Wikipedia for Cimmerians: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimmerians
Great Leader: Teushpa
Origin: Northern shores of black Sea/Present day Crimea possible.
Apparently, Cimmerians predate Scythians, and are significantly differentiated from Scythians and Thracians (who may be decended from a western branch of Cimmerians.)
Capital: ???
Cities: (Could use Crimean city names???)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea
Gomara
Crimea
Gyumri

Is it misleading to say that the Parthian empire was a Persian empire? That's what I meant. And then, further, to say that the Medes could have ruled the Persian empire but didn't (due to Cyrus the Great).

And Thamis: yes, I meant the Kolchis. I get those two confused somehow...

-- Hypnotoad

Ancient Iran was made up of several tribes; the Medes, the Persians, the Parthians, etc. When one of these tribes came to dominance the name of the empire changed with it. So the Median, Persian, Parthian, and so on empires; where all basically the same, just with different ruling dynasties.

But all I was trying to say was that the Medes and Persians could be combined and still be historically accurate.

Ancient Iran was made up of several tribes; the Medes, the Persians, the Parthians, etc. When one of these tribes came to dominance the name of the empire changed with it. So the Median, Persian, Parthian, and so on empires; where all basically the same, just with different ruling dynasties.

But all I was trying to say was that the Medes and Persians could be combined and still be historically accurate.
That's what I was thinking; but, they are needed to prevent Persia from growing too powerful. The Medes act as balance.

Delete your old TAM folder, reinstall the new version by extracting it into the your MAIN civ4 folder.


Tnank you, I shall do that immediately
Kevin:)

Sea Peoples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Peoples)


QI. You had these in the Civ3 version of TAM.

They were not really a civilization, rather a confederation of minor tribes who raided coastal regions - but did not settle. More of a barbarian tribe than an actual Civ.

Here are a two suggestions for Nubia/Kush flag decal. I guess (and hope) the Egyptologists and Nubiologists wants to have their saying in this too. :)
131694131695
"Land of the Bow" and "Nubian Bowman"
The Kushite archer was famous throughout the ancient world and I would go with that symbol. I was also thinking along the lines of a heiroglyphic falcon. Mayan Raptor or Ick of the East might have other suggestions.

The Kushite archer was famous throughout the ancient world and I would go with that symbol. I was also thinking along the lines of a heiroglyphic falcon. Mayan Raptor or Ick of the East might have other suggestions.

Edit: I should have clicked on Ingvina Freyr's attachments before posting!
I think the first one, the glyph for "Land of the Bow" would make an excellent flag. But in solid, not outline form.
==================================================
Maybe a simple, bold representation of the Nubian pyramid.

Nubian Pyramid (http://digilander.libero.it/danko77/egitto/nubia.jpg)

But since the Egyptians called Nubia "The Land of the Bow", I would say the bow is appropriate. Is that one above a Nubian bow?

Nubian Bowman (http://www.dignubia.org/maps/timeline/img/b3200-nubian-bowman.jpg)
.

Is it misleading to say that the Parthian empire was a Persian empire? That's what I meant. And then, further, to say that the Medes could have ruled the Persian empire but didn't (due to Cyrus the Great).

And Thamis: yes, I meant the Kolchis. I get those two confused somehow...

-- Hypnotoad

The Parthians gave the Romans a lot of trouble, but the Sassanid Persians were much more of a threat. Of course, Rome wasn't as strong by the third century, but the rise of the Sassanids was a crushing blow. When Gibbon lists the four major influences that lead to Rome's decline, he lists the rise of the 'Persians' (the Sassanids) as first.

Specifically, Shapur's second invasion (258 - 261) had a very real strong influence. Valerain was carried away in chains (never happened before to a Roman emperor). Indeed, Rome never recovered from the sack of Antioch, which from a pure power standpoint was (in my opinion) more damaging than the sack of Rome in 410 (although maybe not psychologically).

The Sassanids had a central taxation system and military systems that were more powerful than the Parthians had.


Best wishes,

Breunor

PS I haven't been on the boards in a bit. Sorry if this has already been covered.

I like the bow and line one. But we need to make the bow more curved to make it more visible. Can you do that?It seems like the "land of the bow" suggestion was widely accepted. I'll remake the bow somewhat and fill the symbols (instead of outlines) as Ick of the East suggested, to make it more visible.

[...] however, TAM, at least IMHO, isn't supposed to be very near to accurate, but close enough so as to give a good feeling for what the time was like.I'd say it is supposed to be as close to accurate as possible without ruining gameplay.

If you wanted to be 100% accurate, then you wouldn't have Rome, you'd have Arians, and other ancient tribes in the Italian penninsula. :confused: Arians in Italy? Last time I checked they were in modern-day Iran. There were followers of the christian bishop Arius by the end of the ancient era (see Arianism), but that is hardly what I would call an ancient tribe. Am I missing something here?You wouldn't have Iberians, Gauls or Germanic or Gaetians/Dacians for that matter, you'd have one civ that started in Northern Greece/South Eastern Thrace. You would have Illyria, you would have Macedonia, but, as Pvblis says, you'd also have half a dozen other tribes in the region of the Greek Isles.There were indigenous people for sure, and there was migrating indoeuropeans. Problem is no one can tell for sure if a certain people was there originally or not. You'd end up with a debate on pretty much every suggestion. Perhaps a discussion for "the pre-historic mediterranean mod"? :mischief: [...]you wouldn't have Hittites or Kolchis or Scythians. Again, you'd have one people...call them the Steppe people or Huns if you will, and put them just NE of the Caucusses.There would be nothing accurate about putting these very different peoples together.I would be in favor of consolidating Iberians, Guals, and Germanic into the Goths.Why? No historical accuracy AND bad gameplay, I would say.
:) kwarriorpoet, shooting from the hip are you? ;)

And a last comment to those who don't want to see two Iranian civs...
There was a Medean empire at one time, followed by a Persian empire. Even if they were of the same stock, two so significant powers should definitely have a place in the game IMHO, especially when it also helps gameplay on a large map.

I'd say it is supposed to be as close to accurate as possible without ruining gameplay.

:confused: Arians in Italy? Last time I checked they were in modern-day Iran. There were followers of the christian bishop Arius by the end of the ancient era (see Arianism), but that is hardly what I would call an ancient tribe. Am I missing something here?

Bright day
I think he meant Aryans (or Arjas) ;) ; though to be fair several languages use I and Y.

Ah, found something new, or old, to moan about:D . Hoplites shoeld not be be represented by earliest spearmen. No sirree! They ought to be at least armored spearmen with phalangites if they ever make the cut being pikemen.

I have given up trying to play the Hittites. The Hittites get it from all sides, even worse than Rome! LOL!I am currently playing a game as the Hittites (in the 1,91v i should add).
The key to success for the Hittites IMO is to quickly produce a couple of settlers to get hold of the most productive land, especially to the west, in order to break Lydian expansion. Then you should concentrate on early warfare. The "Three-man-chariot" UU is available early and is both fast and strong. I did this and in three consecutive quick-conquest-wars with the Phoenicians, the Lydians and the Babylonians I made sure my empire was surrounded by weaker enemies. After that I focused on gaining on their cultural advance. Now I've researched Iron working and started to produce "Iron swordsman" UUs, and with those weak neighbors around me it's like having a lush smörgåsbord (smorgasboard?) before you. ;)


In due time before the Warlord expansion I'm promoted to warlord myself. (My 100th post) [party]

Congratz on your 100th! :)

Edit: I should have clicked on Ingvina Freyr's attachments before posting!
I think the first one, the glyph for "Land of the Bow" would make an excellent flag. But in solid, not outline form.
==================================================
Maybe a simple, bold representation of the Nubian pyramid.

Nubian Pyramid (http://digilander.libero.it/danko77/egitto/nubia.jpg)

But since the Egyptians called Nubia "The Land of the Bow", I would say the bow is appropriate. Is that one above a Nubian bow?

Nubian Bowman (http://www.dignubia.org/maps/timeline/img/b3200-nubian-bowman.jpg)
.
I hear you, good choice.

I am currently playing a game as the Hittites (in the 1,91v i should add).
The key to success for the Hittites IMO is to quickly produce a couple of settlers to get hold of the most productive land, especially to the west, in order to break Lydian expansion. Then you should concentrate on early warfare. The "Three-man-chariot" UU is available early and is both fast and strong. I did this and in three consecutive quick-conquest-wars with the Phoenicians, the Lydians and the Babylonians I made sure my empire was surrounded by weaker enemies. After that I focused on gaining on their cultural advance. Now I've researched Iron working and started to produce "Iron swordsman" UUs, and with those weak neighbors around me it's like having a lush smörgåsbord (smorgasboard?) before you. ;)


In due time before the Warlord expansion I'm promoted to warlord myself. (My 100th post) [party]
Glad to see someone playing the Hittites as they were meant to be played. Hit hard; hit fast; and then pick up the pieces. With that kind of attitude we would have a great battle of Kadesh right here in TAM. I always thought the AI played the Hittites too passively.

I've tried to make a good-looking bow for the Kushite flag, but I end up with something too similar to the Iberians. Here's a new suggestion, what do you think?
131771

I've tried to make a good-looking bow for the Kushite flag, but I end up with something too similar to the Iberians. Here's a new suggestion, what do you think?
131771

I think it's too complex for a flag.
How about this simple glyph?
131779

With the Hittites you might want to try an extremely aggressive spearman rush. You want to be capturing cities defended, at worst, by javelineers and unpromoted spearmen. Settle the capital on a plains hill if possible, build warrior, worker (or more warriors to steal a worker, but I'm not sure when workers appear in this mod, and the timing of their appearance may depend on difficulty level), then build only spearmen. The standard map is crowded, so other civs are close by. They are fat and weak, and you are mighty. Settlers? Bah! Not mighty enough. When I tried it, it worked very well. It was a few versions ago, when Council of Elders gave a lot of experience and I think javelineers were weaker. Now you'd want to prioritize Urbanization, if you could get it in time to make a difference. Of course this general strategy works even better with hoplites. Details of when I tried it as the Hittites - Standard map, Prince, Epic. Eliminated Lydia, then Kolchea and Phoenicia. I think I built the first worker while waiting for Copper Working; in hindsight I think it would have been better to steal a worker, but on the other hand I'm not sure whether Lydia had any to steal yet. I built settlers, but not aggressively, and not before I finished Lydia.

