Installation: Download, unzip, maps go here: C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Games\Beyond the Sword\PublicMaps
(though your drive may be different). Then run FfH 2 (BtS versions). Select the map using the custom scenario option to change the game options to your liking.

Knight's Erebus
Designed to give a world fitting for the fiction of FfH 2, while still providing fun, balanced gameplay. It is huge, though, so may not be suitible for all systems. Updated several times already. If you have a previous version, I suggest deleting it.

*12/18/08; removed obsolete civic categories--Should work with the last FFH2 Version now.
*10/11/08; added v.34 features, fixed city art styles, and made some choke points poinier.
*3/21/08; V.31 compliant (Fixed Baratos), also added some scrub, graveyards, and replaced one Patria with standing stones.
*1/6/08; added "KnightsErebusRelations", an identical map with some starting diplomacy modifiers for all civs.
*1/6/08; some few balance tweaks
*12/17/07; updated to be compatible with version .30, version .25 not availible. Also added sailors dirge
*11/04/07; large changes to the Elohim/Sidar area so the Sidar aren't so much in the pocket; small changes elsewhere such as patria in jungle and removing some excess land.
*10/28/07; removed max turns (sorry about that)
*10/26/07; Removed preset player units. What this means is that at higher difficulty levels the ai players WILL get their bonus units!
*10/24/07; a few changes designed to slow the ai who climb too fast in the score chart.
*10/21/07; removed a barrow
*10/20/07; uploaded a version created after downloading the Media Pack, but I don't really think that would affect the crash issue...
*10/20/07; minor changes, including 2 barrows designed to slow Kandro's missionaries.
*10/19/07; minor changes.
*10/18/07; reduced Ljo starting position (hopefully FoL won't spread everywhere), slight boost to Amurites, Doviello, and Malakim. Eliminated some islands to encourage Orthus/Acheron to spawn in the continent.
*10/17/07; adjusted Malakim start, added signs, and enabled limited y-axis wrap
Requires Beyond the Sword 3.13 and FfH 2 mod last version
Some people have reported an immediate crash to desktop. I don't know why this happens, but when it does, it leaves an autosave behind that you can load to begin playing as normal. Clunky work around, but there you go.

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The map works fine with the end of winter option, but it will take some extra time to load initially.

Game crashes on start-up when trying to use this map. Does it work for others?

Wow! Sweet! I might be able to start playing .25 this week, and I think I'll start with this.

Are the starting locations pre-set? I'd guess so (should be like that for every non-random map, right?), but who knows... :)

Looks like a fun layout with no huge oceans in between seperating 2 groups of civs for half the game (which I really dislike!). I'll try it once I finish my current game on Sureshot's nice map. :)

How many special resources(tomb of succelus, etc.) are on this map? Looks interesting, btw. I will only change to "Flatlands(or something like that)" in custom game options, because i've red somewhere that Erebus is a flat world(not round).

How many special resources(tomb of succelus, etc.) are on this map?

All ten are there - even two Remnants of Petra (one in each side of the sheaim). The map is good, currently on turn 235.

Anyone else having Nefelia's problem? Maybe you're not patched completely?
Are the starting locations pre-set?Yes, but I could make one where the set points were random. (delete the preset units for each team, then change random start to yes, I think.)Though of course it isn't designed for that.

Do the Infernals and Mercurians enter the game on this map? I'm playing in a Huge map game with 33 factions and neither showed up. There was room for them due to a few islands with barb activity on it.

- feydras

I noticed one of the options set is "Living World." What is that?

double amount of events

It doubles the frequency of events.

I think I will remove aggressive ai from the default option next version; there's a lot of land.

Do the Infernals and Mercurians enter the game on this map? I'm playing in a Huge map game with 33 factions and neither showed up. There was room for them due to a few islands with barb activity on it.

- feydras

I can confirm that the ai will research the appropriate techs for the infernals and they will show up when that happens; also, the ai will build the mercurian gate, and Basium will show up when that happens. However, I can't vouch for their priorities, as I cheated to entice them to do so.

I noticed that there are several spots of hellfire right off the bat. This doesnt work, 3 civilizations died before I noticed that sect of flies where wiping out everyone who still just had warriors.

There was only one, but I think you're right; it's gone now, if you want to re-dl.
(Or I'll forgive you if you want to WB it away ;))

Wow, I like everything including options. Will make sure to test it. Thanks again for your work :)

Since we can play as the Illians, Sidar, and Svalfaltar, shouldn't they all have at least 2 traits? The Svalfaltar have none and I think the Sidar have one, whil the Illians have some. Just curious.

Since we can play as the Illians, Sidar, and Svalfaltar, shouldn't they all have at least 2 traits? The Svalfaltar have none and I think the Sidar have one, whil the Illians have some. Just curious.

They are not developed yet. Sidar and Svalfaltar will come now in shadow while illians will get their features in ice.

I like the placement of civs on the map and the flavor to it. It is very in keeping with age of ice and the civ descriptions on the wiki. A couple of civs could do with improvements to their starting positions, but overall I am enjoying it.

One thing though, and maybe this is something I just don't remember from age of ice, but why do the amurites have an ice-locked galleon in that warm valley in the north?

