you. You need to open the Civ4WorldBuilderSave file in a text program.
This here (Map wrapping):

BeginMap
grid width=84
grid height=52
top latitude=50
bottom latitude=5
wrap X=0
wrap Y=0
world size=WORLDSIZE_HUGE
climate=CLIMATE_TEMPERATE
sealevel=SEALEVEL_MEDIUM
num plots written=4368
EndMap

is where you can make the map a globe or flat. Just change your wrap Y=1 to =0. That's it! You may have to move the whole map though if it isn't centered right. If needed download "PlanetShifter" in the utilities section to recenter your map!

This here (Starting location):

BeginPlayer
Team=0
LeaderType=LEADER_SALADIN
CivType=CIVILIZATION_ARABIA
PlayableCiv=1
StartingX=68, StartingY=2
EndPlayer

is where you place the starting location. Note that your file will have lots of other data for the player, what I have is just the minimum needed so that the game runs like a randomly generated map only with start locations. Also, you have to kill all units for those start locations to work.

Also since worldbuilder adds a bunch at the beginning as well, this is what it should look like on release:

BeginGame
Calendar=CALENDAR_DEFAULT
GameTurn=0
StartYear=-4000
Description=Whatever you want
ModPath=If you use one.
EndGame

Note that the worldbuilder will add alot of junk on your worldbuilder files, when you decide to release you have to do the following:

-Kill all units, town improvements (non-tribals villages) and vision for all players.
-Go into a text editor, load the map and remove as much as possible from the BeginGame/EndGame and BeginPlayer/EndPlayer blocks (see above for minimum).

That's everytime you load and save in the world builder (yeah it sucks).

Great map !! I love HUGE maps :) I just dont like when they crash when loading :( Thanks

Fenryial

Have any will to make a HUGE world map of Earth? And is there a easier way of deleting all AI's on map to replace them elsewhere. When I make huge maps with say 6 AI's, it takes a long time to hunt them down to delete them to just replace them where I want them.

Thanks in Advance,
Fenryial

Thank you Lehawk! This is exactly what I needed! One more question: can I edit the map in notepad so that I can replace a civ on the map? If you happen to know a good tutorial about how to work my way around the world builder, please tell me.

Thank you again.

Have any will to make a HUGE world map of Earth? And is there a easier way of deleting all AI's on map to replace them elsewhere. When I make huge maps with say 6 AI's, it takes a long time to hunt them down to delete them to just replace them where I want them.

Thanks in Advance,
Fenryial

There are already huge maps of the world, unless you mean at my map's scale? If so, then not likely considering it would be 10x the area. This would also require a mod to make the game last long enough to explore the whole map. Also, civs not in europe would be able to grow almost limitlessly because of the scale wouldn't work as well for Asia, Africa and the Americas.

Thank you Lehawk! This is exactly what I needed! One more question: can I edit the map in notepad so that I can replace a civ on the map? If you happen to know a good tutorial about how to work my way around the world builder, please tell me.

Thank you again.

Yes you can! You just have to change the following lines:

LeaderType=LEADER_SALADIN
CivType=CIVILIZATION_ARABIA

to

LEADER_HATSHEPSUT
CIVILIZATION_EGYPT

LEADER_VICTORIA
CIVILIZATION_ENGLAND

LEADER_LOUIS_XIV
CIVILIZATION_FRANCE

and so on...

The easiest way is to create a random map with all civs on it, save it, and just cut&paste the civs you want out of the text file. You may have to search the xml files for the leader names if you have a preference since you can't yet let the player choose in a scenario.

I don't know of any good tutorials, I guessed my way through. I was thinking of writing a FAQ for creating maps with pre-placed civs and their locations, but I don't really get much time.

Great map !! I love HUGE maps :) I just dont like when they crash when loading :( Thanks

Fenryial

Did this one crash?

Thanks for the answer :) Your probably right about the size. I was looking for something no larger than 25000 plots. By the way whats the easiest way to remove pre placed settlers and such for maps besides looking at the GUI?
Could I remove them in WB save file using wordpad?

