MAP RELEASE

*** Updated to 1.1 (Please see changelog below)

104467

Download here:
104468
104721 <-- CURRENT

Description

I've finally finished my own version of a Real Earth map. This map has been built completely from scratch using satellite photography, topographical maps, real world resource locations, and real native population groups as barbarian tribes.

The size of this map is 180x87, so it will strain your computer. I have 2GB of RAM and could play through mid- and end-game reasonably well. Rigs with less RAM may not be so manageable. You have been warned!

Many of you wonder why not make more small maps. I thought about it and actually started to make a small map of Earth (or a deformed version of Earth enlarging historic areas), but it just didn't "do it" for me. You will find this map to be to scale (including oceans). You may want to mod ocean-faring vessel speeds to compensate.

I used several online resources, including Wikipedia among others, to make sure game resource placement and native population groups are correct. Keep in mind, however, that this does take a back seat to playability and balance. So don't be disappointed if your favorite barbarian group is not as you expect (or is missing) or if resources are missing or added where you may not expect them. Earth maps are usually fairly unbalanced. This one makes an attempt to balance.

Also tweaked in this map are relationships between AI players (and toward the human player). This again is done for balance and realism. You can inspect the WBS if you want to know what is what, or leave it for a surprise when you play! Most should be as you would expect, but I didn't go overboard.


Civilization Starting Areas and Descriptions:

American:
The destiny-driven Americans have settled on the Atlantic coast of a wild, but rich continent. Don't expect the huge North American continent all to yourself, however. You will have to contend with heathen Aztecs in the south and hostile indigenous peoples across the plains. Expect friendly relations with England and tensions from Japan and Russia.

Arabia:
The Arabs have settled between the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea locked in a hot gulf of sand and sun. Plentiful oases dot the landscape and provide a perfect environment for these rugged desert dwellers. Expect tensions with Mali and neutrality with most other neighbors.

Aztec:
The Aztecs start deep in the tropical heart of classic Mesoamerica. The Inca to the south and the Americans to the north threaten to stifle your growth if you let them. Expect friendly relations with the Incans and tensions from Spain and America.

China:
The Chinese settlers start in some of the most fertile lands in the world. The widely varied terrain of the Eastern Asian landscape may be seen as unlimited. However, stay alert for hostile nations to the south like the Khmer and your always hostile Mongol neighbors to the north. Expect friendly relations from the Indians and tensions from Japan and Mongolia.

Egypt:
The Nile River Valley provides an ancient cradle of life most would envy. The Egyptians have many possibilities from this strategic starting position. Expect friendly relations from Rome and tensions from Arabia.

England:
Situated on the temperate British Isles, England has the luxury of early-game isolation from land invaders. However, only an expansionist mindset will allow you to survive the later epochs. The English can expect friendly relations from the Americans and tensions from India and Germany.

France:
Napoleon and his French Empire find themselves in a crowded European setting. With Germany to the east and friendly Spain to the west, the only option is the Roman threat to the south, but don't forget about your old rivals -- the English -- to the north. May Napoleon's cunning prevail! Expect friendly relations from Spain and tensions from England and Rome.

Germany:
The ancient Germanic tribes settle down in the area of modern-day Berlin. There are among two choices from this position: Squeeze past Mother Russia to the East to settle Asia Minor or triumph directly against Rome to the south. There's also always France to the west! Expect friendly relations from Greece and Japan and tensions from England and Rome.

Greece:
Alexander sits ready to command the armies of Greece and Macedon! Do not hesitate and be content with the Aegean sea, but lay claim to your lands before the tyrant Cyrus gets there before you! Expect friendly relations from no one and tensions from Persia.

Inca:
High in the legendary highlands of the Andes Mountains, Huayna Capac commands the beginnings of the Incan Empire. Expanding into South America isn't as easy as it might seem. Your isolation is sealed by the great Amazon Rainforest stretching below the clouds to the east. May the brave Inca survive and expand! Expect friendly relations from the Aztecs to the north and tensions from Spain.

India:
Nestled in the Ganges river valley, the beginnings of the Indian Empire get a great start indeed. Mind the wall of mountains to the north and the hostile tribes to the southeast, then all you have to worry about is landgrab contention from Persia to the west! Expect friendly relations from China and tensions from Greece.

Japan:
The mythical Japanese start at the far east of Asia on a long, fertile island. The limited space on that island will prompt you to make your move for the mainland quickly. Oceania is also yours to claim if you are brave enough. Expect friendly relations from Germany and Mongolia and tensions from China.

Mali:
The largely unexplored African continent is home to the Malinese. South of the looming presence of the massive Sahara, Mali must forge their existance in the savannahs and jungles of West Africa. Riches are to be had in the south, but don't mistake your isolation as safety. Expect friendly relations from France and tensions from Inca and Egypt.

Mongolia:
The terrifying horselords of Central Asia are yours to command. The cool steppes of Mongolia are vast and wide, but do not feel too secure in your intimidation of the lesser civs. Even a powerful king can get lost in Asia, if he does not get spread too thin first. Expect friendly relations from Persia and tensions from no one. The arrogant nations of the Orient will have no idea what hit them.

Persia:
The budding Persian empire has a great land of opportunity before them in the heart of Asia. Babylonia sits ripe to the west, nestled in the Fertile Crescent, while Bactria and the wealths in the Indian subcontinent await you. Opportunism will be your success! Expect friendly relations from Arabia and tensions from Greece.

Rome:
The seat of Rome is not for the meek. A crowded Europe sits to the north; one that should fall under the might of your Praetorian. the barbaric citystate of Carthage sits across the seas to the south, with the continent of Africa behind it. The might of Rome must spread -- it is inevitable. Expect friendly relations from Egypt and tensions from France.

Russia:
On the fringe of Europe sits the newly settled Russia. To the east, expansion opportunities await, but those are not vacant lands. What the stifling chill of Siberia won't stop, the Huns and Bulgars will. Be wary and carry the might of The Motherland with you at all times. Expect friendly relations from China and tensions from America and Mongolia.

Spain:
From the heart of Iberia comes the first royal line of the new Spanish Empire. Locked in the western fringe of crowded Europe, expansion is either through use of the sword or use of a ship. The unknown world calls for Spanish colonial power, so show it to them! Expect friendly relations from Russia and tensions from Rome.

Other Stuff

I've only done some minor testing with this. I've played most of the civs to at least past Classical Age to make sure there weren't any glaring balance problems. Please let me know if you find any!