Version 1.93 posted.

Includes new maps, new civilization traits, heroes, the Tartessian civilization, and a few other things.

Follow the link in the 1st post, changelist is also on the TAM website.

I've been playing a game as the Nubians on good ol' 1.92... Playing on Immortal. It's awesome. I like having the huge map -- some real room to expand.

I think you've done a good job slowing down Tech researching. It is 15 AD and techs take me 1-11 turns to research with the average at around 6. That seems about right or at least like what you have in vanilla. I'll let you know how the endgame goes.

I like the way financial works now. Once your cottages reach a certain size it kicks in, rather than being immediate or very quick (depending on whether the cottage is on a river). This works well with the slower cottage development.

I still am having very few wars. I've noticed that the AI is a bit more likely to attack (although in my game I've only had one real war, once I dispatched Egypt), but still the only Civ eliminated was the Medes by the barbarians.

Some strangenesses on the Huge Mediteranian map: To the east of the Nubian capital there is an area with floodplains on plains that is not on a river, rather one space east of the Nile. This makes for a PIMP city location: you can set one right in the mountains so it has 3 gold mines in its borders and 3 floodplains...

The Egyptian capital, as it now stands, has a total of 4 production available to it (I suppose more if you build a workshop on its one plain)! You talked about moving the capital, but either way I think it would be good to add in some hills or plains or something to make this more useable. Perhaps some stone -- afterall, the Pyramids were built around here. (By the way, I think you should move the capital to the lower Nile -- it is just too close to the Nubians -- makes it very easy for them to conquer the Egyptians early and expand quickly.)

I look forward to trying out 1.93. You guys sure do keep them coming!

-- Hypnotoad

Still no starting techs in 1.93

There is also grassland\flood plain combo at Meroe giving you starting 5f 1g tile :eek:. I gather these represent stilt areas? But I don't see any in Egypt:confused:?

And hoplites should be at least armored spearmen. Phalangites, if they ever make the cut, ought to be pikemen.;)

Still no starting techs in 1.93

There is also grassland\flood plain combo at Meroe giving you starting 5f 1g tile :eek:. I gather these represent stilt areas? But I don't see any in Egypt:confused:?

And hoplites should be at least armored spearmen. Phalangites, if they ever make the cut, ought to be pikemen.;)
Sure there are. Starting technologies will be given if you start a random game. Otherwise, if you do a scenario map, it is dependant on the information being manually put into the worldbuilder file.

Bright day
I think he meant Aryans (or Arjas) ;) ; though to be fair several languages use I and Y.

Ah, found something new, or old, to moan about:D . Hoplites shoeld not be be represented by earliest spearmen. No sirree! They ought to be at least armored spearmen with phalangites if they ever make the cut being pikemen.

Sorry for misspelling, but yes, those are the ones.

As for other suggestions being bad game play...it's your mod :) I don't mind the occassional beating either, it keeps me honest.

I play on Monarch and Prince...perhaps I have not learned some of the valuable strategery needed to master the Hittites...perhaps I still have the bad habbit of building wonders...

As the Hittites though, I always take out the Lydians in no time flat, expand to cover all of Asia Minor, then focus on the Phoenecians, followed by the Babylonians.

Problem is that I over expand, and leave many coastal cities undefended, and then I get dog piled by everyone else, even AI who land march a SOD for 30 turns...

I need to be more conservative perhaps...or is it more aggressive?

Anyway, I have found another challenge...Rome...talk about speaking with Strength!

DL'd 1.93 playing Hittites...going to be more aggressive this time around.

3730BC Attacked Sardis with 3 Javilineers and 3 Warriors. Destroyed Sardis!
1855BC Attacked Tyre with 4 3 man chariots and 5 Javilineers...Captured Tyre! (Lost one Javilineer)
1735BC Took Byblos another fine Phoenician city (lost two outdated Javilineers)
1555BC Destroyed another Phoenician city with a stack of chariot archers and 3-man chariots...
1405BC Captured the last Phoenician strong hold, Sidon with stack of chariot archers and 3-man chariots!!! Babylon...hmmm
1130BC Raized Babylon to the ground!
1030BC Raized another Babylonian town!
970BC Army on strike had to sue for peace, lol! I wish I could have plundered some Egyptian towns...

LOL, game over, hehe, but was fun :)

Reload to around 1555BC this time not building any new cities...

I play on Monarch and Prince...perhaps I have not learned some of the valuable strategery needed to master the Hittites...perhaps I still have the bad habbit of building wonders...

As the Hittites though, I always take out the Lydians in no time flat, expand to cover all of Asia Minor, then focus on the Phoenecians, followed by the Babylonians.

Problem is that I over expand, and leave many coastal cities undefended, and then I get dog piled by everyone else, even AI who land march a SOD for 30 turns...

I need to be more conservative perhaps...or is it more aggressive?

Anyway, I have found another challenge...Rome...talk about speaking with Strength!
The answer is don't take them out so early...take about 2-3 cities from your first two enemies; wait digest, and then build up your forces for a push against the third. This time take about 3-4 cities...wait digest. Then you can sit back and take them out at your leisure. Phoenicia is usually the easiest to swallow first, then the Lydians and then the Babylonians.

I've tried to make a good-looking bow for the Kushite flag, but I end up with something too similar to the Iberians. Here's a new suggestion, what do you think?
131771
It looks good to me, if it can be done...Thamis what do you think? This one or the bow?:confused: :confused: :confused:

Haven't played too far into the latest version yet, but here's some quick bugs I found.

First is the starting techs missing from the Huge Mediterranean Map, and the Huge Fertile Crescent Map. This wasn't too hard to fix thanks to the wonderful guide from Thamis.

The Second is the Short Description for the Civs with the 'Skirmisher' trait. TXT_KEY_TRAIT_SKIRMISHER_SHORT is what the traitinfos file has and the traits text file has TXT_KEY_TRAIT_GREAT_SKIRMISHER_SHORT. This also wasn't hard to fix, and was only really noticed when using the 'custom scenario' option when it'd show TXT_KEY_TRAIT_...instead of Ski.

All in all a WONDERFUL mod that only gets better and better with every update. I love this mod, and would rather play it than regular Civ4 (or any other mod). Keep up the good work!:goodjob:

Haven't played too far into the latest version yet, but here's some quick bugs I found.

First is the starting techs missing from the Huge Mediterranean Map, and the Huge Fertile Crescent Map. This wasn't too hard to fix thanks to the wonderful guide from Thamis.

The Second is the Short Description for the Civs with the 'Skirmisher' trait. TXT_KEY_TRAIT_SKIRMISHER_SHORT is what the traitinfos file has and the traits text file has TXT_KEY_TRAIT_GREAT_SKIRMISHER_SHORT. This also wasn't hard to fix, and was only really noticed when using the 'custom scenario' option when it'd show TXT_KEY_TRAIT_...instead of Ski.

All in all a WONDERFUL mod that only gets better and better with every update. I love this mod, and would rather play it than regular Civ4 (or any other mod). Keep up the good work!:goodjob:
What! You've played the latest version of TAM and you even went so far as to go into the "code" yourself and fix the bugs? ...


Now You're a MAN! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGP0A1RWtw0&search=DVDA)

[QUOTE=Shqype]What! You've played the latest version of TAM and you even went so far as to go into the "code" yourself and fix the bugs? ...
QUOTE]

Nah I've not finished a game yet, I'm just anal on some things and seen these minor bugs so figured I'd just go ahead and fix 'em. If it'd been anything complex (such as the brilliant work the TAM team has done) as actually writing the whole mod no way could I have done it LoL.

I've not actually fixed the starting techs for the 'fertile crescent' map yet, but I did the huge med (that's the one I'm currently playing and why I noticed it :)) I'll upload the files I tweaked, hopefully I didn't goof anything up that I just haven't noticed yet.

On the actual game playing itself, I really like the new hero units. Gives a good feeling for having a 'skillfully lead' army in one realm and a 'weaker force' off in another area. I can't wait for the expansion to come out and see what you fine folks do with the warlords. :cool:

Sure there are. Starting technologies will be given if you start a random game. Otherwise, if you do a scenario map, it is dependant on the information being manually put into the worldbuilder file.

Ah okay, Medditerrean Huge, then. And Fertile Crescent.

And hoplites should be at least armored spearmen. Phalangites, if they ever make the cut, ought to be pikemen.

I've not actually fixed the starting techs for the 'fertile crescent' map yet, but I did the huge med (that's the one I'm currently playing and why I noticed it :)) I'll upload the files I tweaked, hopefully I didn't goof anything up that I just haven't noticed yet.

Thanks for the fix, but what did you change in the Techs XML?

I just played again as Mycenae with 1.93 and I can say it is hell a lot of fun now.

Being creative, philosophical and some-sort-of-aggressive is a very powerful combination. I founded Mycenae itself on the copper which is by far the best Mycenae-location I think (2 fish, wheat, olives, copper and clay in radius and fresh water). I don't like to settle in place here at all. My next 3 cities I had to found at the east coast as Illyria very early nearly blocked Mycenae to the north (2 early fishing boats is a powerful opener but slow as well).
I then rushed Illyria with Achilles and some Hoplites which was really a war from the book. I took a strong force and it was just strong enough. With luck Illyria could have wiped out my assault on Skodra as well.

From this moment on I dominated the Mediteranean without a single war building many a wonder. Now at 50 AD (epic) I prepare for an assault on Kroisos who has wiped out the Hettithes himself.

Now with the Tartessians the western Mediterranean seems very balanced and not too powerful. Dido suffers a little bit from the new civ as she could not settle whole west Africa. Arminius was only in the middle of the list with Vercingetroix being even stronger, Caesar was fourth after Hatshepsut and Hammurapi (who both swapped there 2nd and 3rd place now and then). But as those eastern strong civs are never contested by the AI they remain strongest.
Caesar does not seem to know anything about his imperialistic attitudes. But everyone loves him. Sort of strange. He built his 5 cities early on and now seems to wait for his diplo victory :lol:

As commerce buildings and courts give not very much money early expansion often can be very expensive. For a long time after my conquests in Illyria (see the spoiler) I had to drop research rate to 30%. I could only research quicker selling some techs what really saved my good results so far. Now that I have a lot of villages etc. research is at 60%, supporting a great fleet and army that is almost ready to attack. With TAM it is even more important to early on some commerce factory cities if you want conquests.

