http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/DesertTitle.jpg

The dry sirocco wind whistles over the vast Sahara wastes. It is the wind of change…

Immense camel caravans carry the treasures of the Orient south over the desert. But where they once made for legendary Audagost, now they head for Djenné, Gao, or Katsina – new trading centres where fortunes may be won and lost. In West Africa, in the lands of the mighty river Niger, the ancient mercantile empire of Ghana falters, and Mali, Songhai, and others vie for control of the trade routes and the unimaginable wealth they promise.

The dry sirocco wind whistles over the vast Sahara wastes. It is the wind of change…

The peace of Lake Chad and the boundless savannahs of the centre of the continent is shattered by the harsh trumpets of a new power. The petty chieftaincies that have dominated the lives of thousands for centuries are growing, merging, coalescing, into great kingdoms. The feared cavalry of the ruthless Kanem-Bornu empire wheel across the plains, bringing the faith of the Prophet on the point of a spear. Can anything stop their bloodthirsty expansion and fanaticism?

The dry sirocco wind whistles over the vast Sahara wastes. It is the wind of change…

Where once pharaohs sailed up the eternal Nile and armies of slaves laboured to build the greatest monuments of antiquity, new powers, more formidable even than those of ancient Egypt, have emerged. Under the peerless Saladin, the Ayyubid dynasty is establishing itself as the superpower of North Africa. To the south, where the Nubian sun beats down upon the desert plains and where the White Nile meets the Blue, the Christian kingdoms of Makuria and Alwah quake. Can they survive in the face of the mightiest Muslim armies on the planet?

The dry sirocco wind whistles over the vast Sahara wastes. It is the wind of change…

Far to the east, the ancient civilisation of Ethiopia has endured for centuries, outlasting dynasties and empires alike. But now it faces the greatest double crisis in its history. The Muslims of the Red Sea coast are uniting and, under their mysterious left-handed leader, threaten invasion of the Christian empire. Most terrifying of all, a deadly insurrection has broken out, led by Yodit and her Jewish zealots. Can the empire survive this combination of external and internal threats? Can the Ark of the Covenant be kept safe in its mountain home? Or can Yodit lead her freedom fighters to victory and the re-establishment of an African Zion?

It is now – between the years AD 1000 and 1600 – that the fate of North Africa will be decided. As three great religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – meet and clash, great empires will appear, flourish and vanish again like flowers in the desert. You must struggle for control of land, of resources, of the people’s affections, and – most of all – of the all-important resources and the trade routes to them. Control the trade routes, and you can become rich and powerful. Lose them to your rivals, and you will wither.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Gran.jpg

This painting was done by an unknown Ethiopian artist in 1950. It depicts the last battle of the legendary Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, or "Grañ", the "Left-Handed". In the sixteenth century, Grañ united the armies of the Adalian sultanate and led them on a holy war against Ethiopia, bringing the empire to its knees and wreaking devastation throughout the country. As the emperor fled before him, Grañ claimed to be sent by God and to be impervious to bullets, and, it was said, he could chop through the trunk of a tree with a single blow of his immense sword. But at this critical moment, the Portuguese made contact with Ethiopia and came to their rescue with a tiny force of musketeers (depicted in the top left-hand corner of this picture). Grañ, despite his boast, was killed by a Portuguese bullet, and the Christian empire was saved.

Play the scenario and see if you will be so lucky!

The scenario

In this scenario, the player can take control of one of ten different civilisations – Ghana, Mali, Songhai, Kanem-Bornu, Hausaland, Ouaddai, Makuria, Alwah, Ethiopia and Beta Israel. There are five distinct tech trees, each of which is wholly unique: that is, there are NO shared techs between the different trees (although there are a few duplicates). This means that that the Science Adviser screen will look different depending on which faction you are playing.

The factions are divided into the five tech trees like this:

West African – Ghana, Mali, Songhai (and non-playable Benin)
Central African – Kanem-Bornu, Hausaland and Ouaddai
Nubian – Makuria, Alwah
Ethiopian – Ethiopia
Beta Israel – Beta Israel

There are also a sixth and seventh tech grouping, but they contain only dummy techs, because all the civilisations in them are non-playable. They are –

Arabian – Almoravids, Hafsids, Ayyubids, Bejans, Adal, and Yemen
Tribal - Beja and Chollo

Having different tech trees for the different civilisations means that they also have different units, improvements, and wonders (although again there are a few duplicates). It also means that different civilisations have different routes to winning the game and different problems to overcome.

Rule changes

In this scenario, it is impossible to move onto desert terrain. The only exceptions are Workers and camel-mounted units, and also barbarians.

Jungles cannot be settled. But mountains can be settled! Only Ethiopia and Beta Israel can build viable cities on them, however, because only they can see the Agew resource that makes them productive.

Most civilisations must research an Agriculture tech before they can build Workers.

Settlers and Workers cannot be captured.

Armies can be made up of only two units, not three.

Golden Ages and malcontent caused by whipping both last ten turns, not twenty.

The luxuries available are:

Wines
Furs
Indigo
Incense
Ivory
Gold (now a luxury)
Kola

The West African civilisations

For Ghana, Mali, and Songhai the game is all about trade. For these civilisations, it functions a little like the system used in the Age of Discovery conquest, but in reverse. The player must find resources in the region of the river Niger and the southern forests, link them to his cities, and build improvements. These will then sporadically generate Trade Items. These Trade Items must then be picked up by another unit and carried to the Trading Posts – of which there are three: one each in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. Taking a Trade Item to a Trading Post gives a cash and VP bonus, because the Trading Posts are also VP locations.

The Trading Posts are all within the borders of AI-controlled civilisations. So what’s to stop the AI just plonking its own units in the VP locations and preventing the player delivering a Trade Item? Simple: only camel-mounted units can enter the Trading Post. The player must use these units to carry Trade Items over the Sahara Desert to their destination.

Note that it is possible to build hidden-nationality camel-mounted bandits, which can be used to ambush the trade caravans in the desert. The solution? Research Desert Warfare and recruit camel-mounted warriors to see them off! Thus, there is scope for an almost naval warfare sort of subgame in the Sahara.

Although they share a tech tree, Ghana, Mali and Songhai each have their own Unique Unit. Their different starting locations also provide their own challenges.

The central African civilisations

The key to success for Kanem-Bornu, Hausaland and the Ouaddai sultanate is expansion and warfare. They are hampered in several ways. There are not an awful lot of improvements they can build, and hardly any Wonders. Moreover, they cannot research Agriculture until late in the game – which means no Workers until then! To offset this, the central African empires can research a wide range of powerful Specialists. They can also, at an early stage, build Nomads, cheap settler-type units. Expansion is quick and simple, and a selection of cheap and powerful military units will allow them to overrun their enemies – provided they expand faster and more effectively than their aggressive rivals, of course. In the later game, however, the Nomad unit is replaced by the Founder unit, a much more expensive settler. Later techs allow new governments which are better suited to building and less suited to expanding or supporting large armies. The player must decide how quickly to change from the earlier, semi-nomadic form of society to the later, more settled form.

Although they share a tech tree, Kanem-Bornu, Hausaland and Ouaddai each have their own Unique Unit. Their different starting locations also provide their own challenges.

The Nubian kingdoms

Makuria and Alwah find themselves sandwiched between more powerful neighbours – Ouaddai and Kanem-Bornu to the west, Ethiopia to the east, and the Ayyubids to the north. They can build a number of useful improvements and Wonders and can build a strong culture, and they have some handy units that can muster a good defence against invaders, but they are less powerful than their neighbours. Their special route to success lies in diplomacy. In real life, Makuria and Alwah survived for centuries because of the “Baqt” or pact that Makuria signed with Egypt, whereby the two nations, one Christian and one Muslim, agreed to co-exist peacefully. In this scenario, the Baqt is a buildable Wonder which allows a diplomatic victory. The player must survive long enough to build it and remain on sufficiently good terms with the other powers to seize victory!

Although they share a tech tree, Makuria and Alwah both have different Unique Units.

Ethiopia

At the start of the game, Ethiopia is the most powerful playable kingdom. It is the most settled, with the most cities and the most powerful units that are immediately buildable. But it faces a crisis: it is in not one but two locked wars – one with Beta Israel, who have powerful units within its own borders, and one with the formidable Adalian civilisation located in modern-day Somalia. Ethiopia faces an onslaught and it will take skill to survive. It cannot move on the first turn, to give Beta Israel time to strike.

Fortunately, this civilisation has some things in its favour. It can build viable cities in the mountains, and these will be easy to defend. Moreover, this civilisation has a large number of culture-producing improvements and wonders to build. It can build up a very powerful cultural rating, which could be enough to win the game – if it can survive that long. A good strategy is to retreat to the extensive mountains of the Horn of Africa and build and regroup there.

However, if Ethiopia can retain or recapture its coast, there is the possibility of trading overseas – for Yemen is friendly and has many useful goods. That means there will be war in the Red Sea, since the Arabian powers wish to control this waterway and its vital trade routes; fortunately, the Ethiopians have a number of naval units at their disposal to wage war in this theatre.

Beta Israel

Beta Israel potentially offer the greatest challenge. They are Ethiopian Jews, who spent much of the Middle Ages living semi-autonomously within Ethiopia, paying homage to the Christian emperor. They also spent much of their time rebelling against the empire. One such rebellion is said to have broken out in around AD 1000, led by the mysterious – and beautiful – Queen Yodit.

In this scenario, therefore, Beta Israel begin with some very powerful units right in the middle of the Ethiopian heartlands – but they have NO cities and NO settlers. When this happens, a civilisation follows slightly different rules from usual. It will survive from turn to turn even with no population, but only as long as it doesn’t lose a unit. The moment a unit is lost, the game is over. But if the civilisation succeeds in capturing an enemy city, this becomes the new capital and it reverts to “standard” rules.

Therefore, the first task for Beta Israel must be to capture an Ethiopian city – but to do so without any loss. If this initial attack succeeds, Beta Israel must build up their strength and prepare for a tough guerrilla war – for the Ethiopians can be relied upon to hit back! Luckily Beta Israel have a number of crafty tricks up their sleeves: spies and assassins, espionage missions, and – of course – a lot of enormous boulders… They must use these to wreak all the damage they can on the Ethiopians. In particular, the Ethiopians have three Holy Relic units. They have no special function other than defence, but they are worth 1,000 Victory Points each to whoever destroys them.

Difficulty levels

I play at Monarch (with variable success) so that’s the level it’s designed for. You may well find it too easy if you’re a better player than me (probable), so ratchet up the difficulty level accordingly.

The West African civs are relatively easy to win with (partly because the AI is not good at the Trade Unit business). Mali is probably the easiest of these.

The Central African civs are relatively easy to do well with, but you will need to work hard to win. Hausaland is probably the easiest and Ouaddai the hardest.

The Nubian civs are tough: you could, in theory, win via cultural domination, but it’s easier to go for diplomacy, which means avoiding war where possible. This is hard when the Ayyubids are breathing down your neck. Makuria is better for warfare and Alwah is better for expansion.

Ethiopia should provide quite a tough challenge: simply staying alive to begin with, and building a good infrastructure and cultural buildings in the later game.

Beta Israel are very variable: the more of your starting units you can retain after the first few turns, the better your chances. Note that this is the only civ that can carry out espionage missions, and unlike the main game, they should be affordable.

New version

As of 20 October 2008, this is version 1.5. Have a look at this post (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7365998&postcount=355) for a list of the main changes.

Downloads

Please note that this scenario requires Conquests 1.22. If you don't have Conquests, it can't be very expensive these days. And if you don't have 1.22, you can download the patch for free from the CivIII website itself. I think it will run without the 1.22 patch, but some of the text will be screwy.

The files and instructions are all here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=272). Be sure to download the optional soundtrack for that full desert experience!

Multiplayer

As of version 1.5, the scenario includes four multiplayer maps. A multiplayer game cannot contain more than eight civs in total, so each of these maps focuses on just part of the main scenario:



Desert MP 1 allows you to play as Ghana, Mali, or Songhai.
Desert MP 2 allows you to play as Hausaland, Kanem-Bornu, or Ouaddai.
Desert MP 3 allows you to play as Makuria or Alwah.
Desert MP 4 allows you to play as Ethiopia or Beta Israel.

The only rule change in these maps is that there is no Domination victory. If you want to win through conquest, you will have to eliminate all of your rivals.

The MP maps are effectively mini-scenarios, taken from the main scenario. In the main scenario, civs from one region often interfere in other regions in a not-very-historical way. You might prefer to play the MP maps, even in single-player, if you dislike this and would rather focus on just one region.

Credits

I scrounged stuff from practically everywhere, so if I’ve accidentally left anyone out, please let me know.

Special thanks to Asclepius for the title banner on this thread, Aaglo for the Boulder unit, R8XFT for the Sultan Abd al Karim leaderhead, and GRM7584 for the Fortress of Fasilides and the Throne Hall. Thanks also to Sword of Geddon for help with some of the graphics and for finding some of the music tracks. One of them is by his old teacher! Thanks go to Rambuchan for help with the music too.

Leaderheads are by R8XFT, Civ Army s. 1994, ShiroKobbure, Rita Poon, Grandraem, and sween32.

Popheads are by R8XFT and adapted from work by Civ Army s. 1994, and ShiroKobbure.

Units are by Kinboat, UtahJazz7, R8XFT, Civ Army s. 1994, Dom Pedro II, Aaglo, Riptide, Deaze, CamJH, Aluminium, Lab Monkey, embryodead, JimmyH, and Sandris.

Improvements and Wonders are by Ukas, Lusikka755, R8XFT, Bjornlo, Arne, Aaglo, Kenta’arka, AK47, and Lucky Dragon.

City graphics are by Arne, RedAlert, and Sword of Geddon. There's a resource graphic by Pounder too.

Some of the tech tree icons are by mrtn and odintheking. Other graphics are by Varwnos and Traianus.

I must also thank the beta testers, who gave lots of useful advice, especially Ciceronian. Special thanks also go to CivChris for his suggestions and revisions to the map.

A note on accuracy

This scenario runs from AD 1000 to AD 1600, but not everything in it really happened between those dates: players must research techs that were actually known before this time, and they can build units and Wonders that actually came later. This is simply to add a bit more variety to the game. Similarly, there are a couple of units that didn’t really exist, but could plausibly have done had history turned out a little different.

With Beta Israel in particular, current scholarship suggests that the military leader known to legend as Queen Yodit was probably actually the leader of a hostile army from outside Ethiopia, made up of pagans, rather than of an insurrection of the Jewish Ethiopians But I’ve decided to go with the traditional view, because it makes for a more interesting game situation! Beta Israel were never really a separate political entity, as represented here, being rather a group within the Ethiopian empire with varying degrees of self-determination and tendency to rebel; but this game doesn’t model that sort of thing very well. So here they are a separate civ, in a locked war.

Similarly, the sultanates of the Horn of Africa weren’t really in a locked war with Ethiopia – relations were often cordial – but that makes for a more boring game.

The map

Despite the vastness of Africa, this scenario is played on a relatively small map. This is because I think these sorts of games are more fun – less micro-managing, and each city (and each battle) becomes that much more significant.

Note that the geography of North Africa has been tweaked a little (especially in the Ethiopia region) to improve gameplay. Sinai is impassable.

Some pictures...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/desert8_C3r.jpg

Beta Israel have successfully taken over the Ethiopian empire, but their troubles are far from over. Ouaddai has declared war and, to soften the ground before its armies arrive, has infiltrated the region with agents who are busy destroying the infrastructure and diverting the troops' attention from more serious matters. Meanwhile, the Adalian sultanate are sending some suspicious-looking troops from the southeast, Alwah is expanding to the west and south and may become a threat, and the Ayubbids are launching some kind of expeditionary force into the region.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/desert9_ZKp.jpg

The first trader from Songhai begins a perilous journey across the desert. Will this oasis be his last chance for a rest before reaching Marrakech?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/desert11_FR8.jpg

Just another victory in the expansion of the mighty Kanem-Bornu empire. Can anything stop this well-oiled military machine?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/desert5_4H8.jpg

The tech screen for Mali.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/desert3_X45.jpg

This is what happens when you try to play diplomatically - everyone stronger than you uses your country as a thoroughfare without even asking.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/desert4_F8Y.jpg

A very dodgy character.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/desert12_j67.jpg

All that way, just to ensure that Mansa Musa has a suitably enormous nugget of gold to tie his horse to.

Its finally out. Yet another reason to play Civ3 Plotinus. I believe I emailed you again. Don't know if you've seen it though.

I will try this one and let you know what I think as soon as I get a chance--probably some time this weekend. Wow. I've been looking forward to this scenerio for a long time. If it's anywhere near Rood and Dragon, I'll be well pleased.

Here's a pre-playing thank you for putting the time and effort into making this scenerio. Thank you!

Fantastic!! Can't wait to try it :goodjob: !!

Congratulations on getting this one finished Plotinus. I know this is another high quality, action packed classic, so well done and thanks!

And when, if I may ask, am I supposed to find the time to play this? :shakehead

Oh, well, from the betas, this one is quite good, so I better cut down on sleep or something.

Lookes great, downloading now...

!!! BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO !!!

You have done yourself, CFC and Civ3 proud with this fine creation Plot. I commend your dedication, patience, curiosity, scholarly qualities, creativity and generosity.

What's most pleasing about this release is that it shows:

a) Civ 3 modding can still really climb to new and greater heights (well we knew this already).
b) Africa is finally represented in an African way in a scenario.
c) Game goals need not revolve arond Conquest and Domination.
d) That you've found time for this in amongst your travels and studies.
e) Evocative artwork from the areas and periods in question can be included with succcess and panache, making it a more evocative experience (again, we knew this from my scen ;) )

Now I need to come up with something to solve the same problem I have as TLC! :gripe:

[TLC] You sleep? I'm amazed, the amount you seem to do. Presumably you gave up eating a fair old while ago.

Thanks for all the comments so far. I hope the scenario lives up to them! In particular, it's very gratifying to see kind words from seasoned creators like UtahJazz and R8XFT, without whom scenarios such as this would be completely impossible - or at least a lot less interesting.

@Plotinus: I'm not sure how you get the impression I get alot of things done?

@utahjazz7: Did you get my PM?

a pre-play thankee for this splendid scenario. top marks!

Thanks Plotinus for this amazing scenario! I've started playing it and I am really enjoying it! :goodjob:
Started as Falasha and I was able to conquer and keep all Ethiopian cities including Massawa (the Adalians were unlucky in their attacks). Now for expension and invasion... :groucho:

Whoa, looks quite awesome. Nice job.

I'm downloading (thanks, its size is within the range of my poor modem, ah R8XFT, what did you do!?) and I will be trying this over the weekend. This is real unknown territory to me, as my knowledge of African early history is, to say, very rudimentary. I hope to learn a lot here (and have fun!), thanks Plotinus.

EDIT. Well, I don't know if it my connection or CFC, but I get less than 400 bytes/sec, that's more than 35 hours of downloading! I guess I will have to try later :(

I just downloaded and played a bit of this scenario, and am very impressed! Here are some of the things I liked and didn't like.

First of all, I don't know what the big deal is with the size. I managed to download both the main file and the music file in a total of less than 10 minutes. I spent more time extracting these things than downloading them.

I like the African and Muslim music. It adds a nice flavor to the game and puts you in the mood. I also like the city-scape graphics, with the sharp difference between the African and Muslim cities. I like the game play. I played as the Ghanans and managed to amass a huge army of swordsmen and crushed the Songhai. However, I ran into a problem when trying to send wagadan caravans, with gold, to trading posts in Morocco. First, I built a road through the Sahara, running along the west coast of Africa. Then I sent waves of these camel caravans, thinking I'd be able to do this swiftly. When I arrived at the trading post, it was occupied by a hidden-nationality camel bandit! I attempted to attack and was defeated. Is this intentional? Perhaps there is some way of removing their ability to enter the trading post.

Overall, however, a great scenario as always, Plotinus! :goodjob:

[TLC] Well, I meant you do so much Civ-type stuff, at least - you always seem to play new mods/scenarios, beta test, and make your own at the same time. I assume you do other stuff as well!

Good to get some playability feedback. Thanks for the comments!

[beboy] That sounds like a great start. I find that provided you play the first few moves well, the Falasha are not difficult. The AI does not play Ethiopia well. If you've actually wiped out Ethiopia, it shouldn't be too hard to go on an absolute rampage and rack up the points. Now, when you've done that, try it from the "other side", which I think is quite a bit harder.

[Nanocyborgasm] Well, I downloaded it myself before making the thread (just to test it) and it took about half an hour on the university "good" connection. Not bad given that it took all night to upload the damn thing.

There isn't a bandit unit preplaced at the Trading Post, but there's always a possibility that one may take up residence there. So it is sort of intentional, or, to put it another way, these bandits are one of the problems you must overcome in getting your caravans to their destination. Note that you can build them yourself if you research Piracy. The most reliable course of action, though, is to research Desert Warfare, which will give you more powerful camel units.

A cunning idea to build a road over the Sahara! Of course, it forces you to go for only one of the Trading Posts. There are two others, so trying them is another option when one becomes inaccessible for some reason.

There isn't a bandit unit preplaced at the Trading Post, but there's always a possibility that one may take up residence there. So it is sort of intentional, or, to put it another way, these bandits are one of the problems you must overcome in getting your caravans to their destination. Note that you can build them yourself if you research Piracy. The most reliable course of action, though, is to research Desert Warfare, which will give you more powerful camel units.

A cunning idea to build a road over the Sahara! Of course, it forces you to go for only one of the Trading Posts. There are two others, so trying them is another option when one becomes inaccessible for some reason.

I'll try both of those ideas, thanks.

Here's another question: Can cities be settled in Oases?

This looks fanatastic, can't wait to download.

If you've actually wiped out Ethiopia, it shouldn't be too hard to go on an absolute rampage and rack up the points.

This is actually what happened... :D By the end of the game, the Hausa DARED to attack me with their MILLIONS of units. I was going to pay back and crush them with my my army of Zealots :evil: when i achieved a Cultural Victory. Those Zealots are indeed very strong, but I like the idea of the necessity to trade incense with Yemen in order to build them.

i'll try what you suggested concerning playing Ethiopia now. From what I've seen, it will sure be a greater challenge...

[Nanocyborgasm] Yes, you can build cities on Oases or indeed any desert terrain. You will have to build roads there first, or your Settlers won't be able to go there. Note that this applies to Colonies as well. The desert contains resources which a number of civs will want to control if possible, making Colonies a useful option for a change.

[beboy] Sounds very nasty. The Zealots are fun, aren't they!

It's another great job! I have to agree with Hr. Rambuchan
that you (and he) make the most interesting scn's (at least for me)
They are not about simply hitpoints. They encompass all the aspects
of the game. I got to play this a little today. My random choice was Mali.
Interesting choices to make. I can tell this is going to be one of those
scn where I try out all the different civs.

