Ok, I broke from the normal map and have tooled around in the huge map. I can clearly see that Africa and Asia Minor need a few tweaks. Egypt is a bit rough to play. I am constantly forced to pop-rush everything.

After a few games as the Egyptians, I went into the world builder to mod a better existance. I found that many other civs had better starts with better resources and production potential. Egypt does have a significant early advantage in terms of food, but you can only whip your people so much...

Here is a list of mods that I think could benefit the African civs and Babylon.

Nubians:
1) 76, 2 Change plains to desert , and add oasis
2) 85, 1 Created plains hills and added gold, removed gold at edge of map at 86,0

Egypt:
1) moved lake at 78,11 to 79, 12
2) moved oasis at 77,11 to 78, 12
3) moved oasis at 78,10 to 79, 11
4) remove river at 79,11 and 80,11.
5) added river at 89,12.
5) moved copper from 78,12 to 79,13.

Carthage:
Added forest with timber at 39, 23

Babylon:
1) added forest at 109,18 and 111,20
2) moved clay from 106,20 to 107,19
3) moved fruit from 115, 16 to 114, 16
4) moved crabs from 115,13 to 115,14
5) moved fish from 115,14 to 116,15
6) added opium to 117,17

I agree with the carthrage change. It is extremely weak production wise.

Although, North Africa sure has an abundance of resources. Was it really that rich during Ancient times?

I agree with the carthrage change. It is extremely weak production wise.

Although, North Africa sure has an abundance of resources. Was it really that rich during Ancient times?
Desertification was only in its infancy. The Sahara was half again as large as it is now. Egypt and neighboring Libya to a lesser extent were the granaries of the ancient world.

Tried the Briton's on the huge map.

They have an early unique unit, the swift chariot archer.

But there is no horse resource in England, Ireland or anywhere close on the Gallic coast.

I did not play into the Iron Age but so far, Ireland has is a lone timbre resource in the middle and zero fish type resources. 50+ squares of Ireland with one lone resource is a little underwhelming.

I did not play into the Iron Age but so far, Ireland has is a lone timbre resource in the middle and zero fish type resources. 50+ squares of Ireland with one lone resource is a little underwhelming. Agreed. On the other hand it's protected, practically uncontested, and can be a cash cow. It can fit 1 good commerce city and 2-3 OK ones. Water mills help. No city there will grow fast, but any city there will become profitable quickly.

I have experimented with a few oasis north and east of Persian start. It helps with inland settlement. If the team feels that Persia needs or would be helped by said oasis, let me know, and I'll feed the coordinates.

Ooooh Bretons sound like a good challenge.

I've played a few games as the Greeks. I don't know -- the map somehow just doesn't look at all like Greece to me. I'm not exactly sure how it is supposed to -- where the Peloponnese is, where Athens would be, etc. It's a bit strange.

I find the distribution of wine a bit strange. Surely there should be some around Greece or the Eastern Med. At least that makes more sense to me than Romania...

In general, I find some areas simply have too few resources (although Greece seems good). The game is more fun when you can have interesting cities with different resources.

-- Hypnotoad

Yes, some oases for the Persians are a good idea. Please give me the coordinates.

The point of putting some resources in one area is to force civs to trade, especially the AI won't trade if it's got enough resources.

Rome has the most diverse resource mix of the entire Med...hmmmm (they miss out on Amber, Papyrus (which the AI doesn't seem to value), Timber, Flax, and I forget if it's crabs or clams they miss out on. Seems as though Rome doesn't need to trade, in fact they never want to trade resources. At least not in my games. When I play Rome, I can easily expand to encompass enough resources to make me self-sufficient. Same goes for Greece and a lesser Degree, Carthage. Horse, Elephant, Amber, Timber and Papyrus and Clay seem to be the rarest resources.

Why won't Rome trade Wine for Sheep for example? Or Fish for Crabs?

Puzzles me. Why not trade Wine for Timber even? Fruit for Pigs?

Rome just doesn't seem to want to trade, even if you are on cautious or better footing. Anyone else find this to be the case?

Another suggestion, could we make Papyrus double the production of Libraries, in addition to doubling the production of the Library of Alexandria? Perhaps then it would be tradeable?

I thought papyrus does already give +50% to library. I'll check it up.

Rome is supposed to be a powerhouse, so are Greece, Egypt, and Carthage.

But I do agree that the AI is too unwilling to trade, even though Seven05 doesn't seem to agree.

Really encourages me to go pound rome though LOL

In fact, I fight go play Agamemnon and go pound those foolish Italians.