But the way it is I think it's very balanced (on Prince) and playable.

On heros: Achilles is an Hoplite in his base values but after Bronze Working or now Iron Working he is completely useless as he cannot be upgraded. What should I do with my hero unit now?

Anyway a great job. With every little step TAM becomes more mature. It's simply fun to play and the atmosphere pulls you out of any vanilla version of civ.

On Heroes:

We'll make the hero units stronger (+25% strength) and let them gain XP twice as fast. The idea is that your hero unit cannot be upgraded. This is to simulate that certain civs had their high points in certain time periods. Use your hero when he's around, or he becomes nearly useless (except for his heal ability).

It's good to hear that the Tartessians are taking land in N Africa. That was our goal!

A good size of land. Tartessians are fifth strongest civ so far in my game. While Viriato is the weakest by far. This bothers me a little bit: Now he has not a chance at all anymore. Maybe you give him some resource more that he can at least challenge the Gauls for Spain.
Thus the Tartessians would be a little bit weaker and Gaul and Arminius would not try to settle there. If they want land there, they should conquer it.

Posted this one before, but got no answer, was probably overlooked ;)

In version 1.92 and in earlier versions I just can't use the poppy fields in the east of the standard map. I can only build windmills and mines, but I think I need a grove? Or do I need to research some special tech?

Thanks,

Waterloo

A good size of land. Tartessians are fifth strongest civ so far in my game. While Viriato is the weakest by far. This bothers me a little bit: Now he has not a chance at all anymore. Maybe you give him some resource more that he can at least challenge the Gauls for Spain.
Thus the Tartessians would be a little bit weaker and Gaul and Arminius would not try to settle there. If they want land there, they should conquer it.A little stronger Viriato = little less strong Gaul and Tartessia. Three medium powers that can put up a fight with Carthago and Rome sounds excellent IMO. Can you say what it is exactly that is making Viriato weak, initially poor production or slow growth?

No I can't as I have no map available here.

But since somebody complained that Viriato is in his top 3 very often (he was in mine as well) he must have ben weakenend that much that he's not capable of producing a settler soon enough (on prince). As Tartessia is strong it is very likely that they concur for Spain but Tartessia is victorious because it can build the second city much faster obviously. Maybe someone can try to play with Viriato and observe what are his problems.

Though I think it is much easier. Just look into the WorldBuilder and see if he has any useful resources he can use early on. I doubt that. Either he lacks the resources or he lacks the tech prerequisites to see and use them (like Pastoralism). And compare it to Tartessia. Both should be equal, maybe with Tartessia a little bit stronger as they've to build some navy to settle in Africa.

I was playing as Viriato in a much earlier version of TAM, and if I remember that it took a very long time to produce anything in Numantia (the capital) and that it was my second and third city that stood for the quality of the nation. Hmm...perhaps a resource in the hills to the east of Numantia would do it.

I just DL'ed 1.93 but only get three maps, small med. normal med and huge Greek. Do I need to DL the huge med seperately?

edit:NEVERMIND!!!! Too much coffe I guess, DL'ed into wrong folder!

I just played again as Mycenae with 1.93 and I can say it is hell a lot of fun now.

Being creative, philosophical and some-sort-of-aggressive is a very powerful combination. I founded Mycenae itself on the copper which is by far the best Mycenae-location I think (2 fish, wheat, olives, copper and clay in radius and fresh water). I don't like to settle in place here at all. My next 3 cities I had to found at the east coast as Illyria very early nearly blocked Mycenae to the north (2 early fishing boats is a powerful opener but slow as well).
I then rushed Illyria with Achilles and some Hoplites which was really a war from the book. I took a strong force and it was just strong enough. With luck Illyria could have wiped out my assault on Skodra as well.

From this moment on I dominated the Mediteranean without a single war building many a wonder. Now at 50 AD (epic) I prepare for an assault on Kroisos who has wiped out the Hettithes himself.

Now with the Tartessians the western Mediterranean seems very balanced and not too powerful. Dido suffers a little bit from the new civ as she could not settle whole west Africa. Arminius was only in the middle of the list with Vercingetroix being even stronger, Caesar was fourth after Hatshepsut and Hammurapi (who both swapped there 2nd and 3rd place now and then). But as those eastern strong civs are never contested by the AI they remain strongest.
Caesar does not seem to know anything about his imperialistic attitudes. But everyone loves him. Sort of strange. He built his 5 cities early on and now seems to wait for his diplo victory :lol:

As commerce buildings and courts give not very much money early expansion often can be very expensive. For a long time after my conquests in Illyria (see the spoiler) I had to drop research rate to 30%. I could only research quicker selling some techs what really saved my good results so far. Now that I have a lot of villages etc. research is at 60%, supporting a great fleet and army that is almost ready to attack. With TAM it is even more important to early on some commerce factory cities if you want conquests.

But the way it is I think it's very balanced (on Prince) and playable.

On heros: Achilles is an Hoplite in his base values but after Bronze Working or now Iron Working he is completely useless as he cannot be upgraded. What should I do with my hero unit now?

Anyway a great job. With every little step TAM becomes more mature. It's simply fun to play and the atmosphere pulls you out of any vanilla version of civ.
Iberia is always a weak sister in my games; Viriato never rises above third lowest and is easily conquered. Whereas Egypt (me), I usually have to watch to the east (Babylon) from the very beginning of the game as Hammurabi is quite treacherous and declares war on me once every 20-30 turns (good). I also cannot become overly fixated on Babylon, because if I do then Dido takes her shot in the dark and I am awash in a sea of elephants. I have only experienced one sea based invasion (Mycenae) in the 7 or so full games that I have played (have not experienced any since the upgrade in current game), but the AI does appear to be a little more aggressive. However the only time Caesar goes a conquering in my games is when I request assistance to initiate an attack on someone. Then he will rapidly proceed to conquer as many provinces that he can hold onto and razing the rest (good). I just wish he could do more on "his own initiative", without prompting from me. To keep Dido off of my back I usually enter into a pact with her to take out Viriato (and now Tartessos) and then while she is still fighting I declare war on Cush and over run Taharqa or inflict lasting damage on him. Just now I see Babylon moving some significant forces close to my eastern border so I will have to end my "Cush -push" soon. Because it looks like Hammurabi and Taharqa are getting ready to open a second front (excellent)!

I looked into Portugal's start. Does this look acceptable? The link is a screen shot of moving the horse and fruit to be within the capital's work area and also adding a forest on the plains north of start and moving forest from gr at start to one square west.

This shouldn't be over-powering but will give Viriato more of a fighting chance, no?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/new_portugal_start.jpg

A humble suggestion.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/new_portugal_start.jpg

I looked into Portugal's start. Does this look acceptable? The link is a screen shot of moving the horse and fruit to be within the capital's work area and also adding a forest on the plains north of start and moving forest from gr at start to one square west.

This shouldn't be over-powering but will give Viriato more of a fighting chance, no?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/new_portugal_start.jpg

A humble suggestion.

The screen is not working but what you're suggesting sounds very good. Can you tell us how this starting position would be compared to that of Tartessia?

For Mycenae, I went into the world builder...noticed just about every other power civ in their sweet spot, so to speak, and removed the Mycenaean settler and warrior, and moved the copper to the plains hill one square east of current location, and put the settler where the copper used to be and the warrior on the hill where the copper is now.

If Rome and Illyria start in their regional sweet spot, why not Mycenae? Should make for a much better game when controlled by AI.

I agree that Mycenae would be much stronger in terms of AI if it settled where the copper used to be with the copper in a different place.

Later on it is difficult enough for Agamaemnon as he has a strong neighbour to the north (Greece should be stronger), his main expansion direction would be rather over the ocean than to the north if blocked by Illyria and if Rome is capable of deciding for war alone someday, it will be very hard enough to keep Greece alive ;)

Posted this one before, but got no answer, was probably overlooked ;)

In version 1.92 and in earlier versions I just can't use the poppy fields in the east of the standard map. I can only build windmills and mines, but I think I need a grove? Or do I need to research some special tech?

Thanks,

Waterloo

Not sure, I'll look into it.

I have a suggestion you might want to try on; how about making a water lane all across the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula so that you can sail from the Red Sea into the Persian Gulf.

In the real world there has always been a whole lot of commerce between the two areas, and it is really frustrating playing as the Nubians that I couldn't sail to Persia or Babylon.

It's not like there is anybody settling down in that desert, so it won't affect gameplay except in a good way. Of course, you wouldn't want to go and put any fish in the water or any resources on the adjacent land.

Wow...I played, using what I wrote, concerning adjustments to Mycenaean start position! It's awesome! Much better, and I'm sure Agememnon would at the very least push Illyria around if needed.

Using the new start mechanics I set up as per my above post, I was able to rush some warriors and Javilineers and wiped Illyria out in 3130BC (I got really lucky!)

The screen is not working but what you're suggesting sounds very good. Can you tell us how this starting position would be compared to that of Tartessia?

I followed the upload instructions to the letter...not sure why it isn't working.

As to the comparison with Tartissan (spelling?) I believe the Tartars do still have an edge production wise, albeit not as much as before. If I were to have my choice between playing Viriato or the Tartars, I would still choose the latter, due to the fresh water hills and coastline. Additionally, neither civ starts with the tech required to harness the resources, except the Tartars due to fishing. I will run a test, but I can tell you that Viriato still wont be fun to play...he'll still be slow, but not completely crippled.

Let me summarize what I suggested more visually, in terms of Viriato's start:
1) left units where they were.
2) removed forest on start fwg (fresh water grasslands)
3) put new forest on fwg one square west of start.
4) put new forest on plains one square north of start.
5) moved fruit to grasslands hill one square south of where fruit currently is.
6) moved horse to plains river square one square east of current location.