Fenryial

No your did not crash :) I made some HUGE HUGE ones that did crash when loading from a saved game is all. But not that often. The world makes them fine large, its only when loading them after I have saved. But again Yours has not. I have 2gigs of ram so I hope that helps.

Fen

PS. you added that before I hit post reply on the last reply :)

And is there a easier way of deleting all AI's on map to replace them elsewhere. When I make huge maps with say 6 AI's, it takes a long time to hunt them down to delete them to just replace them where I want them.

Thanks in Advance,
Fenryial

Sorry forgot about this part of your post.

You could open the world file in a text editor and remove all the unit blocks like:

BeginUnit
everything in here deleted as well.
EndUnit

Even after you set all the start locations in the file, you will still have to delete the units because the worldbuilder adds them everytime you start the map up. At least you will then know where they are spawning.

Great way to do it, I will do it tonight :)

Thanks Lehawk

- Maybe even remove the land bridge between Turkey mainland and Europe.
Why would that make any sense?

Why would that make any sense?

I haven't decided yet. I would do it if it made Greece too difficult if I added the Turks. I'm leaning towards not doing it even if I do put in the Turks, though.

Egypt is stupidly over powered in this map. That band of floodplain/plains give them unrivaled growth without even needing to pop workers out. If you pop down in their starting position, they have like 7-8 4F/1P/1C tiles and 1 6F/1P/1C tile before even starting improvements. Not sure if this is a World builder bug but putting a plain over a floodplain adds 1F/1P without destroying the floodplain bonuses. Egypt will have 3-4 size 16-17 cities before 2000BC, next to everyone else having 1-2 size 7-8 cities, they will dominate reasearch, development speed, everything...I realize they'll have health and happiness issues holding them back some, but heck with the tech lead and the huge 4F/3P tiles (mining plains/floodplains tiles) they become a non-issue quickly.

Otherwise the map itself is very nice, I enjoyed playing the starting positions as the english, romans and spanish.

Agreed. Egypt always has a 500-1000 point lead. They need a nerf BAD!

Ok, I'm pretty much going to redo Egypt's area. I want floodplains (for historical reasons), but they are more powerful than I thought they'd be (a side-effect of scaling).

I don't want to break ettiquite.
Any desire to collaborate as I'm barely beginning to learn modding?

Nick

i did some work on it. will PM Lehawk as I dont want to step on his toes or anything.

I don't want to break ettiquite.
Any desire to collaborate as I'm barely beginning to learn modding?

Nick

Well, it is just one map. A collaborate effort would be better suited for a custom mod, not just a map. The only modding I'm going to do for this map is adding the civilizations (Jecrell's Carthage and maybe the Turks one), and that is just pretty simple stuff.

You are free, however, to create any scenarios (like that ancient world one you PM'd me about). Just give credit to the original map maker and have fun!

You are free, however, to create any scenarios (like that ancient world one you PM'd me about). Just give credit to the original map maker and have fun!This is Lehawk's Ancient Mediterranean map with Nick's Roman World changes. This is all Lehawk, all praise goes to Lehawk. I am but his humble fanboy.

Egypt has been nerfed somewhat and France and Spain replaced with raging barbarians (Gauls). No city razing is turned on. All other civs remain and it still uses Jecrell's excellent Carthage mod. England is now lead by Queen Elizabeth, Russia is now lead by Peter the Great and Germany is now lead by Frederick the Great.

I meant this scenario to simulate the Roman conquests of Gaul and Iberia as well as the Punic wars. Carthage and Rome begin the scenario at war.

This is my first attempt at modding!

All thanks to master mapmaker Lehawk and Jecrell for their baby here.
104036

Thank you for the kindness of this community. I'm a disabled guy typing with my thumb, trackball and onscreen keyboard and Civ4 is keeping me distracted right now.

Best,

Nick

Cool, NickSD!

You may want to go all out and post this your own Scenario! Using my map is "A OK"!

