Updated Again...

So, I figure that since Rhye isn't planning on releasing any new versions for a while, I would post manipulated saves for those of you who would rather not wait for the auto-turns AND want a world historically accurate to the one your chosen civ was born into...

(I can't find my vanilla civ4 CD for the life of me, so I'm only going to be able to play around with Warlords...)

It was discussed some time ago on another thread (for the life of me, I can't find it) that it would be nice to have historical starting situations for each civ... So, I spent the afternoon yesterday in the world builder, building a somewhat-accurate start for Greece. It wasn't as time consuming as I thought it would be, so I plan on doing all the later civ starts as historically accurate as possible... But I do have a job and a girlfriend that take up alot of my free time, so we'll see how it goes...

The information I am using to build the historically accurate worlds for the civs to be born into are taken from a variety of sources. I have a few Atlases from the library for the "extent of empires" in different time periods, as well as the estimated populations of major cities. I'm also using a spreadsheet version of Rhye's citynamemanager when placing new cities to make sure that there will be no conflict when an opposing civ captures a city. (I'd like the name changes to still occur.) Of course, wikipedia is my source for exact wonder founding dates/places, etc. I also have a variety of books laying around here that I've used to determine: buildings in each city, tech levels of the different civs, and military composition and strength. I'm trying to be as accurate as possible, but, if anyone decides to give these a shot and notice a major balance problem, please let me know. :)

As for the saves, I try not to add too much, I just tweak the regular start a little to make the other civs in the world represent themseleves as accurate as possible considering the time period. I didn't add any barbarian/independant cities or make things more complicated than they should be, I just move a few things around some. It should feel like a regular RFC start... -Just with the world the way it should be...

Here are the links to the starts I have modified so far as well as some others...: (Please feel free to post your own random starts or your alternate versions of history if you'd like in this thread, the more the better! :) ALSO, if you decide to start a game tomorrow as Mali or Aztec or Americans or whatever, please save the game when the autoturns finish and post it...! No one likes to wait to play Rhye's mod...)

Greece:
Historical Vanilla Start (provided by Whitefire):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5184324&postcount=44
Historical Warlords Start:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5177402&postcount=2
Unaltered Vanilla Start (provided by Whitefire):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5184324&postcount=44

Persia:
Historical Vanilla Start (provided by Whitefire):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5184324&postcount=44
Historical Warlords Start:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5178603&postcount=9
Unaltered Vanilla Start (provided by Whitefire):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5184324&postcount=44

Carthage:
Historical Warlords Start:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5181301&postcount=25

Rome:
Historical Warlords Start:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5182187&postcount=32
Unaltered Vanilla Start (provided by Whitefire):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5184324&postcount=44
Height of Power Warlords Start (provided by Talkie Toaster):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5231425&postcount=253

Japan:
Historical Warlords Start:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5183882&postcount=40
Unaltered Vanilla Start (provided by Whitefire):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5184324&postcount=44

Vikings
Unaltered Warlords Start:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5183972&postcount=42
Historical Warlords Start:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5204422&postcount=152

Incas
Unaltered Warlords Start (provided by Mercenary82):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5187254&postcount=51

America
Unaltered Warlords Start (provided by Mercenary82):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5183960&postcount=41
Unaltered Warlords Start (provided by kittenOFchaos):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5192701&postcount=79
Unaltered Warlords Start (provided by Kairob):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5231797&postcount=257
Altered Warlords Start (provided by Kairob):
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=5231797&postcount=257

Greece Start

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/100826/Start_Save_-_Greece.CivWarlordsSave

Here's the deal, it's the first turn of Greece in the year 1600 BC.

Egypt has completed the Pyramids and is off to great start. Babylon has been sacked by the Assyrians (i.e. Independents) and India has also been overrun. I know that both of these civs came back (if even for a short while) but as far as 1600 BC goes, they're nothing to worry about for a while...

I debated whether or not to include Babylon and Delhi and just ignore the fact that the Assyrians did anything of consequence with these two civs, but I figured that if you're playing a conquest game of Greece, independants might be more fun (i.e. a little easier) to conquer to create an Alexander style empire. Also, with having Delhi controlled by the Independants, there's no huge worry that India will unhistorically beat Greece to the Oracle if you go for the Greek UHV. Let me know about your thoughts on this... You do still have to worry about Egypt though.

The other issue I had was what to do with Stonehenge. Since there's no city in Southern England to build it, and I didn't want to risk messing up the English start position by building one there, it's still available in the city build lists... No big deal though, I figure. If you've played this mod with any frequency, you know that Stonehenge appears just about anywhere BUT England...

So please, let me know what you think, I've only played this save through once and it was a pretty good game. I've already begun working on The Persians next, where, of course, Babylonia and India will rise again...

Thanks, NitroYay!

:p

Waiting for Greece and Persia don't annoy me, Vikings are the first that I have to wait for.

Also I think that you should make available a realistic start and few starts that are just saves from the first turn, and world isn't necessarily realistic. Alternative history is the goal of the game.

Yeah, I plan on getting to the later starting civs... well... LATER...! :) From a world building standpoint, it's easier to start from the beginning and build up from there...

I figure when I get into later civs, anything from Japan on, I'll throw a few random starts in with the historical one, but as you said, it's no big deal waiting for Greece/Persia/Carthage etc...

If I could be pointed to some good sources of information on the period I might load up an america save with the world as it was in 1733, or their abouts, using world builder. Would anyone be interested in this? if so please PM me cos I dont wanna threadjack anymore than I am doing, sorry dude...

I'm willing to assist you, I'll check a scenario of EU2 and tell something important about it.

A little later.

Kairob, it's cool man, you were one on "the other thread" that inspired me to give this a shot... As for info on the period, (I hate to suggest such a drastic measure) but try the library... The library down the street from my house here has excellent political maps of the world through-out the ages, as well as estimated populations of cities - which is a good place to start... Wiki is easy enough for wonders dates/places... The most difficult I would say is figuring out the techs for each civ and the buildings in each city.

Yeah, I think that I will try population and wonders on historic accuracy but probably do the building, units and techs on a mix of hitoric accuracy, common sense and balance.

Thanks for the library tip btw I honestly wouldnt have thought of that...

Persia Start

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/100826/Start_Save_-_Persia.CivWarlordsSave

Okay, here's Persia as promised. I've always thought that getting to the UHV depended on how strong Babylonia is...

Well, the year is 850 BC and, in this saved game, Babylonia is about average. Historically, Babylonia is beginning it's expansion thoughout the middle east until around 500 BC or so when Persia invades... I'm sure if you wait until 500 BC, they could pose a small problem... They have potential to be threatening if you don't go after them soon.

As for the rest of the world, Egypt shouldn't be too hard for the Persians to conquer, just like it was in Cyrus's time... Greece has built the Oracle and is prone for major expansion... India is playing an alright game as well... And the Qin dynatsy has begun in China, and is near to founding Taoism...

Stonehenge is still unbuilt, since I have nowhere to put it, but you'll find The Pyramids, The Hanging Gardens (I'm well aware they're a little early, but I was afraid Babil wouldn't last that long...), The Oracle, and the Temple of Solomon in their historically accurate locations. (Judaism is still on the west bank.)

I played through as Persia for a while, following my strategy guide from the other thread and got well into Egypt before the Greeks started to bog me down a bit and I developed the typical Persian economy crisis... So give this one a shot, let me know how it is... I'm hoping to do Carthage tonight or tomorrow morning...

Thanks for the library tip btw I honestly wouldnt have thought of that...

Wiki can't get you everywhere... lol... The book I was using is called something along the lines of "Historical Atlas of the World..." I'm sure anything along those lines would do. It has political maps and major population centers with a bunch of statistics... It has one for Ancient Egypt showing the type of artifacts found at each site (i.e. pottery, military, etc...) It allows you to build more than just blank or generalized cities.

Thanks mate, I will play it and see how I do :)

So, I figure that since Rhye isn't planning on releasing any new versions for a while, I would post some late-start save games for those of you who are tired of waiting for the auto-turns... I can't find my vanilla civ4 CD for the life of me, so I'm only going to be able to play around with Warlords...

It was discussed some time ago on another thread (for the life of me, I can't find it) that it would be nice to have historical starting situations for each civ... So, I spent the afternoon yesterday in the world builder, building a somewhat-accurate start for Greece. It wasn't as time consuming as I thought it would be, so I plan on doing all the late civ starts as historically accurate as possible... But I do have a job and a girlfriend that take up alot of my free time, so we'll see how it goes...

As for the saves, I didn't add much, I just treaked the regular start a little to make the other civs represent themseleves as accurate as possible considering the time period. I didn't add any barbarian/independant cities or make things more complicated than they should be, just moved a few things around some. It should feel like a regular RFC start... -Just with the world the way it should be...