The above was done on Normal TAM map.

Result: Viriato now has two forest plains squares on one forested grassland squares. Additionally, Viriato now has Fruit, Sheep, and eventually Horse in the city work space, a good long term city.

I will now play as Viriato a bit, conservatively like the AI and see what happens.

After going back into the world builder screen, I did the following to restore some of the Tartars production advantage:
1) moved fruit from current location to hills one square west.
2) added a forest to the gl square NNW of settler start.

This should restore some of the edge that I may have stripped from the Tartars, while still giving Viriato a fighting chance.

Playing version 1.9 with the Getae.
In 2450 BC, upon trying to move my peltast from Barbosi (the westernmost town) one tile to the north-west, I get the following message:



After clicking OK, the game exits to the desktop.
I get the same problem. I also play getae and when i use the "go to" button to a city with my peltast i get the problem. Not else.... very strange....
I have an ATI radeon 9600 128 Mb graphics card and 1 gb memory. And i've just defragmentated my computer.
Does anyone know the solution?

I followed the upload instructions to the letter...not sure why it isn't working.

As to the comparison with Tartissan (spelling?) I believe the Tartars do still have an edge production wise, albeit not as much as before. If I were to have my choice between playing Viriato or the Tartars, I would still choose the latter, due to the fresh water hills and coastline. Additionally, neither civ starts with the tech required to harness the resources, except the Tartars due to fishing. I will run a test, but I can tell you that Viriato still wont be fun to play...he'll still be slow, but not completely crippled.Instead of the "quick reply", go to the advanced options. There you can add an attachement (.jpg, .gif. etc) Just make sure the file isn't heavier than 500kb. :)

The Tartars? :lol: Better make that the Tartessians. ;)

Instead of the "quick reply", go to the advanced options. There you can add an attachement (.jpg, .gif. etc) Just make sure the file isn't heavier than 500kb. :)

The Tartars? :lol: Better make that the Tartessians. ;)

I checked the upload folder. The upload option is working. But you messed up something, I'm sure. The correct link is: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/new_portugal_start.JPG

This looks like a good start for Iberia, though not that good as Rome or Greece etc. Maybe we could move the sheep outside again (anymal husbandry is later than agriculture anyway). The horses should better the productive situation of them a little bit.

Good suggestion, at least I believe that :)

I followed the upload instructions to the letter...not sure why it isn't working.

The correct url has to end with .JPG not with .jpg. That's a big difference on some operating systems. :)

I played as Viriato, using my changes, and played conservatively (well you really have to with the Iberians, not enough production to rush anything) and between myself and the Tartessians, we split the Iberian penninsula, and held pretty much the same score up until about 2000BC, when the Tartessians started pulling ahead. I built up to 4 cities, the Tartars had 3, but they were bigger cities.

Seems to be a much better balance to hold off the Gauls and Germanic and Tartessian civs. (Now if only we could coach the AI...)

Instead of the "quick reply", go to the advanced options. There you can add an attachement (.jpg, .gif. etc) Just make sure the file isn't heavier than 500kb. :)

The Tartars? :lol: Better make that the Tartessians. ;)

I thought you'd get a laugh out of that :)

Wow...I played, using what I wrote, concerning adjustments to Mycenaean start position! It's awesome! Much better, and I'm sure Agememnon would at the very least push Illyria around if needed.

Using the new start mechanics I set up as per my above post, I was able to rush some warriors and Javilineers and wiped Illyria out in 3130BC (I got really lucky!)

Can you post your changes with map coordinates? Huge or Normal map?

Not sure, I'll look into it.
While you're at it, maybe the charcoal resource should be removed from the mod since timber has replaced it for steel?

Heros -
- if your hero dies, can you rebuild it?
- can anyone ever build the default strength 10 hero?
- how about heroic epic requires level X hero instead of level 4 unit?
- no love for Gilgamesh? tribal warrior! :king:

Thanks for the fix, but what did you change in the Techs XML?

LoL. I had one of my 'not enough sleep' moments. I didn't change anything in it, it was the trait text file I meant to upload with the Huge Med map. Here's the actual one I meant to upload.

Can you post your changes with map coordinates? Huge or Normal map?

My changes were to the Normal Map.

May I please ask a noobish question?

How do I get coordinates? I tried being visually discriptive, because I haven't gotten into some of the ancelary tools available via other modders. Do I need to install a kit?

While you're at it, maybe the charcoal resource should be removed from the mod since timber has replaced it for steel?

Heros -
- if your hero dies, can you rebuild it?
- can anyone ever build the default strength 10 hero?
- how about heroic epic requires level X hero instead of level 4 unit?
- no love for Gilgamesh? tribal warrior! :king:
-Currently, yes. Why don't you try it out? ;)
-Barbarians can. Good luck against Barbarian heroes ;)
-Some civs don't get their heroes until way later in the game, so it might not be fair to do this to them.
-Nope, no love for Gilgamesh.

While you're at it, maybe the charcoal resource should be removed from the mod since timber has replaced it for steel?

Heros -
- if your hero dies, can you rebuild it?
- can anyone ever build the default strength 10 hero?
- how about heroic epic requires level X hero instead of level 4 unit?
- no love for Gilgamesh? tribal warrior! :king:

You can rebuild your hero.

What do you mean by default strength 10 hero?

Doing Heroic Epic like that is pretty hard. Rather, we could make the hero require heroic epic. But that again would be pretty harsh on heroes.

Gilgamesh would be cool, but a tribal warrior hero? Hmm... not sure about that.

My changes were to the Normal Map.

May I please ask a noobish question?

How do I get coordinates? I tried being visually discriptive, because I haven't gotten into some of the ancelary tools available via other modders. Do I need to install a kit?

You exit worldbuilder and move the mouse over the changed plot, while holding the shift key.

Alternatively, you can get MapView, which is located in the utility programs forum here on CivFanatics.

LoL. I had one of my 'not enough sleep' moments. I didn't change anything in it, it was the trait text file I meant to upload with the Huge Med map. Here's the actual one I meant to upload.

For the huge map, you only added the starting techs, right?

On poppy fields: Right now they're inaccessible, but we'll make them accessible with farms in the next version.

-Currently, yes. Why don't you try it out? ;)
-Barbarians can. Good luck against Barbarian heroes ;)
-Some civs don't get their heroes until way later in the game, so it might not be fair to do this to them.
-Nope, no love for Gilgamesh.
Hate Gilgamesh! All I can remember is being forced to read that man on man love story 25 years ago. Gilgamesh and Enkidu - A darling couple, and one of the most boring pieces of mythology that I have ever read. Maybe the translations are poor; but hey live and let live, maybe there are some Gilgamesh fans out there. This criticism is all in good fun, :lol: :lol: :lol: .

@generalshake

I extracted your file to TAM's XML/Civilizations folder. Do I need to rename it now to get it to work? I can live without starting techs but would really like to see the unique traits Thamis developed in action.

The CIV traits do work... He just fixed a small error in the text which you probably won't even see.

You put the map file in PublicMaps and the XML file in Mods/The Ancient Mediterranean/Assets/XML/Text.

@generalshake

I extracted your file to TAM's XML/Civilizations folder. Do I need to rename it now to get it to work? I can live without starting techs but would really like to see the unique traits Thamis developed in action.

Yeah, I only added in the starting techs. I'm not quite up to the task of anything really larger atm, but with the guide adding in the techs wasn't too bad. I haven't went through yet and loaded up every civ and checked to be sure I gave the right techs, but I'm hoping it's right.

The other file is like Thamis says, it's a really really minor thing that only is seen when loading the scenario in multiplayer or the 'custom scenario'. I'm just anal and fixed it as it wasn't too bad.

This may sound noobish but I don't understand the golden age thing (even tho I havn't used 1 yet). When I start a golden age with my Hero couldn't I just have him killed and start another golden age?

For Mycenae, I went into the world builder...noticed just about every other power civ in their sweet spot, so to speak, and removed the Mycenaean settler and warrior, and moved the copper to the plains hill one square east of current location, and put the settler where the copper used to be and the warrior on the hill where the copper is now.

If Rome and Illyria start in their regional sweet spot, why not Mycenae? Should make for a much better game when controlled by AI.

I too have been changing the starting position of Mycenae. However I wanted more than one city in the Greek mainland so I move Mycenae one tile east and north to position X:45 Y:17. I also move the clay one tile north to the hills (position X: 44 Y:17). I add one sheep to the east of Mycenae (X:46 Y:17). Move olives to grassland (X:44 Y:18) and add a grassland at X:44 Y:19. I also improve western Greece a bit by adding one grassland in the west of Greece (X:41 Y:16), move the fish one tile east (X:40 Y:16), change grassland to hill (X:42 Y:16), and add a river at X:42 Y:17 & X:41 Y:17. This significantly improves the power of Greece and makes it a regional power for many years.

Seperate note, I always move Romes starting copper to the city radius (X:32 Y:23). Without it Rome has very little production and wastes the copper.

Cheers

Wouldn't the time be ripe for a TAM forum area already, now that Rhye had one too? :goodjob:

Anyway, regarding the Fertile Crescent map: I was playing Persia and noticed some things. First, the distances are crushing. I'm not a too expansionist player so I'm still quite happily stuck in my peaceful corner of the map, without knowing a damn thing about the world outside because my warrior scouts got killed off by lions :king: I'm yet to see how things will turn out later on, but I'm expecting to peacefully build a quite huge empire before border clashes with Babylon become reality. It's 1000BC now and playing marathon the default setting this map seems to be quite the perfectionist freak's dream with so much time and so much to try out. But even if the map is wide open for me, seems like Phoenicia was killed off by some of their neighbour civs or even barbarians?! Destroyed anyhow. I just killed off Medes and am now casually fighting off barbarians while securing my empire's borders. I like the amount of barbarians fighting me at the moment, but when they get swordsmen and horse archers beating them will be a *****. But I think it's a good thing, Persia would be unstoppable without some barbarian threat.