Also, I've scoured the map for any bad resource placements (things on peaks, etc) and think that I've nailed them all. Let me know if you find stuff like that.

Changelog

Version 1.0

Initial Release

Version 1.1 (Current Version)
Fixes:

Japanese starting on a peak was fixed
Babylonia strengthened to prevent early assimilation
Added missing starting techs for all civs
Changes:

Moved starting locations of European civs slightly, allowing more space between those civs (also putting them on coasts)
Arabian starting area strengthened and shifted slightly
Japanese starting area strengthened
Added island of Cyprus
Added wheat to Nile Valley, removed some oases from the flood plains there
Extended Euphrates River farther into Asia Minor (Turkey)
Added many more tributaries to the Amazon River
Added more tributaries to the Congo River
Added more pig resource to rainforests
Added deer to Africa (to simulate antelope, etc.)
Added copper to Europe
Minor resource adjustments all over (including some reductions in places)
Adjusted polar ice levels and permafrost level in Siberia
Adjusted land structure in northern Canada to be more accurate
Babylonia renamed to Babylon
Added San Joaquin river to California

Future Plans

Might move civs around and rename and relocate them for better balance and less crowding. Even on a map this big, Europe is still crowded. While this is balanced by less barbarian activity and more concentrated resources, it is still a hassle if you like those civs. The only option is probably to remove some of them and use more generic names to describe them (use Celts to replace France and England for instance since the Gauls were really just Celts).

I'd love to hear any suggestions or future improvements. Also let me know of bugs and I will update.

Looks fantastic. Downloading now. :king:

edit: But why is only 1 leader per civ availible?

No reason other than it didn't work too well with NONE set as the leader in the WBS file. So basically, lack of knowledge on my part. If anyone knows how to allow all leaders in a set-location map like this, let me know :)

edit: heading to bed, will check this thread tomorrow.

I played one game as the Americans and was basically slaughtered by barbarians. They have a pretty difficult starting position.

I restarted as France and am certainly having a better game. I have more then double the closest competitor and eliminated Spain, Rome and almost Germany in about 15 turns.

Perhaps you should consider enlarging Europe a bit. France, Rome, England and Germany are at a loss since there is literally no room for further cities.

As Spain (or with the now French city of Madrid) you can advance into North Africa but England, Rome and France don't have as easy a time.

good job

and it crashes MapView so it´s very valuable for me outside civ aswell.

edit: omg, 82000 lines ;)

Definately an interesting, accurate map. Well done for it, it reminded me of the well know 'El-Mencey's' earth map. I will not however be able to play with it the fact that my laptop is an AMD Athlon 512 MB ddr ram.
Good job for it!

Thank you aeric67,
Your map crashes in worldview. Which is a good thing. It means I can't run my 256 x 128 map, at least until patch time. I do have 768 Mb DDR RAM and 2GB Virtual and it still crashed. Thanks for the test.

Thanks for the initial feedback. I was just playing the Egyptians and noticed that European nations were once again having a rough time expanding. The AI always seems to have a hard time when it can't go by land. I will try to think of good ways to balance that out. Might start the Spanish and English with Sailing (if not already).

Also noticed that the Japanese settler starts on a peak (oops). It's not a problem since you can easily move off a peak, but it takes away that precious first turn, so it will be fixed in the next version.

I want to preserve the scale of Europe as it is. There are other maps with enlarged European areas or otherwise exaggerated land areas. I want this one to stay physically accurate and balance it in other ways. Although I may consolidate some of the European nations as a fix too (as mentioned in the Future Plans section) then add the difference as nations elsewhere on Earth.

edit: Thanks for trying it guys. Keep the ideas coming! :)

I looked into the difficulty of the American's starting position and decided to leave as is for now (until more testing can be done). I want to be careful to not allow unfettered expansion across that very rich continent. What you experienced, Kudos, is pretty much as intended. I played America as my first test (all on Noble) and found I was able to push west, but not without leaving all my cities well defended and always being on the offensive against those barbs (which simulated early America's actual challenge). America in this map is not meant as a "Simcity" position (as is normal for maps like this).

As for Europe. In the hands of a human player, it is meant to be conquered without extreme difficulty early. Rome did it in real history, and Germania, Hispania, and Gaul could have had it just as easily if in the right hands (and in fact they did all have their turn eventually). The problem is when a human isn't involved in Europe, then the nations all stagnate in peace. Thus one of the reason for the AI hate modifiers. My latest test game as Egypt (still using 1.0) showed quite a bit better fighting going on in Europe than in prereleased versions. In fact, France (which you seemed to experience as overpowered) ended up getting pounded and was extinct before 1700AD.

Anyway, keep playing it if you are having fun and let me know your experiences :)

Okay, I increased virtual memory. But still the editor crashes if I leave the initial map area of my civ.
I can play the map, not sure how long though. What are Rome's starting techs? Editor doesn't stay open long enough to find out.

;) i m so happy this map came, MapView now works for it and for all the files with that little issue that caused the problem.

now i´ll go and play some on your map.
http://www.bindig.net/MapView/MapView.Signature.jpg (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=141622)

Holy crap, good job... I was looking into this and even started it but been to busy. You did a really good job on this. Dam memory leak. I can't by that its my system, it has to be Civ4. Half-Life2 in the highest quality and video settings doesn't even flicker on my system. I can't imagine this being more memory intesive than half-life2.

TBear2520

jupp, lets hope the soon-to-come patch will make a decent difference about memory usage. took me ages to load the map. but a needed a potty break anyway ;)

Okay, I increased virtual memory. But still the editor crashes if I leave the initial map area of my civ.
I can play the map, not sure how long though. What are Rome's starting techs? Editor doesn't stay open long enough to find out.

All civ starting techs are the defaults right now in version 1.0.

The reason I asked was Rome did not have fishing or mining.

There are no modifiers to team techs in the WBS. You may have a mod active that is doing this. I'll double check on my end, though.

Version 1.1 should be out early this week, which will hopefully address European crowding a bit and some other fixes and balancing.

Edit: Doesn't look like anyone has starting techs that they should. I'll fix that in version 1.1. Sorry about that!

Aeric,
I got the game working, and I'm the Romans. I have something like 7 cities. It is 680 BC.

This map is awesome. I'm building my military now.