Wouldn't be bad having some normal saves from when the auto-turns have finished uploaded here. E.g a Monarch America save so I don't need to wait 20 minutes for my computer to auto-resolve. I've done that fow the earlier version I was playing, but didn't get around to uploading it for all.

Would say your title is mis-leading in this thread as these are mini-scenarios you're doing and Greece and Persia are hardly late start civs hehe.

Would say your title is mis-leading in this thread as these are mini-scenarios you're doing and Greece and Persia are hardly late start civs hehe

Changed the title. As I said before, I'm going to try to do all of the civs... It's just easier from a World Building standpoint to start at the beginning. :)

stupid question (maybe) I'm not sure what your doing. are you just loading civs that take awhile to auto-turn or are you making realalistic starts? If so can you make unrealalistic ones? also i'd like to help, if that's what your doing.

thank you very much for what you are doing!

stupid question (maybe) I'm not sure what your doing. are you just loading civs that take awhile to auto-turn or are you making realalistic starts? If so can you make unrealalistic ones? also i'd like to help, if that's what your doing.

Yes, I'm trying to make realistic starts... That way, you can load up (for now) Greece or Persia and have the historical start for each civ... I hated it when I would try to play Persia and have a ULTRA-STRONG Babylonia to deal with or loading up Greece to find that India already built the Oracle... These saves I have made are the first turn of the civs that don't start right away, but with the world built exactly as it was historically. I'll throw a few random/un-world-builded saves in the mix a little later, but really, anyone can do that... What I'm looking for is HISTORICALY ACCURATE starts. :)

Although, I'm not going to freak out if anyone posts random starts (the kind where you just save the game after the autoload), feel free to post any starting saves here for those that would rather have an alternate history... I'll probably set up the first post on this thread to link to all of the different options... However, I'll keep posting each civ in order after I fix the surrounding world according to History... It's easier to build the Earth that way...

Hehe, this is a great idea! I'll come up with alt-realities for sure!

Yeah, I plan on getting to the later starting civs... well... LATER...! :) From a world building standpoint, it's easier to start from the beginning and build up from there...

I figure when I get into later civs, anything from Japan on, I'll throw a few random starts in with the historical one, but as you said, it's no big deal waiting for Greece/Persia/Carthage etc...

So how do you edit it? Do you run the Autoturns until your civ spawns, save, then edit all of the cities?

My main question is what to do if a civ you want in has collapsed, all attempts by me to add them back in have lead to problems...

Excellent idea, some civs that could really use this are Mongols, Turks, and America. I've been thinking of how to best do an American start, but its hard to decide what civs will still be around at that time, and what independent and barb cities that should be everywhere.

I think having all of them in would be best, except mabye ones that other civs control, like those in the ottoman empire. India was taken by the British later than their start right?

So how do you edit it? Do you run the Autoturns until your civ spawns, save, then edit all of the cities?

Pretty much. On the first turn after the autorun finishes, I save the game... I just use the world builder to either add a little to the civs that need it or take away from the overpowered ones... Exit the world builder, save again, voila.

My main question is what to do if a civ you want in has collapsed, all attempts by me to add them back in have lead to problems...

This is a good question, but I don't know the answer, I haven't had any problems with this yet...

I have the answer. Restart the game.
If you just revive the dead civ, it'll keep using the stability modifiers that had when collapsed.
Or you could reset them by python

How would you reset them by python?

Carthage Start

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/100826/Start_Save_-_Carthage.CivWarlordsSave

The year is 800 BC-ish. This save is almost identical to the Persian start, since it's only a few turns later. The only difference is that Egypt has begun it's invasion into the west bank... Also, Babylonia is a little farther along on it's own expansion into the middle east and Greece is a little farther along in it's expansion into modern day Turkey. Persia has just spawned and India and China are playing a balanced game. Again, all the wonders from this period are in place and Stonehenge is still unbuilt.

I hope to do a historical start for Rome next, since its almost the same as Carthage anyway... Maybe Japan today too if I have time... Then I'll get started on some of the longer wait times civs...

Hehe, Stonehenge is unbuilt...a wonder that will never get built in England at present unless I've missed something.

If you build a Barbarian City and put Stonehenge in it, and then raze it ( in game i believe ) the Wonder will be destroyed forever?

Well, I thought about razing it... But I figure it's best to just leave it unbuilt for now... When I do the civs after England spawns, I'll probably put it in London, but it'd be obsolete by then... The culture will be it's only power.

I didn't build the barbarian city in England and put it there because I was afraid it would mess up the English spawn...

My main question is what to do if a civ you want in has collapsed, all attempts by me to add them back in have lead to problems...

I suppose you can reload until you get it...:)

Hwo about doing the same thing for us poor vanilla users? :bowdown: :please:

I would love to do it for vanilla too... I just have to find my CD!!! I swear I've lost it... :( I have to work this weekend, so I won't be doing either again until Monday when I get home... But maybe I'll look online for a no-CD patch for vanilla, I'm just worried about the weird effects from those things...

Rome Start

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/100826/Start_Save_-_Rome.CivWarlordsSave

Here's the start for Rome in 750 BC. Carthage is only a turn or two old, the last major dynasty of Egypt is in power and is at war with the Babylonians... Egypt's days are numbered now. The Babylonians are at the height of their power, Greece is expanding into modern day Turkey, Persia is massing their forces for their Babylonian invasion and China and India continue to stay unnoticed but stable in the East.

I'm hoping to get to Japan and Vikings (a lot of work I feel...) tonight before I leave for work in the morning. :)

What about Rome having + units than in the normal game? because this way the player will have the chance to make the old Roman UHV... :)

Once I get done with all of the historical starts, I was thinking about going back in and just doing mini-scenarios for Rhye's mod... Similar to what I'm doing now, but on a more invasive scale. I'm trying my best now to not change too much, to just shape the world as it was at each civ's birth... I'm hoping this makes the UHVs more attainable... Once I finish all of the civs, I was thinking about a Roman conquer-the-world style scenario that would start later, maybe 550 BC or so with a more built up Rome and larger beginning army.

But I agree, the Roman UHV is pretty hard... Especially with the Romans being born into my 750 BC created world... In 750 BC, Greece is just beginning their expansion and Babylonia is pretty powerful... I might try a game at work this weekend with my save and see how far I can get toward the UHV as Rome...

Mind if I help you out with Vanilla? I'll just copy your Warlords saves.

Mind if I help you out with Vanilla? I'll just copy your Warlords saves.

By all means! Go right ahead! I'm almost finished with Japan now, so it should be up in another hour or so... I figure I'll try to get the Vikings done by tonight before I leave for work tomorrow morning... So that should be up as well. If you decide to do the vanilla's I'll be happy to add them into this thread or you can start another one, whichever you prefer.

do we have to go through you to submit alt-history for vanillia?, or just post them. don't want to threadjack.

No, just go ahead and post them here, I'm not going to freak out. Even just first-turn, unaltered saves would be great here too. I'll link to them on the first page.

cool, might be neat to have some faster way then waiting a bunch of turns each time, never played Aztec, Inca or USA becuase of that

Japan Start

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/100826/Start_Save_-_Japan.CivWarlordsSave

This is the last of the ancient civs... I'm probably not going to get to the Vikings until Tuesday, but I'll start tonight and you never know...

As for this save:

Japan begins in the year 650 BC. China is running a little behind now, it's not quite time for the historical Chinese unification, so their cities are poorly defended and not yet connected by roads. As for the more distant civs, India is falling behind, Persia is about to begin their invasion into Babylonia, the Babylonians have just passed their peak and are ready to be conquered, having never made it into Egypt. Eygpt has passed it's prime as well. Greece is a few years away from Alexander, but the potential is there. Carthage is off to a solid start and Rome has begun the Republic. All of the wonders that were built at this time are in the proper place with the exception of Stonehenge... not yet built...!?

I can't wait to get started on the LATER civs... From the Vikings on is when the autoplay turns tend to send history askew... Maybe tonight, probably Tuesday. I'll at least try to get some screenshots posted while I am at work this weekend.

Heres an unaltered America save.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/106571/Roosevelt_AD-1733_Turn_302.CivWarlordsSave

Here is an unaltered Viking save.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/100826/Ragnar_Medieval_Age_Turn_148.CivWarlordsSave

sounds like fun!!!

The Barb thing is making balancing this tricky for not-Persia and Greece. I'll work on Japan and Rome some more tomorrow. I want there to be some realism to the way Persia and Greece expand, so I might add in some extra script to spawn Immortals and Phalanxes to allow Persia and Greece to expand more easily. Then again, I'm not THAT motivated on this project ;D.