Since we can play as the Illians, Sidar, and Svalfaltar, shouldn't they all have at least 2 traits? The Svalfaltar have none and I think the Sidar have one, whil the Illians have some. Just curious.Well, the WB is seperate from the modding aspect, which I don't know enough about to add traits. Besides that, they will be added in later, so they are mostly in as placeholders--and also because I couldn't see a FfH world w/o them in it. ;)
But in the next version I think I will make them unplayable so as to avoid confusion.
One thing though, and maybe this is something I just don't remember from age of ice, but why do the amurites have an ice-locked galleon in that warm valley in the north?
One of the pieces of the Godslayer is on an island, to get to it you have to kill the Pirate ghost and take his boat. It's ice-locked so it doesn't give them too much of an advantage.
Actually I first made this map before we finalized the map for AoI. When touching it up the other day, I went back and tried to make this area a bit more reminiscint of the scenario, as I will do with future ones if they can be made to fit.
Wow, I like everything including options. Will make sure to test it. Thanks. I'd be interested to know which AI's lead the score and which are at the bottom after a couple hundred turns.

Adding traits isn't hard at all, it just requires very minor changes in the Civ4LeaderHeads.xml file. It is very easy to see how traits work if you look at the other leaders, and you could even just copy the traits you want from other leaders.

Faeryl and Morgoth have a deficit of trais because the hidden trait (which hadn't been implemented anyway. it was waiting for shadow, but Kael decided that its planned effects would be better as the effects of shadow mana, which both civs would start with) was removed. Faeryl was arcane/hidden, and Morgoth Hidden/Industrious. Auric was once magic resistant/philosophical/agnostic, but latter lost the agnostic trait but kept an AI that would never adopt a religion. He is now Charismatic/Philisophical, making him a pretty solid leader choice. I usually give Faeryl arcane/raiders (halfway between her old traits and what Sureshot always asks for, phi/rai), and sometimes add phi to Morgoth (I actually gave him about 6 traits the last time I played as him, but that was on diety so I could use every advantage I could get)

If you have the latest version of excel, all you need to do it put a 1 in the row next to the traits you want in the leader's column

I knew they weren't developed yet, but as this is a WorldBuilder map, and such I was assuming it could/would be changed since we can play as them. Because honestly, if you could play as a Civ, wouldn't you want traits?

sorry to only put negative things in the last comment, I was in a bit of a hurry. This was one of my favorite pre-made maps before and it seems much improved now. I especially like the improvements to the Luchuirp starting area, it was a little weak before but much better now.

Adding traits isn't hard at all, it just requires very minor changes in the Civ4LeaderHeads.xml file. It is very easy to see how traits work if you look at the other leaders, and you could even just copy the traits you want from other leaders. Okay, thanks. But, I don't think I can change it in the map; people need to do it themselves in their own xml.

True. And I doubt such a simple xml change could break the map, although it could probably cause multiplayer problems if all players didn't make all the same changes.

(I've actually added traits in the middle of a game before. Just save, exit, save the xml files with the changes you want, and load your saved game. You don't get the bonuses retroactively, e.g, giving yourself the magic resistant trait would not give out the promotion to existing units, but they are applied from that point on)

I really like it; ts awfully large but I guess thats the idea :D The only other complaint I have it seemed pretty easy to me. This is my first try with BTS .25 as well... (Actually, despite some people complaining .25 is too hard I find it actually easier than previous versions. I usually played with Raging Barbs before so I guess I'm just used to the swarms. I played some as the Amurites on Emperor and it was a real slog at first but once I got a hunting lodge built I was rolling easily, capturing hoardes of bears. (Having my intial scout turn into a Hero via Random event was a huge help as well! Love the BTS additions) I tried a game on Immortal as the Dwarves, and was doing very well. Interesting developments in that one: The Malakin succumbed to barbs, then the Calabim did too. The Dragon had spawned right next to the Tomb of Succellus (Of all places) and pretty much wiped out the Lucihurp. Hippus ended up being the major power, but I was gearing up to take them down, just had to secure the border with the barbs first (Not easy, they were swarming in stacks of 3-6 down the Calabims road right towards my capital). I had founded Runes, but the Hippus founded OO, and spread it to the Balseraph and Luci's as well as the Elohim, turning them neutral. I later offered a tech to the Elohim to convert to Runes and they accepted, giving me a strong ally to the west with the same religion and align...

Ended up wondering what was up with my weapons promotions and realized the patch was buggy.:crazyeye: Gonna try again with another civ now that I got the new patch, I'll try and give some more feedback for you...

Other Notes: The AI Sheaim seem to almost always get crushed by barbs...

Yes, I think the ai's will be less of a challenge with raging barbs turned on.
Also, difficulty levels were changed around alot for BtS; I'm not sure if Kael kept things as they were or went with the BtS changes, though.
I agree about a lot of land; I added some mountians and lakes and so on because of this, recently, though I will continue to tweak.

Tried another start with the Elves, as usual Malakim and Calabim died to barbs early on. This time the Kurioates also succumbed. Sheaim did make it this time. (Immortal level). Really like the Elf start spot, its a nice balance of fast start with the ancient forests+preserve and nearby Tree, but also difficult due to its relative isolation (lots of barbs) and nearby spawn points. I barely managed to survive the initial rush (the skeletons were especially annoying) but managed to get a hunting lodge up just in time. The hawks seem bugged right now (won't load onto hunters) , but were still helpful revealing terrain every turn to keep the barbs from getting too crazy. Its around Turn 130 and I've got a pretty healthy lead over everyone else around, and will have Fellowship in about 20 turns...Not sure I'll continue this one.