Good work with the map anyway, I'll report if I notice something insane. :goodjob:

The new Maps aren't showing up when I've loaded the Mod... they're currrently in the public maps folder in the main civ 4 directory... other maps show up, but none of the TAM ones...

any suggestions?
-rhuntar

A quick note, on the huge mediterranean map, playing as Hittites, it's really hard to get to an Horse resource. Since your UU is a chariot, it's pretty hard to build some before they are obsolete because of that. Kolchis seems to get to the one East of you first, and Lydia to the one south... if you do rush for them, you take a huge hit because those areas are hardly good settling spot for you first few cities and doesn't put you in a very good strategic position, as you get stucked right in the middle and need to expand East instead of consolidating a good position.

I'd put the southern one more in the middle between you and Lydia, so that you have to compete for it, and as a bonus the area between both civs is a decent settling spot with grass, forest and hills, with few desert here and there.

A quick note, on the huge mediterranean map, playing as Hittites, it's really hard to get to an Horse resource. Since your UU is a chariot, it's pretty hard to build some before they are obsolete because of that. Kolchis seems to get to the one East of you first, and Lydia to the one south... if you do rush for them, you take a huge hit because those areas are hardly good settling spot for you first few cities and doesn't put you in a very good strategic position, as you get stucked right in the middle and need to expand East instead of consolidating a good position.

I'd put the southern one more in the middle between you and Lydia, so that you have to compete for it, and as a bonus the area between both civs is a decent settling spot with grass, forest and hills, with few desert here and there.
I agree with your suggestion. At the moment the Hittites are too weak compared to their historical position. As it stands now I as Egypt only have to worry about the Babylonians as their other neighbors do not have the inclination to enter into a war against me.

Delokes of the Medians refers to his people as the Minoans in the diplomacy screen.

This may sound noobish but I don't understand the golden age thing (even tho I havn't used 1 yet). When I start a golden age with my Hero couldn't I just have him killed and start another golden age?

No, because you can only start 1 golden age from a unit. :)

I too have been changing the starting position of Mycenae. However I wanted more than one city in the Greek mainland so I move Mycenae one tile east and north to position X:45 Y:17. I also move the clay one tile north to the hills (position X: 44 Y:17). I add one sheep to the east of Mycenae (X:46 Y:17). Move olives to grassland (X:44 Y:18) and add a grassland at X:44 Y:19. I also improve western Greece a bit by adding one grassland in the west of Greece (X:41 Y:16), move the fish one tile east (X:40 Y:16), change grassland to hill (X:42 Y:16), and add a river at X:42 Y:17 & X:41 Y:17. This significantly improves the power of Greece and makes it a regional power for many years.

Seperate note, I always move Romes starting copper to the city radius (X:32 Y:23). Without it Rome has very little production and wastes the copper.

Cheers

Is that on the huge map or the normal map?

The new Maps aren't showing up when I've loaded the Mod... they're currrently in the public maps folder in the main civ 4 directory... other maps show up, but none of the TAM ones...

any suggestions?
-rhuntar

You're probably just missing them. They all start with TAM..., so look under "T". Also, the maps will not show up if you haven't loaded the mod. Simply double-click one of the maps in Windows Explorer and it will launch it with the mod.

Ok, just finished the game with the Illyrians, won with diplo and all I can say is, fantastic work! Well done guys :thumbsup: and although i didnt try many mods, i find this the best! Keep up the good work! :)

Finally had the chance to take 1.93 for a MP run and the combined changes work very well in MP. The commerce changes were very interesting, playing as the Greeks with my firend playing as the Romans I was able to gain and maintain a substantial tech lead over him and all of the AI players. His growth spurt almost collapsed his empire whereas my slower expansion by conquest (I didn't try to kill all my neighbors by 1000BC this time) allowed me to keep running a profit at 100% research. The recent changes have at least slowed down expansion by conquest, even if the AI doesn't do a better job overall the individual battles are a bit tougher when you're the attacker, especially early in the game. And you've finally managed to break my "one unit for everything" stretegy. :)

We had some interesting discussions about siege weapons during our game. The sappers could really use a new unit graphic, or at least something other than two workers since we both got them mixed up with works on a couple of occasions. I was also wondering if it would be possible to use some temporary promotions like other mods are (real fort for example). This would allow us to have siege towers that didn't do any damage to the cities but instead gave all of the units in the same tile some sort of added city attack bonus. That would help make them useful even when you have catapults and other later siege weapons. The sappers come so early that rams are typically never used.

Ok, just finished the game with the Illyrians, won with diplo and all I can say is, fantastic work! Well done guys :thumbsup: and although i didnt try many mods, i find this the best! Keep up the good work! :)
Thanks for trying it out Deo, and I'm glad you liked it :)

Seven05, I personally am glad to hear that we've been able to break your habits :lol:

I agree that we should make siege weapons more interesting/useful, beginning with giving them more strength so that they're a little bit more useful, at least when it comes to defending in a stack. In terms of a temporary city attack promotion from being in a stack with a siege tower, that idea doesn't really fly with me ... but we will have something similar for the Heroes, you can be sure about that :)

Is that on the huge map or the normal map?

Thamis, I made the map changes on the normal map.

More comments on the Huge mediterranean map playing as the Hittites. Playing normal speed at Prince difficulty.

Now it's 10 AD and I just discovered ... bronze working. Most civs have 2-3 more tech than I do, but it's pretty darn slow because of City maintenance that prevent you from expanding.

Babylonians were killed by Barbs, Persia and Media were city hopping because of the barbs until recently, carthage has trouble expanding because of the barbs too. Now, because most civs got to bronze working, they are starting to strike back at the barbs and they are no longer much of a threat.

Most of the eastern civs were having huge problems against barbs early on. I've seen stacks of over 30 warriors roaming around, razing one city after another. And because of the really slow tech pace, even a normally defended city is no match against stacks of warriors until you get to bronze working.

Most civs have about 6 cities, max 8-9. European civs are the strongest, beside 1-2 exceptions. Expanding and fielding a good army is now mostly impossible because of the high maintenance. This then leads to all the problems cited above.

Is the Huge map properly configured as far as maintenance cost and tech pace? It's rediculously slow and time is flying by.

Playing Persia on Prince (Prince of Persia? - that was a great game!) at Normal speed, I too found the barbs to be all out of proportion. Stacks and stacks in never-endig waves.
No fun at all.

Playing the huge map and I never thought I'd say it but I kinda miss the Illyrians. Any thoughts to adding them back as a barb civ? I'm expanding just fine as Rome and am way out in front with techs but for some reason the Greeks have been dead last for most of the game even with the Kolcheans wiped out early and a golden age. I'll move up to prince level for the next game and give them a try. Also, what if spearman units had a negative bonus against attacking cites? They're still pretty much the only thing I build though the javeline troops are getting better for the early game.

I agree that we should make siege weapons more interesting/useful, beginning with giving them more strength so that they're a little bit more useful, at least when it comes to defending in a stack. In terms of a temporary city attack promotion from being in a stack with a siege tower, that idea doesn't really fly with me ... but we will have something similar for the Heroes, you can be sure about that :)
Well the thing with siege towers is that they really didn't damage anything. So having a siege tower that destroys city defenses seems a bit odd whereas giving the attacking units in the same tile a bonus equal to defeating the city walls would be just about right for them.

Currently as far as the TAM siege weapons go the ram is useless. Prior to discovering mining no city will have enough of a bonus to justify bringing siege weapons. Once you discover mining the sapper is a better choice.

The catapult is OK but compared to the fire catapult (which doesn't require greek fire tech, should it? ) it isn't as good. Fire catapults can simply ignore the city bonus and just attack, they do very well even with no promotions. In a typical siege three or four fire catapults will not only damage the entire stack of defenders but they also tend to kill a few in the process. They do enough damage that you can skip bombarding the defenses and your attackers will be fine unless you didn't bring enough units.

In the end the city defenses are so underpowered that siege is a novelty. In the early game all you need are a couple of archers with a stack of spearmen
to take any city. Later in the game you replace archers with fire catapults. In my last game I had a stack of heavy infantry that were all upgraded axemen with all three city radier promotions. Eight of them with a pair of fire catapults could just walk through anything the AI could muster as city defense, not even a city on a hill with a +60% cultural defense bonus and a stack of pikemen & bowmen slowed me down.

So I don't think increasing their strength will help them at all. What they need is something that makes them useful additions to the stack be it collateral damage or temporary stack promotions. It might help if the defense bonuses for the cities could get higher then 60% and got up there quicker, that would make the bombardment ability important and then their bombard strength would be a good measure of usefulness.

Played a great game as the Egyptians this weekend with a lot of cool features, including several (!!) ai/ai wars. Managed to found Heliopolitan gods and in Heliopolis too. As you probably noticed, I'm a bit obsessed with things like that. A great artist was born in my capital, and even though Elvis is a 20th century artist it didn't bother me at all. It was just so good seing Elvis rockin´ in Memphis again. :D

The Tartessians aren't spreading like intended but I'm sure a little redistribution of resources between them and the Iberians will fix that. Started a couple of games where I kept entering Worlbuilder to see what the two produced and when. It seems as if the Iberians becomes more and more paralyzed the faster Argantonio spreads his nation. When I altered their resources things worked out better, but I haven't found the perfect formula yet. Has anyone seen a game with a strong Viriato?

Has anyone seen a game with a strong Viriato?

:lol: ... umm yes, it was in TAM about 1.1

I have a strange bug.
None of my units can remove the "black fog", which means I'm unable to explore the map. Only the cities by expanding reveal the map.
My units can steal go in the black but I'm unable to see them.

Then after a few turns, the game freeze and I had to reboot my computer.

The previous version of this mod was working well for me.

I have it that parts of the minimap are always black (like the carthage part of Africa). As if it could be configured somewhere how big the map is (for the minimap) and this value would be wrong.

Sorry, I've been busy tweaking the normal map in world builder, finally managed to get a strong Egypt going. However, there's something strange about the Iberians. The AI for them appears to be mentally challenged. I tweaked their area as I stated way back, and the AI still doesn't seem capable of getting more than a few cities for them. Tartissians haven't crossed the med in 3 games now, and instead, opt to colonize most of the Iberian penninsula.

I just had a very strange game over the weekend too. I seriously tweaked the region where Egypt plays...too much to list here. I'm willing to email the save file for 5500 BC. That file will also have several other changes, such as the ones I've talked about for Mycenae, Iberians, and Tartessians.