Modified Vanilla Saves

Greece Historic Start (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Alexander_Bronze_Age_Turn_50_Modified.Civ4SavedGam e)

The situation is nearly identical to the Warlords start EXCEPT that I placed a fourth Egyptian city in the Nile delta instead of on top of the Bronze. I didn't want Egypt grabbing Spearmen and Axemen so soon.

Persia Historic Start (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Cyrus_Bronze_Age_Turn_80_Modified.Civ4SavedGame)

Again, very similar to the Warlords game except that there is a large Archer force in Jerusalem. I have no idea if they'll spread out amongst the cities or attack Egypt. In either case, a good Immortal rush should clear them out.

Clean Vanilla Saves

Greece (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Alexander_Bronze_Age_Turn_50.Civ4SavedGame)

Persia (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Cyrus_Bronze_Age_Turn_80.Civ4SavedGame)

Rome (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Julius_Caesar_Iron_Age_Turn_84.Civ4SavedGame)

Japan (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Tokugawa_Bronze_Age_Turn_88.Civ4SavedGame)

Arabia (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Saladin_Medieval_Age_Turn_153.Civ4SavedGame)

Spain (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Isabella_Medieval_Age_Turn_163.Civ4SavedGame)

France (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Louis_XIV_Medieval_Age_Turn_166.Civ4SavedGame)

England (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Victoria_Medieval_Age_Turn_173.Civ4SavedGame)

Germany (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Bismarck_Medieval_Age_Turn_175.Civ4SavedGame)

Russia (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Peter_Medieval_Age_Turn_177.Civ4SavedGame)

Mali (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Mansa_Musa_Medieval_Age_Turn_189.Civ4SavedGame)

Inca (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Huayna_Capac_Stone_Age_Turn_206.Civ4SavedGame)

Mongolia (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Genghis_Khan_Medieval_Age_Turn_210.Civ4SavedGame)

Aztec (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Montezuma_AD-1200_Turn_211.Civ4SavedGame)

America (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/81294/Roosevelt_AD-1733_Turn_302.Civ4SavedGame)

Please note, all of these are Monarch saves. I can run the auto-turns for Emperor quickly enough. America takes a whole 13 minutes to finish on my box ^_^.

America takes a whole 13 minutes to finish on my box ^_^.

I hate you :D for me is almost 40min

I hate you :D for me is almost 40min

I hate you :D for me is more than 2 hours

I hate you :D for me is more than 2 hours

Thats what it was like for me before I got a new box. Can you finish a game that late or does it constantly crash on you?

Mine takes the whole of 10 mins and I have never had to wait more than a minuit between turns (I get impatient once its longer than 30 seconds though :))

It takes about 30 mins for me, it was slower in earlier warlords versions and in vanilla though.

America takes me about an hours or so, a little less... But yes, it's much faster in the later versions of Warlords.

Please don't forget to save the game as America or Inca or whenever and post it here... If anything, so Rhye doesn't have to wait two hours for his own mod...

Here is an unaltered Inca warlords save.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/106571/Huayna_Capac_Stone_Age_Turn_206.CivWarlordsSave

I shall offer sex to whoever creates historical Warlords starts for the Arabs and Europeans.

are you a guy or a girl?

Whoa Phallus... Relax.

I called in sick for work yesterday, so I have the time to get the Vikings done and then move on to the rest of the middle ages civs, but the going is slow now because I AM sick... :(

Keep your pants on though, I plan on doing a historical start for ALL of the civs, it just takes time to ensure they are accurate.

(...) because I AM sick... :( (...)


Yeah... yeah... try other! Nitrojay you're lazzy :p


:goodjob: Take your time, the job is very well done. I played with Japan and was very cool!

Hey, Is it OK if I put these in the wiki in a "NitroJay's late saved games" article?

They'll not get lost as easily as on a forum, and are easier to find.

Hey, Is it OK if I put these in the wiki in a "NitroJay's late saved games" article?

They'll not get lost as easily as on a forum, and are easier to find.

Good idea.


Jay ( can i call you like this? :lol: ) i'm starting to play with Rome, until now it seens is all cool :mischief:

OK, here (http://wikirhye.wikidot.com/nitrojay-s-late-start-saved-games) you go.

I was playing with Rome and found this:

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/8720/civ4screenshot0068ph6.jpg

The Egypt Capital is starving until Pop 3...

You should change the place of Dashur or change the pop of Niwt-rst.


EDIT:

I am was unable to take Carthago, it is always razed to matter what i did =P

Wait untill Carthago is at size two, and if you took that on the first turn and he changed the size on that turn then that might be because it hasnt allocated its workers yet, try going to the next turn and see if its the same

Yeah... yeah... try other! Nitrojay you're lazzy

Ha! I've been laying on the couch all day... :( I just haven't had the energy to sit in fron of the computer...

However, maybe after dinner tonight I'll fix that issue with Dashur... I figured it would have a negative impact on Niwt-rst... I didn't realize how bad though... I'll probably get rid of Dahur all together and put the Pyramids in the capital...

As for Carthage, I don't know... I'll play around with it (maybe tonight) to see if I can fix it so it doesn't raze... That's odd.

Hey, Is it OK if I put these in the wiki in a "NitroJay's late saved games" article?

That's really cool... Not to sound like a moron though, but I don't know how to add/edit anything that's put on there... This internet thing is confusing...

Don't worry, I've subscribed to this thread so I'll update it as soon as I can after you've posted a new one.

I could chip in with some unaltered warlords saves. How're you getting your info for the historical ones by the way?

Yeah, I tried to make one and it was much harder than I thought....

What did you try to make? :confused:

i believe he was talking about a Historical Start :P

xD I thought that but I just thought I'd make sure.

Or he is talking about the WIKI! xD *like to confuse everything*

*head explodes*

THERE!

See what you've done?!

:lol:

Yeah, I tried a start for the Vikings

The mystery is solved!

NitroJay doesn't seem to be online anymore :(

http://images.wikia.com/uncyclopedia/images/b/b5/Exploding-head.gif


The Civs that spawn very late ( England, America, Russia, etc ) should be very difficult to work.

Whoa... That was alot... I take a break from the computer and I come back to craziness...

How're you getting your info for the historical ones by the way?

I get it from a variety of sources. I checked out a couple historical atlases from the local library that are full of maps and estimated populations from different time periods... That's the beginning of my process, making a map. Then I go through the wikipedia to put in the wonders in their historical places. Finally, I have some old text books from high school and college that I never turned back in or sold that have prooved to be very useful in regards to military strengths and city buildings... (i.e. Barraks in Sparta, Temples in Athens, etc...)

Yeah, I tried a start for the Vikings

I agree, the Vikings start is a painful one to recreate. Mostly because in 550 AD, their start date, the world contained the (pretty much) extent of Justinian's Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Rome) which is not represented in the mod... SO, I've begun the process of changing all of Rome, Egypt, Greece, Carthage, etc. into one giant independant state... My worry is that they'll stay this way forever, I'm going to test it out before I post it... But I figure that as the new, more modern civs, spawn, they'll eat up the independants...

Between laying on the couch all day watching tv and my constant trips to the bathroom (I know, tmi...), I don't know how much I'll get done today... I'm hoping after another nap, I'll start feeling better... Sitting here at the computer covered in blankets isn't very productive at all... :(

Whoa... That was alot... I take a break from the computer and I come back to craziness...

That's what's called the INTERNET dear...;)

I get it from a variety of sources. I checked out a couple historical atlases from the local library that are full of maps and estimated populations from different time periods... That's the beginning of my process, making a map. Then I go through the wikipedia to put in the wonders in their historical places. Finally, I have some old text books from high school and college that I never turned back in or sold that have proved to be very useful in regards to military strengths and city buildings... (i.e. Barracks in Sparta, Temples in Athens, etc...)

Wow...you're very committed to this =P I wouldn't have anywhere near that level of attention span :lol:

Wow...you're very committed to this =P I wouldn't have anywhere near that level of attention span

Well, there's no point in doing it if I only do it half-ass... :lol: I want it to be as accurate as possible, as I mentioned before, it really bugged me when I would play, say persia, and spawn with a super powerful Babylonia next door... How are you expected to complete a historical victory when the world you enter into is NOT historical?! :) Although, I can't stress enough that Rhye does an excellent job on this mod, typical games do tend to follow the correct timeline of history, which simply amazes me, but I don't like leaving it to chance when it takes (sometimes) so long to auto-play...

Although, the current Vikings save I am working on had Egypt as a military powerhouse in 550 AD... They have the colliseum, stonehenge, pyramids, and one or two other wonders... They control the jewish holy city with the temple of solomon built, so their loaded with cash, and they've conquered all of Egypt, Carthage, and Babylon... The Persians are down to 2 cities... Now, how does THAT happen?! :lol:

Mr. Jay,

Dare I ask why you are thinking of making the Byzantines Independents?