I think I'm gonna try Malakim, they seem doomed, but maybe they just need some better handling off the bat. :P

Anyone else having Nefelia's problem? Maybe you're not patched completely?
Yeah, me :sad:
Fresh install of Civ IV & BtS (with latest Firaxis patch) & FfH II v.25k.

I'm able to play .25 on its own, though. 24 civs, here I come!

I usually give Faeryl arcane/raiders (halfway between her old traits and what Sureshot always asks for, phi/rai),

Personally Faeryl is Aggressive/Arcane for me. I don't see background reasons for Raiders, and even less Philosophical.

I've started playing the map and it seems ok. Maybe Malakim has too few hills though. Also, from the beginning I have all the special features (like pool of tears and such) revealed on the map. Is it because I started as Elohim or it is so with any other civ ?

It is because you are Elohim.

Yeah, me :sad:
Fresh install of Civ IV & BtS (with latest Firaxis patch) & FfH II v.25k.

I'm able to play .25 on its own, though. 24 civs, here I come!:( Try a random huge map with >18 civs, see if that works? Also, maybe there is an auto save you can load.

Malakim are the only ones completely surrounded by open land, and hill-giant friendly land at that. At the least I'll start them out on plains hills, we'll see if that helps.

Also, I wonder if starting each civ at war with one other civ (whom they could later make peace with after 10 turns, I think) would help them start on war-footing and survive barbarians better? Would that be more annoying?

I'm also considering wrapping y-axis, and starting off with labels of important places. Anyone have strong feelings on either of these?

Hmm I played quite a bit last night, was extremely difficult on Immortal. Was one of the best games I've ever had so far of FFH tho, very challenging and the events and quality of the map added spice. The Malakim starting spot is poor and in the worst possible area for a raging barbs map: isolated from its neighbors, and surrounded on all sides with open wastes. The mirror was a great help as the barbarians began spawing as I could station a lightbringer on it to help slow the spawns to the east. I built a number of warriors and a second lightbringer and decided to not even try to build a worker as previous experience had told me it would be a wasted effort. Instead I just let the city expand to 5 pop, beelined to bronze working, and began building a settler to establish a second town near the mirror.

About the time the Svarltalar were overwhelmed by barbarians. I built the second town, and began construction of a training yard in my capital. By this time my warriors had destroyed so many orcs they had become hardy veterans. I slowed my tech to save money to upgrade them, and just as my training yard was finished a huge horde appeared from the northwest: The pillagers of the Shadow Elf kingdom I suspect, come to make me their next victims. There must have been 6-8 orcs, about 10 goblins, and a couple sects of flies. My veteran capital guards I upgraded to swordsmen and they, with only a few warriors to support them barely sufficed to hold off the evil horde: but a level 7ish swordsman with the proper upgrades and +60% defense bonus from the capital, and encircling rivers made them almost (except to the sects which were just barely survived) invincible.

Barbs continued to plague me, but slowly I built up a small force of swordsmen able to hold them off... Several emissaries from the elven kingdom dodged their way thru swarms of goblins and arrived to convert me to fellowship of leaves: very helpful even tho the terrain is not at all suited to this religion...I worked to build a third town, which attrated the attention of some more sects of flies (with escorting orc/goblin swarms). This was barely defended. I decided to attack the barbarian city up to the northwest and gathered a number of seasoned veteran swordsmen and managed to take it, only to be attacked by Alexis right after...An event declared something about runners being dispacted from the frontier to bring news of a surprise attack: this heralded a golden age! Much needed... I rushed my swords back from the northwest to defend the realm, managed to finish the Great Library quickly after the golden age and begin ramping up more swords. Locked in a brutal war with invading Moroi and supporting catapults are my veteran swords and supporting adepts: things are far from boring, but I needed to get some sleep, had stayed up much too late already ;)

As far as the world goes, the elves are the most powerful nation, with the Hippus also doing well. Im ranked third among the 6 nations Ive contacted.
And for starting balance, why aren't there horses anywhere close at all to their starting spot? Some guys mounted on Zebras would have been a big help...

And for starting balance, why aren't there horses anywhere close at all to their starting spot? Some guys mounted on Zebras would have been a big help...It might have been an oversight, though everyone is supposed to struggle to find some of their resources.

If you are seeing sects of flies, it sounds like you don't have the most recent version, I nixed that hellfire. But if it is fun as is, stick with it!

Later today I'll put up a version that has Malakim & Calabim start on hills to help against barbarian attacks... I may also give the Malakim a lake nearby to limit the direction the barbs come from for them.

I played a bit more earlier, had to peace with the hated Calabim as it was more or less a stalemate so I gave them a tech for peace. Elves and Hippus are outpacing me quite a bit on tech... Malakim still a middle of the pack nation. The barbs have slowed to a trickle and Malakim forces are moving north to the capture what used to be Dark Elf territory from the barbs.

Theres not a horse anywhere in site still...

