Just saying that I'm still around and still love this mod! Life is so hectic and busy right now, that I haven't gotten involved with the testing and map work that I signed up for, and I appologize. Hopefully, I can get to posting some modded maps for the normal and huge maps that I found significantly enhanced game play for me.

I am impressed though that in the end, I didn't feel the need to change much, but it did take a long time to put more "fun and balance" feel to the maps without slipping into chaos.

I spent months moving things around, even experimenting with barb cities, especially on the huge map, but found that the AI just gobbled up the barb cities.

Tonight, when I get back to my hotel, I'm going to post my normal map and my huge map.

I'd ask that Thamis, Laurino, et. all take a look at them and evaluate/incorporate as desired.

These maps represent my work in terms of making the game slightly more playable from all civs. Stay tuned and let me know if you/TAM team would rather me just email them to you instead.

~KWP

Unfortunately, my modded huge map is at home in NJ, and I'm here in CA. I do have my normal map mod on my laptop, and I'm fairly certain this is the latest version. Enjoy!

TAM 1.97 Normal map mod kwarriorpoet (http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/94144/final_mod_kwarriorpoet_TAM_Normal_map.rar)

This mod gives a slight boost to the less "Imperialistic" civs, and coaxes the AI (via resource placement) into more historically accurate city locations, at least for Rome and Mycenae.

What did you change on Normal Med Map?
Your screenshots show Bibracte and Cherusci moved one square down and surrounding area cleared from dense forest. I'm right?
What else did you modify exactly?

What did you change on Normal Med Map?
Your screenshots show Bibracte and Cherusci moved one square down and surrounding area cleared from dense forest. I'm right?
What else did you modify exactly?

I am working on a response, trust me...It's a long one, though, as I try to compile my notes.

Mostly, I moved some civ start locations and tweaked some resource locations. My focus was mostly on the area around Rome, Macedonia, the Hittites, Egypt and Carthage.

uhm, all but standard med maps need a rework. The standard med is the only one acceptable currently, in terms of balance and playability.

TAM 1.99b is just released. I'll jump in to look at the maps tonight. Honestly, I love the standard med map. I've spent allot of time tweaking that one. I did do some meddling with the huge map. However, I have been extremely busy with RL and travel for work allot this past year. I have not been able to follow through on my commitments as I had hoped. Thamis has been very gracious in the past as to allow my suggestions into the maps, and hopefully, I can get all of my tweaks noted finally in one consice post for him and the TAM team. My current Standard map works very well from the perspective of any civ, but it does mean more of a challenge for Rome and Mycenae, which may or may not be a good thing for most people. I prefer not being able to simply reach out my hand and waltz all over Europe, but perhaps others like this aspect of playing as Rome or Mycenae.

Could you please disable the Time victory on your maps if that is possible. I've not been able to do this and still use your map. Without it the game times out very quickly on slower speeds for some reason.

- feydras

I don't make the maps really. I used to be very involved in making suggestions, of which many were implemented. I think the time victory situation may be "hard coded". As for completing a game too quickly...Have you tried the Epoch or Marathon settings? My games on Epoch take about 20-30 hours to complete.

Feydras, you are right, it should be removed.... or at least optional. I don't understand your comment about slower speeds though - at slower speeds you have a LOT more turns and it takes hours.... days.... to finish a map. I think you perhaps meant "at faster speeds".... but then that is the idea really, to play the game quickly. I suggest playing "epic" speed..... That's "epic" kwarriorpoet. ;)

No, i meant Marathon speed on the TAM Huge map. The game ends rather quickly. Before i am a third of the way through the tech tree and i was up near the front of the tech race. This happened to me on two different games.

I did find the work-around 'Jet' suggested. I loaded up the map then chose Custom Scenario - chose the map again and was then brought to the Custom game screen where i was able to deselect the Time Victory.

- feydras

Hmmm - I dont understand what you mean by "quickly" then...... to me a Marathon game takes FOREVER!!! I feel myself getting older as my empire grows! :D Relatively, you have a lot more time to move around on Marathon and to use your troops.... but comparatively (i.e. to Normal), the time it takes to build things pretty much evens out.

If you are only getting a 3rd of the way through the tech tree before the time runs out, then something must have gone awry. I normally complete the tech tree way before the timer. Perhaps something has bugged on your version.

Can you just fire up a new Marathon game and then once it is loaded, open the Victory screen, see how many turns you have left and report it here?

Also, what version are you running?

Cheers,
Spear

Hiya, Spear

Thanks for the spelling tip, lol. I interchange those often. Epic as in time length, not Epoch as in a historical reference to a significant event, lol.

Anyway, yes, there must be something wrong with your game.