I know I getting civ4 for xmas. At least now I won't be
waiting for the day to come - too busy trying this scn
and a couple others.

Thanks mucho..:goodjob:

Wow this looks really good - not really a subject which has particularly interested me before, I have to admit, but this has already impressed and interested me enough to get me to download!

Just finished a simultaneously frustrating and interesting session as the Kanem-Bornu.

It started out pretty bad - the Ouaddai attacked me very early on, which stunted my growth, and it took a while to get used to the workings of the "nomadic" nature of my empire. The stables-as-airports system is pretty nifty, but having no roads is problematic on the military front - I can't swiftly send troops from front to front.

After taking a further beating from the Hausa, I finally managed to recover enough that I could exact revenge on the Ouaddai. I had chased them down to the equatorial woods when disaster struck in the form of an Adalian declaration of war. The Adalians themselves were chased off easily enough, but they brought in the Hausa and the Ayyubids as allies, both of whom had by now grown to minor superpowers. I put up a pretty spirited defense, but was eventually overwhelmed.

The Ethiopians were eliminated very quickly by the Adalians and the Falasha. The Bejans were also eliminated pretty early on, by the Ayyubids.


Due to the whole "nomadism" thing, it seems the Kanem-Bornu are best played in an ICS style. I may try them again, and see if I can improve on my record.


Addendum: I see you're using the Shaka gfx for the army. I was under the impression regular unit gfx could not be used for armies? I'd be most thankful if you told me how you implemented this - if I could use the Maya king gfx for the armies in The Classic Maya, that would be one less obstacle to getting the graphical aspect of the scenario complete.

LOve the scenario, very interesting. I've played a couple of the positions. I noticed an error when the Diwan is built, any thoughrs on how to correct it.

Just finished another game, but playing the Ethiopians this time. Very interesting and challenging, especially in the first few turns. First, you are almost certain to loose Adulis and Axum in the hands of the Falasha. It is also pretty likely that Massawa will be destroy by the Adalians... I guess the only way to get out of this uncomfortable situation before complete annihilation situation is to get rid of the two Falasha Runners; then you have more freedom to defend yourself and eventually counterattack! :nya:

Man, I really enjoy this scenario! Now, I think I'll start a new game but as Makuria or Mali. The concept of getting points by trading accross the desert is especially intriguing. As a matter of fact, I will study your biq file to understand how it work and it is prettry likely that I will use this concept and others from Desert and the Mountain for the creation of a pre-Revolution North American scenario (17-18th centuries).

Thanks for the comments. I'm glad people are enjoying it!

[TLC] Yes, you need to rethink your playing style when you have no roads. You'll notice that the Skirmisher, available late in the game, has incredibly fast movement and is therefore pretty useful; also the Fanatic is good. Close-placed cities are essential - in fact it's a good strategy for all civs in this scenario. You need to decide whether it's worth making a beeline for Agriculture, and perhaps passing up the more violent techs in the top half of the tree, or sticking with them and going for all-out jihad. I think you were unlucky to get picked on by the Ouaddai, though. They're normally fairly feeble! Getting attacked by the Ayyubids is frequently a death warrant, though.

[grumpylad] That's annoying. I just checked the file and found that I left out a Wonder splash for this Wonder. Stupid of me! I'll post a correction later today.

[beboy] Yes, Ethiopia inevitably loses those cities. The big dilemma for Ethiopia at the start of the game is how hard to try to defend them. It is possible to defend Axum successfully from the Falasha and the Adalian attack, but by doing so you risk over-extending your troops and succumbing to the second Adalian wave! Certainly feel free to use some of the ideas for your own - I'd be interested to see what you come up with.

The Link appears isn't working , which is a damn shame, this looks great

@Plotinus: What about the Shaka/army gfx?

I sent you a PM - did you get it?

[MjM] There seems to be some kind of problem with all downloads from CFC right now (I can't download anything else or upload anything). Hopefully it will sort itself out soon, but in any event it's not a problem with this particular link.

No, :blush: I didn't see the PM indicator. I'll be looking at it ...

MjM, the links are now working again.

I've added a small patch to the downloads section on the first page which address the Diwan issue. All good mods have a patch!

[TLC] You sleep? I'm amazed, the amount you seem to do. Presumably you gave up eating a fair old while ago.

I'm amazed Steph manages to be able to do anything Civ related with all the stuff he's doing.

So finally I have a spare night with the disc to put a session in. With plenty of friends from Ghana I made the sentimental choice. So......


"Cha ley madamfo"
('Greetings my friend'*)
Please try to imagine the accent.

Why don't you sit down with a bowl of Foofoo and listen to my little story?

I woke up one morning and looked around. And, to tell you the truth madamfo, there really was not very much to see. So I sent my men out across the lands.

When they came back the first said 'Bwana, there is this man sitting with his people to the south. He is like us, so you need not worry'. I am not one to worry, so I did not. The second came to me and said 'Bwana, there is this man to our east. He is like us, so you need not worry. But I think there are more men, beyond him, who are not like us.'

"Yes I have heard of these people," I said, because indeed I had and I am not one to lie. "Go out and find them. Sit and eat some foofoo with them and tell them about us. But more importantly - find out about them. Go! I can make more like you in just a few turns, so go now eh!"

And so they went off and they did indeed discover other people. Virtually all of them Musalmans. So the going was good. I soon learned of the other kingdoms and that I needed to become great like some of them.

In my kingdom a plan was hatching. I wanted more people to hold up my royal bench as I went through town. More people to bring me gold for my medieval African bling. So I sent people to go make ziggy ziggy to the east and stay there making ziggy ziggy under my name. They did this and soon I had gold. I knew the bringers of The Prophet's Word were eager traders, so I took my people off the ziggy and started the gold mining, in preparation for my visits to the northern hareems. The Mediterranean maidens do please my soul so. Fortunately my people had done so much of this ziggy that I was able to settle more lands east, where there were horses I could not ride and tribes whom I could not speak to. No matter. At least others could not.

In all this time I was quite the friendly face and I received much the same sentiments from my brothers and sisters in the land. There were some Arab Bwanas who were not pleasant to my brothers but at least this did not happen to me eh!

Ah, so you may think all was going well madamfo, but I tell you this. As I was quietly building up my army of swordsmen and had even begun to explore the great sea of sand to the north, there was some trouble from this one Arab Bwana. Leading the Adal men, he demands me to give him money. "Fa wha?!" I say. And he tells me to take up my sword and defend myself. I laughed it off for, even if he was the biggest bean in the Oware board, this was a distant bwana. So I got on with exploring the sandy sea and building my army, even thinking of...please do not share my secret with anyone madamfo....thinking of taking out one of my own brothers (the Songhai to be precise). Anyway, I did not and it was many turns before I even saw one of this Arab Bwana's men, quite alone and no match for my swordsmen.

But that Arab Bwana starts twisting the ear of my brothers and my sisters. Yes indeed madamfo, I tell you no lies. My Hausa sister decides she is to join him on the next Hajj and not with me. She declares war and she has many funny looking men at my borders. They are not good when they are not given the chance to dance first. So I have been cutting them down and keeping them at bay. But now my Hausa sister is really giving me too much trouble. So much indeed that I could not bear to see me losing those tribes I could not speak to and those horses I still cannot ride.

So I have come to eat some foofoo with you and to tell you this story. The truth be told madamfo, I think this is maybe some vengeance from the ancient spirits. You know, the ones we knew of before Allah. I think maybe they are cursing me for thinking of taking my brother Songhai's lands. One girl from the hareems to the north tells me that there is a man called Jesus who I can turn to who will give me a clean conscience. Easy as that. It sounds good no? Maybe I will go visit her and trade some gold while I get the full detail on this man. I hope to bring you good news. Until then...

Cha ley Madamfo!

* This is some Tchwi I remember still :D. Never written it so just slapped it down phonetically, the rest isn't appropriate for these boards.


Thanks or a great scenario Plot! It's quite a gem. I didn't expect to write so much of a story, so I'll fill you in on the actual details of the likes and dislikes some other time. For now though, I can quickly say that the music was groovy, sublime and highly evocative. Thanks again for all of it! :hatsoff:

Ah, it was a judgement from Cghene upon you, for thinking such unworthy thoughts towards your brothers and sisters in the peaceful land of Songhai! You need to make a seven-fold offering before the oyise tree, eh!

Glad you liked it, and thanks for an evocative story... I'm hoping to have a chance to get to grips with the Mughals soon myself!

So it is out ! Glad. It looks like a good work again.
Unfortunately I still need to finish TLC's Mayas and Rambuchan's India first but it sure is on my list.

@ Plot: My offerings have been made to all and sundry. So here is some more specific feedback based on the 50-60 turns I played.

Praises:

Gameplay:
- The barbs are great. I always love enhanced barb action. You also seem to have manipulated their behaviour quite well. They pestered but never raided cities. Of course I exploited this nicely.
- The Sahara is well conceived and delivered IMO. It does seem to function like a sea and you can play good tricks with the barbs as they ‘come ashore’ onto land your ordinary military can operate in.
- Those camel ships of the desert are a nice dynamic, I look forward to getting into some more serious camel warfare. Their late coming means that the barbs remain like nomadic raiders which cannot be dispatched until a later time. That brings a good sense of realism and colour.
- And the worker obligation is a good one, I’ve always been a fan of colonies and now the resource race beckons to my glee.
- It's also nice to have fairly cheap techs with a feeling that you're getting somewhere.
- I haven’t quite discerned the other civs’ gameplay dynamics, more concerned with my own survival, but I like the fact I have to watch out for a number of possible wins. Always good that.

Units: - Arabian Pikeman very nice. Love the pyjamas. The little barbs look cool too and the Ansar Rider is well placed with Kanem-Bornu. I also like the ships which appeared on my coasts belonging to the Ayyubids.

LeaderHeads: Bejans, Kanem-Bornu, Ghana, Falasha look awesome.


Static Graphics:
- Goody and barb huts are most apt and very well done, props to the maker of these. Nice contrast between the African and Islamic city graphics, yet they work well together in the game. The Christian style in the east was looking good too.
- Also, I'm not quite sure why you asked me to find some artwork for the icons. You've done really well as is. The tech tree is filled with some very authentic pieces and they bring out the cultural landscape admirably. OK there are some gaps (which I can still happily help with) but its a good series of paintings that work well together. That word again, highly evocative.

Music: This was great. There was one piece early which got a bit pseudo-tribal, a la Philippe Glass and it wasn’t so good but that’s a matter of taste and didn't last long. The call to prayer was beautifully sung also. I’m not a Muslim but it’s always a moving sound and fitted in nicely. Now 2nd or 3rd tune is one with a female vocal, sounds almost Celtic or from the LOTR soundtrack. This is a sublime piece of music. I’d like to know who made it. There was some music with some pretty good beats later in the game also. I like your taste in music Plot.

Little OT: Upon hearing what you had done with the music, I actually conceived of a whole soundtrack for the Mughals scen with a quick flick through my records, many of which I haven’t heard in years. Some Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Zakir Hussein, some mellow north Indian classical flute, some opium den jazz [pimp]. It’s a real pity my technical buddy seems to have taken a break from CFC or at least tending to his PM box. This is also why I haven't been able to put out a patch yet. Anyway, music is definitely overlooked in scenarios.

Suggestions / Criticisms:

There are not many, especially given I didn't have an epic session.

- I might be missing something, or it may have just been a gameplay decision but Ghana and Mali are placed the wrong way round geographically speaking. I'm not just saying this based on modern geography btw.

- Yuroba: Where were these guys?

- As my 'in-character account' suggests, I felt more could have been made of the religious tapestry of the era and locale. Sure you've got it across the wider picture but there could perhaps have been more of a sense of the original beliefs in W.Africa and perhaps even more of a suggestion of Christianity in North Africa (an email I sent about St Christopher and theose dogheads mentions all this). But you may have included this in the 'pedia and later tech tree and I simply haven't seen it yet. In which case, just tell me to shut up. Just a mention on that though.

- Ethiopia was taken in the first 5 or 6 turns of my game. I mean they collapsed or were consumed. This seemed a bit weird from the West African position. I wondered what the point was in having them there in the first place. Again, playing on the other side of the map may put that in perspective.

- The Arabian VPL Tent is a good idea. But IMO the graphic is a bit weak for such an important part of your game. Too grainy.

- Steel: OK you've got iron in but what about steel? The Arabians were getting up to some pretty sophisticated steelcasting techniques in your time period and I reckon this could be a good replacement for iron in an upgrade. You know, just to make it a little different. Search for Damascus, Steel and Forging for the middle ages and you'll come up with the goods on this.

I'm sure there's plenty more to feedback but that's it for now.

Three more quickies before I get down to work:

- Loved the irrigation art.

- Likewise with the Sea trade bonus idea, but find a new graphic for that perhaps. The galley looks a bit weird. Many other ships to choose from.

- How about including 'Dates' as a luxury / bonus in the upgrade?

Cheers. :)

Thanks for the detailed feedback, Ram. Here are some responses!

I can't take credit for the units and LHs, of course! Although I did do new pcx files for a lot of the LHs (the static images) since I was using the "wrong" era, as it were. The Bejan LH was one of these - I think it's one of Civ Army's best (though I was disconcerted to learn just before posting the scenario that the Beja don't actually look anything like that). The barbarian hut was by me, though, as were quite a few of the city improvements. Plus I did a few colour conversions for units - for example, the "early" barbarian is a UtahJazz unit which I made black, and I think he looks pretty good. I'm glad you like the tech icons. Any ideas for "Africanising" the ones that remain are always welcome!

Glad you like the irrigation - I actually don't remember who did that one! Whoops. Yes, the little galleys do perhaps look slightly odd. Although pretty much all suitable ships are actually in the scenario...

The Kanem-Bornu actually got the Ansar Rider at the absolute last minute - I think this is the last change I made before posting it (if you look carefully at the screenshot on page one of the thread, they have a different graphic for the same unit). I only decided to make Hausaland and Ouaddai playable at a late stage, to add a bit more variety, and this meant I had to come up with some new units (so they could all have different UUs). The Ansar Rider was originally assigned to the Nubian kingdoms, but I did a lot of chopping and changing around. It's surprising how many suitable mounted units I found for this scenario, given the dearth of (say) suitable archer and swordsman units. But I just about made do, I think.

Dates very nearly made it in for the Nubians. One of the pedia entries talks about date trees and their importance. But somehow I couldn't find a way to have them "make sense" in gameplay terms.

The second music track is "Eyes of Africa", by Mary McLaughlin, from the album "Daughter of Lir". I got this and a few of the others from Amazon downloads, which lets you download complete sample tracks for free. A useful resource! I agree that this is a great piece, and I'd quite like to hear more by her (had never heard of her before this). I don't know the provenance of the Muslim Call To Prayer that I used but I think it's a great one. I heard the call to prayer "for real" for the first time only a couple of months ago, in Indonesia, and it is very beautiful. Better than "Philip Glass Glass, Philip Philip Glass", at any rate...

I was going to sneak in "This Land is Nobody's Land" by John Lee Hooker, but I didn't have that CD with me, it wouldn't have been entirely legal, and I don't know if I could have got away with claiming that it's exactly African!

Actually, if you want to add music to your scenario, I could always make a "music patch" for you like I did for this one, if you send me the tracks. PM or email me if you fancy the idea.

Are Ghana and Mali really the wrong way round? That's a bugger. I did my best to check the geographical locations of these cities. I notice that in the game, Ghana tends to spread out along the Niger whereas Mali tends to stay below it, which isn't right, but I think the locations of their starting cities should be correct. Ah well! I put Hadrian's Wall in the wrong place last time, too.

The Yoruba aren't in it, although it's one of the names barbarians can have. There wouldn't really be room for them what with Benin being there. So I'm sorry if you'd have liked to have seen them! I bet you weren't as annoyed as I was when I played the Age of Discovery Conquest, went down the African coastline hoping to discover Kongo, and found just a bunch of barbarians there. In fact that was one of the things that inspired me to make this scenario, which was originally going to feature Kongo, but they got dropped at an early stage (too far away from everyone else, not enough cities, unclear what their gameplay path should be...).

You're right that not much is made of the pre-Muslim beliefs of West Africa. All I can say is that there wasn't gameplay room for them, as it were. There is a little more of this sort of thing for the Central African factions, who get to research Myths and suchlike. However, there's *plenty* in the game on Christianity, as you will see if you play Makuria, Alwah or Ethiopia! As you no doubt know, Christianity did not penetrate into West Africa until modern times - indeed it wasn't until the later nineteenth century that it got into the interior of West Africa beyond the coastlines. Benin was still conducting human sacrifices a century ago! This is why Christianity plays no role in the West African civs in this scenario. Even today, the interior of West Africa is largely Muslim, with large numbers of Christians being confined mostly to the areas nearer the coasts, such as southern Nigeria.

Ethiopia: the events of the Horn of Africa are pretty irrelevant to West Africa, yes, so it won't have made much difference to your game what Ethiopia did (although it sounds like Adal had some effect...). It's part of the interest of this scenario, I think, that you get such different games depending on which civ you play, because there are quite distinct regions and different things going on. The AI plays Ethiopia badly and often gets wiped out. Obviously this is unhistorical, but it was unavoidable if Ethiopia was to provide a challenge for the human player. Beboy made some interesting comments above on this part of the scenario.

Ah, the Trading Post - sorry if it looks a bit feeble! Sword of Geddon gave me a bit of help with that, but I did it myself before I'd really got the hang of cutting and pasting. Well, I didn't want it to look bigger than the nearby cities, I suppose...

Steel - good point. I think I said something about this in the pedia entry for the Arabian Swordsman. I don't know to what degree steel was used by the Africans themselves during this period, but it didn't make it into the scenario. Well, of course, you don't want it *too* weapon-centred, I'm sure...

Well, that was quite a long response, so I hope it answers your points! All feedback is definitely welcome. I'm surprised (and pleased) that so far only the tiniest patch has proven necessary. At this rate I should be able to post the MP versions before long. I think this scenario will actually be much better in MP - more protracted guerrilla warfare in the Horn of Africa, and a tighter trading race in West Africa...

Looks great Plutonus. Like TLC I might have to give up sleep to play, but it'll be worth it. Kudos.

Those are some nice insights Plotinus. Thanks.

I noticed the colour conversions on the workers and others. Very nifty. You should do more city / goody graphics IMO. I thought those huts were excellent, very authentic. Bejan are news to me, so I wouldn't know if he looks right or not. But he did look very impressive. Props to all the artists you mention.

And yes, I'll think about some Africanising options. I'll post some here in case others have input. For starters you've got Ghanaian Kente Cloth. That's the classic gold, orange and green tapestry and weaving. You've kind of got it in the Storytelling icon but I'm sure you could get something more detailed, perhaps for weaving which isn't that authentic (didn't recognise the colours and patterns in that icon anyway). These techniques contributed to Ghana's wealth in the same way gold and other 'assets' did and their's are the most distinctive from all peoples' represented in your scen. Here are some examples of Kente Cloth in the spoiler:
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/4728/a0038wv.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/673/a2516ddkente7sx.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/4601/at304334a0mu.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Then you've also got the fine bead work from Eastern and Southern Africa, done so well by the Masai and Xhosa as two fine examples. This is a really good link back to pre-Islamic days and it stayed around. Found a nice site with pics and a good explanation. Open up the spoiler for it
1) Beadwork on a bowl basket:
http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/8066/abead303atw63dm.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

2) The Significatory Functions of Beadwork

http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/8612/acharmneckacelarge7jb.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

First, like flags or languages, beadwork traditions signaled a sense of belonging to a people, to a place, and to a chain of tradition.....

Second, because tradition linked the living to their ancestors, beadwork was spiritual art. Absent the ancestor figures and masks that focused belief for other African peoples, this religious function of beadwork was vital....

Third, beadwork ensembles allowed social identities to be read. Differences in dress within particular beadwork conventions mapped social typologies....

Fourth, beadwork was, and still is, a vehicle of self-expression, reflecting the individual styles of both its creator and wearer....

Fifth, many beadwork colors, patterns, and motifs conveyed symbolic references-an ability to indicate concepts that mirrors the function of language. Such symbolism even enabled the construction of complex narrative messages whose semantics were intelligible within a limited territory, functioning like a dialect.

Good reference pictures here: http://www.axisgallery.com/african_art/illuminated-signs/intro.html

3) Slightly out of the geographical range but interesting nevertheless.

The art of Ndebele beadwork
http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/1373/beaisip5tq.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6905/beawall2ru.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://www.museums.org.za/sam/resource/arch/ndebele.htm
Finally, I found this link with lots of images from your scenario's area. Check out Axum:
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Ethiopia_GIFS/menu_Ethio.html

I'll comment on the othere points later on. Hope this brings up something useful and interesting at least.

Ethiopia fell really early in my game too. Have only played a little (lots of work to do) but seems really good! :)

Plotinus, you've done a super job on this. This is one of the best mods/scenarios for Civ III that I have played. The game is rich in detail and variety. I like the fact that the different cultures have such distinctly different paths to winning. Everything is well thought out.

I've just played a game as Ghana (warlord). It went fairly well except that I was distracted by a war with the Hausa/Ayuubids. It also took me a while to figure out the trade aspects. I was short of winning by dumping one trade good at a tradingpost. If the guys up by Marrakech hadn't made me leave I would have won. In my game the Ethiopians also disappeared within the first few turns.

Once again thanks for a job well done; I can't think of anything that could make this any better! I'm looking forward to your next project.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Good to see the hard work paid off!

Rambuchan - thanks for the pictures, which are great. Hopefully there will be room to put them in at some point. Although I should add that the icon I used for Weaving is actually of Bogolan, so it's authentic!

Just tried a few games at Monarch level with increased AI aggression, because I tend to play aggressive and find the AI is a pushover without it. I tried my hand as the Hausa, and now I'm trying my hand as the Falasha. I like how the Hausa have this nomadic thing going where you can't build workers until late in the game, although it makes for a difficult game. I was doing well until the Ayyubids decided to make mince-meat of me.

My current game as the Falasha is ok, but it's still early. I figured I'd play it in homage to my Jewish atheist heritage. ;)

The Mali just got a rather sudden victory on points.
I had a massive backlog of gold shipments and something else
before I figured out what to do with them. One mega convoy is all it took.
Before then was way behind on points even though we went through
centuries of fraticidal warfare with other West Africans. Didn't feel like
fighting non West Africans as they appeared to have stronger units.
So we tried to be friendly. So I will play this one again. This time I got
Falasha as random choice. Feels like it will be a totally different game.
Very good work dude..

Sounds like you did what Musa did in real life, and flooded their markets with gold!

The West African civs do have weaker units than the Central African ones, which is meant to make you warier about declaring war when playing them. Note also that the West African civs have better defensive units than offensive, which is meant to make it harder to wage aggressive war. These civs are better suited to expansion through settling (essential to grab the resources) rather than through warfare. Though it seems that some people are quite capable of effective warmongering with these civs anyway... Now, the key to success as Falasha is basically unmitigated violence. But you might have realised that already!