I looked into the difficulty of the American's starting position and decided to leave as is for now (until more testing can be done). I want to be careful to not allow unfettered expansion across that very rich continent. What you experienced, Kudos, is pretty much as intended. I played America as my first test (all on Noble) and found I was able to push west, but not without leaving all my cities well defended and always being on the offensive against those barbs (which simulated early America's actual challenge). America in this map is not meant as a "Simcity" position (as is normal for maps like this).

As for Europe. In the hands of a human player, it is meant to be conquered without extreme difficulty early. Rome did it in real history, and Germania, Hispania, and Gaul could have had it just as easily if in the right hands (and in fact they did all have their turn eventually). The problem is when a human isn't involved in Europe, then the nations all stagnate in peace. Thus one of the reason for the AI hate modifiers. My latest test game as Egypt (still using 1.0) showed quite a bit better fighting going on in Europe than in prereleased versions. In fact, France (which you seemed to experience as overpowered) ended up getting pounded and was extinct before 1700AD.

Anyway, keep playing it if you are having fun and let me know your experiences :)

That's decent rationale for Europe and I actually considered the same thing for America after posting that. Of course my reason for playing as America was the idea of unchallenged expansion (I even rushed a setller down to Mexico to block Aztec or Incan entry), so when my plan was crushed by barbarian hordes I was rather disappointed ;).

I think I may be releasing 1.1 tonight. I've spread out the European starting points a bit. Germany is not quite where Berlin is now, but is still within the historic "Germania" realm. France, Spain, and Germany are all starting next to coasts now. That was a bit of a mess up for nations whose only choice at the beginning is expansion through conquest or by sea. Anyway, all three of those civs should now be able to build two cities pretty easily before having to fight or sail (but not without a bit of contention -- after all, it is Europe!). Strategic resources will cause inevitable conflicts as well :D

Also in 1.1, I tweaked the Nile River Valley to balance it some more, strengthened Japan's starting point a bit, added more tributaries to the Amazon River, lengthened the Euphrates into Asia Minor (to make it more habitable), tweaked the tundra and snow levels in Siberia, strenghthened Babylon so it doesn't basically give a free city to the civ who gets a warrior there first, and a few other tweaks and stuff to resolve things I've noticed as I play tested it.

Also will be fixed are starting techs, which I'm amazed I didn't notice before!

Let me know if there is anything else. I'm glad you guys like the map!

thanx a lot! this is really great! i was looking for a map like this daily (i really aint to good with computers, so i lack the skill to do this myself), so i was very happy to see someone did it, and VERY delighted to see it was done so exceptionally well!
i play germany with noble difficulty (first try i was cautious), its around 1750 and i´m in industrial age. my infantry units control all of europe up to slightly beyond the ural, parts of the middle east, south africa and australia. compared to other games with the same difficulty i seem to do better, so either i had a real good day, or i should play this map with higher difficulty than i normally do. the only serious competitor seems to be america. while they do not yet control their whole continent (handful of barb-cities left) they are VERY populous, and rank second to me (slightly less than half my points). all the other nations will be no challange, i guess.
i am just telling you this, in case you are still thinking about balancing this. my impression is, that the ai-civs have much more problems handling the barb-cities than a human player does - and there are a lot of those. (actually, conquering the barb-cities as a means of expansion gave me an enormous edge in the early centuries. i pretty much contained russia so i could deal with western europe before turning east...) is there a possibility to give the ai-civs (only them) an edge over the barbs?
i also thought about the recources. is it correct, that europe has no copper at all? (after all, there was an european bronce age) i wasn't even able to trade for it until fairly late in the game (~1600) also there seems to be no norwegian oil fields.
and when thinking about recources: i really loved the effect in some civ3 maps, when you had to worry obout getting strategic recources like rubber later in the game, either trading for it ore mounting very expensive conquest-expeditions around the globe ...
i hope, my "mid-action-repurt" helps and is of interest to you.
the most important thing i had to say, though, ist: great job, wonderful map! thank you!
reminded me of gagarin:"i can see the earth. it is so beautyful" ;-)

thanx a lot! this is really great! i was looking for a map like this daily (i really aint to good with computers, so i lack the skill to do this myself), so i was very happy to see someone did it, and VERY delighted to see it was done so exceptionally well!
i play germany with noble difficulty (first try i was cautious), its around 1750 and i´m in industrial age. my infantry units control all of europe up to slightly beyond the ural, parts of the middle east, south africa and australia. compared to other games with the same difficulty i seem to do better, so either i had a real good day, or i should play this map with higher difficulty than i normally do. the only serious competitor seems to be america. while they do not yet control their whole continent (handful of barb-cities left) they are VERY populous, and rank second to me (slightly less than half my points). all the other nations will be no challange, i guess.
i am just telling you this, in case you are still thinking about balancing this. my impression is, that the ai-civs have much more problems handling the barb-cities than a human player does - and there are a lot of those. (actually, conquering the barb-cities as a means of expansion gave me an enormous edge in the early centuries. i pretty much contained russia so i could deal with western europe before turning east...) is there a possibility to give the ai-civs (only them) an edge over the barbs?
i also thought about the recources. is it correct, that europe has no copper at all? (after all, there was an european bronce age) i wasn't even able to trade for it until fairly late in the game (~1600) also there seems to be no norwegian oil fields.
and when thinking about recources: i really loved the effect in some civ3 maps, when you had to worry obout getting strategic recources like rubber later in the game, either trading for it ore mounting very expensive conquest-expeditions around the globe ...
i hope, my "mid-action-repurt" helps and is of interest to you.
the most important thing i had to say, though, ist: great job, wonderful map! thank you!
reminded me of gagarin:"i can see the earth. it is so beautyful" ;-)

Map updated to version 1.1! See first post.

Also keep that feedback coming and thanks for all the remarks :)

Map updated to version 1.1! See first post.

Also keep that feedback coming and thanks for all the remarks :)
:goodjob: :goodjob: :goodjob: :king:
Great Job !!!

great job! I really love this map though AI turns are VEEEEERY long and I do have some suggestions (I played with the aztecs until modern age in map version 1.0):

- in the real world there were no horses in north or south america, they were all brought from europe. (there were not any cows either, but there were buffalos so I guess cattle is alright)
- copper and iron are waaay too scarce from central to north america, whereas silver and gold are a lot more common (isn't it the other way around?)
- from the us west coast to panama there isn't a single drop of oil anywhere, not even on the sea, that's very inaccurate (I myself am a mexican and my country's primary export is oil.. so there..)