Or...I could always go with the Carthaginian route...

Any luck looking into how Rhye did Earth 24 civ mod?

Dale put out a 32 civ mod for Warlords. It's a quick change in the SDK code. We'll do it once we switch over to warlords.

The Kolchis have a brutally bad initial starting position on the huge map. I think it's the worst of the 18 civs, though the Germanic, Gallic and Dacian starting positions come close.

If you or the AI start in place, the Kolchis have no fresh water, one lone resource (deer) in the fat cross, and 7 squares that can't be used. (Between peaks and dense forest)

On the old normal map, the Klochis have fresh water and 3 food resources in the fat cross. Unless the Kolchis have been reclassified as ultra-barbaric, I think they could use a little love. :)

I think they should have their historically accurate river (as on the normal map) and if you believe histories you can Google off the web, a fruit or flax would not be unreasonable.

I don't know what Cyprus' marble resource represents. Historically, Cyprus was where the Phoenicians got their copper.
And sorry, I don't know the coords. :mischief:

Also something to note, certain nations start close enough that you can "rush" a neighbor, eliminating them before they can build their first warrior.

Egypt <-> Nubia
Phoenicia <-> Hittites? (the civ that starts north of them)
are the ones that come to mind.

The Kolchis have a brutally bad initial starting position on the huge map. I think it's the worst of the 18 civs, though the Germanic, Gallic and Dacian starting positions come close.

If you or the AI start in place, the Kolchis have no fresh water, one lone resource (deer) in the fat cross, and 7 squares that can't be used. (Between peaks and dense forest)

On the old normal map, the Klochis have fresh water and 3 food resources in the fat cross. Unless the Kolchis have been reclassified as ultra-barbaric, I think they could use a little love. :)

I think they should have their historically accurate river (as on the normal map) and if you believe histories you can Google off the web, a fruit or flax would not be unreasonable.

I'll look into it.

I don't know what Cyprus' marble resource represents. Historically, Cyprus was where the Phoenicians got their copper.
And sorry, I don't know the coords. :mischief:

Also something to note, certain nations start close enough that you can "rush" a neighbor, eliminating them before they can build their first warrior.

Egypt <-> Nubia
Phoenicia <-> Hittites? (the civ that starts north of them)
are the ones that come to mind.

Good point about the copper. There's Marble on Cyprus too, though.

Regarding the close starting positions: Of course you can. But only at lower difficulty levels...

I thought papyrus does already give +50% to library. I'll check it up.

Rome is supposed to be a powerhouse, so are Greece, Egypt, and Carthage.

But I do agree that the AI is too unwilling to trade, even though Seven05 doesn't seem to agree.
Yes I have run into the same in every one of my games. Rome usually has a surplus of wine; I try to trade for it; then Caesar asks for 2-3 resources (many of them would be considered strategic resources) along with money, for his one wine resource. I am not looking for the AI to give resources away, however if Rome is short of Timber, Copper and/or horses then there is no reason why Caesar should not provide a one-to-one trade for one of these resources. Since I play as Egypt, Nubia or Carthage by the time I encounter Rome I usually have knocked off most of the barbs in my neighborhood and have "absorbed" and/or vassalized one or two neighboring states. This means I occupy positions 1-3 on the scorecard; so just for reasons for keeping me happy (so as not to invade) Rome should be more reasonable.

To be clearer: I wasn't suggesting that there should be a greater variety of resources available in any given place. I agree: it is best if you have to trade for them. What I would like is a greater number of resources total. For example, the region around Persia is a bit sparse with no special resources with the city limits. I find that many of the potential city locations are just boring. More of whatever resources are found in the area (Gems, deer, etc.) makes the game more fun IMO.

-- Hypnotoad

Good point about the copper. There's Marble on Cyprus too, though.

Regarding the close starting positions: Of course you can. But only at lower difficulty levels...

Marble...well...Marble seems fairly abundant in the Med already, if you ask me.

Has anyone done a resource count on the huge map...is there a quick way of doing that?

Reason being that I believe Wine may be one of the more rare resources on the map, with Rome having a majority of the resource. Perhaps we need to make Timber and Copper more valuable to Rome and other civs?

Take their olive resources away? (although unrealistic)

We could sure use at least 4 or 6 more civs on the Huge map...and my computer could use another GB of RAM to run it...lol

These should help Britons, and if we could get a 20% redux in the number of Heavy Forest tiles in the French and Western Germany regions...(please)

I am also making some recommendations regarding Oasis north of Persia start.