@ Plot: Yes Bogolan is unknown to me, until I played your scenario that is :)

Here is some more feedback on your feedback:

Dates & Yuroba - Fair enough if they didn't make it in. *sniff sniff*

Mary McLaughlin - So my Celtic / LOTR description was not far off the mark! I shall look out for this lady's luscious lyrical ways. Very haunting and blissful.

Call To Prayer - I've heard it in many places around the world, from many a muezzin (the guy who sings it). Most beautiful was in Pakistan coming out of the massive Badshahi Mosque in Lahore at dawn. That was something else! Anyway, I've heard it many times, in many forms and you picked a good one.

Blues - As for your desire to include John Lee Hooker, well you could have used some Taj Mahal (he did a great album with Toumani Diabate called Kulanjan). He's a blues man who went back to West Africa and made fusion music there. It would certainly pass as being relevant to your scen but has a certain groove to it. A west African / blues style version of "The Catfish Blues" is a real gem. There seem to be some clips to listen to on the Kulanjan page. (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000JRLX/qid=1132233201/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_11_9/202-7537515-5727066) Check out Tunkaranke and Kulanjan for the more West African 'flava'. If you want more West African music, I have a quite a variety in my collection, so I'd be happy to name more guys for you.

Ghana and Mali - Well they are the wrong way round. Even the way they develop. It's a tough one for sure. I'm of the view that the way they develop is the way to name them. For example we had a little debate about Nepal and Tibet in the Mughals. Although I went for Nepal, they clearly started in Tibetan lands. However, the AI had a tendancy to populate the mountainous areas of Nepal, so I decided Nepal was the best option. It's up to you but just letting you know that I had to seriously suspend my disbelief regarding Mali and Ghana's placement. I'm not one to not play a scen because of these things but it's a big one IMO. Besides, Mail are better known as a kingdom with interests and operations in the desert, interacting more with Arabians across the desert, whereas Ghana were far more coastal and river based. My two cents.

Christianity - I'll just shut up :blush: gotta play over in the East to see all that I guess.

Trading Post / VPL - No matter your reasons, this is something that's letting you down I feel. I'm just being a perfectionist for your sake. :)

Steel - No I'm not a big fan of over militarising a scenario. I just thought it would have been a nice touch to go for steel instead of iron, for difference's sake and indeed for realism with the Arabs. I think you are right that the sub-Saharan Africans were not so proficient. This, if you were so inclined for an upgrade, could be a nice distinguisher. But granted, it is an elaboration that may not be necessary.

This has become one of my favorite mods ever - thanks!

I haven't digested all the details enough to comment but in my game Ghana/Mali/Songhai developed right to form really BUT I was playing Mali and may have 'decided' where all three were going by following history. I thought the initial placements were about right though especially for Mali and Songhay.

P.S The lack of anyone on the coast to prevent westward expansion and the fact that Mali must eclipse Ghana to take the Niger bend probably make the details of the game differ from the exact history.

Well, completed my first game, it lasted 57 seconds. Decided to try the Falasha. I attacked Adulis with a Falasha runner and lost... quickest game ever?

[AK] Ha, that was bad luck! I think you're probably justified in trying that one again.

[Ram] Sounds like you and I have similar musical taste. Taj Mahal is actually my favourite (living) artist, so I'm very familiar with the album in question (although I believe I'm right in saying that in this case the African artists travelled to America, rather than Taj going to Africa!). I don't have it with me here, though. Every once in a while, a blues singer gets earnest and does a collaboration with Africans, supposedly getting down to their African roots. Johnny Copeland made an album like that in the 1980s ("Bringing It All Back Home"), which was quite good though not as good as Taj's (his style was less suited to this kind of thing, I think), and Corey Harris featured in a film all about it directed by Martin Scorsese ("Feel Like Going Home"). Harris met Ali Farka Toure, who told him that there's no such thing as "African Americans" - they're all "Africans"! Ali Farka Toure, of course, was greatly inspired by John Lee Hooker, who he believed was basically playing African music. Personally (going even more OT now), whilst the blues is of course influenced by African music, I think on the whole it's much more American than it is African. The blues and Malian music really are more distant cousins than basically "the same thing", as Copeland called it. So to my mind, albums like Taj Mahal's and Toumani Diabate's are, as you put it, "fusion music" rather than really "gettin' back to the roots" as they are often represented.

That said, the blues does sound more African when played on the banjo, an instrument of American invention but African inspiration, and the main instrument of the blues in its early years before guitars became popular.

I must apologise for misplacing Ghana and Mali... Do you have any more helpful maps you could point me to? At least the city placement is intended to work in Mali's favour. Ghana start off with more, but their city placement is really shocking, so Mali should be able to develop more and overtake Ghana. That, at least, ought to be historical!

Update: Tried again with Falasha, sort of dissappointed with the ease in which Ethiopia was utterly destroyed by the Adal and I... so I decided to try the other side. These were all Monarch, btw

MUCH harder. It is 1189 and I have yet to retake Adulis. Have been pumping Armahmans, and attacked with 5 of them, plus an elite Quiyanweman and 3 Meqennet riders. I don't know how many spearmen the Falasha built, but I killed 4 and redlined another 2, and they still had more... this is going to take longer than I thought...

I have built nothing but military so far.

Having said that, great scenario! Perhaps strengthen Ethiopia a little, but overall excellent!

Glad you're enjoying it. Balancing Ethiopia, Falasha and Adal was one of the hardest things in making this. Basically, if Ethiopia were stronger then they became too easy. In particular, the AI isn't very good at playing Ethiopia - they tend to blow all their units in the first few moves trying to retake the lost cities, and then have nothing to defend against Adal's next attack. So if Ethiopia were strong enough for the AI to play them well, they would be far too easy to play yourself. I'm sorry about that! The result is that Ethiopia now typically offers much more of a challenge to the player than Falasha. As I mentioned, I think it will be interesting to see if anyone has a go at this multiplayer, when I post the MP version. That should provide much more of a challenge - and it could be pretty fun to have two people playing Ethiopia and Falasha hacking each other apart...

[EDIT] In defence of my city placement in West Africa, here are a couple of maps I found...

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Ghanamap.jpg

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/Malimap.jpg

Sources for these - http://www.zum.de/whkmla/histatlas/westafrica/haxmali.html and http://www.clearviewregional.edu/docs/ms/libra/ancientafricankingdoms.htm

Here is a sort of synchronic map, showing the greatest extent of all three of them:

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads10/WestAfrica.jpg

This is from http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/islam/fractured/westAfrica.html

As you can see, medieval Ghana wasn't where modern Ghana is. Its major cities were north of the Niger and suffered from poor land. Medieval Mali, of course, took over the territory previously ruled by Ghana, so it was sort of in the same place, but its territory was much greater. In particular, Mali developed the region around the Niger itself, resulting in better agricultural and greater cities. Just like in Civ, really! Of course, at its height Mali controlled much of the territory attributed in the second map to Songhai, including the great trading cities actually on the Niger, such as Timbuktu. So this was the sort of information I used in putting the scenario together, but if this was wrong I'd be glad to be put right. Certainly it's surprisingly hard to get accurate information on the locations of these cities and their areas of influence. As you can see, these maps here don't exactly agree on borders (although no doubt borders were fairly fluid anyway).

In the game, Ghana typically expands eastwards along the Niger and sends a settler or two south. That seems unhistorical - in reality, it ought to expand less, and get quickly vanquished by the Almoravids, and Mali should expand upwards into its place and take most of the western half of the Niger. If you look at the screenshot on page one of the thread and compare it to the map given here, you can see that, to be historical, Ghana (played by the AI) ought to have put Walata just a couple of tiles NE of Kumbi Saleh - that is, in the desert - rather than where it actually did, which looks more like the location of real-life Timbuktu.

By the way, if anyone is wondering who the hell the Wolof are, they are actually a large ethnic group from the area indicated on the map, and they had an empire of their own during the period of the scenario - the Djolof Empire. This came into being as the empire of Ghana fragmented in the thirteenth century - while the bulk of Ghana got taken over by Mali, the western part turned into the Djolof Empire, dominated by the Wolof. Unfortunately, this is another empire that didn't make it into the scenario (simply no room on the map).

This scenario is absolutely amazing, Plotinus. Seems that it was a lot of work. I like the variaity of units and the detailed map. Thanks very much!
CivIII forever!

If I get a chance to log in whilst on holiday Plot, I will take a closer look at those maps and placements. No time now though. :(

Thanks, Ram. I know you like maps! As I say, I think I did get the locations roughly right, but I'm always open to correction. At least I have a bit more of an excuse with porous empires from centuries ago in a foreign continent than I do with famous landmarks in my own country. Damnable Hadrian's Wall!

Og Pieps - thanks for the kind words. I'm happy to keep CivIII going as long as possible!

Just completed my first game as the Falasha. Lost to the Ayyubids culturally. I have to wonder that the Ayyubids are way too powerful. Saladin threatens me and every other African civ almost every game, and makes conquests that are very ahistorical. Maybe I'll try my hand as the Mali next time.

Yes, the Ayyubids are very powerful. The idea is that they should put a lot of pressure on the civs near them, especially the Nubian ones (this is one of the major hurdles to overcome when playing Makuria and Alwah). They also cause lots of problems for Ethiopia and Falasha, and, to a lesser extent, the central African civs. I think it's a bit unusual for them to get a cultural victory, though. You're right that it's a bit unhistorical, perhaps, but bear in mind that other Muslim civs such as the Funj (who wiped out Alwah) and the Abbasids are not in it. So the Ayyubids are, as it were, representing more than just the real Ayyubids, if you see what I mean.

Yes, the Ayyubids are very powerful. The idea is that they should put a lot of pressure on the civs near them, especially the Nubian ones (this is one of the major hurdles to overcome when playing Makuria and Alwah). They also cause lots of problems for Ethiopia and Falasha, and, to a lesser extent, the central African civs. I think it's a bit unusual for them to get a cultural victory, though. You're right that it's a bit unhistorical, perhaps, but bear in mind that other Muslim civs such as the Funj (who wiped out Alwah) and the Abbasids are not in it. So the Ayyubids are, as it were, representing more than just the real Ayyubids, if you see what I mean.

Good to know for the next game, which I think I'll try as the Malinese.

You know, it seems so unchivalrous for Saladin to bully me the way he does. :)

This is a fast paced game that moves along quickly. I just started as Falasha
and am well into it. Much different play than as Mali. Unmitigated violence is
a good way to put it. Ethiopia went down easy but as soon as they were
eliminated our allies Adal declared war. It was a stalemate. (those runners
we start with were vital) At peace now but am sure we'll hear from them again.

Yes, the Ayyubids are very powerful. The idea is that they should put a lot of pressure on the civs near them, especially the Nubian ones (this is one of the major hurdles to overcome when playing Makuria and Alwah).... I think it's a bit unusual for them to get a cultural victory, though.
Yep, Ayyubids also got a cultural victory with me while I was playing Makuria.. But it's easily understandable since they conquered Axum (Great Obelisk) during Ethiopia's territory public rampage. It's a pitty for me since I think I would have otherwise been able to build the Baqt before the end-turn... One thing I understood quite soon was if I didn't want to lose all my treasury in tribute to Saladin, the best thing to do was to find a way ...to make them pay me :) . And the best way to acheive that was to control Bejan's wine!:rolleyes: So I wiped out this pinky Bejan kingdom of the map and made Ayyubids pay the big price for wine. Anyway, I did notice somethnig very strange and frustrating at some point: in the last three bejan cities conquered (Suakin, Badi and Karora) I built cultural improvements (Tumulus, vaulted tomb, monastery) but the cultural points didn't cumulate so their cultural influence never expanded... :confused: Very strange indeed; do you think it can be a bug with the scenario or (more likely) with Civilisation? For reference, i add my last saved to this post.

On a side note, I also played a game as Mali. I really LOVE the trade thing! While the other nations are fighting for the East of Africa, My Malians were constructing roads in the desert and enriching themselve with industrious trade across the Sahara!

Conquering Beja, eh - good plan! For all his bluster, Saladin is evidently no better as a Muslim than he as a man of chivalry, paying you all that for wine. Good use of desert cities, and I see you stacked up on Monks, which the AI rarely seems to do.

As you can see, the game can be very unpredictable, partly on the basis of what the Ayyubids do. I've never seen them win culturally, and evidently in your game as the Falasha they weren't close to doing so, since you did so yourself. Their taking Axum was clearly a bit of a coup from that point of view.

I played one game where the AI (not me at all!) all ganged up on the Ayyubids and actually kicked them out of Africa altogether, leaving them only with their holdings in the Levant. That's pretty unusual too, I think.

At any rate, your captured cities weren't generating culture because of the government you were in. Check the pedia again! Under Christian Monarchy, any city with more than 50% foreign population won't generate culture.

I'm glad you like the desert trade thing. Everyone seems to be building roads over the Sahara to facilitate it, which I didn't anticipate...

At any rate, your captured cities weren't generating culture because of the government you were in. Check the pedia again! Under Christian Monarchy, any city with more than 50% foreign population won't generate culture.

Oops, my negligence indeed :blush: Next time, I'll read more carfully before asserting imaginary bugs.. BTW, it's a very good idea and a lot more representative of the reality. Especially in the case of foreign population with a different religion!
Just curious: how have you been able to acheive this property? Is it by checking the «xenophobic» feature of the Governement section of the Editor? (I don't know this feature since I never palyed a Fascist Governement in Civ)

Yes, that's right - it's what "xenophobic" does.

I do think it's quite appropriate for this scenario. If you have a look at the pedia entries for the religious techs for the Nubians, you'll see that one of the basic problems with Makuria and Alwah in real life is that Christianity seems never to have penetrated to the countryside. It remained an urban, elitist religion. As a result, what seemed to be a strong Christian civilisation melted away when the government fell. The "xenophobic" tag emulates this to a certain degree, by requiring more central government control over the provinces in order to generate culture.

No doubt it could be done much better in Civ IV, with its modelling of religion, but Civ IV modding has hardly reached a stage yet where scenarios like this can be made - even if I had it!

I just checked this in the Editor and found that there are fourteen different governments in this scenario (not counting Anarchy)! I didn't realise I'd made so many. Governments can be quite interesting if you use all their potential, such as variable cost per unit, xenophobia, and so on. I don't know about you, but in the normal game the only ones I ever use are Monarchy and Republic - can never see the point of Communism, Fascism and so on - so it's easy not to recognise these effects when you *do* encounter them.

Just downloaded this and it looks fantastic, can tell you really put alot of time/effort into this. Will report back on how my game goes, will play a game with Ethiopia as time permits. :goodjob:

I guess it's time for me to report, now that I've finally played a little bit. I ended up having to install CivIII on the computer in my cubicle at the university in order to play. :)

I started my first game with a random civilization, and I was assigned to Ghana. I started really slowly because it took me quite a while to orient myself to all the new options and rules. I played for about 45 minutes before I had to go to class. While I spent most of the time being confused, it was still quite fun.

Tonight I started a new game as the Alwah. I was attracted to their super worker, snice I generaly like to develop rather than conquer. I still got off to a relatively slow start, but I was able to slip some cities into the gaps between the other civs' borders. By building some early culture-producing building in my new cities, my borders expanded to include some resources. I'm essentially playing for a Baqt victory, as you suggest doing. I'm trying to be on good terms and actively trading with as many civilizations as possible. Fortunately, I haven't had anyone declare war on me! As I created a few embassies, I've noticed that the other civs garrison stores of units in their capitals. I'll let you know how things pan out.

Overall, I'm really impressed with the scenerio. I really need to play more and more though in order to get accustomed to the new gameplay; it's really quite different. Once I learn the units and technologies, I should be okay though. I also need to get used to the civilizations; I had a big problem trying to figure out who I'm dealing with all the time. Those aren't problems with the scenerio though, rather myself.

One thing that I personally would like, would be to have a little bit of the map revealed at the start of the game--maybe just an extra tile or two radius. Other than that, the only thing that bothers me is some of the unit graphics, but I understand that there is not a graphic for every unit in the game.

I could try to help in that department actually. What units should be made that are the most important to the mod?

Aha! An offer!

I shall have a think about it. Some African spear-throwing units would be nice, as the graphics I'm using for those (two of them) aren't ideal. There's also a paucity of African archers, and hardly any African swordsmen. So these are probably the ones that would be most handy. But any contributions are most welcome.

Glad you're liking it, UtahJazz. It *does* take a while to learn a new scenario, especially when it's full of unfamiliar civs... Hopefully the pedia entries should help you work out what they're all about. Still, personally I like scenarios where you start off with few cities/units/etc, because then there's less to take in at the start, if you see what I mean! Alwah sounds a good choice for building, as they have the good Worker, are agricultural, and have good land to expand into if they are quick. I have never won as them - in one game I built the Baqt, and Saladin won by one vote!

As for having more of the map revealed - that might be good, but I don't think it would work given that different civs are in different locations. That is, as I understand it, you can set it so that some tiles are revealed at the start, but they are always the same ones no matter who you are playing. And that wouldn't really work, given that you could be playing anyone from Ghana to Falasha. I'd prefer not to have all playable civs appear on the map right at the start. Still, it's a pretty small map, so it doesn't take long to explore or to trade maps.

The Javelin Thrower looks rather odd running around in Hausaland. That's probably the graphic I'd consider most in need of replacement.

After my attempt at Ethiopia, I decided to just go with random. Haven't gotten very far yet, but something rather surprising happened on probably around turn 20-25 (1057 AD)...

Just concluded a Victory Points win as the Malinese, on Monarch level with enhanced aggression. As in history, I was agressive in expanding my empire, consuming some Ghanan and Songhai territory, although never destroying them entirely. After picking up Kola Harvest and Gold Trade, I built Kola Storages and Gold Mines all over the place, then sent my Wagara Traders north, to the trade posts near Marrakech and Tunis. As before, I ran into obstacles, with Sarajah raiders occupying the square. I simply overpowered them with Wagara, then occupied the squares so that more caravans can deliver goods. This caused a HUGE VP point increase over the next 10 turns. Combined with a war against the Hausa, which ended largely in a stalement, I built up enough VP to score a win!

In this game, the Ayyubids gave me trouble too. I managed to mollify them by forming ROP, then agreed to their alliance against the Hausa. I had to declare peace early, though, which turned the Ayyubids from Gracious to Furious. I was hedging my bet that I could earn enough VP to secure a win before Saladin could get his forces that far over Africa. Turned out I was right.

Another unexpected event in this game was the early destruction of the Falasha AND the Adalians at the hands of Ethiopia. Ethiopia became this East African military AND cultural juggernaut, building wonders like crazy, and eating up the Ouddai before moving against the Ayyubids. Fortunately, they never threatened me enough to matter.

Once again, great scenario, Plotinus!

[TLC] I agree - I was starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel with that one. I think he just about passes the plausibility test, but it's close. I could have a go at doing a colour conversion to make his skin darker, but a custom unit would always be better.

[AK] That's interesting - normally when Ethiopia defeats Falasha, it's because the latter's initial attack fails. Obviously in this case Ethiopia somehow managed to get their act together!

[Nanocyborgasm] That sounds a really interesting game. Good to hear about the races against time and against the wrath of Saladin - that's the kind of thing we want! Ethiopia's success is pretty unusual again - I have never seen Adal destroyed in any game by anyone, so for AI Ethiopia to do it is remarkable. Goes to show that it *can* be done...

In my game too, Ethiopia became a juggernaut. They finished of Adal a little later, and went nuts on the wonders. Because Ethiopia went nuts, I had barely any room... still trying to hold onto a diplomatic win, but 2 of my cities have flipped to Ethiopia. Saladin, though, is extremely strong. I thought maybe the Ayyubids would be under control since 4 civs (Housaland, Makuria, Benin, and Kanem-Bornu) all declared on him within 5 turns of each other. However, Makuria was crushed and Kanem-Bornu signed peace and then turned and signed an MA with Saladin against Housaland and Benin. Pretty soon Benin is going to be gone and I'm sure Housaland will follow. Saladin is unstoppable!

Would just like to say that this mod is great. The detail and compleated text and civilapdia are what make a masterpiece to me. I am playing Gahna and did notice a few small problems though. In order for them to have any millitary unit what-so ever they need iorn, which is too far away from the capital to get AND you can't attack any cives (to get iorn) without it. Also, millitary victories, techs, ect. give VP, Was this intentional? Finally I think you should show the trade cives where the trade posts are in the begining, It might help the AI.

Looks great! Congratulations on your hard work :goodjob:

If my connection wasn't on the fritz I'd be downloading it right now. Ah well, for now I'll just have to sit and sulk :crazyeye:

Thanks Sildo! Of course getting iron is one of the challenges facing Ghana - this civ is supposed to be harder than Mali, which is why its city placement is so bad (as it was in reality). Though there is iron not far away, so it ought to be possible to get - failing this, you can always go for horses instead. And yes, military victories etc give VP - this is because some of the civs, particularly Falasha, have this as their main way of winning. You're not going to be able to win purely on military VP as Ghana, though.

Finding the Trading Posts is one of the things you have to do as a West African civ. But showing them at the start of the game would make no difference to the AI, because the AI can always "see" the entire map anyway.

Well, my game as Alwah ended unexpectedly. Everyone except me was attacking Ethiopia. I took advantage of the reduction in culturally-controlled territory surrounding the newly captured cities and placed a couple new cities to the south. I managed to get some furs by doing that. Earlier in the game, I had resisted changing governments to the Christian Monarchy, but when the opportunity to switch to Theocracy came, I couldn't resist. After a couple turns in Anarchy, I was blown away by the increased funds and technology rate I experienced! Wow. I was well on my way to researching International Negotiations (I think that's the name.) and building the baqt. Then the Ayyubids suddenly won a cultural victory. They had taken control of a few great wonders from Ethiopia. Oh well. At least the AI had a good laugh while shooting suction-cup-ended darts at my picture on the wall.

After that I wanted to exeriment with Falasha. I lost a couple of games really quickly--once in less than a minute--but then I finally had success. The Ethiopians were destroyed pretty quickly. When I was able to, I built embassies in in the capitals of the surrounding civilizations. Most of them had one unit defending the capital, and I still had one Falashan Runner. So, I quickly took out Alwah and Merkuria. I even picked up a great leader, which I used to make an army with two Rebels loaded. My civilization was looking good, so good that Saladin wanted it. He attacked me for no reason, as far as I can tell. It took me way too long to be able to reasearch the tech required for alliances, but the Ayyubids certainly made enough of them against me: Ouddai, Kanem-Bornu, Ghana, Mali, Housaland, etc. Fortunately, not all of them were actually sending troops over. Still, I just couldn't compete. I had a stalemate in the north with the Ayyubids, but I was losing territory in the East and Southeast to Ouddai and Kanem-Bornu. Eventually, I was able to sign alliances with Adal against the Ouddai and Yemen against the Ayyubids, but these didn't help too much. Now Beja's one city is also at war with me. Help . . . ;)

Utahjazz I have a question, do you think your Atl-Atl is generic enough clothing wise that if I were to recolor it to look African there shouldn't be a problem?