I strongly think you should make them, not Independent, but the Roman Civ. Or, possibly, the Greek civ, but Rome preferably.

The name 'Byzantine' did not exist until well after 1453, when the empire fell. The Byzantines throughout their whole history referred to themselves as one thing alone--the Roman Empire. They had political continuity with the empire, and had never fallen, unlike the western empire created after Diocletian's partition. (Europe tended to call them the Greek Empire in contrast with the Holy Roman Empire, and since the Byzantines culturally kept more of Greece than Rome).

The Byzantines remained a tremendous force for quite a long time and effectively kept the Arabs from sweeping into Europe. They did the same for the Turks, at least for a long time.

They were a unified state with advanced technology, and for a long time were far more 'civilized' than Europe.

For those reasons (and because I want to play as them :lol: ) I think you should make the Byzantines either the Greek or Roman civ. Rome is more historically accurate, Greece makes sense too since their heartland is the Byzantine heartland as well.

I also think the AI (Arabia, Turkey, and Russia in particular) are more likely to go to war with a full civ than the independents. It also means the Byzantines will have a chance since they won't be bogged down with maintenance from cities such as Pagan and Chichen Itza ;). And the Byzantine military held its own for a long time!

And eventually it will collapse--Arabia should conquer Egypt and usually does, Turkey will spawn and take... Turkey, and be a step from Constantinople. Rome itself, which they held in the middle of the 6th century, will fall to barbarians before Spain spawns, I imagine.

At the height of Justinian's rule they held Carthage as well, and even SE Spain. All this maintenance will keep the empire slow to respond, as it should be. It should be strong, but not able to compete technologically with Europeans or Turks, I imagine.

WHOA rambling. Anyway, that's my pitch to make the Byzantine empire belong to its political or cultural forbears (Rome & Greece respectively).

Plus it saves ME the trouble of making this a scenario, which I planned to do and probably will eventually. But I think your project is great and as such want an interesting Byzantium! Vikings even served there as mercenaries. :)

fin

You cant play as them, its a Viking save game

--> load save --> enter editor --> change human player civ --> you can play as them ;)

I also wanted to suggest it originally, it does make much more sense. I'd rather use Greece as for Gameplay. Rome can go independent again in this case (Rome and Milano = Independent) which would be impossible if Rome is in Constantinople. But using Rome would be cooler (flag and colour) ;).

mick

If it was rome would it not collapse if it didnt have rome?

An alternative to the American start-save already on offer:

American Monarch difficulty

Situation - you'll get New York from a flip in a turn or two, Spain and France in the West Indies, France dominating Brazil and Spain in Argentina.

Europe dominated Spain, France, England, Germany and Russia with much of the rest barbarian.

Rest of World is as expected.

www.members.aol.com:/hutchinsoncw/america.zip

KittenOFchaos i can't download the save, it seems to be off.

curoius if anyone would like to play an alt-history start as germany with Roman empire full size? you think it might be too hard?

curoius if anyone would like to play an alt-history start as germany with Roman empire full size? you think it might be too hard?

To hard to make or to play?

If is to make, it is more easy, because you don't have to be historical accurate!


PS: I dare someone to make a full Russia with its extension when America spaws!

i meant to play

Ah... ^^".

If you make All-Europe Germany it will be hard, but if you make German controling England, Scandinavia and Greece, and vassal Spain and Rome. It will be like a Cold War, USA in West, German in middle, and Russia/China in East ( you just need to make a real russia controling/vassalaging Mongolia and Siberia ).

Hard or not it will be a cool game!

oops, not make myself clear!
i meant a normal germany but a resurgent Roman Empire that never fell! (with gaul and Spain and all that) understand now?

Ah... now i understand! ^^"

Well, it will be just like the Iron Age ( i think ) because nobody will settle in America... =P

And Rome will kick everybody ass! :D

which sounds good1 i'll try it, but it will be hard to win as Germany, rome will be huge, maybe extra barbs....

Well, so much for having the Vikings done after dinner tonight! I took some medicine and crashed on the couch... I don't even remember falling asleep! I hate being sick...

Anyway, this is a lot to come back to... As for the Vikings save, I did a little more work on it... Here's my thoughts: I've decided to keep the Eastern Roman Empire as independents... My reasons being: a.) It's a start for the Vikings, not the Romans. b.) I considered making them Rome or Greek and put the captial in Constanstanople (sp?) but I decided against it, mostly because I already went through and built/changed all the cities as/to independent... c.) I know that the Eastern Romans were able to reconquer pretty much all of the Roman empire, making them Rome would make them the most powerful civ on the scoreboard at the Vikings (the player's) spawn. The difference between having them Roman or Greek and having them independent is mainly about war... As Vikings, if you would declare war on Rome to say, capture Carthage, you might be at war with them for the rest of the game... As for the independents, if you stop fighting for a few turns, peace is defaulted. The independents won't drag all of the new Europeans into their fight either, as I fear would happen with Rome or Greece.

Please be patient though. Once I finish all the civ's historical starts (and try for a few UHVs myself), I plan on using the saves I've created to build alternate history starts... I'd also like to find the time to build saves that begin at the historical heights of power... I know I want to make a Rome or Greece save at the extent of the empires... I'd like to see if I could keep it together when the Europeans spawn... Maybe another save that begins in the 1600s with England at it's colonial height... The possiblities are endless...

For now though, I'm going to go back to work on the Vikings... I knew this would be time consuming, but I had no idea...! Once the Vikings are done though, I'll use it as a basis for all the other European civs... So the saves will come out with more frequency again...

Now I've got to thinking... I could make the Eastern Roman Empire Greek... After all, they did build the Hagia Sophia, which, if I'm not mistaken, was of the Greek Orthodox... And I could skew history a bit and make "The Holy Roman Empire," Rome... But then, REALLY, I'm trying to make a world as it was in 550 AD, which is the height of Justinian's Empire... Which would mean the Holy Roman Empire has already been conquered... Which, if I made the Eastern Roman Empire Greek, would make the Greeks reign supreme...! UGH!

Sorry, I'm thinking out loud here... Let me know what the concensus is... Should the Easterm Roman Empire (i.e. The Byzantines) be Independent? OR should I do something different as mentioned above...? Please keep in mind, this is for the Viking's start... What do you think would make the Vikings game more fun/playable? You know, the other advantage to using the Independents, is speed... But I'm on the fence now... I plan on finishing this bad-ass save tomorrow afternoon. As for now, I'm heading to bed.

I think the Greeks should represent Byzantines, and Rome should be collapsed with Italy under barb control, save for Sicily which should belong to Byzantines.

Thats a hard call to make. Italy was dominated by foreign powers pretty much from the fall of Rome until the Napoleonic Wars with a brief period where it operated as independent city states. I would be OK with France and Spain each gaining cities in Italy with Rome retaining a sole city as the capital of Christianity.

I'm down with the Greeks representing the Byzantines.They'll likely be crushed by the Arabia/Turkey combo. What are you doing with the non-European civs? Do you have Southern China as Independent? Have you phase Persia out or relocated them?

The Vikings spawn at 550 AD, Rome was under control of the Ostrogoths at the time, who recaptured it from Belisarius in 549 AD. Ostrogoths should be represented by barbs since the Germans don't spawn until 840 AD.

Bah, I was thinking the Vikings spawned in 1100AD for some reason. Yeah, Barbs would be more appropriate.

American Historical start a discussion.

Perhaps the most difficult of all the scenarios, this task is made even harder by the lack of several major players in this time period - The Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, Austria, Hungary The Ottoman Empire, the SE Asian civilizations, the Native Americans and a host of other small groups that had a large impact on the power balance of the European nations. Plus, we had Persia, Inca and Aztec around when historically they were crushed.

Perhaps the most contentious viewpoint on this whole thing is the date at which we're modding the scenario to. The birth of America is observed as 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was ratified by the colonies. This is 43 years after America spawns in the game. Because of this, I decided to make the state of the world as it was in 1776 instead of 1733. Even still, the cities of New York and Savannah weren't actually under American control until well into the War of Independence. In light of this, the world's state is based around 1780. That is the year the Netherlands entered the war along side Spain and France and Britain started to lose territory both in America and the West Indies.
For those of you not up on American history, Quebec was French territory until 1760 when Britain, with the help of it's American colonies wrested control of Canada from France. This also lead to a mass migration of French-Canadians to New Orleans, which helped raise that port's influence.