:( Try a random huge map with >18 civs, see if that works? Also, maybe there is an auto save you can load.
My huge map starting with 24 civs (minus 4 destroyed, plus Hyborem and Basium) is going just fine (though it took about 10-15 minutes for my computer to process AC 40).

I'll give your map another go within a week. Would it matter where I save the file, and how I start the game with it?

I'm no expert, but try this--open WB in a random FfH 2 v25 etc. game. save in WB, then load in WB. If it works, note the folder it saved to, try loading this map from there. If mine still doesn't work, post the save from your map so I can compare them to see what is different.

Just for the record, I had the CTD once starting this map but only once, not sure what that means. I'm gonna try another start with the new map to help you tune it up. I like the current default settings (The no tech brokering is cool, I used to like to play FFH with no trading at all but this is a great middle ground imo). Did you give the Malakim some horses now? Considering their poor starting location I don't think it would be a bad thing at all to put one close to the start spot.

I'll try that out Nikis-Knight.
Since I won't be able to touch Civ today (if I'm smart...), does the FfH patch matter? I notice that patch K is supposed to break saves.

Works fine with the most recent. Almost entirely certain with other patches as well. :)

Just for the record, I had the CTD once starting this map but only once, not sure what that means
Me neither, but it is interesting, thanks.

The Ljosafar seem to always end up the leaders every game...

Kurioates are right there as well, but maybe its due to the sprawling being deactivated.

You aren't kidding about the elves. I reduced their starting location and took some of the bonuses away from the Ygdrisil area. (Gameplay over pretties!)
Also, Acheron/Orthus spawned on an island in the n. ocean, which is unfun, so it's much reduced. (first post updated.)

I'd leave in the Nature Preserve, its cool, it doesn't help the AI all that much I don't think, and it can be destroyed by Barbs rather easily. Just my 2 cents. And as for the tree area, maybe 1 deer instead of 2 and leave 1 of the furs?

Ironically I tried out your newest revised map and Acheron camped out right next to Yggrasil. :lol: Malakim are much better now I think, very playable.

Falamar is almost always in last place, I think he needs some help, maybe even changing the starting position a bit. He has trouble expanding...

Falamar is almost always in last place, I think he needs some help, maybe even changing the starting position a bit. He has trouble expanding...

Could be due to the constant stream of skeletons if he doesn't take out that nearby barrow early on, as it also blocks a main path north and west.

Good map! Very... interesting. Started as Ljosalfar (as always). Builded a city between a prebuilt Death Mana and a Shadow Mana, and -poof-, both mana nodes become raw mana! :crazyeye:

on the first post could you mention where to place the file? ( im not to sure where it goes myself... scenarios or ffh sub-folder?)

Public Maps of your BTS folder. Then play scenario or custom scenario.

Good map! Very... interesting. Started as Ljosalfar (as always). Builded a city between a prebuilt Death Mana and a Shadow Mana, and -poof-, both mana nodes become raw mana! Yeah, that always happens in FfH--mana nodes become neutral when cultural borders change in their tile.

i have both the newest version of ffh and the newest bts patch but im still getting a crash when the intro movie starts

is there a solution to this problem yet?

I'm not sure... but it might be because I don't have the media pack installed. I will download that and then upload a new version, maybe it will help.

Well, three suggestions if you are getting crash problems (obviously I double check each version myself before posting and haven't personally seen this)
1) Re-download. Maybe you dl'ed it the first time as I was replacing it? (File size unzipped should be 927 kb.
2) Try with movies turned off?
3) Try to load an autosave after a crash and see if that works to bypass the problem?
Let me know if anything works!
(All this assumes you have the CPU/RAM to play a huge map, of course.)

I started a game as Alexis, and on turn 8 one of the skeletons from the new lairs near Kandros killed me. Fastest death ever for me. I was unlucky though, and had chosen to make a scout instead of a warrior first. Next game there were three skeletons attacking my city around turn 12 but I had a couple warriors this time.

I'm not complaining though. I had Raging Barbs on so I was asking for it.

Also, you took away the Calabim's copper! That's okay, I realized I'd rather have a town there anyway. Good work here!

I started the game as Valledia and much to my surprise I had a galleon miles away from my starting position. Is this right?

I started the game as Valledia and much to my surprise I had a galleon miles away from my starting position. Is this right?Yeah, it's a nod to the Age of Ice scenario. you can delete it or use it to fog-bust. (keep barbs from spawning in the area around it.)

3) Try to load an autosave after a crash and see if that works to bypass the problem?


That worked for me. Thanks for the suggestion. :cool:

Mr Nikis Knight

What a marvelous map. It must have taken ages to design, but it's an excellent piece of work of which you should be rightfully proud: clever use of numerous small seas to define distinct regions, and get maximum playing space, and the little scenic touches look great (particularly the mountain range from the Vale of Arawn to the Broken Sepulchre).

Unfortunately, my humble laptop tends to keel over and kick it's legs in the air about the middle of the game, so I can't really play beyond that. I am most disappointed!

However, within this limitation I've had good games as the Ljosalfar (a shock when I went south, but a powerhouse under Guardian of Nature), the Amurites (starting position was a bit tough, but was getting things together when my "hungry" northern neighbour wiped me out with a proper horde) and the Grigori (great starting position).

Great work. I just wish I had a more powerful machine!