The clothing is probably fine and it might look good, but I don't think it would suit, because African warriors wouldn't have used the weapon thrown by the Atlatl man. It should really be a full-size spear being hurled, or a bow and arrow.

I did do some colour conversions of the most appropriate units I could find, but often without much success! The most acceptable ones are all in the mod. Luckily both UtahJazz and Kinboat have made a number of "warrior"-ish looking units which were good for this.

I just learnt that the oldest known atlatl is from Europe, and about 20k years old.

However, they never were as important in the Old World as in North America.

Well first game just ended with no-one winning any of the victory conditions after 200 turns. Ayyubida was very close with 4991 culture points--11480 VPS.

I was beat down to 1 city, but in time was able to re-build another close by and was starting to rack in a decent amount of cultural points. It seems to me that the best bet for Ethiopia will be cultural victory if they can survive long enough. The only reason I survived at all were multiple wars broke out all around me and I kinda survived by my enemies being tied up in other wars.

The Makurians built the baqt but never confirmed it and were ahead in culture up to the last 20 turns or so.

One thing that surprised me a little is mounted units can travel across mountains w/o roads.

No tie breaker victory if the game ends.

Wondered if the 1 city cultural point victory condition should be lowered, no one city had much more than 1k.

All-in -all a very interesting--rewarding game..Congrats again, love the variety in the game. Will try Ethiopia again with some different tactics.

Thanks for the comments, dreadknought, and thanks for the nice write-up in Loulong's thread!

I didn't know that no tie-breaker was happening. I can't think why that is, as I thought it was automatic that if no-one's won by the end date the person with the most points wins. I don't know that it's a big problem, especially as it seems somebody usually wins before then (usually Saladin, one way or another!). Interesting to see Makuria doing well enough to build the Baqt - I have never seen the AI do this.

Yes, mounted units can travel across mountains OK, although as far as I know they can in the main game too (it's wheeled units that have difficulties). You're only allowed one kind of "restriction" like this in a game, and I used it to keep most units out of the desert.

The one-city cultural victory is pretty much impossible, but I didn't anticipate it being achieved. Cultural victory in this scenario is civ-wide rather than city-specific.

Well we wont speak again of the disaster of game 2 with Ethiopia/monarch level/. Suffice to say alot of people ganged up on me quickly. Onward to the 3 try.

Do the 3 holy relics produce culture or add some value to Ethiopio, I say that in the context that they should add some type of value to the civ. that protects them, culture seems to make sense.---thx---

Yes, it would be good if they somehow provided culture, but there's no way to do this (the only way to make a unit give culture is if you sacrifice it). Really the relics are just there for Falasha to try to destroy. So the only benefit they give Ethiopia is as defence - which is quite important in itself, given the onslaught Ethiopia faces at the start. If you can think of anything more interesting they can do, that would be good!

Thanks, Ram. I know you like maps! As I say, I think I did get the locations roughly right, but I'm always open to correction. At least I have a bit more of an excuse with porous empires from centuries ago in a foreign continent than I do with famous landmarks in my own country. Damnable Hadrian's Wall!I know this is a slightly dated conversation Plot but I did promise to get back to you on it.

I think you are right about your Ghana and Mali placements actually. The thing which I think lead me to question it is that you have different timescales sitting together, namely an 11th century Ghana with a 14th century Mali. With a little bit of sniffing around on the subject I support you in the decision to include them both despite differing timeframes. I reckon you made a fair decision for gameplay and historical awareness reasons. My doubting perhaps sprang from a lack of understanding of the Ghanaian history of this period (I'll be onto my friends for misleading me!) and a selective case of Malian history reading, which always placed them as more Saharan trade operators in my mind - at least that was their major commercial focus according to my previous knowledge.

Here are some nice links on a site I found earlier in the day on the subject (my first day in which I haven't been madly travelling around N. American cities and highways):

http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/maps/

http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/curriculum/lm7/stu_7aactivityfour.html

Hope these are helpful. Check out the info on many other parts of historical Africa by going through the internal links on the site. Rich ground for further African scenarios me thinks!

PS. As an aside, you may remember me mentioning somewhere on CFC an East African kingdom which was infamous for and obsessed with building these large phallic monuments - well those links reminded me of the name - Axum!

Yes, it would be good if they somehow provided culture, but there's no way to do this (the only way to make a unit give culture is if you sacrifice it). Really the relics are just there for Falasha to try to destroy. So the only benefit they give Ethiopia is as defence - which is quite important in itself, given the onslaught Ethiopia faces at the start. If you can think of anything more interesting they can do, that would be good!


Hmmm, Well maybe they (in the rare event survive) have a quest/task to gain a gold bonus, have to have a realistic need to send them somewhere though, maybe a bonus to get them to a neutral safe haven.

I think Im close to figuring out how to win with Ethiopio/monarch. Lost 4 times now but have had a revelation now as to why.

Not possible, unfortunately - the VP location/treasure unit system is being used for the West African trade routes! CivIII is such a pain to do this kind of thing - you have to twist and adapt the things it's got built in and you can't really add new ideas of your own. Good luck with Ethiopia, anyway...

[Ram] Thanks for the links. There's some interesting stuff there. It would be fun to have a scenario about Great Zimbabwe, though I don't think I'd be the person to do it!

Wow, I finally found time to play this. And I must say, Nice Job!:goodjob: I am playing as Mali. I started exploring. I've explored all I can. Now Hausaland declares war on me after I refuse to give them slavery. I wipe out one of their cities with my Sahel Archers. Then the scums get Benin to declare war on me. I then get Songhai to help me and declare war on both of them. I send my force of archers into Benin. I wipe out the Benin civilization. Also, I declare peace (temporary) with Hausaland. Thats where I saved.

Interesting notes:Ethiopia survived, but barely. They have 1 city left in the mountains. Also, Ghana is being very isolated. They won't let my units through to explore. I was about to invade them when I got war declared on me.

This is one of my favorite scenarios of Civ3!!! Plotinus, you did a great job devising this scenario!!!

BTW, has anyone beaten the game as Ethopia? Ethopia is hard, but they have the most intresting storyline!!! How can you beat the Adals as Ethopia? They just keep attacking with their units and eventually they overpower me!!!

Thanks, EDaddy! I'm glad someone with that avatar likes this one. Although I must say that I think Shiro's Musa LH (which is the one I'm using in this) is much better than the Civ IV Musa. Naturally.

Ethiopia is certainly meant to be a serious challenge. I think the key to survival lies in not overstretching your forces in the early turns. If you try to retain all your cities, even if you succeed your troops will be too thinly spread to survive the next attack. So you have to make the decision which cities to abandon, and whether it's worth leaving a skeleton defence there to take some of the attackers down. But of course, you still want to keep as many cities as is feasible, and have a basis from which to counterattack. Then you have to decide how many of your resources to devote to (a) wiping out Falasha (b) engaging the Adalian invaders (c) settling and defending new areas and (d) building cultural improvements. Tricky!

Well, I finally got around to playing another game of Civ. My last game was six months ago when I very briefly tested the Beta of this scenario. I thought it was about time I tried out "the Desert" for real!

I tried Ethiopia for starters, without realising that war with Adal was never ending! An excellent challenge but one that ultimately ended in the total destruction of the Falasha and the Adal :D In the end an easy cultural victory.

I also tried my hand at the Falsha and was surprised at how easy it was to annihilate the Ethiopians, of course it did help that the Adal were keeping them busy in the south, not that they appreciated my help. I was well on my way to destroying them as well before I won a Victory Point victory :smug:

A great, fast moving, action packed game. I don't think it is as challenging as "the Rood" as there is less diplomatic interaction required, but then it can be played to victory in 3-4 hours instead of 9-10. After playing one game of RFRE, on and off, for more than a month this is a refreshing change!!

Another great game from the Plotinus Publishing House :goodjob:

A small suggestion after playing the two mountain civs; make the bottom two rows of mountain tiles un-settleable (is that a word?!) to stop towns (like in the example below) from disappearing off of the bottom edge of the map.

Yeah, Plotinus this scenario is one of the tops.
Anyways, My Malinese Sahel archers have managed to destroy the civilizations of Ghana, Songhai, and Haasa.
Perhaps a cheaper spearman or a better defensive one could stop my ruthless slaugtering. Anyways, a lot of the cities are size 1 so West Africa is riddled with ruins.
I have 55 turns to go and soon I will try and launch the biggest invasion ever seen to Central Africa.

Still havnt won yet, though last try was close. Was ahead with about 50 turns left when Ayyubids did a sneak attack even though I was on polite terms with them, though I do play with most aggresive AI on. Wasnt prepared to fight them and sort of held my own but lost ground to them. Still came in 2nd in culture and VP that game.

One thing that surprised me was that the Ayyubids achieved a Culture point victory with around 20 turns remaining, but the game continued until time ran out. It didnt declare a winner, rather just that I had suffered a defeat from the time limit.

I have figured out my (order of tasks) to win, just didnt quite pull it off yet, and dont wont to give anything away. Once again Makuria built the Baqt (2nd time) out of several games but have yet too see anyone confirm it.

It's good to see that I've succeeded in creating a real challenge with Ethiopia - being a not-very-good player myself I usually seem to make things too easy for everyone else. The beta-testers commented on how easy Ethiopia seemed to be, so it looks like that problem, at least, was sorted!

[Asclepius] Good idea about the mountains. I shall look into that.

[dreadknought] Interesting that you're playing with maximum AI aggression. In fact the AI tend to be much more aggressive in this scenario anyway, because it's a relatively small and crowded map: this makes them much more prone to go to war. If Saladin is getting too big for his boots you may want to try it with the normal aggression setting.

Plotinus- I have not posted on your scenario before, I am mostly tied up with various WW II and Teturkhan's big map scenarios, but I did give this a try last week. About 5 times with Falasha(That 'lose a unit and die' effect, mostly.:rolleyes: ) and about 7 times with Ethiopia. Eventually got winning games, but there is a learning curve with each civ I've seen so far. Which is really nice, and a real feat to see all the different victory conditions coming into play in a single scenario. A truly refined and excellent design, and it plays out very fast too, I love it! :love:

I do think if you survive the opening with Falasha you are set to roll. If you get an army to put your two starting runners in it is all over. I did edit your scenario to stop culture flips, but I do that in every game I play since I loathe that part of the game with a passion. I'm sorry if that goes counter to your intent, but hey, I played Ethiopia that way too.:crazyeye:

Not sure how other's see them, but playing Ethiopia I could not survive the early rush without going on the offensive myself. The Falasha and Adal both have great offensive units but they have poor defense; hitting them first seems to be the way to go. It was extremely bloody in any case. I am in the early phases of some of the other civs now, will post again when I can. Great Job! :goodjob:

So far, Mali & Alwah are my favorites. Here's why?

Pros of Mali

Mali is all about trade. That means all you have to do is get a good economy going and you're set! You don't have to worry about conquest (although I do go after the Benins) that much.

Cons of Mali

Weak offensive units.

Also only in the case of Mali, you need 2 ROP aggreements to get trade going -- one for either Songhi or Ghana and one for Almoriads or Hafisids (I have NEVER gotten ROP from Ayybids -- even on good terms.)

In the AIs case, the trade AI civs focuses on conquest over trade!!!! This makes the trade civs one of the less intresting civs to observe.

Pros of Alwah

Fast (and I mean very fast) workers. Also they can fight and hold their own in battle which is nice!!!

The diplomatic game!!! This is one of the reasons why Civ3 is great!!! Get along with your friends and they'll support you in the end!!!

Cons of Alwah

Weak offensive units (again)!!!

Weak defensive units as well unless you get Iron or a Desert Monastery.

Nevertheless, I played Alwah with only 3 cities and I was able to hold my own against Ayybids!!! Unfortunately, they are less than 100 points away from a cultural win! :(

[Sasebo] Thanks for the comments! Yes, Falasha+early army=absolute walkover. Could be a heap of fun, though. Good luck with the other civs - let us know how it goes.

[EDaddy] Interesting analysis! Of course the weak military of both the West Africans and the Nubians is one of those things you must play around. The need for ROP treaties is also one of the problems you must deal with as the West Africans - and of course, if you're playing Mali it's good to try to block Ghana's expansion east along the Niger, so you have direct access to the desert.

All the Desert Monasteries are by Makuria, as I'm sure you've noticed... That helps to offset the superior location and Worker efficiency of Alwah. Makuria clearly start with an advantage over Alwah (two cities rather than one), but a good player as Alwah should always be able to overtake them through aggressive expansion. Watch the diplomacy, though!

One of the Blue-civ citys cultural flop to me and I was surprise when it had an option to "Airlift" it, although there are no other airports though. LOL

Ok , I finally won with Ethipio with over 5k culture at the end of 200 turns but Ayyubids had more victory points . I had more than 1000 culture points than Ayyubids and at the end the game said I had suffered a embarrasing defeat? Ayyubids also had 25% of POP at the end, so Im confused how the apparent tie is being scored here.

Well, you have to have more than twice the culture rating of your closest rival in order to win a Culture Victory, so it sounds like although you got enough culture, Saladin was too close behind to let you win. So I suppose he won on VP. Damned Saladin!

This scenario is incredable Its replay value is huge.
Some notes, I played one game as a trade rout nation and it was pretty good until the entire world declared war on me, I don't know why, I hadn't been bugging anyone and had been trading teritory maps.
I played my next game at the Ethiopian rebles. By 1048 Etheopia was no more. To me the rebles seem to strong to start out with, but if the AI played them they might be too weak. The only idea I have is to give then a bunch of swordmen, put them right next to the city they should take first and give the a settaler in a non game play area stuck on non sttelable terrain.
I played on Emperor level.

GREAT mod, simpliy fantastic.

I just want to say that I've played a lot of scenarios in the past 3 weeks, but I like your scenario the best!!! It's a breath of fresh air to play -- aside from Saladin!!! :lol:

Isn't there any way to handicap Saladin? The same goes for the Adals too, I think they are too difficult too!!! And I would like to see the AI actively participate in the trade battle too. Other than that, it is a great scenario.

P.S. You're absolutely right about Malakwa. Although Alwah has the "fast worker", Malakwa is MUCH easier to play than Alwah!!!

Great scenario... played as Alwah and conquered part of Falasha and all of Beja before being completely obliterated by Makuria, Adal, Ayyubids and Hausa... who were the worst with those darn things that run into your land and ruin your land!!! :(

Well, I beat the game as Makuria. I signed an alliance against Hafsids and they proceeded to sign an alliance with Kamen against me. I eventually raided all of the Kamen cities but one with Hausa wiping out Kamen. I then signed a mutual agreement with Ayybids which drew me in a war against Falasha. After failing to get a diplomatic win the first time with the Baqt, I wiped Falasha out of the game!!!

I then made friends with Songhai & Hafsids and got a diplomatic victory on my second try with 18 turns left on the clock!!! Boy, do i love this scenario!!!

Thanks for the comments, all!

[EDaddy] That's great! The first reported win as Makuria (I never managed it - always lost the popularity contest to Saladin...). Interesting that a diplomatic win is possible with such warmongering.

Now, of course the challenge is to win as each playable civ in turn...

Thanks for the comments, all!

[EDaddy] That's great! The first reported win as Makuria (I never managed it - always lost the popularity contest to Saladin...). Interesting that a diplomatic win is possible with such warmongering.

Now, of course the challenge is to win as each playable civ in turn...

Well, just so you know, the only two times I was at a major war was vs. Kamen and vs. Falasha. Most of the time, I was at peace trying to make friends every chance I got. If I was at war the entire game, there is no way you can get a diplomatic victory. But signing alliances and mutual agreements is key to making friendship but once you do, you'll get thrown in a war you don't expect (like the war vs. Kamen). I expected to go to war eventually vs. Falasha, since I had a mutual agreement with Ayybids and the Ayybids' target at that time were the Falashas. It's ironic though that I dealt the final blow after all the damage the Ayybids did to Falasha. :D

After the first attempt on confirming the Baqt, I observed who abstained and quickly made more friends -- particually with the abstainers. Eliminating Falasha eliminated one vote entirely. Ethopia and Ghana were eliminated very early in the game. As you know, Kamen was mostly eliminated by me, but I was stupid to sign a peace treaty for them when I could of finished them off. Fortunately, Hausa did just that!!! Beja was almost eliminated, but not quite. I then gave 100 gold to Hafsids just before the vote and they probably voted for me too. And yes I was up against Saladin, but since Saladin was at the heat of war most of the time and made most of the civs mad, he got very little in the way of votes.

P.S. On a side note, Hausa did a very good job in their attempt to dominate North Africa!!! I love to see the AI "play the game"!

I tried my hand as the Kanem-Bornu empire. I started out ok until the Ayyubids, my nemesis in every game, launched a totally unprovoked attack on me, while I was in the middle of a very successful war against Makuria. As a result, I had to yield one city to Saladin, and cancel the war against Makuria so that I could defend myself from the Ayyubids. Later in the game, I captured an Ouddai city by culture flip, and then decided to take out the Songhai, which I largely did. Unfortunately, I had the same problem, namely that another faction declared war on me while I was in the middle of another war. Adal declared war, but this time I was able to keep nearly all of my holdings. In the 16th century, I decided to take out Alwah, as I had gotten a leader and formed a Kanuri cavalry army out of it. The effort was very successful, but I still lost to the Hausa on VP.

I tried my hand as the Kanem-Bornu empire. I started out ok until the Ayyubids, my nemesis in every game, launched a totally unprovoked attack on me, while I was in the middle of a very successful war against Makuria. As a result, I had to yield one city to Saladin, and cancel the war against Makuria so that I could defend myself from the Ayyubids. Later in the game, I captured an Ouddai city by culture flip, and then decided to take out the Songhai, which I largely did. Unfortunately, I had the same problem, namely that another faction declared war on me while I was in the middle of another war. Adal declared war, but this time I was able to keep nearly all of my holdings. In the 16th century, I decided to take out Alwah, as I had gotten a leader and formed a Kanuri cavalry army out of it. The effort was very successful, but I still lost to the Hausa on VP.

I tried my hand at the Kanem nations (Hausa) one time and I did horribly!!! Its hard to keep up in technology while waging a war!!! Futhermore I had 300+ gold and Kanem declared war on me taking away 3 of my cities. When i declared peace all of the 300+ gold was gone!!! Basically, there was no recovery from that!

What really annoys me about the Kanem nations is that you get NO workers at the start of the game. That means you have to keep expanding and expanding and if you don't, you'll go bankrupt!!! I do better playing a trade or Nubian nation myself.

You definitely need to develop a new way of playing for these civs. Obviously you need to research Nomadism first, and then make a beeline for stables and build them everywhere. Build cities close together, and expand, expand, expand - by peaceful means or not! Then you can choose whether to go for the "jihad" branch of the tech tree and continue this policy by even more violent methods, or make a beeline for Agriculture and build up some infrastructure instead. Somehow, the first option always seems more fun...

I've been playing many games of this scenario, and have come up with some tips on how to get the most out of it.

The West African factions are the easiest to play, especially Mali. You play them the same way as any other C3C game. Try to make a beeline to Trade, so that you can build Wangara traders and take your trade goods to the trading posts along the Mediterranean. I've noticed that, for some reason, the trading post near Alexandria is rarely occupied by foreign camel units, so try to head that way. Trade goods are produced frequently, so you don't have to research every path just so you can trade all the types of goods.

The central African factions are more of a challenge, because you can't build workers to link up your cities and resources. Instead, you have stables that do that. Start out by researching nomadism, so that you can build nomads (settlers) and so that you can change to the nomadic federation gov't. Then go for dyes and the tech that enables stables (can't remember which that is). The easiest faction to play here is the Kanem-Bornu. They have access to horses from the beginning, which will allow you to build their all-powerful Kanuri cavalry, once you research plundering (which should be last to research, after the above). Since you can't build roads until late in the game, try to build all your cities right on top of luxury or strategic resources. This will allow you to share them to all your cities through the stables improvement. Try to seize any source of indigo early on, because you can build dye pits all over your empire by linking indigo to all your cities through the stables . This will increase your gpt as well as culture, which is otherwise hard to come by with these factions.

The Nubian factions are very difficult to play. As they're intended to be peaceful builders, just concentrate on cranking out settlers and workers as early as possible. You will need to have good roads so that your nubian archers can run around and hold off any possible invasions.

The Falasha and Ethiopians are also difficult to play, as they're essentially constantly locked in war against someone. As Falasha, try to take out at least the major, non-mountainous Ethiopian cities early. Focus research on military sciences to keep up. Make sure to appease the Adalians with sycophantic gestures if necessary. As Ethiopia, don't wait for the Falasha to attack you. If you see any opening, attack them. They will have few defenders. It will not be easy to defend your cities early on, so always be on the offensive. The same goes for the Adalians. They'll be in locked war throughout the game. I've had an interesting game as the Ethiopians where I took out the Falasha early and then conquered half of Adal.

That's about all the advice I have.

Btw, I just finished a game as the Kanem-Bornu, again, and this time I won by VP. Almost made it to domination victory, but only had 20%/25% of the map.

Plotinus, I don't think I've ever had a single game where I have reached past 2/3 of the tech tree. Is this intentional?

What really annoys me about the Kanem nations is that you get NO workers at the start of the game. That means you have to keep expanding and expanding and if you don't, you'll go bankrupt!!! I do better playing a trade or Nubian nation myself.

See my advice below. The trick is to settle right on top of the resources and build stables to connect them.

The Hausa and Ouddai are difficult to play if you try to be a warmonger. The Hausa's UU is the Fulani spearthrower, which can be useful against the other factions, since then have only a defense of 2, but without roads, they are slow-moving. The Ouddai are left as the peaceful building civ for the central Africans. Their UU is the Maba spearman, which has a defense of 3. Like I said, there are no roads as these civs, so you have to be careful going to war, as it'll take forever to reach the enemy frontier, and if they come at you from elsewhere, you can find your whole empire in ruins in no time.

See my advice below. The trick is to settle right on top of the resources and build stables to connect them.

The Hausa and Ouddai are difficult to play if you try to be a warmonger. The Hausa's UU is the Fulani spearthrower, which can be useful against the other factions, since then have only a defense of 2, but without roads, they are slow-moving. The Ouddai are left as the peaceful building civ for the central Africans. Their UU is the Maba spearman, which has a defense of 3. Like I said, there are no roads as these civs, so you have to be careful going to war, as it'll take forever to reach the enemy frontier, and if they come at you from elsewhere, you can find your whole empire in ruins in no time.