I'm not sure if it was made on purpose, but it seems all resources are very scarce (excluding corn).. did you intend to do a civ3- style gameplay?

ok, that's all for now

all in all great job! keep up the good work :goodjob:

Here's an update on my game on the 1.0 map.

As the French I have conquered all of Europe and Northern and Western Africa. I will probably end up with a domination victory, unless my time runs out.

But most importantly; it runs fantastic. Better then a huge, 18 Civ, map (and there are still 15 civs left in my game, since Greece and Germany both escaped with little nothing cities in Kazahkstan and the Sahara). I am close to the modern age (I just got Tanks) playing on noble. My specs are: 3ghz P4 HT, 1gig ram and 6600GT with 77.77 drivers.

When I'm done with this game I'll give the new version a try. The great part about world maps is the experience is completely different for different civs, which can't often be said for random ones.

edit: One thing I'd like to see in 1.02 is all leaders available, if possible.

Edit2: Naturally, the game runs beautifully yesterday but now that I've talked about it it takes 10 minutes to load the game and, when it does, is unplayable. :mad: :mad:

great job! I really love this map though AI turns are VEEEEERY long and I do have some suggestions (I played with the aztecs until modern age in map version 1.0):

- in the real world there were no horses in north or south america, they were all brought from europe. (there were not any cows either, but there were buffalos so I guess cattle is alright)
- copper and iron are waaay too scarce from central to north america, whereas silver and gold are a lot more common (isn't it the other way around?)
- from the us west coast to panama there isn't a single drop of oil anywhere, not even on the sea, that's very inaccurate (I myself am a mexican and my country's primary export is oil.. so there..)

I'm not sure if it was made on purpose, but it seems all resources are very scarce (excluding corn).. did you intend to do a civ3- style gameplay?

ok, that's all for now

all in all great job! keep up the good work :goodjob:

Thanks for the feedback!

For the resources, I asked myself these questions before placing:

a) How plentiful it is in the area?
b) How easily is it extracted?
c) Does it mess with game balance being there?

Typically, if the answer to (a) is "a lot" and (b) is "very easily", then I will place the resource (sometimes more than one). If the answer to (c) is "yes", then I may not place the resource, I might place only one, or I might shift it to a place that would be threatened by an enemy more easily.

So for horses, cows, oil, silver, whatever. I only used real world locations as guides. I tried to think to myself, "Could this deposit of copper support several armies of spearmen?" If not, then I probably didn't place it.

Cows could definitely simulate the buffalo, but also the fact that cows today on the Great Plains are self sufficient and thrive there without outside help. So I guess the same might happen in this game once those areas are settled.

Horses I almost didn't place in North America. But then I started reading about the large populations of feral and wild Mustangs there today and just had to place them. Plus there's a lot of popular culture of American cowboys and Indians fighting it out on horses. There may not be a lot of contact with Europe until horses become obsolete (or close) so I thought adding horses would be a good idea for game purposes.

Same goes with oil. I picked the bigger producers of oil from my own research with game balance in mind. I almost think the map has too much oil though. :lol:

Not to say that some things don't need tweaking, but thats my reason for the way they are now. As long as you are having fun, that's all that matters to me! From your comments, though, I will go through and make sure stuff is fair... I'll take another look :) At this point though, I'd probably only change things if they are glaringly bad (like no copper in Europe, which was fixed in 1.1). I hate to give you a reason NOT to download patches because they nerf or change things a lot ;)

One thing I'd like to get just right, though, is terrain features. That's why 1.1 had so many terrain fixes in it. So please keep your eye on them as you play. Let me know if some areas (particularly the area you live or have been to) are way off so I can fix. I used a lot of satellite imagery to place mountains, forests, and such, but it doesn't substitute actually going there and seeing for yourself!

Oh almost forgot. Kudos, I am glad you like the map. However, I don't have any idea how to add multiple leader choices to a fixed starting location map like this one.

I will eventually look into the Python side of things and maybe make a map generation script (like the ones that came with the game), except one that always generates Earth as it is in this map, but then allows multiple leader choices.

Also if I do that I might be able to randomize resource placement as well (and goody huts). So that certain areas have resource, but the exact placement and quantity is different each game. If anyone knows how to do this, I'd love your help!

Can I play it with hot seat mod..?

I get a crash to desktop every time I try and load - 1gb ram as well :(

weird, i have 768 MB DDR sdram and I can run the map.

Just wanted to thank the creator of this map. It is by FAR the best Earth map I have played.

My current game I am playing English, and I am using the slow tech + other balances mod. The two together have made a game that ended up being almost perfect. The inclusion of the barbarian tribes was absolutely brilliant. It stunts the growth of certain civilizations and adds tons of flavor. There was nothing cooler than sacking trondhiem and the resulting war with russia over the valuable iron there. After I had secured that, I remained aloof from the various European wars that broke out. While my civ was small, it was very advanced and so I was keeping up tech-wise.

Later on, I decided to check the new world out, and to my suprise and excitment there was America spread out with several large cities.. protected by ARCHERS. At this time I had musketmen, it was ~1550 a.d. I can't tell you how fun it was loading up 4 galleons with musketmen and capturing the new world from americans and historically named indian tribes too! Halfway through my conquest of the New World, I got redcoats, an upgrade I really needed because the more western barbarians were bringin it on strong with horse archers... and alas, my game crashed.

Just wanted to say it was definitely the best and most enjoyable map I have played to date, thanks for your hard work! One thing I would change is slightly more copper/iron in Europe. I believe germany was the only nation able to build anything but archers until 1500's!

Wow thanks for the feedback. I think you may be right and I will have to surrender to the iron/copper demand. I will evaluate it again for the next version of this map. Until then, keep having fun :)

can you made a Canada MOD compatible version containing Canada? the entire north is uninhabited (except by barbarians) so there should be room to add another team

@canucksrule19: problem is that there is a hardcoded limit of 18 civilizations in cIV

but you could manually edit the file (i only changed china leader top qui something i cannot keep in my mind ;) as i like playing with his traits) and remove one civ and replace it with another and set the starting position to the place you want it to be

but i agree with the others, its the best world map so far

btw: how can you place cities (in thsi case for the barb cities) with the world builder? couldn't figure that out yet (it might be a bit off topic, i know, but i am curious)

@canucksrule19: problem is that there is a hardcoded limit of 18 civilizations in cIV

but you could manually edit the file (i only changed china leader top qui something i cannot keep in my mind ;) as i like playing with his traits) and remove one civ and replace it with another and set the starting position to the place you want it to be

but i agree with the others, its the best world map so far

btw: how can you place cities (in thsi case for the barb cities) with the world builder? couldn't figure that out yet (it might be a bit off topic, i know, but i am curious)

How do you edit in your prefered leader :confused:? Just open the map in notepad or something?