Back to the strange game. 1) Agememnon actually colonized very well. However, everyone else did not, well, except for me anyway. I think the AI puts too much weight on distance to AI cities in their colonization decisions. 2) Iberians colonized a little past the mountains to the NE, which apparently through the Gauls and Germanic tribes out of wack. Tartessians never crossed the Med. The barbarians penned in Carthage (I think partly because I, as the Egyptians didn't go barbarian hunting too much). Mycenaean expansion North and East and into the Med (close to actual history I think) seems to have thrown Illyria, the Gaetians, the Scythians, the Lydians, and the Romans off better settlement choices. The Germanic tribes...I don't know what they were thinking with some of their city placements.
3) I gave the Hittites a spot of wheet to help combat Lydian expansion, which actually ended up balancing the Lydians and the Hittites, but also seems to have led to a strange settlement path, which disrupted the developement of Phoenicia, the Kolchis and the Babylonians.

In summary, I have a 600 point lead in 650BC, am well into the Classical age, and my nearest competition is Hammurabi and Agememnon and Dido, but they are all severly backward in tech, compaired to me.

I do not believe that my tweaks to the Egyptian terrain should have made that much of a difference. I did give Egypt a healthy industrial boost (let's face it, they are a little crippled in that department otherwise).

For whatever reason, the AI's settlement strategy lead to a cascade effect that rippled all around the world, and now, there are only 3 powers with any real research rate to speak of.

Very bizaar.

I too have been changing the starting position of Mycenae. However I wanted more than one city in the Greek mainland so I move Mycenae one tile east and north to position X:45 Y:17. I also move the clay one tile north to the hills (position X: 44 Y:17). I add one sheep to the east of Mycenae (X:46 Y:17). Move olives to grassland (X:44 Y:18) and add a grassland at X:44 Y:19. I also improve western Greece a bit by adding one grassland in the west of Greece (X:41 Y:16), move the fish one tile east (X:40 Y:16), change grassland to hill (X:42 Y:16), and add a river at X:42 Y:17 & X:41 Y:17. This significantly improves the power of Greece and makes it a regional power for many years.

Seperate note, I always move Romes starting copper to the city radius (X:32 Y:23). Without it Rome has very little production and wastes the copper.

Cheers

I would love to finally figure out how to find out what coordinates I'm messing with so I can better communicate what I've been doing with the map. Any help here? Thank you!

P.S. Yes, I thought about making two cities fit in the normal map, but the central location where the copper is now is just too good. I haven't tried the huge map yet, I took a look at it in world builder and decided that it was awesome and too vast for the game play time that I like. When I've got a solid few days or weeks to try it out, I'll give it a whirl.

I do not believe that my tweaks to the Egyptian terrain should have made that much of a difference. I did give Egypt a healthy industrial boost (let's face it, they are a little crippled in that department otherwise).

What's the problem about Egypt's health? They always perform very good. Their health is because of their flood plains. They've got some food resources neir to compensate it though. And in every second game they're the super power.

So why compensate for Egypts health issues? The only thing they really have problems (that you can measure) are:
1) Because of their food they very fast run into unhappiness - not a problem at all because you can opt the food away or whip
2) Because of the very many plains they've mostly small production in the north. But that's compensation for their severe boni regarding techs

You exit worldbuilder and move the mouse over the changed plot, while holding the shift key.

Alternatively, you can get MapView, which is located in the utility programs forum here on CivFanatics.

Thank you for the response, disregard repeat of question, I must have skipped by this post.

I'll get to it soon.

I have a strange bug.
None of my units can remove the "black fog", which means I'm unable to explore the map. Only the cities by expanding reveal the map.
My units can steal go in the black but I'm unable to see them.

Then after a few turns, the game freeze and I had to reboot my computer.

The previous version of this mod was working well for me.

I have no clue what that might be. We didn't change anything from the last version to this one which might deal with it. It's actually impossible to mod the fog of war without using the SDK. See if it occurs on all maps.

What's the problem about Egypt's health? They always perform very good. Their health is because of their flood plains. They've got some food resources neir to compensate it though. And in every second game they're the super power.

So why compensate for Egypts health issues? The only thing they really have problems (that you can measure) are:
1) Because of their food they very fast run into unhappiness - not a problem at all because you can opt the food away or whip
2) Because of the very many plains they've mostly small production in the north. But that's compensation for their severe boni regarding techs

Well, then perhaps they are too powerful after my tweaks. As soon as I get home, I can write more details. I was able to build three cities around the Nile, one to the west near the fish, and one to the East...which was another tweaked plot. With these 5 cities, I could just sit back and churn out wonders, hehe...like what Egypt did, yes?

My tweaks were all about production, not health or happiness. I am going to download mapview so I can bust out some coordinates for you. Stone and Marble, shouldn't Egypt have them both?

The AI reluctance to colonize may have something to do with the increased distance maintenance cost. Maybe we should reduce it slightly again.

From reading the thread I realize the main issues of concern at this time are such things as game play, maps and city names. However, I am interested in knowing what level of priority the development team has placed on cosmetic issues? I noticed in the current game that I am playing that many of the world wonder screens (can static pictures be used?) are blank and when a Great Prophet is born his Holy Site building icons reflect those of vanilla civ. While some may consider my concerns trivial, I think attention to detail makes for a more professional and polished MOD when all is said and done. Thanks.

We design functionality first, then the cosmetic stuff. We hope to have it all polished up by v2.0 though.

One thing I noticed through, the pyramids, that IIRC in reality were build 3000 years BC, come pretty late in the mod IMO or did I forgot something?

I have a strange bug.
None of my units can remove the "black fog", which means I'm unable to explore the map. Only the cities by expanding reveal the map.
My units can steal go in the black but I'm unable to see them.

I get the same thing. It can be fixed by Alt+Tab to minimize the game and then Alt+Tab once more to bring the game back up. The bug is then gone until the next time you load the game.

The AI reluctance to colonize


you can help it through

CvUnitAI::AI_found_map()

changing

iValue /= (iPathTurns + 1); to +2 or +3 to make AI prefer longer distances

The AI reluctance to colonize may have something to do with the increased distance maintenance cost. Maybe we should reduce it slightly again.
On the Fertile Crescent map the AI is doing the contrary, expanding quickly and far, killing their economy in the process. Intermediate behavior (on both maps) should be more appropriate imo.

One thing I noticed through, the pyramids, that IIRC in reality were build 3000 years BC, come pretty late in the mod IMO or did I forgot something?
Yea, I understand, but that's just how the time of the game goes. We could alter the year progression though to try to make it more accurate ...

I would like to thank all the people involved in the creation of this wonderful mod, superb battle tactics, wonderful attention to detail, so many decisions to be made as to research, build queues etc & the awe-inspiring huge mediterrean map, it's simply the best Civ 4 mod there is. I do have a couple of issues to raise though. I initally loaded up the Huge Med map and selected Persia (Prince level), before 1000BC both the Mede and Babylonian had been wiped out. Strange I thought I didn't see any AI war announcements then a few turns later the Barbs turned up at my borders! At first just a few then some more and finally stacks of 20 tribal warriors spawning just outside my borders nearly every turn. The Persians were destined to join their neighbours as mere footnotes in history so I quit.
On reflection I wondered if raging barbs had been the setting in the WB file so I started a custom scenario as Persia (Prince) with "normal" barbs & no city razing enabled with the huge Med map. This game seemed to be more balanced. All civs survived the early game except Egypt who were destroyed by the Nubians & although I did see one stack of 20 Barbs nearly all of the others were 1,2 or 3 strong, perfect training for my Immortals!
Indeed this game, which I'm still playing has to be the best Civ game I've ever played and I've been a Civ fan since the original.
Someone mentioned earlier about the Iberians always being weak, I havn't seen this myself, they have been in the top 5 all game & conquered Spain and part of the NW African coast but the top civ is Phonecia with Greece a close 2nd.
I will close by thanking the TAM people one more time for their hard work, dedication and tremendous skill in the making of this illustrious mod

Thanks for your kind words Alekhine. The default setting for the Huge map is NOT raging barbarians. The reason there are so many barbs there is that they have a few cities (metropoles, actually) in the NE of the map, which I think we should certainly remove. Then it will be more balanced, as the barbarians will only spread by spawning irregularly.

Thanks for your kind words Alekhine. The default setting for the Huge map is NOT raging barbarians. The reason there are so many barbs there is that they have a few cities (metropoles, actually) in the NE of the map, which I think we should certainly remove. Then it will be more balanced, as the barbarians will only spread by spawning irregularly.
Thanks for your quick reply Thamis. I did notice that the Barb activity quitened down once a few Barb cities started springing up on the edges of my empire. Certainly no more 20+ stacks! Which I thought quite ironic, the barbarians bringing a touch of civilzation to the land:lol:

Apart from the cities in the NE of the huge med map, after a couple games it does seem to me that on the huge maps, the civs that are protected from barbs by terrain get a solid advantage from that, for better or worse.

A funny thing about deserts - on the normal map barbs spawning out of the desert felt fine, but on Fertile Crescent after killing the 400th barb raider and building a solid line of forts from Faiyum to the Mediterranean, I started to wonder just how all those barbs survived in the desert. Secret oases? (They were spawning on desert tiles, of course.)

Britain can't get the resource for its UU at all easily. Could add it, or maybe remove the resource requirement, like with metals. Might also consider replacing a wheat with sheep (flavor) and adding tin (Cornwall tin trade).

You can remove dense forest by building waterwheels even if you don't have Ironworking. I don't think it's bad, but it looked like a bug.

On the huge med map there's so much dense forest that it often grows over amber and pigs. "The good news is now we don't have to research animal husbandry for another 3000 years..." If you're the AI you get hosed, if you're the human you... um, restart and fortify tribal warriors over the resources. It's pretty evil. One way to be less evil (if desired) would be to place normal forests over more of those resource tiles.

Do heros behave just like great people for golden ages? So your first golden age can be hero + prophet, your next one can be hero + prophet + scientist, etc?

Keep 'em coming!

The AI reluctance to colonize may have something to do with the increased distance maintenance cost. Maybe we should reduce it slightly again.