Wonderful map associated with Carthage Mod :)

Playing Carthage is really challenging since you are reliant on water for food and many sea-wars for plundering the fishies + powerful neighbour with Egypt is quite nice. Love that. Needed tons of elephant+catapults to blast down the Egypt cities with riflemen/infantry inside... ouch... Egypt is really powerful, but i find it a nice challenge as far as you don't play them :p

Oil issue is quite not easy, i was surprised not to find oil in the actual algerian zone since this country is an important oil producer. Might be useful to correct this point.

Having played now 3 times the "scenario" (map+mod) in complete game (regent difficulty), here are some feedbacks i can give you. Don't search "judgement" (good or bad), just feebacks, and forgive for a none native english ;)

All was played in Epic Game using the carthage mod.

General points :
1) Ressources :
this is one main challenge of this map, since certain ressources are really difficult to obtain depending on the civ you play. Mainly oil, but also iron, aluminium and uranium. As a carthagenian, no problem with aluminium/uranium, but oil/iron is a real concern and you will be forced to adjust strongly your strategy to obtain those faaaaaaaaaaaaar ressources.

2) Egypt :
I felt the first time also that Egypt was overpowered. 2 times i played carthage, 2 times i smashed egypt. Egypt is overrated on the "power graph" because of the size of the cities and because of science. But they lack strongly production (hammers). Carthage is exactly the inverse situation : very low on graph, but not so weak (cf feeback on games).

3) Map :
Many litle things that can surprise, but globally the map is VERY good. I was crazy when i saw wine in Paris and no grapes neither in Bordeaux nor in Bourgogne ! Coke drinker ! Barbarian ! :D
(bourgogne is where there are horses in the east coast of the rhone, bordeaux is south of the Loire, not north, but no worry, just kidding :p)
No oil in algeria, that surprised me. Maybe it's south from the map, i just know the country is producing, not where. Never really been in the turkish/russian/german/slavian part of the map so could not say about thse parts.

4) Victory :
Main concern to me. Maybe highly due to the game than to the mod/map, but i cannot figure how to win except for space conquest. Won 3 times by space, but each time i tried another way, but had to switch to space else someone else would do it. At least for the carthagenian, i don't see how to make else.

I explain.
To dominate, you need iron for canon (right name ? the bombarding machine between the catapult and the artillery), pikemen and so on. Iron is either in spain, or in arabia, or by a complex sea conquest. You cannot focus on more than one target in this way, i guess. At least, i didn't managed to ^^
Conquering spain is imo not the real solution since during the long time it will take, Egypt becomes too powerful. I felt like the only solution for Carthage is to smash Egypt and take it as far as possible.
No religion. No culture. Just tons of catapults/elephants to crush the egyptian asap. First time was trash since i was with catapults against riflemens, succedded but was long. Last game i rushed the egyptian. Builded many little cities (old fashion civ ^^) just with military tech as to rush to cata/elephant (same tech, a luck !), blackmailing everyone for techs while i was the far last on the powergraph.
Fight was very trash, but all egypt falled at the gunpowder time, with bowmen (not long), lancer (not pike), elephants and catapults against pikemen, arquebusiers, knights... woof.

The point is that to suceed you need to totally focus your tech and be way beyond. After egypt conquest you can quickly come back, but after that the time to build an army and manage micro wars (damn spanish...), it's very late... i cannot figure out how to manage conquest/domination kind of victory.

I tried cultural rush playing spain, totally closed in its borders, but even building most of the wonders for it, i was very far from suceededing in it (40k cultural while 75k needed). Not enough food to have the tons of specialists needed (maybe egyptian or russian can).

- - -

Here it is, just wanted to make sort of a testimony about how i "feeled" this map/mod : love it alot, really.
But i stay frustated by not seeing other kind of victory possible than space rush playing Carthage (and damn, 3 times same score, hate it 9500/10000/10500... next 11k ?).