Also, Britain was able to gain both French and Spanish territory in the Caribbean, effectively becoming the dominant American power after this war. I'm sorry if you disagree with this, but I feel it would be strange to have a political map pre-French and Indian war when America is fighting for it's independence from Britain. Perhaps Rhye could be persuaded to make the American start date 1776.

Anyway, back to the rest of the world. The first decision was actually the easiest. Arabia is to become the Ottoman Empire. Since the Ottomans are historically in decline until their final dissolution in the 20th century, it's difficult to know where to peg their appropriate power level and extent of empire. Opinions and links to sources would be appreciated.

Egypt has been edited to have fairly modern techs if it should rise again. This should allow them to fend off the Barbs and Ottomans.

West Africa has largely become a European slave base, so Mali has been shifted to Central and South Africa with the west being controlled entirely by the European Civs. North Africa is under barb control.

Inca and Aztec roughly correlate to Argentina and Chile and Mexico. Both are Vassals of Spain but may split once Spain's economy begins to deteriorate and it's attention is shifted to a Napoleonic France. Spain has started it's chain of Missions, and the beginnings of California have started.

France is about to enter her revolutions, and Napoleon will soon rise to power and redraw the borders of Europe. France has thus been given a large contingent of musketmen and cannons. Also, there are a few units hanging around India in order to harass English holdings.

Germany was something of a bear to Edit. As usual, it had spread into Scandinavia and a good bit of Russia. Unfortunately for Germany, I had to cripple them. I replaced All of the Scandinavia, Denmark, Poland/Lithuania, Austria/Hungary and Switzerland cities with Barbs. We'll see if Germany can reunite itself.

Rome likewise got butchered, with all but 3 cities being replaced by Barbs. Should Rome get a name change to Italy?

Speaking of Russia, they're grabbing land from the Ottomans left and right. Outside of the numerous Russo-Turk wars in this period, I am unaware of their expansion into Asia. Does anyone have sources?

England's empire is well on it's way. One difficult decision I had to make was whether to replace India with English cities or to make India a vassal of England. I went with the latter, since England often let local Maharajahs maintain local rule. Canada, India and The West Indies have all been colonized and militarized. However, England still has plenty of expansion left until the sun never sets.

China is at the height of the Qin Dynasty and Japan is in the middle of the Edo period. In a sense, both countries are of the same mind: their nation is greater than all others and Europe can stick it where the sun don't shine. Japan is restricted to its main island chain, having lost all mainland properties before the Edo Period and secluding themselves until the forceful American intervention. China on the other hand is nearing completion of the 10 Great Campaigns of Qialong and is at the peak of both it's financial and territorial power. Both are behind in techs but crawling with Medieval units and Musketmen. However, all of their cities have been given nearly a full compliment of buildings to reflect their societies' philosophically advanced state. It won't be long before they adapt the European innovations, discard their isolationist attitude and become world powers themselves.

After all this work, I'm thinking of just calling this: The American Revolution Scenario. I'm confused about what to do with Mongolia and Persia. I'm tempted to send Mongolia to America and rename it "Native Peoples". Persia I have no clue on. Any corrections or thoughts would be appreciated! I'll give people a couple days to respond before I post the first version.

Persia fell under Qajar dynasty in 1779, their territory was roughly modern day Iran, I think they should be in, but relatively backwards at the time.
Mali had already collapsed by this time and probably should not be in.

Use Mongolia as a vassal of Russia, and use it to conolize Siberia... =P

This isn't very "true" but will make a better Russia.

Anyway, back to the rest of the world. The first decision was actually the easiest. Arabia is to become the Ottoman Empire.

Or, use Warlords. This also means we can have Sweden as a power. ;)

I'm confused about what to do with Mongolia and Persia.

I suggest you involve Persia in the Russo-Turk conflicts as a weakened Qajar dynasty. No idea about Mongolia.

I'm tempted to send Mongolia to America and rename it "Native Peoples".

What, and have all of America settled by fortified Sioux cities? I think the scouts and occasional native/barb soldiers are a far better representation.

Nitro Jay is tackling Warlords. For the sake of the few vanilla only players, I'm working on a vanilla version ;D.

Oh yeah, by Vassal I mean financial slave. Inca, Aztec and India are all exporting huge amounts of gold to their master.

KittenOFchaos i can't download the save, it seems to be off.

Strange, I can download it...

For some reason, I dislike treating Scandinavia, Poland, etc. as barbarians. (In Vanilla). I tend to think of Vanilla Germany as a nation representing not only Germany, but Scandinavia etc. also.

And the British India question. I think that you should give the English direct control over SOME Indian port cities.

And who represents Poland? :( [ :D :P ]

Hooray! Someone is doing something for Vanilla. I can't wait to play it.

For some reason, I dislike treating Scandinavia, Poland, etc. as barbarians. (In Vanilla). I tend to think of Vanilla Germany as a nation representing not only Germany, but Scandinavia etc. also.

Thats fine and all, but Germany didn't exist until Napoleon forcibly created the German state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_of_the_Rhine). Prussia was the closest thing to modern Germany in 1780, and even then it was just an uber-state, not an empire. Giving Germany control of land beyond Prussian borders would not hold true to the history of the region (which is the point of this project).

And the British India question. I think that you should give the English direct control over SOME Indian port cities.

Does Madras sound good?

I'm awesome...

This took what seemed like forever!!! But here it is...

Viking Historical Start

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/100826/Start_Save_-_Vikings.CivWarlordsSave

Here's the deal... I originally was going to make the Eastern Roman Empire (i.e. Byzantines) independent, but changed my mind on the last lap... Instead of making them Greek though, as other's suggested, I made them Roman. After all, it IS the Eastern ROMAN Empire... :) Anyway, The Viking Start is in the year 550AD. The Eastern Roman Empire is at it's height, controlling all of Italy, Turkey, North Africa, Egypt, and Italy - Having recently defeated the barbarians there. (I forget the name of the barbarians... Something that starts with an O...) Anyway, the ERE is currently at war with Persia, which isn't going anywhere. Persia should be able to conquer Egypt, but I haven't really checked to see if they do...

The first time I ran through this scenario, what I feared most happened... Rome (i.e. The Eastern Roman Empire) was WAY overpowered. They were able to slap down the Arabians as they spawned... They killed the celts and moved on to Persia... Not even CLOSE to history... So, I weakened them a bit... Threw in a few extra strong barbarians in Northern Europe and weakened the defenses in Egypt. IN THEORY, the Eastern Roman Empire should only be around long enough until the European civs spawn... I wanted to get this out as soon as I could, so I didn't play too much into it... PLEASE let me know how your games turn out with this save... This save will be the building block for everything thing else I do, so I want it to work...

As for the rest of the world, Persia is on the verge of creating the 2nd Persian Empire, India is holding it's own. China is ending the North/South Dynasty era and is reuniting, and Japan is doing a good (although unnoticed) job on their islands... China has built the great wall, only because when I tried to get rid of it, since it's a little too early, it would remove the wonder but NOT the wall... However, it's only a little early... I'm sure it's no big deal. :)

For those of you who download and play these saves, PLEASE let me know how your games go...! It's really important that I work out any issues with this save before I keep going with my current setup...! I need the feedback! :) I'm going to start researching Arabia next (I think that's the next in line)... I look forward to seeing how this save works...

I can't play the game today, because i'm a little bussy, but I downloaded you save game.

Some Suggestions:

I think that to not make the Roman Empire too overpower, make Egypt, Carthage and Greece his vassals... and not Roman Land ( just a personal opinion though ).

Some weird stuff that I find:

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/4589/civ4screenshot0082di8.jpg

It is impossible to make a town out of borders! Make a city here, it is better...

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/5616/civ4screenshot0083qz5.jpg

Why this land is very improved? ( with roads and stuff ) with there isn't even city ruins?

The Byzantine Empire shouldn't have Italy in 550 AD, the Ostrogoths had captured it from them by then, though the Byzantines did regain it again 2 years later. Italy under barb control except Sicily would be more accurate, and ensure that the Byzantines don't get overpowered.

--> load save --> enter editor --> change human player civ --> you can play as them ;)

Call me a noob, but I went into the worldbuilder and i couldn't find where the 'change human player civ' button/dialog/menu/UFO thing is...

Can I have a 'change human player civ' for dummies walk-through on this one?

I'll try hard to figure this one out meanwhile...

@nitro: Thank you for your work, very much appreciated!

The problem with the stability part is that in this situation we want rome to lose lots of terratory without collapsing, and yeah they should just get weaker and weaker and weaker :). I'll play a game this everning and see how it goes, but it does look promasing

I'll fix that town thing... I don't know how that got in there...

As for the over improved land in North Africa, it confused me too... When I started the World Builder, Carthage had two cities in North Africa (The two that are now controlled by the Romans) and there was that road leading off to nowhere... I made a mental note to change it, but I must have forgot. If I put a city there, it'll be barbarian or independant.