First the Persian Region suggestions:
1) Oasis placement
124,18
127,16
131,16
128,21
132,24
123,28
127,30

2) Move start to 122,13

3) Move spice from 131,19 to 130,19

4) Move wheet 133,19 to 132,19

5) move horse from 135,17 to 134,17

6) move iron from 133, 17 to 132, 25

7) move tin from 133,21 to 133,23

8) move incense from 128,32 to 128,31

9) move copper from 128,29 to 127,29

Changes for Britons:

1) Add horse at 18,59

2) Add Fish at 13,62; 2,62; 5,56

3) Move Fish from 20,61 to 20,62

4) Add Sheep to 13,60 and 7,61

5) Add Deer to 4,60 and 5,57

6) Add Whale to 3,64

Thank you for the improvements to the 1.96 huge Med. map.

I noticed that there are no clams on this map. Does some map designer out there have a shellfish aversion? :)

The Sahara and the Arabian deserts sure look empty. I suppose filling these deserts with oasis’ and stuff may unbalance things prior to a 24 empire game, but I think there should be at least a little value to these deserts.

I like playing on the huge map, but it is incredibly hard to have a large empire. Is there any way of reducing matinence costs on the huge map? It feels right on the standard size map, but too hard to expand on the huge map.

Scaling maintenance costs with map size is not built into the game; you'd probably have to change the XML schema and program it in. Basically it's a defect of vanilla civ as well as TAM. In practice the problem might not be as acute in vanilla, but if that's so, I'm not quite sure why.

Same with barbs; on huge maps the number of barbs is unfunly gigantic.

One thing I've done for myself for playing huge map games is to make an alternate version of CIV4HandicapInfo.xml with different values of
iDistanceMaintenancePercent - lower
iNumCitiesMaintenancePercent - lower
iUnownedTilesPerBarbarianUnit - higher
I haven't redone it for TAM 1.96 though.

Possibly other things should scale with map size, too, if you thought about it, such as the number of free units.

As my computer is just a little over a year old, it is hardly adequate with regards to displaying the huge Mediterranean map. I chose Germany? (can't remember if that was the name). All I know is I could not resist cutting all those trees down.

Since I will not be getting a new computer or video card anytime soon, does the Northwestern continental Europe map border end roughly where the Netherlands are located? There are three sources of amber in that area.

Thank you.

The NW border is in the ocean past ireland, but the NW border of the continent is on the west coast of Germany, noth of the netherlands.

Thanks for the reply.

Does the map include Denmark? I may have confused the Netherlands for the NW coast of Germany north of Bremen. Right?

No, it goes up to about Bremen.

I think a very legitimate starting point for the Goths would be on the Vistula River, due north of the Dacian start point. (Somewhere close to the northern map edge) The Goths would nicely fill the barbarian infested dead zone between the Germans, Dacians and Scythians. In my opinion, they would be a worthy addition to a 24 empire huge map. Adding the Vistula River and clearing a little dense forest would give the Goths a fighting chance.

Even without the Goths, I think the Vistula and the Oder should be considered for adding to the huge map. As far as I can tell from my desk in New York, they are major rivers. :)

Here is an inventory of resources on the TAM Med normal and TAM Med Huge map. The huge map is over 3 times the size of the normal map, but has a lot more dead squares. (ocean/desert etc.)

Med/Norm vs. Med/Huge 1.97

HAPPY
Amber 3 5
Dye 3 2
Fur 4 15
Gems 3 7
Gold 9 9
incense 3 6
Ivory 2 5
Opium 4 8
Silk 0 3
Silver 4 12
Spices 7 10
Whale 5 14
Wine 11 11

Total 58 107

HEALTH
Clam 10 0
Cow 11 9
Crab 11 15
Deer 11 19
Fish 16 67
Flax 6 11
Fruit 13 18
Olives 7 18
Pigs 8 22
Sheep 18 35
Wheat 21 30

Total 132 244

PRODUCTION
Clay 4 8
Copper 19 29
Horse 17 28
Iron 17 33
Marble 6 12
Papyrus 3 4
Stone 8 12
Timber 27 25
Tin 27 13

Total 128 164

Some ratios appear to be on the money, others look like they could use some adjustment. For any data junkies out there, an excell sheet is attached that includes resources north and south of the "equator". Just unhide the hidden columns.

How do you figure out the coordinates on the map? I can't figure it out...

Mouse over a tile and hold down shift. You might need cheatcode=chipotle in your your Civ .ini file.