Hope this help, and really for europe history lovers you will be totally seduced by this map, really challenging and each civ got its chance and seems playable.

dido baptiste. I was thinking of moving the Arabs and renameing them Phoenicia. A little unhistorical with a Cavalry UU but maybe a good way to slow down the Egyptians. Is there an easy way to get the x and y coordinates on a map? Also dido on the no oil or iron in north Africa.

edit: Ok, I opened your map with wordpad and moved the Arabs no problem. Saved file then opened the map with Civ4 and went to the Wolrd Builder. Revealed all tiles, highlighted map mode and picked bonus tab. Highlighted oil and left clicked on a desert square but nothing happened. Am I missing something? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for making such a great map, best game I've played of Civ4 yet! :goodjob: Reminded me of playing a Civ version of Medieval: Total War. I especially liked how the mountain ranges forced civs to create countries of their 'natural' shape and size, as well as some interesting chokepoints.

I'd like to add what happened with the various civs during the game I played, and some small adjustments I'd like to suggest to help balance it a touch more. Note that I'm speaking of balance only, not realism.

Ranked in order of strength:

Egypt: As mentioned a lot already, the floodplains make them too strong. I've noticed there is a difference between flood plain/plains and flood plain/desert - if you just use desert they are not as useful.

Germany: This is the civ I played, and I found that they had a lot of very, very good land (about 8 good cities) - lots of grasslands/rivers/forests. Not sure how to balance this though. :p Perhaps change some of the grasslands to plains if this makes realistic sense. I also think Scandinavia could do with more tundra to limit its usefulness to the Germans.

Russians: Very good, no suggestions. :goodjob:

French: Very good, no suggestions. :goodjob:

Spain: The computer only build 3 cities in Spain, whereas I think 5 could be fitted comfortably, and make them a bit more competitive. Perhaps placing more fish resources around the north-west and south-east parts of Spain to encourage settlement there.

English: Very good for being limited to 4 cities, middle-to-lower power but as good as it gets I think.

Romans: Seemed a bit squeezed in, but they were still only slightly below middle power. Don't think much can be changed.

Carthage. Didn't do a lot either, but I'm not too sure what can be done there.

Greeks: Were somewhat underpowered - with some better land in Turkey as other posters have mentioned they would do better though. I don't think you need to put Turks in the game btw (from a game balance point of view).

Persians: Didn't really do much, were underpowered as well. Possibly a few more flood plain squares to get them going.

Arabs: The whipping boys of the middle east, were never really in the game.

I would actually consider leaving the Arabs out of the game, as they only have 2 ok city positions and are never really a threat. A suggestion: remove the Arabs and take out the bottom 7 lines of the map or so (which would also limit the Egyptians).

Ok well I went pretty in depth there but I really enjoyed the map, and would ideally like to see a game with 10 or so evenly matched countries. I understand you have your own ideas though, so feel free to take my advice or not! :)

Yeah Egypt really make the Arabs and the Persians weak. Before v3, they were pretty decent.

Carthage: The AI sucks as them! They never expand all the way westward. Spain ends up taking the grasslands west of Carthage.

Spain: Odd, they used to build 5 towns. I'll have to check.

Turks: Likely not.

Arabs and Persians: Will floodplain them or something.

Ok well I went pretty in depth there but I really enjoyed the map, and would ideally like to see a game with 10 or so evenly matched countries. I understand you have your own ideas though, so feel free to take my advice or not!

I'd love to have 10 evens. I want this map to be balanced for single and multi-player.

edit: Ok, I opened your map with wordpad and moved the Arabs no problem. Saved file then opened the map with Civ4 and went to the Wolrd Builder. Revealed all tiles, highlighted map mode and picked bonus tab. Highlighted oil and left clicked on a desert square but nothing happened. Am I missing something? What am I doing wrong?

Sounds like you don't have the cheat enabled. Check one of the stickies in http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=158.

---

Current status: Waiting for patch before starting work.

The Mesopotamians started out in a much richer environment than they have in our times. The surrounds of the fertile crescent were forest. Deforestation (the main industry was pottery, and the fuel for kilns was wood) over centuries transformed the landscape.

So one way to get the Arabs (and Carthaginians) kickstarted would be to give them some forested plains rather than the (modern) desert.

First game I played as the Carthagians, Egypt took all of Turkey and lead the game the whole way. Germany dominated over France and Russia due to their lack of iron. I spent most of my time keeping the Spanish in check and wound up forth from last (Yes the Arabs were dead last).