Yeah, I know all about that. I learned that the hard way. I had a good Hausa game going and had to start over, because my cities weren't right on the resources. Also, no workers means low commerence, low production, and as you pointed out, slow travel. Even so, the Kanem nations are stil hard to play. Although you claim that the Nubian nations are hard, I enjoyed playing the Nubian nations more than I did the Kanem nations. Just my opinion.

It's just a matter of style. Maybe I'll try my hand as a Nubian faction next time.

What I forgot to mention was that you have to avoid trading maps and communications throughout the game. The reason is that you don't want the Arab factions learning about you or your location as long as possible, because it is inevitable that they will try to bully you and you won't be able to do much about it. If you do get into contact with them, try to be as obsequeous as possible. Make ROP agreements and trade agreements, just for the heck of it.

Recorded a win with the Hausaland (monarch/most ag.).

VP win 27015--Falasha next closest 10330-----Turn 189

20% pop only 9% of area---

Key was who I picked to fight/tight city set-up/keeping ayyubids on my good side.

Will try another as time permits.

Are you working on anything else along these lines as far as historicals go?

Excellent work! We've had recorded wins now from all five groups, though not from all playable civs...

I'm not planning any more scenarios for the time being, having made the two that I really wanted to do. However, I am putting the final touches to the revised version of "The Rood...", which I'm quite pleased with and which I think looks much better than the original, so watch out for that.

looks like another winner! consider it downloaded :)

I played as Kanem yesterday and built dye pits in every city. Once the units starting popping out, I had financial troubles.

Oh, BTW, I found some bugs in the scenario. For Divine Monarchy, you are supposed to get 8 free units/city, but according to the military advisor, you only get 2 free units a city. This really ruined my game plan!!!

Also on the Nomadic Freedom government, it says that the max rate is 80% yet the slider won't slide beyond 60%! This really discourages me from playing a Kanem nation in the first place!

It's been said a few time already but this really is a fast paced game
and highly replayable. Just a few turns away from points victory as
Falasha. What fun it's been. Ethiopia went down rather easily so I
am big and expanded westward against the weaker nations.
Ayyubids declared war on me but never came down for a visit.
Meanwhile, Assasins are running rampant in their territory
destroying all tile improvements. Got a couple of their cities
even with their super musketeers. Didn't want to keep them
so I gave them away (is that cheating??) to Yemen and idiot Bejan.

Guess I have to try this again from a different group.
Try them all eventually though.

Thanks again!!!!!

Playing Falasha is fun, isn't it? I won as Falasha on VP victory, only my rivals were the Adals. Barely won a VP victory over them!

Playing Falasha is fun, isn't it? I won as Falasha on VP victory, only my rivals were the Adals. Barely won a VP victory over them!

Oh, that's cool.
Adal declared war on me soon after we jointly destroyed Ethiopia.
They almost got me at first but I finally conquer them during the
second war between us. The Falasha Runners saved me.

The only rival I had was Ayyubid
and they did declare war but never paid a visit.
They had no answer for the Assasins.

But you right, is much fun to play Falasha.

Finally won with Ethipio---time ran out---I win by tiebreaker on VP

14920 VP---14% land area---24% pop---very close on pop.

Ayyubids 8880 VP---13% area--- 19% POP

Finally managed complete defeat of Adal also. With wins as Hausaland/Ethipio in the books Im resting on this one for a bit, but I will play them all in time......Thx again for the great fun here. Looking to get your new version of Rood, as I have not played that one at all.

Added--It took me around a dozen games to win as Ethipio/// I like that--really pushed me.

Great stuff. Glad to have given a bit of a challenge there.

When I've finished the Rood update I shall do the MP version of this scenario. I said at the start I wanted to wait for any bugs to be weeded out before I did that, and it thankfully looks like there aren't many, so that won't take long. I may see if I can make one or two changes to the main game, too - perhaps make the Ayyubids slightly less powerful, and see if there's any way to make things slightly harder for the Falasha too...

Falasha seems to be very much boom-or-bust - either die straight off, or they become a great power. Not unrelatedly, AI Ethiopia tends to die alot. I think it would be good if Ethiopia was given a better chance to stay in the race.

I could give Ethiopia a few more units (again) and see what happens. One problem is that the AI is just bad at playing Ethiopia anyway, largely because of its poor military tactics. It generally hurls everything it has at the Falasha and the advancing Adalians without much hope of success, and then gets mashed by the next wave because it's spread its forces too thin. It has no notion of tactical retreat, which is essential if you're to play Ethiopia well.

Perhaps some wall-type improvements for a couple of its cities might help.

You might want to consider immobile defenders.

Now that's a good idea. I shall think about it...

Great stuff. Glad to have given a bit of a challenge there.

When I've finished the Rood update I shall do the MP version of this scenario. I said at the start I wanted to wait for any bugs to be weeded out before I did that, and it thankfully looks like there aren't many, so that won't take long. I may see if I can make one or two changes to the main game, too - perhaps make the Ayyubids slightly less powerful, and see if there's any way to make things slightly harder for the Falasha too...

And please fix some of the "goverment" bugs for Central Africa. You are supposed to get 8 free units/city under Divine Monarchy, yet you only get 2 free units/city.

I could give Ethiopia a few more units (again) and see what happens. One problem is that the AI is just bad at playing Ethiopia anyway, largely because of its poor military tactics. It generally hurls everything it has at the Falasha and the advancing Adalians without much hope of success, and then gets mashed by the next wave because it's spread its forces too thin. It has no notion of tactical retreat, which is essential if you're to play Ethiopia well.

Perhaps some wall-type improvements for a couple of its cities might help.

I would love for you to make Ethopia easier to play. Every time I start an Ethopia game, the Adal units are too powerful and I can't overtake them through offense or defense. It discourages me from playing them in the first place.

At least make the Ethopian port town (Adlis, I beleve) and the obliesk city (Axum) harder to conquer. Having one unit (and an archer at that) and no chance to regroup your forces is no fun at all. Of course, that would make Falasha harder to play, but that's alright with me. I think Falasha is too easy to play once you get your first city and defeat the Ethopians completely.
I could give Ethiopia a few more units (again) and see what happens. One problem is that the AI is just bad at playing Ethiopia anyway, largely because of its poor military tactics. It generally hurls everything it has at the Falasha and the advancing Adalians without much hope of success, and then gets mashed by the next wave because it's spread its forces too thin. It has no notion of tactical retreat, which is essential if you're to play Ethiopia well.

Perhaps some wall-type improvements for a couple of its cities might help.

From what I saw, Ethopia will either be eliminated early, or it will do exceptionally well. In my Alwah game (in which I failed miserably), Ethopia was the most dangerous force around. Although Ethopia got ganged up eventually, Ethopia had a large territiory and musketeers!!!! Ethopia also got 5k culture, but the Ayybids had at least 2500 culture, so it was invalid. Evenually though, Ethopia won on VP.

I managed to build the Baqt, but since I was friends with Ethopia and he was my competitor anyways, I didn't get many votes (most of the nations were anti-Ethopia). In addition, my "brothers", the Makurias died early when they declared war on Ayybids. Ayybids wiped the floor with Makuria. And at the very start, most of the nations (including Makuria) were "annoyed" at me from the start. I had no chance at all.

Finally won with Ethipio---time ran out---I win by tiebreaker on VP

14920 VP---14% land area---24% pop---very close on pop.

Ayyubids 8880 VP---13% area--- 19% POP

Finally managed complete defeat of Adal also. With wins as Hausaland/Ethipio in the books Im resting on this one for a bit, but I will play them all in time......Thx again for the great fun here. Looking to get your new version of Rood, as I have not played that one at all.

Added--It took me around a dozen games to win as Ethipio/// I like that--really pushed me.

Tell me, how did you win as Ethopia and more importantly, how did you deal with Falasha and Adal at the start of the game?

Oh, that's cool.
Adal declared war on me soon after we jointly destroyed Ethiopia.
They almost got me at first but I finally conquer them during the
second war between us. The Falasha Runners saved me.

The only rival I had was Ayyubid
and they did declare war but never paid a visit.
They had no answer for the Assasins.

But you right, is much fun to play Falasha.

Here's how I did it...

First, I wiped out three Ethopian cities before the Adals did. After that, what I usually do in the military civs is to go after the weaker nations (i.e. Makuria and especially Alwah). Anyways, not knowing that Ouddai had a defense 3 unit, I declared war on them. Got one of their cities in the mountains, but in the end, they took over and managed to put me in debt too. Big, big mistake, one I won't repeat again.

Later, I went after Alwah and took over all of their inital cities. That was a very profitable war indeed. There was one on the mountains at the edge of the map, but I let them keep that one. Adal then declared war on me, ouch!!! All I could do there is to kill their bowmen before they killed my units. I even used boulders on them (how fun is that).

Way later, Ouddai declared war, but this time I was ready for them. I had Falasha runners by that time and evenually assassians (and took full advantage of both units). I eventually made peace with them only to get thrown back in the war by Makuria. By the end of the scenario, Makuria and I destroyed Ouddai and I managed to beat Adal's 14k VP score to win the game. How fun it is to play Falasha!

EDaddy, enough with all the posting already!

Take your time and just post once please :-)

Sorry about that, I had alot to say and alot of replys to make too. But I agree, I shoud of condensed everything into one post. Oh well.

The Ghana game I started and posted about a few pages back got finished off and the conclusion was a comfortable VP Victory with only the Adal coming close.

Basically there was only one intense period for Ghana and the rest was plain sailing. I found myself embroiled in a war with Hausa and Adal when I settled the source of Slaves / Tribes situated east of Ghana's land and to the north of Hausa. I had to produce troops almost exclusively and feed heavy streams of them to this besieged city and the Hausas certainly had plenty of (quite weak) troops to throw at me. But they were all fended off quite admirably by the Ghanaian Swordsman, sometimes with a clear and present danger of the city being taken.

In all this time the city that had been founded on the gold source to Ghana's east was busy popping out treasures and they were collecting away. I was building roads through the desert to found a trading station on the salt source. I had also settled a source of something else in the fertile sub-Saharan lands during the war.

Tech-wise I ignored military options once I had the very basic camel and the Ghanaian UU. I simply focused on the trade techs that would allow me 'treasure popping' improvements. Gold and slaves were the ones I specialised in. Never made it to salt.

When the war was over and everything was safe I started rolling out the camel traders and sending the treasures to modern day Morocco and Tunisia (I had refused to give the Ayyubids some ridiculous demand half way through the Hausa war, so going to Egypt was never an option). To my glee I never found the trade/VPL tile taken up so I signed ROPs and sat the two tiles and just kept running the treasures in with no contest.

Observations about the West Africans:

The West Africans are indeed very easy to win with. This is due to their location for trading but its also that no one seemed to mount a significant attack. Hausa were the only ones who threatened anything but their troops were not up to scratch tech, numbers or power wise. Kanem Borno did very little when signed in against them. Adal always gave a sense of power but were never close enough, ditto all the Arabs like the Ayyubids. I'd bump up the barbarian threat in the desert because this was the only one I faced really.

Maybe I was just lucky, maybe I was just too damn good or maybe I should increase the difficulty level next time.

It sounds like you were quite lucky there. The Hausa are typically pretty formidable if they go to war with you, and the Kanem-Bornu can be a menace as well. The AI generally plays the Hausa better than in reality and the Kanem-Bornu worse.

I don't know if anyone has tried being Songhai yet - I think the Hausa can really give you problems then! They should certainly be the hardest of the West African civs. But I agree that this group is probably the easiest to win with, mainly because the AI can't handle the trade route thing very well. I did my best to get the AI to do so but alas, it was not to be.

When I've finished with my Rood... update (promised so long ago, and actually nearly ready now) I shall do the MP version for this one. I think this scenario should be pretty good in MP, especially for the West African civs (because then you really can have a proper race over the Sahara) and for Abyssinia (it would be good to have two skilled players hacking each other apart as Ethiopia and Falasha!).

It sounds like you were quite lucky there. The Hausa are typically pretty formidable if they go to war with you, and the Kanem-Bornu can be a menace as well. The AI generally plays the Hausa better than in reality and the Kanem-Bornu worse.

I don't know if anyone has tried being Songhai yet - I think the Hausa can really give you problems then! They should certainly be the hardest of the West African civs. But I agree that this group is probably the easiest to win with, mainly because the AI can't handle the trade route thing very well. I did my best to get the AI to do so but alas, it was not to be.

When I've finished with my Rood... update (promised so long ago, and actually nearly ready now) I shall do the MP version for this one. I think this scenario should be pretty good in MP, especially for the West African civs (because then you really can have a proper race over the Sahara) and for Abyssinia (it would be good to have two skilled players hacking each other apart as Ethiopia and Falasha!).

Actually I did two weeks ago. Songhai is nothing like Mali at all. You start with no cities (which means Mali (and especially Ghana) will start way ahead of you in the tech race). I had to restart over and over until I could trade an initial tech with either Mail or Ghana.

***Warning - Spoliers Ahead***

There are two prime places for your second city. If you go east, you get slaves & horses. You need horses for your UU, the Heavy Cavalry (which I didn't use at all). If you go west though, you get gold!!! I chose the salt/horses route and Ghana got the gold city (although Hausa actually got it one time!)

I founded my third city east of my second in order to get salt.

Anyways, once you get Slavery, Trade, & Salt Trade, it plays just like Mali. In fact, Salt Trade was a turning point for me since I had a tech that Mali, Ghana, & Benin didn't have!

As for my game, thaere is always a civ that is ganged up on. Usually in my diplo games, it is Ouddai. In my Songhai game though, it was the Almorviads. I had a ROP with them at first and then signed one with Ayybids since Almorviads were ganged up on. I was very friendly with most of the civs in this game. In fact, so friendly, that I was able to go through Bejan/Makurian country (instead of thorugh the dangerous Sahara) to get to the Ayybids!!! Eventually I won, no contest!!!

The closest other win for this game was by Makuria who was buliding the Baqt when I won.

My very first game in this scen was as Songhai, if you'll recall. First I got savaged by the Malinese and Hausa, but once I hit Heavy Cavalry, it was pretty much game over for the AIs, since the HC then had a cost of zero!

Personally, Songhai were very low down on the 'oh that'd be a neat civ to bash the hell out of everyone with' list. They just seemed like sitting ducks. But the mention of heavy cavalry and game over for the AI has got me sitting up! :D

I gave Kanem-Bornu another try, and decided to go for for full out tamerlanesque nomad mayhem. Plenty of blood flowed and plenty of skulls cracked, but to make a long history short, time finally ran out just before the Ayyubids were going to win a VP victory. I conquered a vast swathe of land, stretching from the edge of the Ethiopian highlands to the vicinity of Ouagadougou, but it somehow just wasn't enough.

Some notes & remarks:

Ethiopia died early on. Again. The only other civs to bite the dust were the Beninites, Ouaddai, Bejans, and Songhainese.

It was rather annoying to be no longer able to build Chari Spearmen after discovering Ottoman Contacts, since building Flintlockers wasn't exactly done quickly in my small, tightly bunched cities.

Staying Nomadic the whole time was probably a mistake - I got in serious economic trouble later on. This was compounded by the rate cap for Jihadist State; it doesn't want to let me put the tax rate at above 50%!

The Hausa got very strong early on, taking over Benin, and colonizing a swathe of terrain down along the rainforest age into the upper White Nile area. However, they eventually got dogpiled (I ended up taking Biram from Saladin!), and were reduced to the West African coast. The resulting Adalian cities in the jungles of Central Africa looked a tad amusing.

The Fanatic just doesn't seem worth building next to the Kanuri Cavalry or Jihadists.

The volcanos in the Sinai look pretty out of place (not to mention absurdly, gargauntuanly huge!), I'm sure you agree. If you replace the Volcanos.pcx file in the scen's Art/Terrain folder with a (renamed) copy of the regular Mountains.pcx, they'll look like regular mountains instead.

Some notes from a game as Mali:

The Ayyubids took a cultural victory this time (whole-civ cultural victory is only 5k? Is that supposed to be so?), which I was quite unprepared for - I thought I had the game in the bag, since I was raking in VPs with the Wangara Traders.

The Ehtiopians lasted all the way to ~1280. This was because the Falashans did poorly early on - they eventually ended up getting wiped out by the Adalians and Ouaddai.

Speaking of Ouaddai, they built a huge empire in the southern Sudan, becoming the biggest central African civ.

Speaking of Falasha, they were to only ones I ever went to war with (to take a formerly Songhainese city on the Guinean coast they had for some reason captured).

Desert warfare would be much more exciting if the advanced barbarian was a fast unit.

Some very good ideas here. I especially like the idea of a fast barbarian unit - I agree this could make things much hairier in the desert. Indeed I think I may need to pre-place some more barbarian camps in the desert, to give the human West African player a bit more of a challenge getting through it. Historically, of course, there would have been less danger from bandits but more from the landscape itself, so it evens out, as it were. As for the volcanoes, I did actually intend to do that, but evidently forgot. Doh!

Have you tried giving desert a "disease" factor to represent the danger from the landscape ?

Disease affects only fortified units.

Plotinus, I must say that your scenario and your intepertation of the Mali and the other African cultures is better than Sid's. First the city placement. Playing the Mali in Civ4 after playing your scenario, I noticed some city names that are from other African cultures in your game. The order goes like this.

Timbuktu OK
Djenne OK
Kumbi Saleh (Ghana capital)
Gao (I don't remember if it was Ghana or Songhai...)
Walata (This is the odd one -- this is the capital of the Ouddai!)
Niani OK
Adwaghost (Ghana/Songhai -- don't remember -- no I think this is a Mali city too)

Also, the unique unit for the Mali appears in the ancient era, but since the Mail is a 14th cenury figure, it should have its unique unit in the medieval age. No offense from Sid, but I like your Mali unique unit better although I never got to use it since I win on Mail too early...

Mali in your scenario is much, much better than the Civ 4 Mali. In your scenario, you get a feel for the Mali culture more so than in Civ4.

Thanks! Of course I don't have Civ IV yet so I can't comment on how they implemented this civ - although I did notice that they had Timbuktu as the capital, which is like making New York the capital of the US. It does make sort of sense to give them major cities of neighbouring civs, and especially Gao, which although founded by the Songhai was incorporated into the Mali empire and only later gained independence once again. I don't know if Kumbi Saleh and Audaghost were important cities during the period of Mali's dominance, but I suspect not, because one of the key reasons why Ghana faltered and Mali took over was that Mali had better city placement (on the river and next to the desert, rather than *in* the desert!). Walata sounds completely wrong!

You're right that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to give them an ancient UU, although I suppose a case could be made for claiming that although chronologically medieval, Mali at this time was no more advanced than an ancient civ. Although I bet it wouldn't be a very good case.

Still, I suppose that a civ is always going to be more accurately represented in a scenario than in epic-style. Plus, of course, we should probably be grateful that Firaxis saw fit to include a major post-antiquity African empire at all!

But still, they could of done better than what they did. Walata?!?! When I noticed that was a city name (the second time i played Mali) I thought it was weird indeed. That city has nothing to do with the Mali -- that's a whole new African culture altogether!!!

Well, it took them three sequels to fix the atrocious city list for Germany, so I suppose we'll see a decent one for Mali in Civilization VII or so. :p

No, by then Firaxis will have taken note of all the comments along the lines of "Mali? WTF is that?" and replaced them with Zulus once more, because they're more in line with what most of their customers expect Africans to be like...

Unfortunately, you may very well be right ... :sad:


On a quite different tune, I note that the name of the West Africans' horsemen, Farasiya, is notably similar to furusiya, the Mameluke's art of war. Is there a connection?

Plotinus can I ask you a question?

TLC: I think that that may be because the Mali probably assimilated a few arabic words into their own language, due to Islam.

Of course you can.

I didn't answer TLC's question because I haven't the faintest idea! But I wouldn't be surprised.

I've heard that the Mali's are related somehow to the ancient egyptians believe it or not

Is Southern African native music(zulu or Kenya for example) the same as North African(Mali, Ethiopian etc.) .

I don't know much about it. But I can't believe that the Malians have got much to do with the ancient Egyptians. They're just not from the same part of the world. As for music, I don't know anything about southern or eastern African music, but I do know that Malian music is quite distinctive today. Some of it is in the soundtrack to the scenario. Ali Farka Touré is probably the most famous representative. Toumani Diabate is also very good - he made a great album with Taj Mahal a few years ago.

Well, when i think of African music I think of the beautiful vocals like in Peter Gabriel's music or that song I sent you that my old teacher made. I don't think Ethiopian or Mali music is the same as that though, I could be wrong.

Since we were talking about Malian music, I ought to post this (http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/obituary/0,,1725805,00.html). He doesn't feature in the soundtrack to this scenario, but he was fantastic - a great loss.

So you finally released the scenario! I've got to try it! ;)

One thing, though. Is the first gameplay pic of Ethiopia you posted the original locations of the cities? If so, Roha and Massawa (properly Mitsiwa - Massawa' with an "ayin" at the end is the Arabic name) are completley incorrect. Mitsiwa is on the coast a hundred miles north of Adulis, while Roha is on the other side of Lake Tana in the center of the land between Tana and the eastern lowlands. Axum is also misplaced. It's not on the edge of the highlands, but in the middle. It should be one tile west and one tile northwest.

Also, the Ethiopian higlands should extend a little bit farther north into Eritrea.

Hope you like it, Yom.

Fear not - Roha and Massawa aren't pre-placed at the start. Those are just the locations where they happened to be built in that game. I know that Axum isn't exactly right, but as I mentioned I did tweak the geography of the Horn of Africa somewhat for gameplay purposes. Hopefully it won't be too hideous, even for an Ethiopian player...

By the way, I shall probably be posting an updated version at some point in the fairly near future, with slightly tweaked gameplay (in particular, making Ethiopia a bit easier and the Falasha a bit harder). Plus, of course, the MP version.

First of all thanks for that great scenario Plotinius.
I have encountered a bug, though I am not sure what causes it, since the errormessage is unclear. The game crashes after 1507 for me.
It quits with a load errormessage:
Missing entry in "scenarios/Desert/text/PediaIcons.txt": ANIMNAME_

I tried to check the PediaIcons.txt for a unfinished ANIMNAME_, but didn't find any. I really wish I'd know what CIV expects, since it could be repaired then, but it remains a mystery to me at this point. If any of you had the same experience, or has a solution, I would be grateful.

Edit:
OK, have to take this one back, it was my very own fault. I added some units, techs and so on, to the make the game also playable as Yemen. During this process, I added "african slaves", that are autoproduced by the cityimprovement "Arabian Slave Quaters"(requiring tribes as ressource). In my stupidity I forgot to add the PRTO_Worker for this unit. Now, in 1507 the first unit would have been autoproduced, ....

I can't wait for the new version, so I can see how Ethiopia really plays!!! Also, Plotinus don't forget to fix the Divine Monarchy bug for Central African nations -- the number of free units I get is 2 instead of 8.

Don't worry, that one's fixed!