@canucksrule19: problem is that there is a hardcoded limit of 18 civilizations in cIV

but you could manually edit the file (i only changed china leader top qui something i cannot keep in my mind ;) as i like playing with his traits) and remove one civ and replace it with another and set the starting position to the place you want it to be

but i agree with the others, its the best world map so far

btw: how can you place cities (in thsi case for the barb cities) with the world builder? couldn't figure that out yet (it might be a bit off topic, i know, but i am curious)

I didn't use the World Builder at all, except to examine the map for errors and such when in the game. I used BMP to WBS converter and Photoshop CS almost exclusively.

But like others have said, you can always open up the map with Notepad (or Wordpad as I would prefer), then look at a plot with a barb city on it, then copy it to the plot you want (changing the name, etc). Also change your leaders that way. Oh yeah, make sure to use names for cities that are not on any of the city naming lists for the civs, otherwise they won't appear.

As far as mods go, I plan to remake this map as a scenario with a mod that combines possibly the slow-tech + balance mod and elements of the Superciv mod, then spread out the civs a bit more replacing stock civs with more generic names for those civs. So some form of Canada may make it in. Although probably not named Canada since that is a very new country. I don't even like the idea of "America" being in the game for the same reasons.

Which brings me to another point maybe someone can help with (but probably not until the SDK comes out). If we can get a mod that allows civs to be made from other civs through civil war, that would be something I'd be very interested in. I can see a list of sub-civs that you associate with a master civ (like the city list for a civ), which is basically a list of possible civs that get created from that civ through civil war. So England (or Bretagne actually) might have America, New Zealand, Australia, etc as its sub-civ list. France (or Gaul/Celt) would have Canada as one of its sub-civs. Then as a result, make civil disorder resulting in civil war a bit more common (especially for distance cities).

Anyway, big thoughts for a future thing.

Just took a look at this map in the world builder, and it's looking pretty good. I did note two things that may be glitches though. First it doesn't look like england has any room on it's land mass for a second city without wasting turns moving around, and certainly not without overlap. adding a few tiles at the north and south and starting "england" on one of the tips could make a big difference here, even if it isn't quite as historically accurate. So could adding a piece of land connecting ireland to england diagonally, showing that very early peoples could travel between the islands without difficulty.

The second one is easier, it doesn't look like you can circumnavigate the mape at all without use of a "gateway" city in mesoamerica. This may be intentional as it WAS a very hard thing to do, and we did wind up with a panama canal, but I figure it's something worth pointing out.

Also for England adding in the small island to the northwest that was always included in CIV III world maps might help as well, so would a strip of better fishing and green coast on the tip of greenland where the vikings put there settlement, perhaps with a barbarian tribe to guard it.

i just played the 1.1 version to the end, and have to say, its great. the new starting locations do much to improve balance - i played as germany and was not able to lock all of europe with a few moves as i did on the first version (accidentally, amof). also, your positioning of recources is very well planned.
alltogether certainly the best map around :goodjob:
england did very well in all my games, usually with 3 cities on their island. small but advanced and powerful. later on they tend to settle overseas, usually first iceland, later north and/or south america or the caribbean. strangely they NEVER tried to settle ireland (lucky irish ;) ) may that be because ireland is to CLOSE to england? maybe moving it just one tile west would give the english another island to settle, not initially, but early in the game ...
i also wanted to make another suggestion: what do you think about using mainly ancient civilisations in the map? i refer to the americans: admittedly they playd a very important role in the 20th century, but it always feels kind of strange to see american knights on the great plains in the middle ages ;)
(pls dont flame me, this is NOT against the usa, after all there IS already a map that includes them...)
you could replace them with a native american civ. england usually tries to colonize america anyway... all other civs have been there since ancient times (to a various degree with egypt or china beeing there right from the beginning, while germany beeing little more than barbarians until fairly recently) also you could replace the french by the gauls, but then "ancientizing" all the civs (like germany, spain, russia etc) would be to much work. well anyway, its just an idea ...
thanx for your great map :goodjob:

kapitan, I agree with you about some civs not quite belonging, particularly America. But many people like to play that civ so if I were to take it out and "ancientize" the rest of existing civs, it would probably be in a different map altogether, not a rev to this one (actually probably the same map, just a different release and probably more of a scenario than a map). After all, the game was made in the USA, so America is many people's favorites. Not only that, but the civ's name isn't USA, it's America. So that could represent almost any of the Native American tribes that were present there before Europeans. Although the fact that the leaderhead is composed of people of white European decent, I guess that possibility is obscured.

So I'd probably keep this map and that scenario separate if I did something like that. Any of you are welcome to do what we are talking about if you are so inclined :)

One small fix to European crowding would be to move the Germans to Poland and call them the Prussians, since they are historicaly older than "Germany".

May I suggest more N/S American Civs ? Only prob is 18 civs total not 32 like we had with Civ 3 Conquests.. Cherokee/Sioux/ Maya. Real civs expand better than 'barb towns' and generate culture better thus they would settle more of the map.

It's not easy playing the Americans either thats for sure. I thought about giving them some kind of bonus. A carrack named the mayflower? Not sure that'd help much. Extra settler or two with workers is too unbalancing. I just feel that when dealing with America it feels like 1692 on this continent although Europe starts at 4000bc. When N America was colonized it was the 1600's not 4000bc. There's a bit of time clash.
Hell I don't know, I suppose I could make a 1692 world map, Europeans would have an advantage with established cities and capitals and the Americans maybe with just one like Jamestown size 1 :D


Re: Oil. Yes not only should Mexico have some but Texas as well.
Iron and Coal I was thinking should be a little more abundant than it is.

Re: Gold, silver, gems. I guess it depends on when you think about it. As time went on it was mined heavily and hauled off on treasure fleets (Spanish ) I'll have to look at it again but I wouldnt advise tweaking really unless theres an unbalance (IE south americans have access to more lux than any other continent )

All in all a very good map. I don't mean to criticize you Aeric, I'm just voicing what's going thru my head, how I feel about it. You put time and effort in it. Kudos in my book.