Are you referring to my strange game?

I think that it is partly the distance issue (I think a slight reduction in maintenance costs may be in order) however, I think it's more to do with the almost finatical desire for the AI to build either adjacent to resources and to avoid (again almost finatically) overlap.

A human player accepts some overlapping.

A human player also builds cities where it is most advantageous in the long term (usually not adjacent to the desired resources, but within first cultural expansion.)

you can help it through

CvUnitAI::AI_found_map()

changing

iValue /= (iPathTurns + 1); to +2 or +3 to make AI prefer longer distances

I think it's more an issue of giving the AI permission to allow itself to colonize into an empire (ala Rome or Greece, etc...)

It just builds into a tight cluster and sits there for some strange reason. I do think it has allot to do with maintenance costs and hamstrung AI economies.

Not to mention, that in my opinion, the AI choses horrible sites.

Jorgen_CAB was working on smarter AI city placement before he went missing in action... perhaps we can petition him to release it for us :)

Finally had the chance to take 1.93 for a MP run and the combined changes work very well in MP. The commerce changes were very interesting, playing as the Greeks with my firend playing as the Romans I was able to gain and maintain a substantial tech lead over him and all of the AI players. His growth spurt almost collapsed his empire whereas my slower expansion by conquest (I didn't try to kill all my neighbors by 1000BC this time) allowed me to keep running a profit at 100% research. The recent changes have at least slowed down expansion by conquest, even if the AI doesn't do a better job overall the individual battles are a bit tougher when you're the attacker, especially early in the game. And you've finally managed to break my "one unit for everything" stretegy. :)

We had some interesting discussions about siege weapons during our game. The sappers could really use a new unit graphic, or at least something other than two workers since we both got them mixed up with works on a couple of occasions. I was also wondering if it would be possible to use some temporary promotions like other mods are (real fort for example). This would allow us to have siege towers that didn't do any damage to the cities but instead gave all of the units in the same tile some sort of added city attack bonus. That would help make them useful even when you have catapults and other later siege weapons. The sappers come so early that rams are typically never used.
It is always better to leave behind a couple of defanged vassal states rather than wiping them out completely.

:lol: ... umm yes, it was in TAM about 1.1
Viriato just sits there waiting to get waxed by either the Dido or Caesar. I usually aid in his early demise by gifting Caesar a couple of techs and asking him to take care of the problem.

About one page ago, I made a joke about Elvis being born in Memphis. Perhaps I shouldn't have...:eek:
132261
;)

About one page ago, I made a joke about Elvis being born in Memphis. Perhaps I shouldn't have...:eek:
132261
;)

:clap: :rockon:

Genius.

:rotfl:

What must be done in order to play TAM 1.93 Huge Map in hotseat - two humans mode?

Doubleclicking map file starts single player games only.

Thanks

What must be done in order to play TAM 1.93 Huge Map in hotseat - two humans mode?

Doubleclicking map file starts single player games only.

Thanks

Once you dbl-clicked the file, go back to the main menu (go back button in lower left corner), choose multiplayer, hotseat. Then click "Load Scenario" and select the huge map.

Viriato just sits there waiting to get waxed by either the Dido or Caesar. I usually aid in his early demise by gifting Caesar a couple of techs and asking him to take care of the problem.You're so cruel, Ankenaton. You shouldn't hit someone that's already down. Why don't you give those techs to Viriato instead, and help him against his antagonists. :p

is the 1.93 already available? people are talking already about 1.93 but on the main page i only see the 1.92 for download

The main page links to the 1.93 download, I just forgot to update it.

(go back button in lower left corner)

:blush:

Thanks

:goodjob:

You're so cruel, Ankenaton. You shouldn't hit someone that's already down. Why don't you give those techs to Viriato instead, and help him against his antagonists. :p
I have done it the past. But then when I need him, usually against Dido he will just twiddle his thumbs and leave me hanging. After all of the coddling, safeguarding and literal buying off of the Gauls or Romans every 10 or so moves when they are ready to roll in on him. Hey if he can't hang with the big boys, well it sure speeds up the game to have one less civ, :lol: . I guess he never heard of realpolitik; too bad for him.

Hey if he can't hang with the big boys, well it sure speeds up the game to have one less civ, :lol: . I guess he never heard of realpolitik; too bad for him.

Hmm, should I warn him about what I just uploaded for the next version? :)

After playing hours this mod, finally came up with two ideas for two new wonders, which you might like, just want to introduce the ideas. I am no good at this balancing stuff, so no details::blush:

1. Military harbour of Carthago
I noticed that there seems to be no wonder or modernization which gives an advantage to naval units, so may be once built this wonder could give either experience points or a free promotion to naval units or reduce building or maintenance costs (I am not sure if this is possible).
The military harbor was an impressive construction, with shipsheds for a hundred military ships, which where build round a circular canal.

The following site gives more information:
www1.rgzm.de/Navis2/Home/HarbourFullTextOutput.cfm?HarbourNR=Carthage

2. Olympic Games
For at least a thousand years this was a cultural fixum for the greek world, well in later years there where lots of participants, who were not a exactly greek, but that is politics.
There could be a cultural and a financial bonus (lots of people made money from the games, even then). And may be a GP Bonus for Artist (where to put an athlete, but there were poetry contests as well).

Hope this fits your concept.

Waterloo

Hi again!

Been playing the new version as Chartago and the Hellenes now, and still there is those 2 small things that bothers me, that is also easy to fix.

1) The Great People are still using the modern graphics

2) The Sid tips for polytheism says it founds hinduism.....

Will you fix this for the next version you think? :)

Must say this mod is developing very fast, and is improving rapidly. I also like how you implemented the heroes. Was afraid they would be too powerfull and unbalanced, but hey, you made it right!

NB! Will be cool to attach a Great General to the hero unit after the new Warlord expansion, and see how that affects gameplay, hope that wont be too heavy......

I like Waterloo's suggestion for new wonders, and would also like to add a suggestion: The Royal Road. It was the 2 700km road that Darius of Persia had built throughout the empire. It would be an interesting addition for warlike players/countries, increasing travel speed perhaps to 3 or 4 times the normal?

I like Waterloo's suggestion for new wonders, and would also like to add a suggestion: The Royal Road. It was the 2 700km road that Darius of Persia had built throughout the empire. It would be an interesting addition for warlike players/countries, increasing travel speed perhaps to 3 or 4 times the normal?

3 or 4 times for all roads are way too much an advantage.

I would rather suggest that, very much like with the Great Wall in Warlords, the 2 most distant cities in the empire are connected with each other (and cities that can be easily connected on the way) by a special road that can be used as fast as the roads after road building.

But that's difficult to implement as you have to implement a path finding :)

Very nice :goodjob: i especialy liked the "fertile Cresent map", but shouldn't there be gold in nubia... gold was more common than silver in ancient egypt, and egypt got their gold from nubia.

Been playing the huge med map and the Nubians take out the Eygptians everytime, usually by 1000bc.

Hmm, should I warn him about what I just uploaded for the next version? :)
So Virato got his thumb out now? That would be great; love those multi-front wars. "Upon hearing the lamentations of the conquered, Pharoah most beloved follower of the Aten was pleased".

Been playing the huge med map and the Nubians take out the Eygptians everytime, usually by 1000bc.
I will rain swarms of chariots down upon the Cushites until they yield unto Pharoah their status as vassals:lol:

It is always better to leave behind a couple of defanged vassal states rather than wiping them out completely.

This I have finally learned in TAM! TAM is more than a close depiction of this early time, it is also a great teaching tool!

I have learned and refined so much of my strategies.

I really appreciate what the Romans had to overcome to grow their empire. The Germanic people really piss me off! Vercingetorix had the nerve to tell me that this world isn't big enough for the two of us! It took two major wars to wipe out the Illyrians.

The ebb and flow of empire building was awesome! Now that I've developed my skills in empire building (RESTRAINT and PATIENCE) I'm doing much better and having more fun, and developing a much deeper understanding of the depth of the strategies in this game!

I should add that I am approaching total domination with the Romans on the Normal map on Prince/Epic :)

This I have finally learned in TAM! TAM is more than a close depiction of this early time, it is also a great teaching tool!

I have learned and refined so much of my strategies.

I really appreciate what the Romans had to overcome to grow their empire. The Germanic people really piss me off! Vercingetorix had the nerve to tell me that this world isn't big enough for the two of us! It took two major wars to wipe out the Illyrians.

The ebb and flow of empire building was awesome! Now that I've developed my skills in empire building (RESTRAINT and PATIENCE) I'm doing much better and having more fun, and developing a much deeper understanding of the depth of the strategies in this game!

I should add that I am approaching total domination with the Romans on the Normal map on Prince/Epic :)
hehe, that's great to hear! The Romans historically did fight 2 Illyrian Wars before they eventually conquered the whole of Illyria. Isn't it cool when the game follows history?

So Virato got his thumb out now? That would be great; love those multi-front wars. "Upon hearing the lamentations of the conquered, Pharoah most beloved follower of the Aten was pleased".
Well, sort of. Shqype and I are currently looking into a number of AI "enhancements" possible with the SDK. I wouldn't expect anything too amazing right away but you never know.

To follow up about dense forests, on marathon / Huge Med, they grew so much that they took over the whole North and crippled France and Germany. I never saw a problem like that on the normal map, I think because the normal map starts with less dense forest and blocks more of it with regular forest. You might want to reduce the dense forest spread rate to very low or even zero, so that the map design can control how things work out. I also noticed that dense forest spawns panthers.

Sometimes the best defender for a city wasn't chosen. For example, I had a stack of unpromoted javelineers attacking a city containing unpromoted javelineers and an unpromoted warror. The first combat was with the warrior, at better odds for me than the subsequent combats.