The new version is simmering away, but it will take a little while to appear: I want to work out how to make some African advisors to add to the atmos. Also, I've made two units that will help for the upgrade, but there will probably be more that I'd like to tackle, and that takes time! Hopefully it will be worth it to have a decent upgrade to the scenario. Any other ideas gratefully received, of course.

Other than a new paint job, I hope you don't do too much tinkering under the hood (or bonnet). This scenario is already close to perfect!

Thanks, 7ronin. No, I'm not planning on making any sweeping changes. Well, I was sort of thinking of adding the Funj sultans, and perhaps Dahomey, and then adding a new culture group and making them and Benin and Beja all playable, and then... but perhaps it's not a good idea.

@Plotinus:

If your are reworking some parts of the scenario, you might or might not consider giving the ports the ability to produce veteran units. Since as it is now, the ships that you meant to upgrade, can not do so. (e.g. Dhow -> Corsair).

The Arabian Bazaar gives a standard 50% tax increase instead of letting cities grow beyond size 6. I think its meant(good) that way, but uses the same Civ-Pedia entry.

I also found the Urukhai graphic for the zealot somewhat displaced in a else very comprehensive and authentic scenario. Thats just my opinion though, and I can't even suggest any alternative yet.

If you are interested in how I have tweaked the scenario to make it playable as Yemen, I would be happy to send you the Biq. Though, I do have the feeling, that you are not planning to make such changes. In fact there is even no need to do so.

I have also added one defensive unit for each, the Falasha and the Ethiopians. During my first three tests for the Yemen Civ, I always had a quite long Civil war in Abbessinia as result, the victor still beeing mighty enough to challenge the others.

That sounds interesting, Mentat. The main thing stopping me making Yemen (or other civs) playable is that I'd need to do a new tech tree for them, which would be a Hassle with a capital H. I agree that a replacement Zealot graphic would be a good thing, so I might see what my team of scribbling monks can come up with on that front.

I'd be interested to see your biq. In particular, seeing where another defensive unit for Ethiopia and Falasha can be useful would be great. It hadn't occurred to me that this could be an effective way of dragging out their war.

I do believe I suggested giving Ethiopia an extra, immobile defender. :p

@TLC: Aye, and it was a very good idea. Though I just added the standard defenders. But your idea made me think about checking the AI defensive box for some the Ethiopian defenders, since they can and are used for defense and attack by the AI. So much said, I have not checked the box yet, and the result is already promising. So immobile units might not even be necessary. Imho, they tend to be either too weak or too powerful. But they are for sure the best solution if the other thing doesn't work out nicely.

@Plotinus: I will gladly send you the biq, or post it here. Just today I am pretty busy, so you might get it tomorrow. The techtree for the arabians is still crude, and has neither nice pics nor special names yet. It fits to the game for now, but has to be more enhanced, though I will galdly help with that. I also gave the Yemenites the same Citystyle as used for the Falusha and Ethiopians. There were quite a number of cultural bonds between southern Arabia and Abbessinia. This was of course reflected in the architecture.

The good/interresting thing when playing Yemen, is that you have quite some influence on the Civil War, since the incense supply is highly important for both sides. Its also quite a challenge for the Yemenites, if they ever dare to challenge the Ayyubids, by sacking Macca(Mekka) and Madina(Medina). To make it challenging enough I removed the two weird Vulcanos from the Sinai, and replaced them with desert. So the Ayyubids can bring in some Mamluks/Camelriders if things go in Macca. This has also some historical background, since many caliphates/dynasties were overthrown in the area of the two holy cities (though mainly before 1000 AD).
So I have to quit for now and continue to work, ...

Thats the Biq for the alternate desert scenario.
126951

Changes made:
1.) Made Yemenites available to play
2.) Changed Yemenite cities to the Ethiopian style
3.) Altered the Yemenite landscape somewhat
4.) Added some techs for the Arabians, allowing them to research slavery and their assassin heritage
5.) Added one defensive troop to the Falasha
6.) Added one defensive troop to the Ethiopians
7.) Changed ports to produce veteran nautic-units, thus being able to upgrade ships
8.) Added African slaves, an autoproduced workerunit by arabian slavequaters(building requires tribes)
9.) Added Arabian Assassin (the unit needs incense)

Thanks! I'll give it some close study.

Wow, the update is needed. I must say that it's practically impossible to play as Ethiopia right now!

Also, as a couple of Aesthetic notes, I noticed that Queen Yodit looks rather Southern Sudanese rather than Ethiopian and Ahmed Gragn is shown as Arab. While he is sometimes traditionally portrayed as an Arab in Ethiopian historiography, he was actually a native of the Horn of Africa, either a Somali or an Afar (Futuh al-Habasha, the chief work on the period doesn't directly address his ethnicity but that also probably means he wasn't an Arab).

It ain't impossible to play as Ethiopia... you just need to think about your tactics carefully! There are some good ideas scattered throughout this thread.

You're probably right about Yodit, although since no-one really knows who she was I think I can get away with making her look like anything, really. I didn't know about Gragn's ethnicity, although what you say sounds reasonable. It's hard to find any LHs that look more like what he would have looked like, though, I think.

Anyway, I haven't forgotten about the update. It will be happening, but I need to make a couple more units first and then do some testing. I have a great deal going on in real life so it won't be enormously soon, but it's certainly coming.

Take your time, Plotinus. We will all be playing the Civ IV Warlords expansion soon anyways!

I tried again with Mali on Monarch and won pretty easily. Perhaps you should take away some of its resources or make the trade goods give fewer VPs (right now it's 1,500, meaning only 13 are needed to win). The Tuareg warrior (I never got around to making any, though) doesn't seem very helpful. The strength isn't worth the movement loss when you're rushing across the desert, so perhaps you could give it one more movement with 1 less attack or defense, or maybe treat all terrain as roads.

I've tried again with Ethiopia (this time on Monarch instead of Emperor, though I don't think it makes any difference) and it's much easier this time; I've already destroyed the Falasha (1033), and am on my way to hopefully taking Yifat (why Yifat instead of Ifat, by the way?). I think my last game I just had bad luck with the PRNG against the Falasha.

A couple notes, however. One, the histories tend to run off the page and are hard to read past that point. Anyway to fix it? Regarding accuracy, on the Ethiopia history, the kingdom of D`mt in the 8th c. BC was actually the first kingdom of Ethiopia, and the descent of Falashas (properly Beta Israel, as "Falasha" is pejorative, meaning "exiles") from ancient Israelite tribes is unlikely; they're probably more like Russian Old Believers. Also, I'm a bit uncomfortable with your use of the word "Hamitic." Perhaps its informative to someone completely ignorant of what the people in the region look like, but Hamitic is an outdated term that was formerly only used by racists.

On appearance again, the Beja (like the Adalians) look just like Ethiopians, not Arabs as you put in the game. Also, they can build a city named "Badi" which they should not be able. "Baḍiʿ" is the Arabic form of the Tigrinya name "Baṣiʿ" (Arabic ḍ and Ethiosemitic ṣ are descended from the same letter, cp. Ar. Haḍani, Ge'ez Haṣani), which is another name for Mitsiwa/Massawa (ts = ṣ). On the same note, the city should probably be called "Mitsiwa" instead of Massawa, and Mitsiwa is actually north of Adulis, not south. (Maybe switch the two, and move each one tile NW?). Also, "Tugulet" should be spelled "Tegulet."

Don't take my comments above as criticism, though. :D I love the scenario; I'm only trying to make it better. :thumbsup:

I haven't been able to get the Music to work, though...

OK, I'll try to make the changes. It's hard to get the pedia entries to fit the space available, because my computer seems to use a slightly smaller font than other people's. Also, I didn't know what the Beja look like when I made the scenario, although I've subsequently found out. Very annoying!

OK, I'll try to make the changes. It's hard to get the pedia entries to fit the space available, because my computer seems to use a slightly smaller font than other people's. Also, I didn't know what the Beja look like when I made the scenario, although I've subsequently found out. Very annoying!

No sweat. You must have known a lot about African history to make the scenario in the first place. :D

I know I'll forget, but there were a couple more things I wanted to comment on that I forgot to mention. Ethiopia can build both Massawa and Mitsiwa (Massawa comes first), so maybe the city list should be renamed to just Mitsiwa, deleting the latter, and making the already settled one called "Mitsiwa" (to prevent confusion). Also, I noticed that the bottom mountains on the S. Border of Ethiopia are annoyingly settlable. You wouldn't imagine how many thousands of settler pairs tried to make it there (from every W African civ!). Is there anyway to fix this? Wrt Adal, I noticed that they have a Great Leader Zara Yakob (properly Zar`a Ya`iqob), just like Ethiopia. Is this a mistake? Zara Yakob is a Christian name and the name of a great Emperor who ruled from 1434-1468. I remember it was included in the civilopedia, though. Maybe you should replace it with the founder of the Walashma dynasty that ruled Ifat and then Adal (Ali ibn Wali Ashma according to Wikipedia, though I remember a different source having "Sabr ad-Din" in there as well, as if the number of ad-Din's isn't confusing enough!). I know I've forgotten something, so I'll respond later when I remember.

You're right, Zara Yakob certainly shouldn't be fighting for Adal. As for the southern mountains, this will be fixed in the update (this was actually one of the first changes I made). Thanks for the information about place names etc - it's hard to work these things out when there seem to be different romanisation systems for them, and it's surprising how hard it can be to find good lists of place names for medieval Ethiopia online. Or perhaps it's not so surprising. I could find out virtually *nothing* about medieval Beta Israel and had to resort to extremely musty books from the depths of the British Library, which didn't shed much light on them either. The pedia entries on that civ and its techs, units, etc contain pretty much all the information I could find from anywhere at all.

By the way, I'm sure the Tuareg Warrior is supposed to have the same movement as the unit it replaces - I agree that a loss of movement would probably outweigh a gain in strength. So I'll check that too.

So much to do and so little time to do it in! Thanks for your patience, everyone. It would have been updated a while ago but I want to complete the most needed units first and make it all look really good.

I still don't remember what it was that I forgot, but btw, using "Jimma" is an anachronism. Apparently it used to be called "Hirmata," but more importantly it didn't exist in the 16th century. Perhaps you should name the city "Innarya" after the medeival province-kingdom in the region (a lot of city names were interchangeable with districts/provinces and vice versa, hence the "7 cities" (i.e. districts) of Ifat - Adal, Gebela, Lebekela, Mora, Paguma, and Tiqo, which were actually districts/province).

It's pretty easy not to loose as Ethiopia if you concentrate on defeating the Falasha first, then buffing up your defenses- and lauching a huge assult- on Adal. All that being said for Regent level, though.

That's what I did on Monarch, too. Probably works for all levels. I think I just had a bad run with the PRNG against the Falasha the first time I tried (those runners and swordsmen wouldn't die before losing at least one attacker for each unit, and would always win when they were on the offense).

BTW, Plotinus: Is "Armahman" supposed to be "Amharaman?" I.e. Amhara man? If so, the unit should probably be renamed. For one, Amhara wasn't used as an ethnic group name (though it was used for the language and the name of a medieval province in Wello) until the last quarter of the 20th century, and it's still not very often used by those designated by outsiders as "Amhara." Secondly, the peasant fighters weren't only speakers of Amharic. Perhaps a better name would be "Balager" (from Ba`al Hager - master/husband of the country[side]), or maybe "Chiwa" ("Free man"), "Hara," ("free" or "soldier" in Ge'ez, sometimes said to be the etymology of Amhara - i.e. `am "people" + hara "free"), or maybe "Gebr" or one of its variants (from a root meaning to work or act, meaning to pay taxes in Modern Amharic, but referring to tributary land, and a certain class of tenant farmers). On the other hand, you could use "Wetadder," from modern Amharic (not sure if it existed in Old Amharic) meaning soldier, or from old Amharic something like "Gishgasha" (or Gisgasa? I need to look it up) related to the word for marching, also meaning "soldier."

What a great mod! Absolutely addictive :goodjob: I have played all four playable groups at Emperor, as well as Ghana at DG and Falasha at Diety. Some thoughts:

Ghana and Makuria are the best civs in their cultural groups. By far. I really don't understand why they start with two cities while their insignificant counterparts don't have any.

Playing Ghana, you put down three new cities, to the east, the south-east and the west all at CxxC. Then you pump out Swordsmen until there is no tomorrow, taking out Mali, Songhai and Benin at your leasure. Not only do the Ghanese have the best UU, they also are the only tribe with immediate access to Trading Posts. In my DG game, I built a road across across the desert, allowing my Wangari Traders rapid access to the trading post in Morocco. They had to take down one barb hut but two Wangaris against a Tribal Warrior is no contest.

Makuria simply has an amazing UU. I did not bother to build any wonders. I simply built one UU after another. First I took out the people to the east (Beja?). Then I went west and south. Finally, I drove the Ayyudibs out of Africa. At the point I won the game by victory points, I was in the process of building a road to Asia and would have taken them down there too.

With the Falasha, you need to be just a little patient. After you've taken down Adulis, get a couple of troups to wear down the AI and move your runners in behind to wipe it out. In this way, you will take down Axum easily. In my Emperor game, I followed up with Massawa too but it later flipped to Adal. Grr! Trust me. I got my revenge.

With Ethiopia, you need to realise that the AI is too stoopid to use the Falasha properly. You will lose Adulis (barring a miracle) and very likely Massawa as well. You can hold Axum. You have to move troops north. The AI will attack Axum with its Runners and Swords. It will probably win. Then you take out the weakened units in the counter-attack. After that, the Falasha are history. It may well take twenty turns before you can take them out because the immediate Adal threat must be dealt with first, but it is still just a matter of time. Once the initial assault is over, it is very important to get some good defenders on the mountains to the east of Tiya, especially the one directly east. Adal's arab swords will attempt to go around them at which point your archers can slaughter them.

The whole secret to playing Central African civs is to build on resources, since you can't build roads to connect them. Unfortunately the AI is completely unable to understand this concept and thus handles them very badly. In an ordinary game, the best civ would be the Hausa, who have great traits and a decent UU. In this one it's different. Without roads speed counts and Kanem-Bornu have speed. When I played this one, I finished the game by taking down Cairo. That's not as good as driving the Ayyudibs off the continent but it was still pretty satisfying. In passing, I think that the nomad should have 2 movement. It is really annoying to see that it will take 15 turns to get a settler to its place. Plus... shouldn't nomads move quickly?

[Abegweit] Thanks for the comments! You must be a pretty good player to have pulled off feats like those at Emperor and Deity. As I said somewhere, I made it to correspond to my own playing ability, which isn't so great.

I'm hoping that when I get a chance to make the update to this, some of the balance issues you mention should be a little better - in particular Ethiopia and Falasha. It's interesting that you mention Ghana as the best West African civ, as I always thought it was Mali - although Ghana gets two cities to start with, they're placed shockingly badly. Evidently this is no obstacle to a good enough player!

This is a small crowded map with five different tech trees. Consequently, there are very few trading opportunities (two civs have no one to trade with at all) and little space to expand so the game is all about war.

As such, Ghana is clearly the best civ in the west. I really have no idea how to win with the others. The only possible way is to play a quiet game while praying that no one runs away with the situation in the east (and several civs are quite capable of doing it). I agree that Mali is better than Songhai for this, due to the defensive UU and the isolated start. Still, I don't like basing my game on prayers. Ghana can actually win, long before anyone else comes even close. It has the best UU (the only useful one really) and starts with two cities to give you the jump in REXing.

Here's your strat.

Research agri and offensive arms in that order. Then you can learn how to trade. Train three settlers in the capital and some workers in the other city. Because of the lack of space and luxes, shields are more important than food in this game so the capital should work the BG, not the FP, for the most part. As tiles get improved, you can let your cities grow a little.

One warrior stays home and the other goes out to explore. The main objective is to find the other members of your culture group for trading purposes. After that, he can come home to work as an MP. Further exploration is pretty pointless.

Start by building to the east. At Monarch, you should be able to beat the Songhai to the best site three squares to the right. I managed at Emperor but couldn't do it at DG. No diff. The spot just to the south is almost as good. Your fourth city goes to the southeast and the fifth to the west. Strict CxxC everywhere. There is no space for anything more.

Meanwhile, hook up the Iron (it will be available once the capital's borders expand) and start pumping out UUs forever. No new city should build anything else for a long long time. The inability to build barracks is annoying but you still have the power to attack without them. Take out the Songhai first and Mali next. Start your attack when you have about six swords.

At some point, when you have the military situation under control, start building a road to Morocco. Bring along a few UUs to protect the workers and later some Wagaris to explore. Remember that the barbs are slow so move one space at a time. All they are doing is feeling out the direction that the road should go. If you find a barb, it's best to attract it unto the road so the swords can kill them but the Wagaris may have to attack occasionally. If so, use them in packs.

Once the road is built, spread the swords out along it to protect the traders who race up and down it collecting the trade items which have been accumulating back home.

The only real danger is an attack from the Hausa, who are powerful. So long as you keep your military up, this shouldn't be a problem. Their UU is easy to kill.

This should lead to a win in the 1300s, long before anything nasty can happen in the east.


Edit on the subject of balance issues.

I don't think that there is very much you can do about it. The AI simply does not know know to play these kinds of civs. Either Ethiopia or Falasha will die, usually the former. The Stable is a neat idea. Too bad the AI can't adapt to the concept. Etc.

Still, I'm not sure that this makes too much of a difference. Ultimately, this is all about giving an interesting experience to the player, which I think you have done very well. One or two AIs will become very strong in the east, which poses all kinds of problems - both in terms of survival and in terms of the possibility of an VP victory. Similarly, the AI can't win with the nomad peoples but they sure can be menacing!

My main complaint is that several civs seem extremely difficult to play. Playing without roads or fast units can be very frustrating. Mali, Songhai and the worker people all suffer from a lack of offensive units. But then I kinda cheated on the rules, didn't I? I don't think that building roads in the desert or warmongering with the Makura was supposed to be part of the scenario.

It seems to me that a diplomatic victory would be very hard. I considered this but untangling the diplo picture amongst 14 civs who keep warring on each other is a daunting task. I never had any idea who liked whom. Furthermore, it's hard to bribe people into MPPs and the like when you have no techs to offer.

Hi Plotinus, I was wondering if the files at the new downloadsite are updated or still the ones from November 2005. Since my HD crashed some time ago, I am up and on to reinstall CIV III now. I kinda lost most of my own files and data, since I never made any backup of them ;(. Luckily I had posted a few of my changes in this and other threads.

Cheers Mentat

It should be the most recent version. If anything seems wrong then do let me know!

Sorry Plotinus, my fault, I guess I was not clear enough.
I do not doubt the quality of the data, whatsover.

I was just wondering if those "most recent" files, are different from my download from Mid-November last year, or still the same. Since I found no evidence on sidte 1 of this thread, that you have had the files updated/changed in between.

Ah, I see. In that case I think it ought to be the same. I'm fairly sure that apart from a quick fix shortly after posting the scenario for the first time, there haven't been any other changes. I have been tinkering with it since then, but I want to finish all the changes I'm making before I post a new version.

Overlook the gross historical inaccuracies only for 2 reasons: This is the most comprhensive africa scenario I have ever seen and it would be near impossible to create an accurate map to refelect the african empires in that 600 year period, especially in West africa because there were so many civs there that were large and just collapsed very rapidly. Well still the best africa scenario yet.

I would like to see a Congo/rwanda scenario because that is generally seen as Africa's first world war.

First, let me tell you how indescribably awesome this scenario and the Rood scenario are. I have been quite literally addicted to them both, and I have been sacrificing a solid chunk of my sleeping time to conquer England and Africa.

The Ethiopians are certainly a lot of fun to play with, simply retreating all forces back into the mountains and then destroying the Runners as they enter your territory.

The trading posts are certainly a lot of fun and, although the AI is fairly incompetent at playing them, they do add a rather distinctive form of victory to the scenario.

The soundtrack is pretty good, although not, IMHO, as good as it could be. I am from an Arabian and African descent, and my mother and father both have a rather extensive collection of traditional cultural music. If you would like me to upload some on this thread or upload them to another site for you to collect and upload yourself, please feel free to PM me.

I hope I can be of help!

Thanks again for your wonderful scenarios.

I just got this I think it is awesome! Good job!

Just finished a game as the Falasha. This is a cool scenario. I like how when you kill three of those relics you get 20,000 victory points (or whatever it is). Goodjob. :thumbsup:

What the hang is going on? I have to download this scenario from UGO, and wait 12 minutes before it will start? What kind of crap is this? Is this how the new civfanatics file database works? I'm so confused! :( :mad: :blush:

(Up till now, I never had the HD space for downloading mods. Now that I do, I find this ridiculousness! :cry:)

Woah, calm down man. Does that 10 mins wait really mean much in the grand scheme of things? To save space on CivFanatics some of us have been making use of other servers to host their files especially the big ones.

These services are offered FREE OF CHARGE and really it's not much to ask you to wait 10 mins to download a scenario as exceptional as this. Have a drink while you're waiting or find something constructive to do.

So, this is not the way things are always going to be at CivFanatics, then? It's just an option? Sigh, well okay... Here I thought civfanatics was going to pot!

Yes it's just an option to help out the CivFanatics server which doesn't have infinite space. Think of it as a CivFanatics community spirited decision rather than one intended to pi$$ people off.

Are you refering to 3DDownloads? Yah, I just read a book or watch television until it's ready.

I didn't think it was done intentionally to piss people off, but I was worried it showed signs of deterioration in the site. I hadn't yet used the new File Database feature much, and it looked as if the file database was actually some corporate ad-heavy big-name icky site. Now that I understand what's going on, everything's tickety boo. I went upstairs and got a cookie while I waited, that's what I did. ;)

Yes, it's nothing to do with the File Database - this scenario has been on 3D Downloads for much longer than the File Database has been around (as you can see from the Date Added). Thunderfall started directing people to upload big files to that site, rather than direct to CFC, quite a while ago. And of course ten minutes isn't really very long given that something this size takes a while to download anyway.

Hmm, no idea if anybody else has yet encountered the palette problem with walled towns of the Ethiopian/Falasha citytype.

Here is a fixed Version of the ASIANWALL.pcx for Desert. Copy it into Conquests/Scenarios/Desert/Art/Cities and replace the former file.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/60173/ASIANWALL.pcx

@Plotinus: This is in my opinion one of the best scenario having been done for Civ3.

I was just wondering if you intended to make a graphical update with your Ethiopian Leaderhead and all the afican units you and ShiroKobbure made... I think that would greatly improve the atmosphere of this wonderful scenario.

[Mentat] Thanks for that. I hadn't noticed a problem there.

[beboy] Yes, and in fact I'm working on an update right now. I did those units and the LH specifically for this and I have a pile more of them to do too. There will be a few tweaks to the gameplay as well (mostly adjustments to the Ethiopia/Falasha unit lines to make the warfare more protracted). But of course it takes a while to make the graphics.