No worries. I like to hear critical thoughts.

Much of the reason some resources aren't where they should be was for balance. I already have oil in Canada and Alaska, then oil in Venezuela. I swear there's some oil on this map in the Gulf of Mexico, but I can't remember right now. I didn't want there to be oil all over the place since there are really only three civs on the western hemisphere. I didn't want oil to be a non-issue when it came to strategy.

As far as the post 1600s feeling of conflict when playing the Americans, you have a good point. But I had to strike a balance. Americans weren't around in 4000BC (and probably shouldn't even be in this scenario, really). With that in mind, I decided to make it close to what America had to deal with when it was in its infancy. The fact that most if not all of the civs in this game were not around at 4000BC anyway allowed me to fudge historic fact quite a bit to maintain status quo... Also, much of the difficulty I put in the American position stems from the usually easy position they have on maps like this: (1) Block Aztecs (2) Take your time and settle the entire continent (3) Profit. I wanted to change that and give people a challenge.

As I do more research, I realize that some of my resource placements are very arguable. But again, if I placed a resource for every place that resource was found in real history, almost every resource would be within easy reach of every civ. Well, except elephants and ivory I guess. Game balance took precedence over historic accuracy, although not by much. Since resources never go away, you could argue resources that ran out in history (like gold and other precious metals and gems) shouldn't be placed. Then again, everything runs out eventually. Anyway, not saying it can't be perfected, but as long as it's playable and fun then I can't complain ;)

Any of you can do whatever you want with this map, just make sure I am mentioned somewhere in your credits ;)

One small fix to European crowding would be to move the Germans to Poland and call them the Prussians, since they are historicaly older than "Germany".

Thats not entirely true, The germanic tribes where around during Julius Ceasars time, While the Prussians were mostly likely not. however the teutonic order and germans where very active in the region during the medieval times

Great map!

No recomendations from my side except one : if it is possible to include all leaders, it would be great.
I love playing with Frederik.

Cheers!

Good work. One suggestion I might make is to beautify the shape of England, though. But I digress. Thank you for what you have done, first and foremost.

First off, great map. I don't see europe being crowded as a problem. It's actually one of the easiest starting locations in my opinion (I started as Rome). The reason is that you can immediately forego the production of workers and settlers, and focus only on warriors. When you have around 8, go and trash your nearest rival. This is easiest as Rome, because you can power to praetorians, which lasted me well into 1000 AD. I expanded so far that I had to slow my tech to a crawl.

One thing that bothered me was that when I played as the Egyptians, the closest supply of horses was in arabia. No problem right, just conquer them? Mecca sits on a hill, and they teched to archers before I got there. There is also no iron or copper nearby, so I had to tech to construction and mass war elephants to take them out. Also, consider enabling permanent alliances.

I have yet to try out the western hemisphere.

Good one!,great job, I've been playing your map now for a week and have no complaints, actually the game has been the best one for me so far.

Look forward to anyother maps your working on.

Thanks.

i dont know why people coimplain about europe being crowded... look at it, it is!

Tried again as the incans. Their starting location sucks. Big time. First off, if you don't move over, your city contains coastal squares but can't build a lighthouse. Secondly, if you do move over, there isn't enough food to sustain a large city. Then there's the massive amount of jungles in the area. Conquering the barbarian cities causes problems too, massive distance upkeep penalties. So far, I'm in 1810 AD, and I was way behind in score until around 1000 AD, which is when I got machinery I think, and then my worker hordes build wind and watermills all over the place - then I powered to replaceable parts, communism, and electricity, and with electricity and financial trait, those watermills work wonders.

I'm gonna clog up this board :-P

The game as the incas continues, and I'm at 1874 now. The rivers and wealth boosting resources in South America are a huge boost. I managed to buy the Kremlin, and since the entire continent of south america is producing huge amounts of commerce, I shot way up to future tech by around 1850, avoiding fiber optics so as not to obsolete the kremlin. I have space race victory off. I can basically buy a modern armor in every single one of my cities every turn, and then ship it over to europe/asia/afrika/whereverIamkickingass using airports. I am basically eliminating anyone who is voting for my rival, cyrus.
So far... France wiped out Germany. China wiped out Egypt. Persia wiped out India. I wiped out America (only after the Aztecs took them off the continent. I just took out their two last islands. Bastards didn't know who they should be voting for.)

Global 'diplomacy' is so much fun.
I feel like modern day America.

Man this map does not like it when I right click to move a unit... The darn thing crashes every time, it could be a patch conflict between this map made in an older version...

Yo, I know you mentioned that some resources were added for the sake of playability, but I must say, sugar near Berlin!? Otherwise, great map! Thanks for all your hard work!

I love the work you've done on this map. I was so glad to see that someone finaly created a world map that was larger than a postage stamp.:D My question is Is/Can this map be used as just a map or do I have to play it as a scenario every time. I dont like the aztecs attacking washington before I can found my 3rd city and Ive tried to remove them by editing the map file however Ive never done this before and I must have made some mistake because (my version) crashes everytime I try to play it. :cry: I just deleted the aztec (montezuma) player info and that doesnt do it I guess. I would love to just have the map as a map and let the "chips" fall where they may...is this possible? I have read through this entire thread and I havent seen this issue addressed as far as I can tell...thanks again for the great work.

if you don't want the game to have preset starting locations for any player, delete all the data in between all the beginteam endteam and between all the beginplayer endplayer
That *should* work.

I'm also modifying the map. I love the geography of it, but there are a few things that don't work. Traditional horse cultures like the egyptians and japanese don't have access to horses. The japanese also don't have access to iron, or even copper. So, how exactly do they make samurai? Just like the egyptians, how do they get war chariots? Then, the arabs do get horses, which I think makes historic sense, but it totally defeats the purpose of their UU the camel archer.

Hey, Thanks Interwurm! It works! :hatsoff: It also allows you to pick the different leaders in civs that have more than one. :thumbsup: Now to figure out how to let the user choose the civs that they would be playing against like in the regular game that would be optimal...and a true map and not a scenario. Incedently can you save this as just a map? Obviously maps can be made for this game as a small (very) selection comes with the game.

This worked Great, It is my favorite Earth map so far. Europe is fine, more war like=more realistic I wouldn't change it. I would say get rid of the northwest passage though.