As for the Ostrogoths controlling Italy, the history book I have here says that Justinian captured Italy from them in 541 AD. There was a Ostrogoth revolt shortly after, but it was subdued by 552 AD. So for all intents and purposes, I made Italy under Eastern Roman Rule in 550.

As for Rome being over powered, I don't think they are. Their current military is stretched pretty thin and the barbarians/celts should be invading them from the north and Persia should keep them in check from the east. Arabia spawns in 620 AD to further complicate things. Spain shows up shortly after that. I feel I've made the Eastern Roman Empire pretty weak, despite their huge amount of territory. But please try to play the save and post your "how the world turns out" story, I'd like to know how it goes. I'll make adjustments based on what I'm told.

As for making Egypt/Carhtage vassals, I disagree... They were conquered, not allowed to govern on their own... But I'll consider it if Rome doesn't end up collapsing as the Europeans/Arabia spawn. (As they should with the sudden loss of lots of cities...)

Thank you for the feedback! Keep it coming! I'm starting to feel better now after being sick for 3 days, so I should be able to get back in the swing of things...

OOh... And speaking of roads to nowhere...

I'm sure I put the nail in the coffin for Persia, but I thought it's be something to do... I added in roads from Persia to China to represent the Silk Road. Ha! In game turns, I'm sure this just speeds up the horse archers that invade Persia from the north... lol

Yeah, the Roman Empire doesn't stand a chance against the barbarians, i just saw 3 axeman against a fortified spearman...

Call me a noob, but I went into the worldbuilder and i couldn't find where the 'change human player civ' button/dialog/menu/UFO thing is...

Can I have a 'change human player civ' for dummies walk-through on this one?

I'll try hard to figure this one out meanwhile...

Yes, sorry, this is my mistake. I have never tried it out before, but read of the possibility in another thread. So I must state that I just had a big mouth, sorry ;).

I think it has something to do with the debug mode though, but I am sure it is possible I just don't know yet though. Perhaps somebody else knows?

mick

I dragged my save into the scenarios folder.

Personally I think that Eastern Roman Empire is much better represented by Greeks than Romans... It had only name of Roman Empire... (same as i.e. Holy Roman Empire).

@LuKo: I'm not sure about this. Honestly it can go either way. However, I will debate one thing: the East Roman Empire is not the 'same' in terms of nomenclature as the HRE. The HRE was founded by Charlemagne and other Germans/Franks, not Romans. It took up the heritage of Rome to some extent but had no actual continuity with it. The Byzantine Empire, however, had direct political continuity with Rome, having been established when Diocletian divided the empire, and ruled by citizens of the Roman Empire rather than Germans.

Yes, it was very Greek in culture.. more so later on. Justinian's native language was Latin.. later emperors knew Greek foremost.. but you are right that it was very Greek. Personally I prefer them as Rome, but I wouldn't mind Greeks at all either.

And why yes, I AM a student of classics. The Byzantine Empire in particular. Who would have guessed? :lol: (Not to say I'm more credentialed; I'm just an undergrad. But that's why I'm nerdy about it!)

The call on making the East Roman Empire Roman or Greek is a tough one indeed. Ask any Greek person though (then or now), or any of the people who came into contact with the Byzantines (including nowadays' Arabs), and they'll answer that those people were Romans. Christians in the Middle East, inheritors of the 'Byzantine' Empire (the Byzantines never called themselves that but Romans) are called Roum (Romans) by their Muslim neighbours...

Although I agree they were Greek in culture (as eventually the whole empire became - Greek in culture, that is), they proudly considered themselves Roman citizens.

I dragged my save into the scenarios folder.

When I do that and try to load it up it still comes up playing the autoturns...

Then the world's just the same as if 'd loaded the normal mod.

Ask any Greek person though (then or now), or any of the people who came into contact with the Byzantines...

BTW, the Russians (who inherited Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantines) usually called them Greeks, not Romans.

Drag into single/saves folders

I'm not a specialist about history but as far as I know eastern part of Roman Empire wasn't romanized because Greek culture was too great.

Drag into single/saves folders

Did that, I got a "Runtime Error!"

BTW, the Russians (who inherited Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantines) usually called them Greeks, not Romans.

Smart-ass :D

Yes, still, the Russians never came up with the idea of being the second Greece but the third Rome (the second one being Constantinople or New Rome).

All in all, this goes to say, it's a tough call whether they should be Greek or Roman... I myself face that dilemma everytime I play with the intent of recreating the whole Byzantine thing...

Did that, I got a "Runtime Error!"

you could just click on the file from the desktop or whatever folder you download stuff into, then save...

worked for me...

which save is it btw? maybe it's a prob with the save?

No, I tried it with two and still don't know what's going wrong. It's in my Warlords saves folder, but when I try to open it I just get the error.

Bizarre indeed...

mhm :(

Is there anything else I could POSSIBLY be doing wrong? Because if there is, chances are I am.

I re-installed RFC and it worked fine :confused:

Guess I must have mucked up the installation first time 'round.

i'm glad for you

I'm still advocating Greece, but not for historical reasons, but for gameplay purposes. Assuming the Empire can hold onto itself, but never reconquers Pompeji, Rome and Mediolanum. Then Nationalism comes around and the Greeks revolt taking the core empire of the East Roman Empire... ;)

If it were possible (is it?) you could just switch/change the names around. For a whole scenario (that would be a good one), one could then change the sign of the Greeks/East Romans (Call them Rum to be clear?). That would be a good scenario starting at the Begin of Middle Ages (set all European civs to the same starting date, or don't know).

Actually that brings me onto something else, multiplayer. I know it sounds crazy, but if you rebalance the game so that some civs spawn at the same time*, it could be done. Don't know though if that would be too much for most computers.

*A: Egypt, Babylon, India, China
*B: Rome, Carthage, Greece, Persia, (Japan - would probably be too far away too count)
*C: Spain, England, France, Germany, Arabia, Vikings
*D: Russia, Turkey, Mongolia
*E: Inca, Aztec

Stupid idea i know and I'll shut up now ;)

mick

BTW: Why different times of start declines multiplayer? I.e. one player playing as a Carthage and second as a Rome could be fun ;)

I think that multiplayer is possible, but a player will stay for a long time just pressing space...

Or everybody start with the 3000BC Civ, like Babylon, Egypt, India and China ( the last 3 are the best ).

Roman culture was based on greek culture, they had no need to 'romanize' it in the same way they did to the celts

I like Mitsho's suggestion of using Greek and changing the name... but not to Roum/Rum, since that's an Arab/Turkish word...

Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire (East Rome, Byzantium) will be just fine as far as the game is concerned IMO.

So, Nitro, you asked for feedback. Here it is.

I played up until a few turns after Germany's spawn before dinner time and this is what I noticed.

First of all, as I feared (and kind of hoped :mischief:), Nova Roma is much too powerful. Honestly at first glance you can't tell that it's not the full Roman empire! (Justinian did his work well!)

Anyway these were the results. Rome gave me open borders right away so I sent my galleys into the Med. basin and saw everything.

Arabia took the initial flips but either went to war with Rome briefly and unsuccessfully or not at all. I'm guessing the former since As-Sur/Tyre/whatever was burned before I got there to see what that worthless city is called. Power graphs showed Rome as being about twice as powerful as Arabia at spawn. I will note that I sold Rome Feudalism as soon as I met them (about the time Arabia spawned) but this is before that could have an effect.

Thereafter Arabia has turtled and has four or five cities. It has not expanded into Africa despite weak defenses there.

They also converted to Christianity after the first Eurokids spawned. Persia was also Christian.

At this point Spain and Germany have slightly dented the empire but that shores up Rome's economy more than actually hurts them.

The one major blow they had is that by the time I penetrated that far, Constantinople had been seized by fierce barb stacks. This, however, made their capital... Rome.

They aren't falling anytime soon.

These are my suggestions for making them weaker:

First of all, all the western parts of the empire had just been reconquered after a lapse of a lifetime or more. They weren't deep in the Roman fold and were constantly threatened by the various barbarians. As such I could see a case for either: weakening the culture, defensive bonus, or even leaving the cities in active resistance. At the least I'd put swarms of barbs in Spain and north Italy (Are you sure they held Mediolanum in 550?). Historically these cities should fall out of Roman hands within a handful of turns.

Also, I think it was a fluke this time, but barbarian pressure on Italia should be stronger than on Constantinople itself... that didn't fall to barbarians until 1204 (the French :mad: :lol: ) and still reclaimed it after that.