Thanks! When I tried playing the Doviello yesterday, I took out the Amurites after about 20 turns. Then the Bannor as soon as I found them. Then I was sort of stuck for a long time with super slow research. I don't know if there's much to be done about that., Charadon just makes a bad neighbor.

Well, I tried everything again, and the auto-save trick worked this time. Yay!

Is there a reason you put perma-vision on all the special sites for the Elohim? I can understand them knowing the locations, but I can't see the justification for the constant vision. I've met a bunch of civs already at the beginning of my game, including those that are quite far away.

That worked for me. Thanks for the suggestion. :cool:

Same here, thanks for solution to CTD problem and interesting map:goodjob:

Is there a reason you put perma-vision on all the special sites for the Elohim? I can understand them knowing the locations, but I can't see the justification for the constant vision.People have reported the same in random maps. I would agree with you that a fogged over reveal is best.

Sorry for the OT:

It seems that a lot of people are suffering from CTD during game start-up, as I have been with both this map and randon maps. I found a trick to avoid it that is less cumbersome than reloading the game and loading aitosave.

Wait for the progress bar for the initial loading to finish. As soon as the bar is complete, start clicking quickly (once every half second). Keep clicking as the screen goes black for a few seconds, and the mouse icon goes from the standard BTS arrow to the spinning-earth.

Well I must admit, I'm really enjoying this map. Playing as Valledia the Even, founded Octupus Overlords, wiped the Doviello and just about to wipe Auric as well. I have no idea how I'm actually going to win this game but having immense fun. There are huge religious blocks forming and plenty of AI warfare (usually en-masse) happening but no other casualties as yet.

Great work.

Played as the Elves on Emperor diffiulty.

Had to restart and turn off Raging Barbs. The AI seems to love their early expansion, and they pay the price for it. Worse yet is that most of the remaining civs have their early game crippled. No challenge for the human player who knows how to handle Raging Barbs. :(

Maybe I'll try again on Immortal. Will that make a difference in how the AI fares against the Barbs?

Or you could tweak the XML so that:
- the AI has a better bonus versus barbarians
- barbarians have a larger penalty when attacking cities

In my current game, with default settings (so no raging barbs :(), no AI has been eliminated yet, but they still lose cities to the barbs. You should never lose cities to the barbs, but perhaps I'm just not a risk-taker in that sense?

You know, looking through the editor, it seems that the ai does get bonus units at higher difficulty, BUT, since when I edit the map and save it, it saves the noble level starting units on the map, I think that they might not get them. I will look into.
Ozzkp told me if I delete the units from the file, it should start them normally at their start locations. That's what I'll do, the only difficulty is that I have to redo that every time I edit through WB.

Edit: Okay, it works, with a couple issues--Amurites can't start with a galleon anymore, otherwise they get no units. And there is a unit multiplier at the highest levels, so on diety AI Doviello will be... rather nasty :lol:. But that is as it is on random maps anyway. Good luck Valledia, but everyone else will do better at harder levels when playing with today's version. :)

Or you could tweak the XML so that:
- the AI has a better bonus versus barbarians
- barbarians have a larger penalty when attacking cities

In my current game, with default settings (so no raging barbs :(), no AI has been eliminated yet, but they still lose cities to the barbs. You should never lose cities to the barbs, but perhaps I'm just not a risk-taker in that sense?

With normal Barb setting, Barbarian units now tend to wander the the wilderness until they reach critical mass, at which point they flood in. They took me by surprise in Ozzy's map, and I just barely managed to hold on to al of my cities until the initial surge passed.

The worst part of that initial surge was a stack of 5 Skeletons that came in while my defenders were still slightly wounded.

From the few games I played, it seems the AI is more firmly in expand-mode at the beginning of the game. They will have anywhere from 3-5 cities and plenty of workers and developed tiles, but will have only one defender per city (two, maybe, for capital city) with 2-3 other units wandering their territory.

Yes, I'm sure both those strategies are part of better ai--using units in stacks better, and more rapid expansion.
However, when it's the barbs who use stacks and the ai who rapidly expands, combined with a lot of space, there's going to be a few cities lost.
But without raging barbs, I haven't actually seen an ai lose entirely in the first 200 turns lately.
With raging barbs, I can barely hold on myself. ;)

Just wanted to say, great job I havent played on any other map since this came out. Thanks for the hard work! Now if only I can finish a game without getting the endless "Waiting for other civs".

Played again as Elves, Emperor difficulty with no Raging Barbs, this time on the updated map and not the original. I was surprised to see that you took out the incense from the starting location. That forced me to change my early science strat from quick Calandar/plantations rush to Mysticism/Elder council spam. Still, its a fair starting location with good surrounding terrain, especially with Ygdrassil in the fat cross of my second city. More balanced now.

Played as the Dwarves as well. I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the lack of hills and mountains, but I think I may have been spoiled by Ozzy's map of Erebus. However, there is a marked lack of hills for the Dwarves to settle into further out from their starting point.

As to the elves, they usually start in the middle of the score, then work their way quickly to the top. Their start location may have been a little too good, but I think it is mostly the case that their playstyle matches the ai well, so I won't be penalizing them any more.