Also would you ever consider makeing a smaller map with an enlarged Europe? so that my computer can handle the games past the renisance.

So am I the only one having the right click to move unit game freeze?

looks like a great world map, just curious what computer specs people are running this map with smoothly into the late game?

Hehe... well, I am running smoothly till about 1600. My specs are:

AMD 64 X2 4400+ (running real-time on one processor @ 2.21 GHz)
4MB OCR low latency RAM
XFX nVidia 7800 GTX
SB Audigy 2ZS Platinum
6,111 MB paging file on a partition of its own.

In otherwords... I really don't see why it should be slowing down for me at all. And it irks me!

Hehe... well, I am running smoothly till about 1600. My specs are:

AMD 64 X2 4400+ (running real-time on one processor @ 2.21 GHz)
4MB OCR low latency RAM
XFX nVidia 7800 GTX
SB Audigy 2ZS Platinum
6,111 MB paging file on a partition of its own.

In otherwords... I really don't see why it should be slowing down for me at all. And it irks me!

yeah with specs like that the word slow shouldn't be in your vocabulary... guess ill pass on this map... 8(

i dunno if its been mentioned, but theres some resources like rice on hills (near japan)... Which are useless since you cant farm hills!?

great map though :)

yep right, and there´s several roads already, dunno if they´re ment to be there.

farmable resources on hills are not useless. they provide a food bonus even if not farmed. they also provide the resource if you build your city on top of them... although, the rice on the hills does look a little weird. another thing that I noticed that hasn't shown up in the game by itself is floodplains on desert hills. other resource anomalies include maritime resources (fishes whales etc.) that are too far away from any shore to be harvested by a city. as far as not being able to play the game into the late eras... you know, you should still play the map anyways. I still find it enjoyable to play up until the 1600s, and then save the game and start again as a new civ. Winning is overrated.

Hey, Thanks Interwurm! It works! :hatsoff: It also allows you to pick the different leaders in civs that have more than one. :thumbsup: Now to figure out how to let the user choose the civs that they would be playing against like in the regular game that would be optimal...and a true map and not a scenario. Incedently can you save this as just a map? Obviously maps can be made for this game as a small (very) selection comes with the game.

Ok I may have spoke too soon, Although you do start in different areas than the orriginal map..it seems to just have rearanged the starting points of the different players...for example Washington now starts in Siberia (everytime) So...I guess we'll keep working at it...Cant wait till they get this game working...I havent even tried to finish a full game on this map and I have a killer system...Pentium 4 3.0Ghz, 1GB RAM, Radon 9800 Pro, and plenty of disk space...still slows down and crashes/reboots/hangs/graphic corruption...ectra...and I have to latest patch...sheesh!:(

Hey, Thanks Interwurm! It works! :hatsoff: It also allows you to pick the different leaders in civs that have more than one. :thumbsup: Now to figure out how to let the user choose the civs that they would be playing against like in the regular game that would be optimal...and a true map and not a scenario. Incedently can you save this as just a map? Obviously maps can be made for this game as a small (very) selection comes with the game.

Ok I may have spoke too soon, Although you do start in different areas than the orriginal map..it seems to just have rearanged the starting points of the different players...for example Washington now starts in Siberia (everytime) So...I guess we'll keep working at it...Cant wait till they get this game working...I havent even tried to finish a full game on this map and I have a killer system...Pentium 4 3.0Ghz, 1GB RAM, Radon 9800 Pro, and plenty of disk space...still slows down and crashes/reboots/hangs/graphic corruption...ectra...and I have to latest patch...sheesh!:(

Sorry Still learning how to edit my post:sad:

Check this thread out, I'm now able to run late game huge maps smoothly (except for the distant globe view) with this user created patch!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=146309

Sorry for being off topic, just wanted to point people worried about being able to run this map through late game in a direction that helped me.

Sorry for my absence all. I've been busy with other things and haven't even had a chance to play at all :(

Anyway, I will take all the comments here and update the map as necessary, releasing a new version sometime in the next week or so (maybe even sooner).

Thanks again for all the feedback.

Few suggestions for England which I just played half a game as.

There are no strategic resources on england except for stone for the early game. There should be copper or horses or something... it really sucks having only longbowmen until you can swindle someone into giving you iron or horses or something lol.

The whole of europe is grassland, there is no plains at all almost. Seems odd to me, I know you want it more fertile, but its very hard to get any production at some places And PLEASE put a tile of hill somewhere on Ireland, that was a pain in the arse.

Great start to the map though! Ill definatly try it again in a couple versions.

Could the Australian Civ mod be included (or an Australian civ be added into yours)?

Sniff, my comp blue screens on this map alone. I guess its the size, though my comp is fairly new. Have 1 gig of ram.

Sniff, my comp blue screens on this map alone. I guess its the size, though my comp is fairly new. Have 1 gig of ram.

try the MEM fix by harkonnen, works very well for me

1800+ AMD
1250 MB RAM
Geforce 6200 256MB

Very nice map. I changed the American leader to Roosevelt, since his traits are a little better.

Also reduced the deserts in the eastern hemisphere a little, and took out some mountains (mountains are useless in this game).

For a really interesting game, put another dozen barbarian cities in North America and play at deity level. Give yourself one horse archer if you feel faint-hearted.

Thanks for the map, Aeric67. Good job!

This is prehaps my favorite earth map. You did a great job. :)

I haven't downloaded or played this one yet but I look forward to it. My question is that I am looking for a map exactly like this that I can use in playing a "Custom Game." I noticed that under "Scenarios" there is an Earth map but when I go into "Custom Game" there is no choice for Earth. That is what I want. Is there a way I can extract just the map so I can do this?

I haven't downloaded or played this one yet but I look forward to it. My question is that I am looking for a map exactly like this that I can use in playing a "Custom Game." I noticed that under "Scenarios" there is an Earth map but when I go into "Custom Game" there is no choice for Earth. That is what I want. Is there a way I can extract just the map so I can do this?

I'd be really interested to know if this can be done as well. Great map, best one I've played so far!

it looks really good, but i don't understand why everyone ignores artic sea?

One thing I recommend not doing :sad: :

To see what the game would progress like with just the Mayans and the Incans in the Americas, I went into the World Builder and did two things:

a) Wiped out the Americans
b) Added other Indian tribes as Barbarian cities in places in the U.S. close to where they actually were, thinking it would add realism.