Second game I moved the Arabs to the coast as if they were the Phoenicians. This really kept Egypt at bay and Turkey was up for grabs between Greece, Persia and the Arabs. France got an early jump on both Spain and Germany and controlled a lot of iron resources. I deleted England from the game all together which may account for French success. Again as the Carthagians, I caught a lucky break and Iron was randomly discovered so now it's off to the oil fields and to take out the Egyptians (who are still first but I'm a close second). Oh btw I'm playing on the Noble setting.

When can we expect the next version of this map?

When can we expect the next version of this map?

I'm shooting for the 30th. I'm doing more testing (simulations) to make sure Germany, Russia, and Egypt aren't a problem.

Great map! I've been playing as Rome and been using my Praetorians to carve the Roman Empire out of central Europe. The Egyptians jumped out to a large lead (playing on Noble) while France is another large power.

With the new version of carthage available, will your mod still work if I download the new Carthage civ mod(vers 1.3)?

any hope to see the new version today?

any hope to see the new version today?


It seems not.

...or today

Sounds nice. Going to download this when I get to my other home. :)
Is this playeble without the mod civ (carthagoans or something like that)?

I tried to add oasis and more condensed resources for Persia, Arabians, and Egypt. Egypt may even be overpowered at this point. It will get balanced if needed, I assure you!
I don't know about Egypt and Assyria or Babylon, but in North Africa (as east as nowadays Lybia) the Romans used irrigation to a large extend, and cultivated areas now considered as too arid to have any agricultural use. They grew olive trees, fig and almonds, among other things. There are many remnants of irrigation in Algeria (Numidia): burried conducts, aqueducts, wells etc.
Maybe one ways to implement that would be to allow irrigation of desert tiles on some parts of the map like the presaharian border.

i played this i think it's really successful and also it's realistic but if you add turkish civilization it will be the best!!!! i don't know much about modding but maybe you can use TunchKhan's mod for adding turks of course with his permision(: like you have done for carthage

I'm sorry all, for disappearing. I'm rather put off of Civ IV right now. The patch made this game run terrible even though it worked perfectly before. The only other game my computer can't run is BF2, and I'm an expert at configurating Windows. Not to mention that reverting to the original non-patched version fixes the problem. Being a programmer for 17 years, 6 of which in game development, makes me feel that the developers have serious issues with their internal QA practices. I'll keep checking for a patch, but I'm not supporting this game as is. And no, I'm not sitting through that slow installer again to revert back again.

Thank you all for your support with this map project. Any of you are welcome to improve it and release it as a scenario or just as a map. Have fun playing!

The Caucaus area is really strange on this map. And the Tigris and Euphrates should be floodplains.

I think it is a bad idea to use Google maps to create maps. You want the area to look like it did in ancient times. A great resource for this is "The Times Atlas of World History_. I strongly suggest this for anyone interested in location of forests, allocation of ancient resources, etc. It is really interesting and very useful.

-- The Hypnotoad

Lewhak: Once again thanks for the great map but what happends to the updates? Can we expect more or have you moved to other projects in life?...

great mappe

Lehawk is't around any more he said he was sick of the game not working or something and has stop all projects

that blows

someone should take the project over...i would but i dont know **** about modding...

Hey Lehawk,
Firaxis has just released a new patch and i think you won't be a patch victim anymore ...
So if you can return to your project it will be great

Geebo, i would like to take the project too but i don't know enough about modding
Actually I don't have enough time to learn:( (French+all other stupid lessons...)

you need to send him a message but I don't think there a lot he needs to do with this map it great the egyptian empire get a running start making it that much hard to win, but you still can and that I think is the most fun about a game. one thats hard but not to hard,that it make you give up or can't win
what I wish is for him to come back and get started on his next project, it sound great

I find that patch has caused some bugs on my cpu which did not affect me before, like the problem with the map going black.

i guess no one has taken this over??

hope someone will take over this project sune, cant really do it my self due to lack of knowhow and time :(

This is IMO one of the best maps and I really like that its not huge in size that makes games go slow. But some work has to be done to this map to make it even greater.