I could see adding a few more hills for the dwarves, I'll put in on the to do list. :)

No joke about the better AI, I thought I was doing pretty well as the Lanun, was in 2nd place of contacted leaders, big rich cities, but a bit low on land armies. Then the Orcs, backed by their barbarian allies, took down the Bannor. I thought 'OK, well no big thing, the orcs are far off.' Then Barbarian wolf riders started streaming in from the east, causing me some annoyances. Finally, a DOW, and an Uberstack of like 40 units of orcs...chariots,catapults and axemen but in those numbers that was plenty. They had no problem cracking 3 Royal Guards and Saeverous in one of my major cities :(

I'm still playing it (despite the fact I can't 'win' now), so a full bug report will come later. But I just wanted to quickly let you know that my Marathon game timed out at 690 turns - that's far too early. I haven't played a marathon random game with .25, so I don't know if this is caused by your map (but I'm assuming it is ;)).

I suppose that when I entered to edit in WB under normal speed, then saved to the world builder file saved the normal speed number of max turns, no matter what game speed is actually selected.
I deleted that line, so it should return to default.

Just wanted to say, great job I havent played on any other map since this came out. Thanks for the hard work! Now if only I can finish a game without getting the endless "Waiting for other civs".

Whenever that comes up do a save (while you are "waiting for other civs"!) and load it. Voila, the wait is over.
I found this out in a build of 0.25 when switching to Infernals/Mercurians was bugged. This way it worked. :)

Hi when playing this map I have had it crash twice when the counter reaches 100 it might be because of size or something

Yeah, sadly I think that would happen on any map with lots of units at that point... Maybe we should add a "No apocalypse" game option...

I could go into worldbuilder and erase a lot of units do you think that would work and a couple of cities I can always put them back latter what do you think.

Well if you go into worldbuilder (might take a long time to load up with tons of stuff going on), make a save, open that save with notepad, and insert this line

Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_GLOBAL_COUNTER
somewhere between BeginGame and EndGame, I think it should continue without triggering the apocalypse anymore.

Hi, I am currently playing the Grigori on Deity (They died to the Orcs each time I played something else, and since I like Cassiels background I though I give him a try).
For some reason, when I rushed that Tates at about turn 80, they had much lss units than I would have expected (about 5 defenders in capital, only 2 each in other cities), as it is possilbe to have bronze working and a trainign gorund by that turn, they were ree exp for my 2 Axeman heroes.
However, this could have been due to barb trouble.
I also noticed that the following civs became strong every game (Immortal, Emperor or Deity): Malakim (although the always build in a way that will have the Sun mirror out of their fat cross, I think AI fails to take the production into account), Calabim, Ljosolfar, Balseraphs.
Doviello, Amurites, Sidar and Ilians are usually at the bottom.
Esp. the Sidar could really need a boost, but that may be due to them missing one trait.
Svartalfar seems to do decent without traits, but elves always do decent.

It seems like the Age of Ice trio is simply trapped in quite marginal lands, usually with Barb problems and a bunch of early warfare not achieving much.

By the way, the Grigori starting point is a rush players wt dream, built your first city near the remains of the Vatherland/Wine/Gold spot, get Minging/Roads/bronze working, plop a secnodn city at the cow/copper spot and rush the snot out of the Tates.
No need to build many settlers when you can let the AI build stuff for you.
The Sheeaim are occupied with Barbatos/Varn Gosam and wont do much, while Arendel does no backstab at all.
Use your army to take out the Orcs (who will attack you at one point since you will look weaker then the orcs). bribing the Bannor into the war is cheap, so do it.
Next bribe the bannor against the Amurits/Doviello or Ilians and backstab them when their units are away. I am currently fillling up the Pristinus pass area between me and the Sheaim, while getting some catapults to free my mages for some seious pyre Zombi removal duty.
So far its a great game, and I cant wait to take on the big fish (in my game Bannor, Ljosolfar, Alexis).

Hi, welcome to Civfanatics.
The Sidar are going to be moved all around, so they can interact more with the other civs and don't have a huge expanse of barb filled land at their backs.
The way the Malakim and Calabim are set up, they have several areas with a handful of deserts but enough floodplains to compensate. However, early in the game you hardly need all the tiles in your fat cross, so this tends to be an advantage without a drawback. They might get some minor tweaks in the future.

The Ai should also be making better unit choices next version, Kael is working on it.

Hi, I was acutally lurking for quite a long time and playing Civ 4 for a fair bit longer.

The points about the flood plains make a lot of sense, since health/happyness are a non issue for the AI on higher difficulty levels.

I am close to believe that some barrows in the Malakim/Calabim area may a good idea.

It could also be that the bad performance of Amurites/Illians/Doviello is caused by them, not by their starting points. I rarely see any of them doing well in random games too.

Man this is a Great map Nikis-Knight. I have enjoyed it immensely. Even the consistent MAFs couldn't deter me from playing on. But now I've been WOC'd (the Waiting for Other Civilizations bug) and cannot go on. I loaded from a previous auto-save and replayed the turn but still got WOC'd. Any ideas?

Man this is a Great map Nikis-Knight. I have enjoyed it immensely. Even the consistent MAFs couldn't deter me from playing on. But now I've been WOC'd (the Waiting for Other Civilizations bug) and cannot go on. I loaded from a previous auto-save and replayed the turn but still got WOC'd. Any ideas?