@Plotinus:

I have worked out a complete Techtree for the Arabian factions now.
Added a few buildings, units and graphics etc. to beef up their specific style.
So if you are interested I can post a screenshot, or send you the files.

Cool! Do both!

Ok my other computer is occupied atm., so no screenies for now.
But as soon as I have control over it, you shall receive both, screenshots and files.

Since I am bored now I will outlay the techtree anyway (got it on a sheet of paper right at my site; I know thats quite antique, but well ...)

I used the same followup techtree as for all the other factions btw.


Seafaring (Arabian Galley) ---> Sailing (Arabian Dhow) ---> Sea Trade [Muslim Scolarship] (Port +1 Trade) ---> Piracy [Gunpowder] (Arabian Corsair)
--------------------------------^--------------------------------------------^-------------------------------^
Fishing (Port +1 Food) -----------'---------------------------------------------l--------------------------------l
------------------- Sharia (Qadi) ----------- Succession (Caliphat) .------------l--------------------------------l-- Ottoman Contact (Musketman)
-----------------------.l-------------------------l------------------------------l-------------------------------'------,--l
Islam (Mosque) ---> Hadith (Imam House) ---> Koran Schools (Madrasa) ---> Muslim Scolarship (Islamic University) ---> Gunpowder (Cannon)
-------------------------------,-----------------^------l
Local Trade (Bazaar) ---> Foreign Trade (Halberdiers)-----'--------------------------> Fanatism (Bowman) ---> Assassin Order (Assassin)
------------------------------V-----------------------------------------------------------V
Military Tradition -------> Slavery (Slavequaters) ---> Mercenaries (Sanhaja Raider) ---> The Gaziya (Arabian Knight) ---> Camelriders (Mamluks)
(Spearman, Swordman, Ansar Warrior)

So whats new besides the Techs?

a.) Arab Knight (I would even call it "Saracen Faris"), which can be seen as the follow up mounted Unit after the Ansar Warrior.
So if we use the Arab Knight for the Arab factiosn, we need a new mounted unit for the Nubians!!! The Ansar Warior would be one possibility, but I'd ratehr use it for the Fatimids as UU.
b.) Camels as a resource to build Sanhaja and Mamluks
c.) To build Mamluks one also needs Slavequaters in the respective City
c.) Building "Quadi" to lower corruption
d.) Fishing Port (+1 Food per square) and Trade Port (+1 trade per square, it also upgrades ships)
e.) Dhows and Corsairs can transport 2 Units now.
f.) The slavequaters, produce African slaves(one every x turns), require tribes as ressource or even in the city radius.
g.) One final idea for now. The number of Imam houses could be limited to some degree, but the Imams could be leaders of a single Unit, to strenghten it. So its a minor Army that can only hold 1 unit. e.g. Imam plus Arabian Swordman. Some changes to the Imams stats could be useful in this case.

Whats missing?

a.) Maybe a Wonder or two for the arabians to build (Mainly great mosques come to my mind atm.)
b.) A real Aim for the Arabian factions (Maybe the succession wars or vicotry points through who controls most of the holy cities e.g. Macca, Madina, Dimasq, Al Quds[Jerusalem], etc.)
c.) Maybe a bigger map???
d.) Maybe a Berber unit for the Maghrebinian Arabs and a Beduine Unit for the Yemenites
e.) Maybe one or two more Arab factions for the succession war (fatimids?)

Just want to say your additions are appreciated Mentat and Platinus youve done it again, thanks for another great scenario, soundtrack and 100% complete pedia to deepen my knowledge in world history.

[Mentat] Wow! These ideas look really interesting. In fact, I think it may well be possible to make all the Arabian civilisations playable with this tech tree. That would be fun - especially to have a go as the Ayyubids, although it wouldn't exactly be balanced!

I'm thinking that if I did that I might give them a special Spaceship victory route, but with major mosques or other Muslim buildings rather than spaceship parts. That way even Yemen would have a chance of victory.

It might be interesting to add the Fatimids, perhaps as a very small civ in between the Hafsids and the Ayyubids, who would have to try to conquer their neighbours rather as the Falasha do.

Naturally all this will slow down the release of the update! But it might be worth it. There would have to be a lot of testing to check that things don't get unbalanced.

Aye, spaceship victory could well be it for the Arabian factions.

A few more things came to my mind:

a.) If you add the Fatimids, they could be in a (locked?) war with the ascending Ayyubids and struggle over control of Egypt. At the start the Fatimids should hold entire Egypt and Palestine, the Ayyubids taking over city after city in the war (maybe a bit like Axum vs Falasha).

b.) If you add important mosques for either space race, or/and wonders, their location should be the only cities, where the arabian factions can build universities!

c.) The Arabian knight should be a special unit. I picture it as a fast unit, with a strong attack, maybe even a strong defense, but also -1 Hp. A unit that rather flees after a gaziya then getting killed.

So maybe something like that:
Arabian Knight (needs Horses and Iron)
A:4 D:3 M:3 HP:-1 (can cross the dessert)

on the other hand I would up the Mamluks a bit in reverse
Mamluk (needs Camels and Slavequaters) it could be exclusive for Fatimids and Ayyubids
A:5 D:2 M:2 HP:+1 (can cross the dessert)

Berber and Beduine Camelriders (need Camels and ?)
A:5 D:2 M:3 HP:0 (can cross the dessert)

Ansar warrior: (needs horses)
A:3 D:2 M:2 HP:-1

I am not 100% sure about the actual strenght given to the (Arab) Musketman. Sometimes I feel they are too strong in the attack, but well ....

I think I'd make the Mamluk the UU for the Ayyubids. If I make the Arabian civs playable, they would each need a UU in any case. I hope there are enough Arabian-type units knocking around already to do this, as I don't want to add more to the list of units that I have to make!

I don't know if having a locked war between the Ayyubids and the Fatimids would work, but it could be good fun and add a whole new dimension to the scenario. Yes, I envisage that the Fatimids would be very much on the back foot here. The Ayyubids might start with a couple of cities in the west of Egypt and have to conquer their way through Fatimid territory. The important thing, though, is that the Ayyubids should still be a big threat to the Nubians and others to the south - I wouldn't want this idea to disrupt the balance that's already set up.

If I make the Arabian factions playable, it would be fun to add some Europeans to the mix. I'm thinking of giving the Europeans just a single city on an island (Venice?) and letting them send lots of Hidden Nationality ships and troops (Crusaders!) into Africa and the Middle East. That would add an interesting challenge to the northern Arabian civs, especially if I can use invisible resources to persuade the Europeans to focus their attacks on Jerusalem. I'd give the Hafsids a naval UU (also Hidden Nationality) so they would be especially well placed to engage in jolly piratical endeavours in the Mediterranean.

I hope there are enough Arabian-type units knocking around already to do this, as I don't want to add more to the list of units that I have to make!

Well, you can always use fantasy units of mid-eastern style made by Utahjazz7 (Easterling & Harad Swordsman) and CamJH (Aiel Pack..) for instance..

By the way, all those ideas with arabian civs sound great! I will be willing to wait some extra time for the release if it can be doable.

[beboy] Yes, those are good unit ideas. I think there will be enough.

On reflection, I'm thinking that a good victory condition for the Arabian civs would be the establishment of a unifying caliphate. Something like "Universal Caliphate", recognised by all Muslims. This would be a one-build Spaceship victory, so building it would bring instant victory. But to build it, you'd need a number of resources - incense for one, and perhaps a Scholar resource and a few more like that. Of course these would be scattered all over the place, especially in key locations such as Jerusalem and Mecca. So the player would have to negotiate with the other Arabian civs or conquer them to have a chance of building the caliphate. I think this would be a nice way of representing the dynastic struggles of the period.

Whoah, this sounds all great to me now.

Something like an all recognized Caliphat is truely an aim to go for the arabian factions. I also like the idea about the European crusaders. The Question is, will the actual map be enought to feature all this ideas?

How about doing a map with the Sahel(just as it is now), the Mediterranean (Spain, Baleares, Italy, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Dalmatian coast [for Venice], Greece and Greek Islands, Cyprus, Asia Minor, Levante), Arabia(entire), Mideast at least to the Zagros.

Would be a lot fo work, but well worth it. If we would keep up the energy, some reflections of the crusades and the reconqista would be possible too.
Aswell as the fall of Byzantine and the rise of the Ottomans, ... But then isn't that too much already??? It sure sounds awesome though.

I think all of that would be too much for this scenario - I don't want to lose the African focus. Besides which, there are already plenty of scenarios on Byzantium, the Crusades, and so on. I'm thinking that it would be fun to have just one or two European cities sending ships and troops to harass the various Arabian powers, but very much as a peripheral thing. That would be pretty interesting in itself (the Crusades from the other point of view, as it were). But once you start putting in full European civilisations, the whole thing would be changed too much. The scope of the scenario is pretty vast even as it is (despite the relatively small map) so I don't really want to extend it. I don't want to add Iberia either. Obviously if Morocco is going to be playable then that would kind of suggest that Iberia ought to be in there one way or another, but that would open things up too much once more.

It's rather like the problem faced by the Roman empire (and indeed every empire since, including the British one): conquer one lot of barbarians, and suddenly you've expanded your borders so that you're right next to another lot of barbarians who have to be conquered too. In this case, every time you expand your scenario to include another civ, you suddenly have to implement the civs beyond it too! But that's a tendency I want to resist where possible. I think the "raiding Europeans" idea would help to add flavour and give the impression of Europe's presence and importance without detracting from the African focus of the scenario as it stands.

But all ideas for this and any other alterations are much welcomed. The more the merrier - I'd like to make this as good a scenario as I can!

Aye, I think you are right, there should be limits to the expansion.

Uh, I got your point by quoting the Romano and British Empire dilemmas, but one shouldn't be too hasty with the term "barbarian". Most historic facts show, that both Empires (Roman and British) were more barbaric in their outline then most of the conquered/occupied regions/nations. But don't get me wrong, its also a fact that both empires sustained their power but accumulating the advances of other cultures. This is also true for the early Arabian Caliphates, which drew most cultural power out of the ancient culture groups in the Mideast and Northafrica.

A few more additions.

Regarding the Fatimids and Ayyubids.
The Ayyubids should rather start with conquering the North of the Levante.
They have derived from the Zengids (Kurdish dynasty as the later formed Ayyubids, Sal ad'Din was a Zengid general) who were located in North Iraq and Syria and swept West and South during the Crusades. As far as I know the Struggle between the Crusaders and Fatimites made it easy for Sal ad'Din to take control over the Levante and Eqypt forming the Ayyubid dynasty, which later also took control of most parts of Arabia.

UU for the Arabian factions:
Almoravids: Berber camelrider
Hafsids (Zirids?, Almohads?): Pirate ship (hidden nationality)
Fatimids: Either the Ansar Warrior or maybe even the Assassins, since Fatimids and Assassins are both of Shia confession.
Ayyubids: Mamluk camelrider
Yemenites: Bedouin camelrider

ad Fatimids: Maybe they get an early form of the Assassins, or a smallwonder spiting out Assassins every now and then

OK - I have to say I don't know an enormous amount about the history of the Muslim dynasties of this period, so I will have to look it all up! Thanks very much for the info.

Of course, when I say "barbarians" I'm just saying it from the point of view of the Romans/British/whatever - obviously most of these peoples were just as civilised as those who conquered them, but they had weaker armies.

How 'bout the European civ could be "Portugal" (The 1st European civilization to set up trading colonies in Africa). They would start with a couple of small 1-2 tile islands (you could just take the ones out of the AoD Conquest), and they could have one small town on the Atlantic coast and another on the East coast.

They could also fill the role of the previous Ayyubids- the powerful, unplayable civ, with dummy techs for AI use only.

How 'bout the European civ could be "Portugal" (The 1st European civilization to set up trading colonies in Africa). They would start with a couple of small 1-2 tile islands (you could just take the ones out of the AoD Conquest), and they could have one small town on the Atlantic coast and another on the East coast.

They could also fill the role of the previous Ayyubids- the powerful, unplayable civ, with dummy techs for AI use only.

Well its naturally up to Plotinus, but I see potential in this idea.
Portugal would have to be an additional faction though, since I really liked the idea about the Crusaders and Venice. Portugal would have to undergo a long period of stagnation (dummy techs) until they finally hit seafaring and gunpowder and sail south. It also makes perfect sense when they finally get in contact with Ethiopia, since IIRC they saved them from Adal attacks.

But how do the sail around the cape? ..... There we have a big problem, since if they would cross country through the sahel, it wouldn't look very pretty.

Ah well, installing a second Outpost on the eastcoast? This could be the island Sokotra for example. But I fear that Adal, Ayyubids and Yemen would hit(find) this place in no time, and simply overrun it. Nah, also not very pretty.

Hmm, .... and one more thing, Portugal wouldn't be important for the African continent until about 1450 (exept for the Marocco expeditions, which are also of questionable importance), which is already close to the end of "the Desert and the Mountain".

I like the Portugal idea. Although I'm not sure it would fit in with what we've got already. After all, the Ethiopians can research Portuguese Contact near the end of their tech tree to get gunpowder units, and clearly this would be daft if they've already sent a unit west and met the Portuguese anyway. I do quite like the idea of having them sail down the west coast late in the game and potentially present a problem to the civs there, although in real life they didn't really interfere much with the civs in this game - they went further and messed up Kongo and Angola instead. Benin largely shut them out. So perhaps it wouldn't help the game so much. And, yes, if they start trekking across Africa it wouldn't be good (it's bad enough that the African civs do that!). Anyway, I'll have a tinker and see what works.

I won't be able to start implementing any of this for a couple of weeks (busy!) but I'm hoping that over my forthcoming holiday I'll be able to sort out the mechanics of the new ideas and continue to add new units and other graphics. The scenario already looks quite a bit nicer than it did at the start - those Mayan javelin throwers were the first to go!

Do you want me to help you with some things Plotinus?
I can do some research (incl. pictures and info) regarding important mosques of the time if you want me to. I would also check out which of those great mosques were later combined with a islamic university.

I do have some 14 days left before my free time will be reduced considerably.
But I also owe another CIV project quite a lot of work (namely Flamands and Thorgimms ST Mod).

Of course I will be available for any kind of playtesting the advanced mod.

Thanks for the offer, Mentat. I'm thinking that I'll implement the one-stage SS victory, as it were, so I won't use important mosques as part of the victory. But it would be useful to have ideas for Wonders, or indeed anything else that would be relevant to these civs. So anything you can find will be much appreciated.

Still, don't skimp on your work for Flamand and Thorgrimm! I can probably handle most of the implementation myself (when I get a bit of time to do so). Playtesting will definitely be extremely useful when it comes to it, though.

Not too shabby but not to great, I rate it a 5.5 out of 10, for you leaving out more than half of the continent. What time place is this, it seems to be very historically inaccurate. For one there has never been a force in africa prior to modeern times able to topple the ethiopian government, heck they never lost a war and beat Italy twice even when they were backed by the Nazi even though Italy did occupy most of the country for 4 years in the 1930s-40.
Secondly the Youraba/fulani empire who pretty much controlled the largest empire in african history so why are they not in here? it is within your time frame. Furthermore, how could you forget great zimbabwe, benin, kongo, rowzi, and zululand.

What you have done is the equivalent of making an europe scenario with Portugal, Spain, Italy and Yugoslavia

Not too shabby but not to great, I rate it a 5.5 out of 10, for you leaving out more than half of the continent.

Bro if this gets a 5 then the Civ4 Warlords Romans empire rewash/realwaste, remake of the Civ3 version I just tryed playing isn't even registering on the scale.

This guy works on his own free time and delivers the goods and I look at what the "pros' are doing with their time and wonder what the hell your smoking, This is A1 baby and bout to get better, However, im sure the designer has a historical expanation for not includin the entire map. I do agree with you though on that second line you quoted. Its would be much nicer if we could have filled out some more of the safari land

Not too shabby but not to great, I rate it a 5.5 out of 10, for you leaving out more than half of the continent. What time place is this, it seems to be very historically inaccurate.

Well, I must admit I don't agree with most of your remarks since the aim of this scenario, in my understanding, is not about the history of the whole African continent. It's rather about the complex relationship of North African Civilizations who embraced abrahamic religions (Christianism, Judaism ans Islam), with a special focus on muslim Civilisations. This take place mostly during Middle-Age; if I'm not mistaken, Fulani ruled Western Africa in the 19th century. Benin is there but non-playable and most of the others civs from your list are from southern Africa. Of course, in some cases, widely described earlier in this thread, history had to be tweaked to fit with gameplay. The result is IMO one of the best scenario ever made for CIV3, both on the gameplay side and historical accuracy (at least for the neophyte I am in African history).

Without that scenario, I wouldn't have had the motivation to persist in my modding attempts. Plotinus is "the" reference in scenario making

Not too shabby but not to great, I rate it a 5.5 out of 10, for you leaving out more than half of the continent. What time place is this, it seems to be very historically inaccurate. For one there has never been a force in africa prior to modeern times able to topple the ethiopian government, heck they never lost a war and beat Italy twice even when they were backed by the Nazi even though Italy did occupy most of the country for 4 years in the 1930s-40.
Secondly the Youraba/fulani empire who pretty much controlled the largest empire in african history so why are they not in here? it is within your time frame. Furthermore, how could you forget great zimbabwe, benin, kongo, rowzi, and zululand.

What you have done is the equivalent of making an europe scenario with Portugal, Spain, Italy and Yugoslavia

Seems a bit harsh. I never claimed that this is about the whole continent of Africa, and I don't really see why you think it should be - on the contrary, I thought I had more than enough on my hands with just the northern half. Similarly, if someone wanted to make a scenario featuring just the European countries you mention, why on earth shouldn't they? I think it's a bit offensive to suggest that any "African" scenario must necessarily feature all "African" civs, even ones as different as Benin and Zimbabwe. Just because they're on the same continent doesn't mean they have much in common. This is like criticising people who have made American Civil War scenarios for not including Brazil.

As beboy mentioned, Benin is in the scenario, and the other civs you mention were not in the part of Africa that I dealt with. I was actually going to feature Kongo, originally, but I couldn't find a way to "link" them to the rest of the scenario - just too remote and culturally distinct. Also, beboy is right to say that the Fulani empire was a nineteenth-century matter, so it wouldn't fit this scenario. It would have been more accurate for me to put in Dahomey in that area for this timeframe. But because the map is relatively small, there didn't seem much point. Benin occupies enough space in that region as it is. All scenarios and map-based mods have to simplify things in this way. No-one has criticised me for not putting the kingdom of Wight into the Anglo-Saxon scenario - at least not yet.

I agree that scenarios featuring the civs you mention would be great to see. But I don't know very much about them and they don't fit in this scenario. So those are scenarios that other people can make. The fact that they haven't done so isn't really grounds for criticising me for also not doing so!

Even though the Ethiopian government never actually was toppled prior to Mussolini's invasion (at least by external forces - many Ethiopian governments were toppled by internal forces throughout history, just as with most countries) it doesn't follow that there never existed any force capable of doing so. If you read the pedia entry on Adal you'll see that Ethiopia was brought to its knees by the forces of Granh, with the emperor reduced to a fugitive; only European intervention saved the empire. Also, the invasion of Yodit, although shrouded in legend, may have been an occasion when hostile external forces conquered Ethiopia for a time. The whole point of a scenario is that it lets you replay history in an alternate way. In real life, Ethiopia was never conquered by Adal or any of the other intermittently hostile states that neighboured it, but it doesn't follow from that that it should be completely safe from all prospect of invasion in the scenario. You might as well criticise Firaxis for making it possible to play the Aztecs in the Age of Discovery conquest and resist the invading European forces.

:clap: Bravo, Plotinus!

No-one has criticised me for not putting the kingdom of Wight into the Anglo-Saxon scenario - at least not yet.

Hmm, should I do it? (ooh its soo tempting) :mischief:
Nah, someone beat me to it, naturally ;)

Nothing much more to add to the above. Mabye I should say ,"Ghafhi, give the scenario a try. Especially after Plotinus has finished his latest changes. it really ain't that bad, you know".

Better idea: Ghafhi, if you are looking for this kind of scenario, why don't you try making it yourself? You never know, you could enjoy it. It will also make this scenario HELL of a lot better, from a modder's point of view!

Here is the Arabian tech tree as it currently stands. Not a lot in there right now, but I've got it fairly well planned out... As you can see, I've taken some of Mentat's ideas but stuck in a pile of other stuff too. These civs are going to have a lot of Wonders available to them. I'm also going to add some new resources. Some of these will be required to build the game-winning "SS part", so these civs will have to negotiate/conquer their way to controlling all necessary resources...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/37977/Arabttech.jpg

Why`d ya put the Jannisary in Astronomy?

Because I couldn't think where else to put it (too many units at Gunpowder already). I think I'll change Seafaring to something else and put the Janissary there.

i'm having a problem loading this game. there is always a file missing... its a kind of farm i think.

When exactly does it happen? Can you be more specific about the file it's missing?

There haven't been any problems like this before, so it's possible that the download got corrupted or something. You could try downloading it again, which is a hassle but often seems to work.

Seems a bit harsh. I never claimed that this is about the whole continent of Africa, and I don't really see why you think it should be - on the contrary, I thought I had more than enough on my hands with just the northern half. Similarly, if someone wanted to make a scenario featuring just the European countries you mention, why on earth shouldn't they? I think it's a bit offensive to suggest that any "African" scenario must necessarily feature all "African" civs, even ones as different as Benin and Zimbabwe. Just because they're on the same continent doesn't mean they have much in common. This is like criticising people who have made American Civil War scenarios for not including Brazil.

As beboy mentioned, Benin is in the scenario, and the other civs you mention were not in the part of Africa that I dealt with. I was actually going to feature Kongo, originally, but I couldn't find a way to "link" them to the rest of the scenario - just too remote and culturally distinct. Also, beboy is right to say that the Fulani empire was a nineteenth-century matter, so it wouldn't fit this scenario. It would have been more accurate for me to put in Dahomey in that area for this timeframe. But because the map is relatively small, there didn't seem much point. Benin occupies enough space in that region as it is. All scenarios and map-based mods have to simplify things in this way. No-one has criticised me for not putting the kingdom of Wight into the Anglo-Saxon scenario - at least not yet.

I agree that scenarios featuring the civs you mention would be great to see. But I don't know very much about them and they don't fit in this scenario. So those are scenarios that other people can make. The fact that they haven't done so isn't really grounds for criticising me for also not doing so!

Even though the Ethiopian government never actually was toppled prior to Mussolini's invasion (at least by external forces - many Ethiopian governments were toppled by internal forces throughout history, just as with most countries) it doesn't follow that there never existed any force capable of doing so. If you read the pedia entry on Adal you'll see that Ethiopia was brought to its knees by the forces of Granh, with the emperor reduced to a fugitive; only European intervention saved the empire. Also, the invasion of Yodit, although shrouded in legend, may have been an occasion when hostile external forces conquered Ethiopia for a time. The whole point of a scenario is that it lets you replay history in an alternate way. In real life, Ethiopia was never conquered by Adal or any of the other intermittently hostile states that neighboured it, but it doesn't follow from that that it should be completely safe from all prospect of invasion in the scenario. You might as well criticise Firaxis for making it possible to play the Aztecs in the Age of Discovery conquest and resist the invading European forces.