But I think the most important thing is to somehow make SURE Arabia declares on Rome, and Persia also. They should probably also have a better military but I didn't see exactly what they had. Or how they did against Persia since that's inland.

On the plus side, Germany and Spain at least are both at war with Rome, and keeping it in check at least. Of course without Arabian pressure on North Africa that doesn't really matter.

Those are my observations so far. That and my perpetual one that I really don't know how to do well as the Vikings! Bah.

BTW: Why different times of start declines multiplayer? I.e. one player playing as a Carthage and second as a Rome could be fun

I tried one this weekend with a friend. Everything works well until a new civilization spawns. The code is setup to ask the player if it wants to switch. Since there are two players, the game goes OOS.

Also, you can't have players with different start times. And if you want to play a game with later civs, one person needs to start an open multi-player game, let it run, then tell the other when to jump in and take over the newly spawned civ. The client flips out if there is a player "waiting" to play.

I tried one this weekend with a friend. Everything works well until a new civilization spawns. The code is setup to ask the player if it wants to switch. Since there are two players, the game goes OOS.

In the new edition of Fall From Hell, in the first version they have the same issue ( I believe ) but now it is fixed. So there is an obscure way to make RFC multiplayable... o_o

have to try it, who wants to? (our relgion demands it)

Well, we would disable the chance to flip all together. No reason to have players jumping around mid-game. Plus, that makes it too gameable. "The Aztecs are about to spawn. I'm going to disband all my units, then jump to them. Then you can take all my territory!"

The other problem I think is an SDK issue. It is easy to work around, as long as people are patient and willing to wait before jumping in (Have one player start as Spain, then slowly have other players hop in as France, England, Germany, Arabia, etc.).

Arabia comes before spain IIRC but this sounds like an awsome idea!

*coming back to topic :D*

So, Nitrojay, for what civilization will be your next Save Game? Arabia?

Does anyone know that what should be edited to start for example a historical Viking start with for example Rome? That way we could make a spin-off mod called Rhye's Scenarios! :p

Lord Apolon, Thank you for the feedback. I was planning on getting started with Arabia tonight, after a lengthy trip to the library this morning for information on 620 AD... But now after reading your post, I see there is still a little work to be done on the Vikings... I was hoping that MY game with the Vikings was only a fluke, since in my game, Arabia declared war on Rome, but it reached a stalemate. I decreased the defenses of the Roman cities near to Arabia, but it obviously wasn't enough... Persia (or Arabia) should be able to take Egypt from Rome and the European barbarians should be able to conquer Italy and southern Spain...

I have four ideas... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, let me know what you think, as each one could take some time and I'm hoping to impliment the best one (pr a combination of the four) and move on to Arabia, before I forget everything that I learned this morning at the library... :)

Idea #1:

Historically, Justinian's reconquering of the Roman empire hit a brick wall, not by Arabia or Persia, but by the PLAGUE. This particular save that I maniuplated had the plague in India, but I removed it. I could simply put it back in, but put it into Europe. With the Roman road system, it should spread pretty fast and keep the Roman (i.e. Byzantines) in check. I would hope it would weaken them to be conquered by the barbs...

Idea #2

Although NOT historically accurate, it was suggested that Greece/Egypt/Carthage be made vassals of the Byzantines, rather than territories... I beleive this would be huge strain on the empire, but I like idea #1 better.

Idea #3

My original idea, making the Eastern Roman Empire one big nation of independants, but I think the same problem would remain, no matter who/what you call them or what color their borders are. The only benefit to this is that there would be no tech trading, no negotiations, no open borders, no trading, etc... Arabia would have a tough time without declaring war, but I'm not sure how the AI would deal with that... (Would they even bother to declare war?) I don't know. I'm sort of against this idea now... Alot of work...

Idea #4

Increase the barbarians in Europe, and, as Lord Apolon suggested (which I'll probably do anyways), is to put the cities in Italy in revolt. This would remain historically accurate, since, until 552, they WERE in revolt... I overlooked the 2 year blurb though... I'll be putting it back in.

There they are. Please let me know which you think would work best, or which ones I should no longer consider. I'm going to rework the save tonight and be done with it. Moving on to Arabia...

EDIT: Rereading this, I know there will be people who say it wasn't the Plague that ended Byzantine expansion, even though Justinian himself contracted it... The plague wasn't the only reason the Eastern Roman Empire failed to reconquer all of the former Roman lands... Barbarians, military revolts, Justinian himself being a little left of center... There were a bunch or reasons, not just the Plague... There, there is my disclaimer. :)

Does anyone know that what should be edited to start for example a historical Viking start with for example Rome? That way we could make a spin-off mod called Rhye's Scenarios!

The way I would do it, (the only way I would know how), is to put a save in the scenario folder and edit it just like a regular scenario... Am I missing something?

I like the Idea 2# and 3#.

Will be funny to see a big empire collapsing because of the plague... and incresed barbarians. ( more or less like the real history )

Thanks for your work, NitroJay!

Personally, I think #1 and #4 are the best, It makes sense to represent the Eastern Roman Empire as a fully-fledged civilisation, and I think including Carthage and Egypt as vassals will ruin everything because they'll just break free and last until the industrial age as per usual.

If the cities in Italy were in revolt at this time, then by all means give that a go.

I dislike #2 and #3 but #1 and #4 are great :D

1 and 4, definitely!

I...what is it now, fourth? :p...1 and 4

I support 1 and 4 also. I "plum forgot" about the plague but it really did depopulate the East (Syria and the Levant) along with Persian raiding. According to an article I read it was among the main reason for that region becoming very backwater and isolated over a course of just fifty years or so.

Plus plague is fun.

I think 1 and 4 also (actually when I read it I thought that both one and four would be best and then I read thats what everyone else put and I just had to cry that I was a sheep...)

Alright! Here it is! I tested it out twice, and it seems to be working well...

Viking Start (fixed)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/100826/Start_Save_-_Vikings.CivWarlordsSave

Here's the deal... I followed both ideas, #1 and #4. First off, I fixed some terrain improvement issues here and there... I reduced the culture of the African cities and to the ones in spain. I gave a city in Northern Italy back to the Celts (my bad, the ERE never made it that far north...) I gave Justinian's plague to the cities in Egypt and on the west bank, all the way up to constantanople... Don't worry though, this plague doesn't spread. It just ends in like 5-7 turns or so. I added some units for the celts and increased the barbarian preasure in Europe.

The first game I played with this civ, the barbarians got lucky. They captured back Rome, the natives got Egypt, and Arabia went to war with Rome, taking an additional city to the two they annex. Rome collapsed.

I tried again to see if this would repeat... The second time, the barbarians wern't so lucky... (I can't understand why though, it was the same save... I thought the Random Seed was preserved in RFC...) Anyway, the results were the same... Just as France spawned, the roman empire decended into civil war. I think that works out. :)


Alright, my kids need to use the computer before they go to bed. (I broke my laptop yesterday... :( ) I'll start Arabia tonight or tomorrow morning.

Wonderful! I can't wait to try it!
Unfortunately that may be a while from now since I have a lot of work in the next few days and then I'm off for a vacation to... Constantinople! And Egypt! And Athens! All well within the East Roman Empire, I'll note! :king:

So awesome! Have a great vacation! I myself am traveling this weekend too... But, then again, I travel every weekend... My work is one big vacation...

I just finished a LONG game with the Viking's save... I'm not very good at the Vikings, since I never really play them, but I thought I'd give it a go... I lost. :( It took a long time, it was a time victory... China beat me, but France of all people were in the number 2 spot. I was a distant third with America nipping at my heels... I did managed to conquer the brits though... It was a fun game...

Arabia in the morning... At least I'll start... I have to try and fix my laptop before I go back to work on Friday. I hope to get Arabia done before then. I'll at least post a few unaltered saves for it though.

NitroJay@ In post #144 you mean that I can play the save as a scenario as any nation?

Then this thread should be stickied and renamed as NitroJay's Historical Scenarios. :)

You can... Sort of... (If someone knows an easier way to do this, feel free to share...) Start one of my saves, enter the worldbuilder, save it as a scenario, then exit, reload it as a scenario, pick a civ. It acts REALLY weird though. I chose Rome, and it started with a -67 autoplay AND Egypt and Babylonia were born along with me... Very weird. It'd take some fooling around to make it work, I think.

But is it possible to put these save files in scenario-folder and play them as scenarios? I'd try, but at the moment I can't.

If you can place my saves in the scenario folder and play them as scenarios, then it's true for any saved game... My saves aren't much different from a regular save, since I save them in the game, not in world builder. The way that I mentioned above works (sort of) but you have to save it in world builder first... However, as I said before, they act really weird when it's done this way.