JDexter said to save and load while that is happening. (That'd be shift F5 & shift F8 respectively.) Can't vouch personally for that though.

By the way, the Grigori starting point is a rush players wt dream, built your first city near the remains of the Vatherland/Wine/Gold spot, get Minging/Roads/bronze working, plop a second city at the cow/copper spot and rush the snot out of the Tates.I thought of a way to limit these a bit--I'll add jungle or change the terrain to desert under the ruins of Patria.

Waiting for Other Civilizations bug....JDexter said to save and load while that is happening. (That'd be shift F5 & shift F8 respectively.) Can't vouch personally for that though.Thanks, I'll give it a shot using the hotkeys. I have tried using the menu to save and then reload, but I still got WOC'd. Going back and replaying older turns didn't work either. I hope using the hot keys work since the game was one of the most interesting I've ever played. And the AI was just getting the late game units which is very rare for me when playing the smaller maps. I couldn't wait to finish this game and play other civs. It really is a great map, you've done a fine job with it! I just wish it was smaller, but I guess it just wouldn't be the same then. But most of all I wish that Firaxis had been able to fix the MAF and also avoid whatever it is that causes the WOC. Everyone should be able to play your map and experiance FfH at its finest!

i noticed how you put the light and dark elves side by side and the Amurites and the Doviello side by side but what about the Calabim and the Sheaim... seems like Os-Gabella's children would be the civ right next door

Have played two games so far on this map and I like it.
But, both times the Balseraphs have grown to dominate all others since they kill off the barbs and get the back free.

Might be something to look into.

i noticed how you put the light and dark elves side by side and the Amurites and the Doviello side by side but what about the Calabim and the Sheaim... seems like Os-Gabella's children would be the civ right next door
Well, they aren't too far from each other, but I didn't feel a need to have them be neighbors since they left long ago. I tried to keep the alignments mixed in general for conflict's sake, though sometimes it just means that the neutrals spread their religion and change the evil's alignments (I'm looking at you, dwarves!)


But, both times the Balseraphs have grown to dominate all others since they kill off the barbs and get the back free.I put up a new version that kills some of this free land.

Updated the first post with a new map; a large map with 12 civs. The intention is to have a scenario where all the religions come into play.

The download link for your new one doesn't seem to be working, also what civs do you have for each religion?

I'd say Hannah and Perpentach for OO, Luchuirp and Khazad for Runes, and Fol and Hippus for leaves. But just guesses.

You must have started as I removed it, sorry (I always forget to remove the initial visibility until I play again.) It should work now.
The leaders used are Dain, Amelenchier, Varn, Einon, Hannah, Perp, Capria, Os-Gabella, Arturus, Garrim, Faeryl, and Morgoth.
I was tempted to use two Ljos leaders, but put in the Amurites instead; Leaves seems to have a little more affininty for magic than other religions and the alignment fits.

Oh of course, i forgot about those other two new religions. Good point.

Well, I finally let go of my first game. No one was summoning Hyborem, the Celestial compass didn't give me that bonus, and the AC wasn't really going up anyway (I wanted to have a "Battle the AC Rise" game as the Elohim), so I figured it was time to try another. It was a pretty sweet game though - I love this map.

Here are some things I found specific to your map (tile positions may be slightly off):

- there is forest in a Coast tile three tiles right and two tiles above the Pool of Tears
- there is forest in a Coast tile two tiles right and three tiles above the Ljosolfar starting position
- the fort that is placed 9 squares above and 2 squares left of the Elohim start position does not give a defencive bonus
- there is a ocean tile with fish that is not accessible to anyone located south of the Malaki desert (north-east of the Black Tower)

just tried out the new map, playing as the elves (ljos). One thing i quickly noticed was their lack of incense, which made them inable to train their priests neccesary for bloom. Of course i ended up trading it with the amurites, but i recon it'd be better to exchange one of the silk resources with an incense.

There is one next to the beach north of "Rantine's retreat", if i remember it correctly.

Will there someday be a smaller and more computer-friendly version of your huge map?

- there is forest in a Coast tile three tiles right and two tiles above the Pool of Tears
- there is forest in a Coast tile two tiles right and three tiles above the Ljosolfar starting position
- the fort that is placed 9 squares above and 2 squares left of the Elohim start position does not give a defencive bonusAh, I'll look into the forest. The fort is there to act as a chanel, mostly, so I don't care about the defensive bonus. I'd assume it would if it fell into someone's territory, though?

No one was summoning HyboremAch, it's probably the evil civs converting too soon. Those stupid elves & dwarves. Wanting to play as Basium is what made me make the new map.
Be sure to get the latest version if you start another. :)
just tried out the new map, playing as the elves (ljos). One thing i quickly noticed was their lack of incense, which made them inable to train their priests neccesary for bloom. Of course i ended up trading it with the amurites, but i recon it'd be better to exchange one of the silk resources with an incense.Well, incense is important... so I'll probably do as you suggest, though I want to encourage trading with your partner so alliances form semi-naturally and I don't have to add in pre-existing diplomacy bonuses/penalties.
Will there someday be a smaller and more computer-friendly version of your huge map?I can't say. It'd be nice, but it'd also be a lot of work, so I won't promise anything.