I'd like to expand on my criticism of Plato's Academy "rant style". ;) Two things that make it even crazier are: 1. Education is expensive, yet it is easy for someone to Philosophy slingshot to it, because Philosophy is a tech that enables it! So you don't even have to do parallel research to maximize the effectiveness of the slingshot. It's a total no brainer if you win Philosophy: the most expensive tech by far is likely to be Education, which enables Plato's, and since you got that expensive tech with a slingshot, you then have a window of time in which to build it. 2. You can combine it with Aristocracy for quadruple beakers in the capital. My last 3 games (Boudicca/Huge Med, Hatshepsut/Fertile, Minos/Magna), after I got Plato's and Aristocracy going, the game was in the bag and I didn't want to play much beyond that. It's like my personal victory condition now. :)

The unit upkeep costs are cool... it got me thinking. It changes the tradeoff between hammers and commerces: averaged over your empire, it definitely tilts the commerce/hammer tradeoff towards commerce. The ways I did OK in my last 3 games were respectively: Colossus + Great Lighthouse + coastal towns (+ some cottages), cottage spam in a protected grasslands/river area,, and financial + Colossus + coastal towns (+ a few cottages). Indeed if I've survived long enough to get Heroic Epic, I've probably amassed a big enough army that most of my military expansion can and should come just from The Heroic Epic city. I don't think the balance change is necessarily a problem. It is interesting, though, and suggests a couple possible tweaks. If you haven't already, you might consider tweaking the city AI to favor commerce improvements and working commerce tiles a little more. Also the merchant wonders (especially the Colossus) are now relatively more powerful, so... I don't know. Make them more expensive? Change them? But I can't think how the Colossus could be merely tuned down.

You might want to reduce the boat bonus to timber to 50%. Mainly, it's for merchant vessels. Now, I love them, especially with the variable-distance thing to make it interesting. For example on I could get merchant vessels from Britain to Morocco for 216 wealth, but I had to struggle to keep, at best, on-and-off-again open borders with Dido. ("No, you can't have Alphabet. Oh, crap. Here, have Urbanization. Here, have Construction. Oh, come on.") With +100% from timber, that's 70 hammers for 216 wealth. That's 3:1 commerce to hammers, compared to 1:2 for building wealth directly, 1:1 for building a wonder that you don't get, 1:1 for building a Caravan House if you play the game for another 180 turns (not counting the trade route bonus). Put another way, you're producing merchant ships twice as fast, so you're bringing in the wealth twice as fast. I think the time it takes to get your merchant ships to the destination dampens this effect, but I suspect not by much. So that's why I suggest +50%, which in my case would have gotten me 2.25 wealth from each hammer, compared to 1.5 for no timber.

Speaking of trade route bonuses, Harbor + Caravan House + Seafaring trait gives you a rounded-down +95%. The torture of it all! Was that intentional?

Round-down is "horribly painful" :) with Industrious too (33% rather than 34%), but maybe that was your intention.

Unit upkeep seems to be such a big deal that a world wonder that enabled a few free units or reduced unit upkeep cost in some other way (eliminating the military cost from Nature Cult?) might be cool.

For random maps, it might be helpful if a technology enabled trading on ocean. Maybe you could include it in your Silk Road design.

Now I'm going to indulge in a commentary on all the civics. I'd love to hear from other people what they use in their own games and if they have strategies that I'm missing.

Hereditary Rule: never needed because of tavern + either (holy site + path of mystics) or (ampitheater + free religion) + multiple free religions in each city.
Republic: likewise
City States: awesome, and much easier to get than Republic
Empire: seems good, but I don't usually play that far through the end game.

Council of Elders: pretty necessary because of unit upkeep. By the way, is it possible to document the number of free units it gives you? The civics screen says how many you get currently, but the number increases over time. I tried drafting, but felt the 3 unhappy was too expensive to be worth it except in case of emergency.
Bureaucracy: never been remotely tempted
Forum: it's cool, but it's very expensive to give up the free units from Council of Elders. I was spread all over the Aegean in my Minos/Magna game, but even so, when I tried running it it was prohibitively expensive, and I had to switch back. (Of course, I was already Organized.)
Ius Civile: used it for cultural victory in earlier versions. Especially now, I don't think I'd ever use it except in that case. Council of Elders is valuable, happiness is pretty easy to get, and culture from buildings or Patronage is fairly easy to get.

Slavery: cool
Public Works: never been tempted, although perhaps I should be. Would you consider beefing it up? +100%? +100% has drool factor. And Despotism is still a dead-end tech.
Patronage: cool, especially with City States, of course
Migration: it makes military build like settlers, correct? It's a cool concept and it seems like a cool mechanic, but I've never figured out a good way to use it. And also, now the game seems to be as much about having a strong economy to support your units, as it is about building them fast. Could it also give Exp to mounted units? A bonus from pastures? Edit: ooh, ooh - isn't there a movement promotion for mounted units? Migration could give that for free. Because it's migraton. Then you could build a lot of fast pillagers, send them out, pillage for wealth, and then delete them to save on maintenance costs when the good pillaging ran out.

Nature Cult: I remember thinking it was cool and using it a little when I started playing TAM around version 1.5 or so. I don't remember if it had the +1 military cost then. Currently my feeling is, +1 military cost, forget it! I guess people pull off running Pacifism in vanilla somehow, but I just can't imagine how it could work in the current version of TAM. It would have to be with a very special strategy (I'd actually like to try grasslands + Crop Rotation + Nature Cult + Agricultural + either specialist economy or cultural victory or Migration. With Circus Maximus that'd be nasty. And of course, I'd have to add Plato's Academy. :lol: )
Plutocracy: seems cool, but I've never thought of a good way to use it. I don't usually prioritize the Commerce tech. By the way, this is one of the places where using the distinct wealth/commerce icons would clarify things. If it had the commerce icon I would assume it multiplied base commerce, otherwise that it multiplied output wealth.
Vice Royalty: seems great, but I rarely get there
Aristocracy: killer

I usually become dependent on Path of the Mystics. (Less so in the latest version, with more religions). Even so, in older games I sometimes ran Organized Religion and Theocracy, but now with less control over state religion, I'm less tempted. After Theocracy I might switch to Free Religion, depending.

At what game settings can I expect some AI on AI war? I am still playing my first game to familiarize myself with TAM. Germanic Tribes, Huge Random Map w/ Continents, Epic Speed, Warlord Difficulty. The other civs either love me or hate me. I am currently at war with the Nubians, Medians and Mycenaens. Everyone else is sitting around doing nothing.

The AI to AI relationships are currently being worked on, hopefully Thamis will have a treat for you guys in the next version :)

Have you considered changing the name of the Egyption religion ot "Maat", this is an egyptian word meaning Peace, Balance, Harmony, Good, Order ect ect.. Their whole belif system revolves around maintaining Maat. Also White Rabbit has produced a Sphinx wonder which sits ontop of a Building very much like the Temple of Carnak, I recomend you use it as such for the Egyption Shrine.

:aargh: I'm trapped in the Mediterranean again!:shake:

If he made a Sphinx, TAM actually has a Sphinx wonder that could use some new graphics...

Playing version 1.9 with the Getae.
In 2450 BC, upon trying to move my peltast from Barbosi (the westernmost town) one tile to the north-west, I get the following message:
FATAL_ERROR
Memory allocation failure - exiting program.
Reason:bad allocation.
After clicking OK, the game exits to the desktop.

I encountered the same error. Again with the peltast. I narrowed the problem down to it happens whenever a peltast moves pretty much. I was able to fix it by editing xml/art/unitart.xml or whatever that defines what art to use for each unit. I made the peltast use the same model as the javeliner, which involved changing 2 lines. So I'm guessing the model is bugged.

For the record I have a geforce 2 card, and in other mods I've needed the "white flag patch" due to alpha channel issues.

Hope you guys can fix this, I haven't had a complete game yet (though I may get through one now with my fix).

Thanks,
Cham

I am posting my tweeked version of the normal map, v.1.93.

I'd appreciate your review of the modified version. I have tested it through 3 different games now. Each time, Greece emerged as a number 2 or 3 power, and Egypt had an explosive start that tapers off towards the later game, and eventually, there is a huge AI on AI war vs. Egypt. The hittites are strong, ballanced by the Lydions and Kolchis. The Babylonians are very strong for most of the game.

When I play the Romans, I still emerge as the number one power, am constantly at war with the Gauls and Germanic Tribes. I even manage to get Viriato on my side occassionally. The Tartessians do balance Dido, and they also reduce some of the Barb raids in Africa.

Decebal is a major military power, but is technologically backward, which I think feels correct. It is kind of odd that the Gatians are my closest allie...

Anyway, there are many changes here, and I feel that you really need to look at the original map and compare to my tweeked map to understand them all. (Moved Greek start, Moved Gaulish and Germanic starts slightly, adjusted a resource for Gaul, Adjusted Viriato and Argantonio's start area, adjusted the Nile for room for 3 good cities, put a plains hill under Egypt and Rome settlers, moved Lydions to the coast, and gave the Hittites a spot of grain.)

These changes have made the game slightly more accurate in terms of AI managed expansion routes and power development IMHO. Not to mention that the game is more fun :) I appreciate your comments and criticisms :)

Here is the link:132506

hehe, that's great to hear! The Romans historically did fight 2 Illyrian Wars before they eventually conquered the whole of Illyria. Isn't it cool when the game follows history?

Yes!

I almost feel like I'm acting it out! You guys have really ballanced so much of this mod so well. I should add that I was playing on my tweeked map that I just posted here. I'd like your team to look it over.

As to history playing out in the game. I am in my 3rd war with the Germanic tribes, and my Second with Gaul. Both times that I have entered a war against Gaul, it has been after I am at war with someone else!

I am pushing now to erradicate the Germanic tribes. I may have to just cripple the Gauls some more, but if I eliminate him from the game, then Viriato may become too powerful, lol.

Oh...my decisions are weighty as Rome...I still dream of taking out Greece and crippling the Gatians...

The AI to AI relationships are currently being worked on, hopefully Thamis will have a treat for you guys in the next version :)

The best way to encourage AI on AI is to have a seriously powerful military so the AI doesn't even consider attacking you (unless they are already furious or Annoyed with you, then it seems to be a certainty.)

If you are militarily a 3rd rate power, then you are doomed.

The next best method is to surround yourself with crippled enemies. Hopefully, their neighbors will smell blood in the water.

AI on AI wars only occur in the SE of the map. I guess this is because I, as Rome, am too far from them?

I am posting my tweeked version of the normal