I don't know much about scenario creation... The only thing I do with the saves I post is just use the world builder to move a few things around some to make the world as accurate as possible for the time period, then exit the world builder and save the game on the first turn of each civ. If you're planning on tweaking my saves into scenarios to play ANY civ at each time period, that'd be really cool, but there's definatly some weird behavior in the game you'd have to overcome.

I'm not interested in editing, only enjoying scenarios. :lol:

Well, once I get done with all the civ's historical starts (and there's a good bunch of unaltered saves to choose from also) I might do a couple scenarios... Stay tuned.

I could help with the editing if you like...If you told me the info and city placements and such...

That would be awesome! Thanks! Right now, I am working on a start for Arabia but I don't think it's going to be finished by tonight and I have to fly tomorrow through Monday... So I won't be able to do anything until I get home... Feel free to go through the historical starts I've already posted though and try it out... I know there's some demand for a playable Roman empire scenario and that should be easy enough to do using the Viking historical start as a guide. All of the cities and wonders are in place there, you'd just have back up the year a bit and put Rome as the capital again... I'm not exactly sure how to do that though (the back up the year part - or even if it's possible on RFC...) Like I said, I'm not an expert at scenario making, but everything you would need for Rome is probably right there in the save... You know, take a look at it and let me know what you'd need... I'll help in any way that I can.

hmmm, I don't think it's possible to back the year up, I'll have to completely recreate it. What's the best year to start, d'you think?

Off hand, I think the Roman Empire was at it's height around 115-120AD...

Thanks, Do you have any research type things you can send me?

End of Trajan rule (117) will be great- Roman Empire was at its maximum extend then-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Roemischeprovinzentrajan.png

Thanks.

I wish there was an AI autoplay with this mod :P

LuKo, or anyone, do you have a save for Rome closer to the date by any chance?

How do you think you'll handle Spain? Will they immediately acquire the Moorish cities?

I'm still not playing newest version... :(

I'm progressing, slowly, it'd be alot easier if I could get debug mode to work with this mod :(

Anyone know how?

I'm progressing, slowly, it'd be alot easier if I could get debug mode to work with this mod :(

Anyone know how?

Did you try the "chipotle" code?

yeah, of course, who doesn't know about the chipotle code?

wait a second... chipotle code? what are you talking about?

;move along
Cheat Code: 0

to

;move along
Cheat Code: chipotle

in the ini, usually turns debug mode on. All I've been able to make work so far is the debug screen (ctrl+D), but that's not very useful.

chipotle: smoked hot chilli pepper which is used in Mexican cooking.

My local library had a big clear-out, I got some historical atlases for a pittance (50p each!)

OK, I've placed all the Roman cities, all I need to do is edit size, buildings and find out what the other civs are meant to be doing :p

149962

(...)other civs(...)
149962

Do you mean just India and China? :P because the rest is dead...

Well, I'll add some independents, natives and barbarians to fill up the empty lands where there should be cities, and re-introduce any civ I've wrongfully destroyed :p

I'd really like a map of the world around that time, but even my cheap historical atlases fail me! :(

http://www.roman-empire.net/maps/map-empire.html

This site is good to see all the maps of the Roman Empire in all dates.

116AD: http://www.roman-empire.net/shop/empire-map-116.html

Thanks, but I really want to know where the other civs' cities were :p

I think that Syracuse and Leptis Magna should be added. And maybe another city in South Italy and British Island...

The Roman empire never stretched into Iran, did it?

The Roman empire never stretched into Iran, did it?

It did at the height of Trajan.

I think that Syracuse and Leptis Magna should be added. And maybe another city in South Italy and British Island...
The ones in Britain and Italy are done now, but I tried to include Syracuse and Leptis Magna and they weren't called that :confused:

Syracuse is Panormus on the map.

OK, guys, I've used initiative and guesswork for the size of the cities and their buildings, but the cost is something ridiculous like -431 per turn.

This is before I've added any units mind...

I think it's OK- Hadrian left Armenia and Mesopotamia because of high maintenance costs. You can also make a golden age for Romans.

How do I make it a Golden Age?

Add 2 Great People and play as Romans ;)

How many turns? The usual 8, or did it last longer than that?

A triumphal arch in Rome may be a better way to guarantee a Golden Age.

But, when they get 2 UHVs... they will have 2 Triumphal Archs in Rome? it will be +100% military Production! @_@

Good luck trying to keep that empire together long enough. ;)

Another Problem: How do I make Christianity the state religion without the anarchy?

You can change civics using the notepad to edit the scenario file.

But Christianity wasn't the state religion at that time...

Really? oops

What was then?

nothing really, they had a panthoen they stole from the greeks, with the empeoer added in as a kinda demi-god. i think so at least

So when was it that they had the Christian emperor?

391AD


(10 charac)

nothing really, they had a panthoen they stole from the greeks, with the empeoer added in as a kinda demi-god. i think so at least

No, the religion was henotheistic tolerant. Meaning that they believed in every God "invented" and every citizen chose his favourite (=Henotheism). The Romans also believed in a "protection spirit" that existed for everyone, the so called Genius. The Emperor logically also had such a Genius and there was a single condition to every Roman inhabitant/citizen made. Namely to swear on to this Genius and make a sacrifice for him (to protect the emperor).

The latter was not acceptable for the Jews and Christians...

mick

well, there you go, sorry to muddle the waters

Sorry, I wasn't trying to nitpick as much as possible, I just annoys me everytime as it just paints a wrong picture of the Romans, their religion and the reasons they chased the Christians. It was just a total stupidity of a very minor scale in the end, you know.

mick

Which begs the question... what religions will be in what cities? How does one represent the state religion of the Romans in the second century. Although clearly some cities had Christians (Tyre - well, Antioch, just north of it, more precisely) in large numbers in them and some had Jews (Alexandria, for instance), how do we account for the state religion? Or am I just drunk?

oh...


you are just drunk XD


If you put religion in any Roman city, it will convert in the first turn...

so, put Christianims the SR :\

oh...


you are just drunk XD


If you put religion in any Roman city, it will convert in the first turn...

so, put Christianims the SR :\
...Not if you, the leader of Rome, don't tell it to :confused:

Well, i thought that this was going to be a scenario, and you could play others civs, not just Rome... But now I realize that i was wrong... :P

The Roman empire never stretched into Iran, did it?

Maybe into portions of Northern Iran, but not as far as Talkie Toaster has done which is all the way to the North-West Passage.

Talkie, the Romans shouldn't have cities beyond Mesopotamia and Armenia.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Roemischeprovinzentrajan.png

That's the map I was basing it on. I thought Mesopotamia was my most Eastern city? :confused:

EDIT: argh, foolish me! I didn't tell you, I've removed most of the cities since I last posted a map, I'll get one up soon.

Here it is:
http://wikirhye.wikidot.com/local--files/files/Current%20Rome%20Progress

What about a new city in Thrace/Turkey?

That's the map I was basing it on. I thought Mesopotamia was my most Eastern city?

EDIT: argh, foolish me! I didn't tell you, I've removed most of the cities since I last posted a map, I'll get one up soon.

Why? IRL Rome was overgrown...

BTW: Rome shouldn't be bigger than 9? And bigger than Delhi?

I don't understand why Mediolanum and Lugdunum are missing, they were very important. At least Lugdunum should be added in IMO. Same thing for Tyre or Byblos.

Oh, and Jerusalem is was razed in 70 AD and rebuilt in 130ish as Aelia Capitolina...

Other than that, very nice.

I took away cities because the maintenance costs were beyond sanity

I'm talking approaching -1000 here

I replaced many cities with towns.

If I don't have Jerusalem, where is the Christian/Jewish holy city?

Rome in this time didn't had at least 2 million pop?


EDIT: Take out that other city in England... that will overpower the England spaw, because they will not need to use any of the starting settlers...

Rome's game pop is 2712000 :p

I need help.

First, I need locations and names for all the cities (tribes) in Germania

Second, I need ideas on troop placement.

Don't make cities in Germania, just put a LOT²²²² of Axeman

I thought cities would be a good way to represent the tribes.

All thouse cities will spawn to Germany and they will start with a lot of spare Settlers... =p

Good point. I'd still like a few cities in though.

maybe just one in the place of Berlin, and the Roman one in the place of Frankfurt...

Going back a couple of posts I know but if you want to reduce the amount of gold they lose each turn, just add a few towns and court-houses...

Settled Merchants maybe... When you conquer a city, all the Settled Great People just die?

Every city has a courthouse. There are now loads of towns.

:D

man, you're gonna need help... :p

About Jerusalem, just name it Aelia Capitolina, is what I meant...

http://www.rootsweb.com/~wggerman/map/germantribes.htm
This is a map of the Germanic tribes in 373 AD... hope it helps a little bit =p