There is likely nothing wrong with your game feydras. Go to the public maps folder right under the games main folder and look up the file for the map you were playing. It is a WBS file that can be opened with wordpad. Don’t click the file but right-click and choose open with and thin pick wordpad from the list. When the file opens (it may take time if the map is huge), lookup a line that says MaxTurns in the first section of the file between BeginGame and EndGame. If this line exists either remove it or change the value to 0. When you play the map again it should work as expected. For the game you already started unfortunately there is nothing that can be done.

I have checked both med normal and huge maps and I found that the huge map mistakenly has this line setting the maximum turns to 460 (i.e. normal speed).

I uploaded a corrected file for the huge map here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/115758/TAM_Mediterranean_Huge_v1.99.rar

I've tried to run a game on the Huge map only to find that it crashs my system before the game even starts. This didn't happen with v. 1.97. What has been added that could cause this problem?

Are you sure you installed TAM 1.99 correctly?

Also are you sure you used the 1.99 map and not the 1.97 one?

You don't mean the one I uploaded, do you?

One more thing, if you are double clicking the map file to start civ4 and the mod, try starting civ4 and loading the mod first then pick the map from the scenarios list.

Thanks for the suggestions. As i wrote last entry i found the workaround by doing just that. ie loading up the mod then hitting custom scenario and chosing map. That way the screen lets me turn off Time.

Again, thanks for the responsiveness and other suggestions.

- feydras

I've tried to run a game on the Huge map only to find that it crashs my system before the game even starts. This didn't happen with v. 1.97. What has been added that could cause this problem?

I played the game just fine this morning on the Normal map and saw that my uploaded map has made it in. I have not checked the Huge map yet, but many others don't seem to have problems with it. I'm sure that you deleted TAM 1.97 prior to 1.99 install? There are some new resources that the team put in, and some of the new unit graphics might be more of a resource hog than previous versions. Have you tried single unit graphics?

Not sure what the issue might be. Again, I'm sure various members of the official team can help you much better than I, but those are my suggestions.

I am running the game using the settings i detailed above and even with Time victory disabled i am still getting the Time victory "100 turns left" warning. Very frustrating.

Spearthrower - I went to the F8 screen and checked all the tabs and i do not see 'turns left' listed anywhere.

There is likely nothing wrong with your game feydras. Go to the public maps folder right under the games main folder and look up the file for the map you were playing. It is a WBS file that can be opened with wordpad. Don’t click the file but right-click and choose open with and thin pick wordpad from the list. When the file opens (it may take time if the map is huge), lookup a line that says MaxTurns in the first section of the file between BeginGame and EndGame. If this line exists either remove it or change the value to 0. When you play the map again it should work as expected. For the game you already started unfortunately there is nothing that can be done.

I have checked both med normal and huge maps and I found that the huge map mistakenly has this line setting the maximum turns to 460 (i.e. normal speed).

I uploaded a corrected file for the huge map here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/115758/TAM_Mediterranean_Huge_v1.99.rar

Thanks. I just did the edit you suggested and may restart a game at some point if i can summon the fortitude. The current game is my 5th game tried with this mod that i needed to restart for technical reasons!

- feydras

In general it is something that most people won’t recognize. When creating or editing a map you start with some game settings before getting into World Builder. One of the settings is game speed. The game speed decides the maximum number of turns for the game. The saved WB file will have this setting hard coded within it. No matter what speed you choose for your game when you play the map the number of turns will be limited to the one in the WB file.

In conclusion for anybody who kindly edit a map, it is required to open the WB file after saving the modifications using Wordpad and then remove the line MaxTurns or changing the value to 0. This way the map can be played with any speed and will assume the max turns associated with this speed.

Are you going to add Tin to the British Isles, because they were a major supplier of Tin, with traders coming from all over the known world to get it. Yet in the current maps they have none.

Au contraire, the small Med map has it.

In general it is something that most people won’t recognize. When creating or editing a map you start with some game settings before getting into World Builder. One of the settings is game speed. The game speed decides the maximum number of turns for the game. The saved WB file will have this setting hard coded within it. No matter what speed you choose for your game when you play the map the number of turns will be limited to the one in the WB file.

In conclusion for anybody who kindly edit a map, it is required to open the WB file after saving the modifications using Wordpad and then remove the line MaxTurns or changing the value to 0. This way the map can be played with any speed and will assume the max turns associated with this speed.

QFT-A hard lesson to learn.

There is no tin on the Huge map...

I think it's been said before that the Normal map is the only 100% playable map. The others don't reflect historical resource placement and haven't been balanced. I also play on Huge and there are some really wierd differences between some civs! ;)