As I recall it is called the empires of africa scenairo. What you have done is made an equivalent of an empires of Europe scenario in 1700s and left out Britain. Claimed that Belgium is as strong as France and made a city state a super power in the name of interesting game play.

I thought it was a major error for you to leave out great zimbabwe maybe and benin considering their major influences. It is not about how much in commomn africans have it is about accuracy. If you wanted to use the northern half of africa only then fine, but don't start forgetting maajor influences and powers if you do so. I'm no historian but I don't think Brazil played any significant role in American civil war much less world history outside of latin america, besides portugal.

If you can't find a way to link the Congo into a african empire game then that speaks volumes about your intelligence or at least lack of it.

Fulanis actually had a massive empire by the 16th century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulani "During the 16th century the Fula expanded through the sahel grasslands stretching from what is today Senegal to Sudan."

I think you misunderstood the readings. It said that adal was the invader, he himself who was an ethiopian and really a break away ethiopian muslim province not actually its own nation because it was reunified shortly.

As I recall it is called the empires of africa scenairo. What you have done is made an equivalent of an empires of Europe scenario in 1700s and left out Britain. Claimed that Belgium is as strong as France and made a city state a super power in the name of interesting game play.

It is not called the empires of Africa. It is about only some empires of Africa. Britain was a major influence on other European nations in 1700. I haven't left out any important civ that was a major influence on the civs featured in this scenario in this time and place! And I don't believe I've made any city states into superpowers for the sake of gameplay. You can't keep comparing Africa to Europe in your criticisms, because they were completely different in structure. Since antiquity, all the areas or nations of Europe have been in constant communication and had mutual influences on each other. But Africa isn't like that, because groups of people have until recently been isolated, cut off from each other by jungles and deserts. This is why you have very distinctive cultures in the Sahel, in the Nile valley, in the Horn of Africa, in the southern savannahs, and so on. They just didn't have anything to do with each other. It would be utterly artificial to make a scenario covering the entire continent, purely because they're all in "Africa". The idea of Africa as some kind of cultural unifier beyond simply a landmass on the map is a very western construct really. I thought I was being fairly artificial making a scenario witih both Mali and Ethiopia at the same time, given that they didn't exactly have much to do with each other as it is. It would just be too unwieldy to try to extend that.

I thought it was a major error for you to leave out great zimbabwe maybe and benin considering their major influences. It is not about how much in commomn africans have it is about accuracy. If you wanted to use the northern half of africa only then fine, but don't start forgetting maajor influences and powers if you do so. I'm no historian but I don't think Brazil played any significant role in American civil war much less world history outside of latin america, besides portugal.

This is wrong on so many levels! As I already told you, Benin is in the scenario. It seems harsh to make such a criticism of something that you evidently haven't played. And Great Zimbabwe didn't have the slightest influence on the civs in this scenario. It was many hundreds of miles away and completely culturally distinct. Unless you can produce some evidence for Zimbabwe's enormous influence on medieval Ethiopia or Mali, I'm happy to leave them out of this one. Until then, what you're saying is like criticising someone for making a scenario about the English Civil War and not putting Hungary in.

If you can't find a way to link the Congo into a african empire game then that speaks volumes about your intelligence or at least lack of it.

Now you're just being unnecessarily offensive. Kongo was also extremely isolated from the other civs dealt with in this scenario. Why can't I make a scenario about Mali without having to bring in Kongo? They never had any dealings with each other.

Fulanis actually had a massive empire by the 16th century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulani "During the 16th century the Fula expanded through the sahel grasslands stretching from what is today Senegal to Sudan."

If you're getting your information from Wikipedia then you don't really have any right to criticise other people's intelligence. Nevertheless, in this case Wiki has it right and you've misunderstood. That page states that the Fulani lived in the enormous area specified, not that they ruled it or operated some kind of Fulani empire there. That would be like reading that there were lots of Celts in western Europe in the first century AD and assuming that this meant there was a huge Celtic empire there. As I said before, the Fulani created an empire in northern Africa only after Songhai and Kanem-Bornu collapsed. And that is what Wiki says too, in a rare moment of accuracy.

I think you misunderstood the readings. It said that adal was the invader, he himself who was an ethiopian and really a break away ethiopian muslim province not actually its own nation because it was reunified shortly.

I don't know what readings you mean. However, Adal and the other Muslim states of the Horn of Africa were perfectly distinct from Ethiopia, apart from those times when Ethiopia conquered and ruled them. Even if Adal were simply a breakaway province, why can't it be represented as its own civ? It's not my fault that the game doesn't provide any other means of representing a civil war.

And yet, Plotinus, you stack another great scenario upon us to play. I can't wait to play this one

@Ghafi:

Its sad to see you dashing out senseless arguments against Plotinus that way. I thought you to be resourceful and clever right before that last post, unfortunately you proof to be somewhat too "hasty".

Set aside my personal feelings about Plotinus scenario and that I found it to be one of the most challenging, amusing and accurate ones, it doubtlessly has its weak spots. But thats something Plotinus never hid from the comunity. Furthermore, he has a right to "only" focus on the nothern part of Africa, since its his scenario.

You put up some interesting points before your last post, and I really thought you were looking to improve the Mod, giving some insights, may those be personal or scientific in that matter. I wonder why you got frustrated with Plotinus work that much, not trying to convince him otherwise then by postíng accusations. After all Plotinus is just one more friend of the CIV-game, looking to entertain himself, and even the better the entire comunity with some more or less historic scenarios. We all know about the limits of the game, and of the limits we have regarding to display history accurately, especially nowadays.

Well lets get to the point that I was originaly heading at. Why not cooperating in the cause of making the scenario better? At least you took the time to bring up your points and critizise the work done by Plotinus. Thats all it needs as a start to come up with better ideas and solutions. But it is the solutions we are seeking here (and fun of course), and not necessarily a conflict, at least not outside a Civ-game.

Kind Regards

Mentat

It is not called the empires of Africa. It is about only some empires of Africa. Britain was a major influence on other European nations in 1700. I haven't left out any important civ that was a major influence on the civs featured in this scenario in this time and place! And I don't believe I've made any city states into superpowers for the sake of gameplay. You can't keep comparing Africa to Europe in your criticisms, because they were completely different in structure. Since antiquity, all the areas or nations of Europe have been in constant communication and had mutual influences on each other. But Africa isn't like that, because groups of people have until recently been isolated, cut off from each other by jungles and deserts. This is why you have very distinctive cultures in the Sahel, in the Nile valley, in the Horn of Africa, in the southern savannahs, and so on. They just didn't have anything to do with each other. It would be utterly artificial to make a scenario covering the entire continent, purely because they're all in "Africa". The idea of Africa as some kind of cultural unifier beyond simply a landmass on the map is a very western construct really. I thought I was being fairly artificial making a scenario witih both Mali and Ethiopia at the same time, given that they didn't exactly have much to do with each other as it is. It would just be too unwieldy to try to extend that.



This is wrong on so many levels! As I already told you, Benin is in the scenario. It seems harsh to make such a criticism of something that you evidently haven't played. And Great Zimbabwe didn't have the slightest influence on the civs in this scenario. It was many hundreds of miles away and completely culturally distinct. Unless you can produce some evidence for Zimbabwe's enormous influence on medieval Ethiopia or Mali, I'm happy to leave them out of this one. Until then, what you're saying is like criticising someone for making a scenario about the English Civil War and not putting Hungary in.



Now you're just being unnecessarily offensive. Kongo was also extremely isolated from the other civs dealt with in this scenario. Why can't I make a scenario about Mali without having to bring in Kongo? They never had any dealings with each other.



If you're getting your information from Wikipedia then you don't really have any right to criticise other people's intelligence. Nevertheless, in this case Wiki has it right and you've misunderstood. That page states that the Fulani lived in the enormous area specified, not that they ruled it or operated some kind of Fulani empire there. That would be like reading that there were lots of Celts in western Europe in the first century AD and assuming that this meant there was a huge Celtic empire there. As I said before, the Fulani created an empire in northern Africa only after Songhai and Kanem-Bornu collapsed. And that is what Wiki says too, in a rare moment of accuracy.



I don't know what readings you mean. However, Adal and the other Muslim states of the Horn of Africa were perfectly distinct from Ethiopia, apart from those times when Ethiopia conquered and ruled them. Even if Adal were simply a breakaway province, why can't it be represented as its own civ? It's not my fault that the game doesn't provide any other means of representing a civil war.

Africa did have lots of let just say cultural intermingling maybe notas much as Eurpoe but it was still there. Considering the Bantu Ethnic group constitutes more than half of Africa from the South to the North it is hard for me to see how you so readily exclude that.

I still don't see how you can make a scenario about Africa without Kongo. Kongo had nomours influnece in the middle ages.


Perhaps you misread the article it says there was a Fulani empire not merely people.

Maybe next time make a scenario that is more accurate, or stick to modern africa since you seem to no nothing about past africa.

@Ghafi:

Its sad to see you dashing out senseless arguments against Plotinus that way. I thought you to be resourceful and clever right before that last post, unfortunately you proof to be somewhat too "hasty".

Set aside my personal feelings about Plotinus scenario and that I found it to be one of the most challenging, amusing and accurate ones, it doubtlessly has its weak spots. But thats something Plotinus never hid from the comunity. Furthermore, he has a right to "only" focus on the nothern part of Africa, since its his scenario.

You put up some interesting points before your last post, and I really thought you were looking to improve the Mod, giving some insights, may those be personal or scientific in that matter. I wonder why you got frustrated with Plotinus work that much, not trying to convince him otherwise then by postíng accusations. After all Plotinus is just one more friend of the CIV-game, looking to entertain himself, and even the better the entire comunity with some more or less historic scenarios. We all know about the limits of the game, and of the limits we have regarding to display history accurately, especially nowadays.

Well lets get to the point that I was originaly heading at. Why not cooperating in the cause of making the scenario better? At least you took the time to bring up your points and critizise the work done by Plotinus. Thats all it needs as a start to come up with better ideas and solutions. But it is the solutions we are seeking here (and fun of course), and not necessarily a conflict, at least not outside a Civ-game.

Kind Regards

Mentat

Ok I will give him some pointers. Maybe make a mdoern game, focus on the 'first world war' of Africa. there is tonnes of info on it and since your such a great moderator I have expectaions of you polinius.

Jesus, I have no idea why he puts up with your crap when you cant even be arsed to spell his name right. Why are you even posting here? just to annoy people? or to show us all what an idiot you are?

Ok I will give him some pointers. Maybe make a mdoern game, focus on the 'first world war' of Africa. there is tonnes of info on it and since your such a great moderator I have expectaions of you polinius.Man why do you have to be so crititical and sarcastic to him and his scenario its his right to make a scenario the way he wants concerning Africa and with what civs should be in it since its his creation anyhow. im waiting to see if you are capable of posting something positive instead of the negative and sarcastic crap that you have done so far, you might want to concentrate more on your spelling instead of your self proclaimed knowledge of Africa.

dferrill I havnt seen you post before that I remember but I like you...

...a lot!

Not too shabby but not to great, I rate it a 5.5 out of 10, for you leaving out more than half of the continent. What time place is this, it seems to be very historically inaccurate. For one there has never been a force in africa prior to modeern times able to topple the ethiopian government, heck they never lost a war and beat Italy twice even when they were backed by the Nazi even though Italy did occupy most of the country for 4 years in the 1930s-40.
Secondly the Youraba/fulani empire who pretty much controlled the largest empire in african history so why are they not in here? it is within your time frame. Furthermore, how could you forget great zimbabwe, benin, kongo, rowzi, and zululand.

What you have done is the equivalent of making an europe scenario with Portugal, Spain, Italy and Yugoslavia


I know very little about African history, in fact, I just learned how to post replies on this site. However, I have been playing Civ since the original version. I can honestly say that if you rate this scenario a 5.5 out of 10 then there are a few possibilities as to why. 1) You are secretly making a better one yourself 2) You are an idiot :confused: 3) You are an idiot.:cry: Oh, I seem to have mentiones that last one twice, my bad. Dude, you are insulting hands down one of the best scenarios EVER MADE for this game. I'm sure I am not the only one who has spent MANY hours playing this one and my personal favorite, The Rood and the Dragon. I have never posted before and don't know if I will again (except my next response to your last post). Perhaps this game is not for you. At any rate - if you dislike this scenario so much then why are you keeping up with the posts and playing it? Maybe you just wish you had the creativity and courage to make one yourself, post it for everyone to examine and then deal with post after post for YEARS to make it better. There are things I like and dislike about this scenario just like everything in life, nothing here is meant to be perfect. That doesn't change the fact that IT PUTS OTHER SCENARIOS DOWN IN BED TO TAKE A NAP, NEVER TO AWAKE. For god's sake, I play Plotinus' scenarios more than the original Civ3 game!


Plotinus-thank you for your wonderful scenarios. They are appreciated and admired by me.:king:

dferrill I havnt seen you post before that I remember but I like you...

...a lot!
I havent posted before on this thread im checking out new scenarios im not new to civ 3 but i am new to this forum and like the people here because there kind helpfull and respectfull to each other except for one person that ive seen so far. usually i keep my mouth shut but i couldnt resist because the people that make mods for us here on there own free time deserve better treatment then whats being displayed by some people thankfully its very few who act like a child on this forum sorry thats just my opinion.im not here to critisize the modders that work hard to make scenarios for our enjoyment.

As I recall it is called the empires of africa scenairo. What you have done is made an equivalent of an empires of Europe scenario in 1700s and left out Britain. Claimed that Belgium is as strong as France and made a city state a super power in the name of interesting game play.

I thought it was a major error for you to leave out great zimbabwe maybe and benin considering their major influences. It is not about how much in commomn africans have it is about accuracy. If you wanted to use the northern half of africa only then fine, but don't start forgetting maajor influences and powers if you do so. I'm no historian but I don't think Brazil played any significant role in American civil war much less world history outside of latin america, besides portugal.

If you can't find a way to link the Congo into a african empire game then that speaks volumes about your intelligence or at least lack of it.

Fulanis actually had a massive empire by the 16th century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulani "During the 16th century the Fula expanded through the sahel grasslands stretching from what is today Senegal to Sudan."

I think you misunderstood the readings. It said that adal was the invader, he himself who was an ethiopian and really a break away ethiopian muslim province not actually its own nation because it was reunified shortly.

In my personal opinion, GHAFHI IS AN IDIOT!:lol: That's right Ghafhi, you are an idiot and I am laughing at you!:lol: Now you are insulting his intelligence? How meny spilling mestakes dad you hive in yoar last poste? :confused: Find a new game or go crawl under a rock, no one enjoys your negativety.

Once again Plotinus, thank you for your work. It is appreciated.

It's unfortunate that it's pointless for me to mention that someone who's only been here as long as I have is attacking Plotinus for his intelligence while his own posts degenerate into illiteracy. Pointless because he probably couldn't find "ad hominem" in a Wiki (oops, I'm a black pot); doesn't recognize who our Plotinus is both here(hey gaffer, try getting one of those little red and blue thingies under your name) and in RL (those who can, do; and those who can do anything teach) ; and doesn't appear to know how to listen and respond. Congratulations G - you made it onto my very short ignore list without ever posting at me.

Plotinus, I'm humbled by the remarkable restraint you show. I have from time to time been chastened by a moderator, but you've done more here to mature my posting style than any of that ever could. Thank you.

Thanks for the comments, all. Please keep it nice though as I don't want to have to give out warnings for making personal attacks.

Ghafhi, I don't want to make a scenario about modern Africa because (a) I'm not interested in it and (b) all modern African wars are so astoundingly unpleasant that they would make a very tasteless scenario. You have misunderstood the Wiki article on the Fulani, which states quite clearly that the people were widespread in early modern times and formed an empire in the nineteenth century. And for once it is right. If you follow the link in that article to the one on Usman dan Fodio, who founded that nineteenth-century empire, you'll see that until the uprising he was living in the Hausa city states and that the Fulani were disparate nomads living under Hausa rule. Which is why in the scenario I made the Fulani Spear Thrower to be the Hausa UU.

In fact, the Fulani are mentioned in the pedia for this scenario many times; if you'd read it you'd know how they relate to the other civs presented there. In particular, see the entries on Kanem-Bornu, the Nomadism tech, and the Fulani Spear Thrower.

If you really think that Kongo was a major influence on the Sahel in medieval times (and I'm glad you seem to have given up claiming this about Great Zimbabwe) then please be more specific. You can't just keep insisting on this point. What influence did it have, and how? When? Give evidence!

Now when I planned this scenario I didn't just rely on Wikipedia for my information but I went to the British Library and read every book I could find on all the civs I included. Which didn't take as long as you might think given that hardly anything has been written on some of them. If you can actually provide any new information that I missed, or correct any details that went wrong, I would be very pleased. But just vague declarations that it's wrong without anything to back them up aren't going to be a whole lot of help.

Quote:
Originally Posted by kairob
dferrill I havnt seen you post before that I remember but I like you...

...a lot!

Quote:
Originally Posted by dferrill
I havent posted before on this thread im checking out new scenarios im not new to civ 3 but i am new to this forum and like the people here because there kind helpfull and respectfull to each other except for one person that ive seen so far. usually i keep my mouth shut but i couldnt resist because the people that make mods for us here on there own free time deserve better treatment then whats being displayed by some people thankfully its very few who act like a child on this forum sorry thats just my opinion.im not here to critisize the modders that work hard to make scenarios for our enjoyment.

I just wanted to say that I think you were 100% right to say so and voice your oppinion,

and @lezonerdagGHAFHI IS AN IDIOT!

while I agree with the statment I suffer from dislexia and as such spelling is very difficult for me and I have to try really hard just to make my writting legible, so I do not think that an inibility to spell makes people stupid, however being wrong and such an ass does, IMHO.

Edit; bear in mind I am not saying this is what makes him stupid, just that this is what makes him stupid in my opinion.

Oh and I too laugh at him :lol: :lol: :lol:

If you can't find a way to link the Congo into a african empire game then that speaks volumes about your intelligence or at least lack of it.

Oh My Gosh! Never, Ever, EVER Insult a moderator! That is like spitting on Jesus or something. What were you thinking? :confused:


BTW, Wikipedia vs. The British Library...

I think the British Library wins. ;)

Well this story went down an unpleasant alley now. *shakes his head*

Honestly, while I do respect your motivation in defending Plotinus work etc., you all (I guess everyone knows whom I am talking about) did it even worse then Ghafi did, when he stated his frustration with Plotinus Scenario. If it was up to me, you would have all earned warnings for this behavior. Its imho unacceptable behavior, there was no reason at all to start bashing on him without any serious argument. Calling someone an "idiot" for either posting his thoughts, might they be questionable or not, is unacceptable. The same is true for judging someones spelling abilities (and its supposedly even a foreign language to him). Worse even, you guys started to laugh at him in a very unpleasant way, that shows of disrespect, overconfidence, and a false superiority feeling. Things that often come with mobbing crowds.

I feel very sad about this, since people seem to loose their ability to straighten out things with a clear mind, and most important with "respect".
And I am really disappointed, since I always thought this forum to be filled with clever and liberal people. I might have misjudged that.

Edit: Trying to head back to topic now.
What is the status on the new fancy techtree for the Muslim factions ingame Plotinus, and did you find time to progress with the Mod?

All right, enough said all round. As I tried to make clear in my last post there was enough rudeness on both sides, though naturally under the circumstances I'm reluctant to hand out warnings. Although of course I'll do so anyway if I have to, so there's no need for tellings off from other quarters too.

Anyway, also returning to topic: I haven't done anything more on the tech tree for the time being. This is because most of my efforts for this scenario right now are going on making new units to replace some of the less suitable graphics that I used. The link to my unit library is in my sig so you can see how that's progressing - in fact I've done most of them now, with just a couple more to go. Also I've been a little distracted by this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=191365) planned scenario - a much smaller project but it still takes time, of course.

I think the Arabian tech tree that I posted earlier is pretty much it - I don't think much tinkering should be required. The main task once I have the units completed is to write the pedia entries for the Arabian techs and other things, which takes a while.

Let me say in closing this topic that if I offended anyone by expressing my personal opinion, I am truly sorry. :blush: Certainly, spelling prowess is not necessarily equal to intelligence level and my intent was to stop a stream of negativety, not to start one. I am emotional and passionate about things I like and it is difficult to see post after post of insulting comments with no apparent constructive purpose behind them and say nothing.

Once again, sorry if I offended anyone.

Now to something posotive!:goodjob:

I work in a sales office where we are literally required to jump up and down after making a sale. However, I never jumped as high at work as I did when I saw that Plotinus' is planning another scenario! Also, it takes place around my favorite era and place in history. All I can say is I can't wait! If I was Firaxis, 2k, Microprose or whoever owns Civ now I would kidnap Plotinus and lock him in a room with no windows. I would not let him leave until he completed Civ 5 and at least one expansion pack!:D

Also, Plotinus, I have a question for you. One of my favorite "features" of both Desert and Rood is the seemingly EXTREME level of aggression displyed by the AI. I am familiar with the basic manipulation of biq files but it seems that these two scenarios have a little "extra" aggression. For example, I am not talking about things like the viking targets placed in Rood to nudge along the Norseman and the Danes. Nor the locked war at the beginning of the Desert. These things I understand. In my experience, some scenarios have an AI that you could continually harrass and they would rarely do anything about it; other scenarios have an AI that is so passive you might think they are part of Red Cross caravan delivering blankets to needy children. But in Rood for instance, typically by the time I research Mounted Thegn or sometimes before, at least one AI civ is already marching towards my cities with unfriendly intentions.
Sometimes in Desert it seems that the AI is simply waiting for me to place my first city before they declare war! Other times they seem to be more relaxed. Continual attacks with hidden nationality "ninjas" in the SENDOKU scenario will only waste your ninjas and the only response from the AI is an increase from annoyed to furious relations.In Rood, however, continual wanderer harrasment is lickely to provoke war (especially if you attack Northhumbria with them). So, are these things random, can you control them or am I just crazy and maybe have analyzed it to much?:crazyeye:

Anyway I can't wait for your next scenario and I appreciate any comments you have on my question.

In this scenario it's because the Ayyubids are powerful, and can get ANYWHERE, the Falasha have VERY strong troops, and the Hausa (SP?) erm.. seem to be just plain good!

Falasha have VERY strong troops

I love playing as the Falasha. Revenge for the Jews! I also love This:

Hey, I was reading Leviticus in an idle moment, and I don't think we're following it to the letter! Let's make sure we're offering every Sacrifice we should be. It will keep the people happy!

It's the little touchs that bring a scenario to life. :D