I went back to playing my game as Montezuma, and around 2000 BC the barbarians sent a group of six warriors and 4 archers straight toward my capital. I killed them all, only for the same thing to happen four turns later :eek:

Aeric, how did you go about creating this magnificent map? I've found it very useful, and it's very well balanced, but in my mod, I've added three Civs (Hungary, Poland, Austria), But I'd have to create my own map in order to use these Civs.

Any suggestions? From anyone?

Finally upgraded/patched my PC enough to play this Mod!

Aeric67, this map is awesome!

Could never play the English before, now I can, and as the Americans it's real fun too. About to delve into being a European Power now there's enough space to make it fun. Whole new dimension to the game - Cheers!

I downloaded the Canada civilizations and want to play as them, but they're not selectable on this list. How can I play as Canada?

Hello,

I am looking forward to play this map but I have two questions :

1) In the initial description, aeric describes for each civ which relations to expect with certain others civs... Now, is that scripted somewhere, how can I make all civs start out neutral to each other ( like originally in Civ4 ) ?!
Because I don't want pre-scripted relations that develop the same way each time...

2) Is this map compatible with all time settings ( marathon, etc.) ?

Thanks

Vic

PS: This really seems to be a great map (hope I can play it with 512MB RAM and the new 1.52 patch)

Hey all.

I just wanted to chime in here since I hadn't posted in a while. I probably won't be doing any more updates to this unless by some miracle I get free time... I haven't had much time to play really anything :(

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

Hi,

aeric, this map is great ( best is the size ) ! I wonder though, how I can turn off that barbarians build wonders, get great people ( maybe even found religions? ) etc.

Is that the "raging barbarians" option or just the large number of barbarian cities? I would like to keep the map as it is but not the barbarians do all the stuff the other civs do.

Thanks!

Hay aeric did you do any other modification to this map such as what I posted here?

http://evo-games.net/Home/viewtopic.php?p=32253#32253

Very good!You must have worked hard.

Have an offer: do you allow me to use it in a mod?

This is a really, really fun map. I've been waiting since the game came out to play one of these huge earth maps and now that I have a system that can handle it (Athlon 64 3700+, 2 gigs of RAM, Geforce 7800gt:cool:), I'm sleeping less than ever. Thanks Aeric!:lol:

if you don't want the game to have preset starting locations for any player, delete all the data in between all the beginteam endteam and between all the beginplayer endplayer
That *should* work.



I've been trying to modify this so that starting locations are completely randomized, rather than conditionally randomized. Removing the beginteam endteam data and the beginplayer endplayer data allows for randomization as to who starts where (and reduces the number of civs to 12, so there is SOME randomization in terms of starting location- the last game I started had no civs east of Persia), but it doesn't solve the crowded Europe model, which is mostly what I was trying to get away from. Is there any way that I can regularly expect to see civs in California, Patagonia, South Africa, or Australia short of picking them up and putting them there permanently? It seems like this should be a relatively easy thing to do, but I can't figure it out.

Thanks, if anyone's able to help me on this.

I've been trying to modify this so that starting locations are completely randomized, rather than conditionally randomized. Removing the beginteam endteam data and the beginplayer endplayer data allows for randomization as to who starts where (and reduces the number of civs to 12, so there is SOME randomization in terms of starting location- the last game I started had no civs east of Persia), but it doesn't solve the crowded Europe model, which is mostly what I was trying to get away from. Is there any way that I can regularly expect to see civs in California, Patagonia, South Africa, or Australia short of picking them up and putting them there permanently? It seems like this should be a relatively easy thing to do, but I can't figure it out.

Thanks, if anyone's able to help me on this.


thing is europe IS crowded IRL, hence the constant wars (world wide). The only way to build big in Europe is to settle elsewhere too... But Civ doesnt seem very good at global empires (it stunts them too much i think?)

Is there anyway of updating this map to be compatible with Warlords?

All WBS files are usable with warlords patch 2.08 ...if using a particular mod then you will need to open it up in world builder with the mod loaded and add the new resources then resave it

I just want to add the Warlords civs. Should I be using Rhye's Earth24 mod? Thanks.

If you want to have more than the original 18 civs, yes, you'll need to use it.

But, when I add the new civs through WordPad and load the map, the game consistently crashes.

How do you make this map compatible with Warlords??

welldone
is it for warlords

No it isn't. It is a "world builder save" for Civ4, not Warlords....

No it isn't. It is a "world builder save" for Civ4, not Warlords....
but works anyway starting it as custom scenario from warlord. :)

some impressions and a suggestion.

suggestion
play this game together with the revolution (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171127) mod.
With this mod an empire can fall in civil war and potentially split creating a new CIV.
The conditions are pretty realistic: distance from capital, different religion, happyness, civics, etc.
It also allows barbarian tribes to settle down a form a new civilization.

Impressions
In the past I did try to play the more famous earth map from Ryle but I felt it too small (but perfect for multiplayer games) and also an other gigantic earth map that was absurdly huge to play (so big space that making war was pretty much unnecessary).
This map is a good equilibrium.

I also like the resources distribution... not all regions have most of the resources: colonization, or commerce, or war are necessary to gain them.

The main negative point is the barbarians.
I play monarch-epic and those buggers really ruin the game for some Civs.
Before posting this post I did open the worldbuilder to understand the dynamics: Barbarians crippled some civs far too badly.
- Europeans are rather well off (fog disappear pretty soon)

- Egyptians gets tons of barbs from across the desert (west)... unfortunately the Egyptians can expans only noth-top-south and will have a huge border effected by barbs assoults deeply into the core of their empire.

- Indians I don't really know ... I was playing Cyrus and I crashed them at the first occasion together with the Arabs :)

- Mongolians: no hope for them, barbs everywhere, they can't even build the most basic infrastructures.

- Russians were relatively ok, from west the fog (and barbs) disappear very soon, so they have to care only of "one side".

- americans I still have to check the new world.

An other complain: where are the Chinese???!!!
Apart that you can't forget a so important civilization... however you need it for gameplay as well:
1. less barbarians for the Mongols
2. it allows Japan and Mongolia to commerce and exchange techs
Without China the other asian civs will take ages to meet and will live in complete isolation remaining far too behind the europeans.
For example in my game Japan never made it outside its island. :(
At the same time there was far too much free land that others could easily grab (India, and possibly Persia).

great map! How do I mod the speeds of the ships to match up with the huge oceans? Its gets kinda dull waiting 18 turns to reach europe