Will there someday be a smaller and more computer-friendly version of your huge map?

I can't say. It'd be nice, but it'd also be a lot of work, so I won't promise anything.

There's always the converter which reduces the amount of work by 80%

Ah, I forgot to look for that. I downloaded it, and will play around later today.

which still leaves 20% of ALOT that is still a lot ... :)
but you're right... it helps

maybe s/o interested in this kind of reduction can do it him(her)self and then give it to the community ??? (instead of asking Nikis to do all the hard job..)

Hi. Just thought I'd say I love the erebus map. I've not been having any problems with it 'cept for my computer running kinda slow lol.

Its about turn 150 playing as the calabim, there starting location is great with all the floodplains everywhere. As soon as I get my hands on some water mana I'll get the desert sorted out too altough its not much off a problem really. Just finished crushing the malakim with hordes of moroi. lol.

Great map.

Ah, I'll look into the forest. The fort is there to act as a chanel, mostly, so I don't care about the defensive bonus. I'd assume it would if it fell into someone's territory, though?
That could be right. I noticed the same problem on Sureshot's map.
Does it act as a channel when unclaimed, though? I'll have to try that when I get the chance.
Ach, it's probably the evil civs converting too soon. Those stupid elves & dwarves. Wanting to play as Basium is what made me make the new map.
Yeah, well, it was only one game. Can't really base game-play feedback too heavily on it. There were two evil civs left, one who founded AV. But the AV wasn't spreading, for some reason. After a couple of hundred turns it was in maybe 5 cities (based loosely on memory).

which still leaves 20% of ALOT that is still a lot ... :)
but you're right... it helps

maybe s/o interested in this kind of reduction can do it himself and then give it to the community ??? (instead of asking Nikis to do all the hard job..)

The 20% left is playtesting and balancing which can always be outsourced to the community:)

Actually I made smaller height and terrain maps with the converter for my study of Fast'n'Furious-Super-Insane-Tiny-Maps-With-Lots-of-Civs
One in half size (1/2.25 actually, about 80x55) and one quarter size (64x40!)
Such maps are interesting, obviously there's no late expansion but clashes are possible from the beginning (->multiplayer) and in ar 300 a 9-player map runs as fast as a huge map in beginning.

So if Nikis approves i can make smaller versions of his map.

I don't mind, though I expect it has a bit more than 20% left--need to realculate start positions, readd resources, double check choke points/passages, etc. So I was thinking that this would be a good time to rethink what works and what doesn't in general.
edit:
So if Nikis approves i can make smaller versions of his map. Actually, I would appreciate that, if you're already familiar with the utility.

I'm on my second game with the map. This time i'm the Calabim playing at Epic speed and i'm at turn 523. Two things...

I'm stuck on a Waiting for other Civilizations hang. Tried the F5 then F8 thing but the game didn't seem to respond to either key. It is a great game, really sad to loose so much time and effort. Tried previous reloads and same crash when i get to that point.
The turn it crashed the cultural border expanded onto the 'shadow mana' if that matters. No way to stop the expansion to test it though.

In this game and the previous game with this map i've not seen Hyborem or the Mercurians at all. I am pretty sure Hyborem never got summoned. This game Auric founded the Veil (and never took a state religion of course) so that may be the problem. I haven't met any civs yet with Veil as their religion but as i said it is turn 523 on Epic.

Wonderful map btw.

- feydras

I don't mind, though I expect it has a bit more than 20% left--need to realculate start positions, readd resources, double check choke points/passages, etc. So I was thinking that this would be a good time to rethink what works and what doesn't in general.
edit:
Actually, I would appreciate that, if you're already familiar with the utility.

Choke points/passages are checked already in the maps, they should be same as in the huge map.
20% is left WHEN you outsource some testing, at least based on my style of design:
1. decide what kind of map you want to make
2. choose the civs
3. regret your choices of phase 2, wanting to add civ X
4. decide the overall style of the map
5. try to place the civs
6. fail in it as you want that conflict/alliance there and it doesn't fit
7. redo phases 2-6 2 times, then 2-5
8. do a base map
9. switch the jungle and desert, return to phase 8
10. place the resources
11. feel that civ Y has too good start, with all that flood plains AND good resources
12. worsen civ Y's start
13. ARRRGGGHH! civ Z was left behind, redo phases 4-6,4-5,8,10 and 11-12
14. give it to someone to test

feydras,
Interesting about the shadow mana; I could see that being a problem, actually. I will change it to untyped mana in the future, just in case, but if you want to test, enter world builder and delete the mana (or replace with a plain type.

As for the adopting of the veil, that annoys me a little as well. I considered switching the Khazad start position with the Blaseraph or Hippus perhaps, so that only their corner would go runes. Or maybe giving the Sheaim a couple techs along the Ashen Veil path already...
But in the meantime, try crusades, the second map in the first post. Not perfect yet, but I had a great game as the Mercurians last week using that map.


Choke points/passages are checked already in the maps, they should be same as in the huge map.Roughly, I'd expect, but if something starts as 2-3 tiles huge, I could see it getting truncated down to zero on large, or vice versa. And I sympathize with your design steps. :)

Nikis-Knight,

My theory doesn't appear to be right. On double checking it was the preset Death mana that the border grew to emcompass not the Shadow. Despite this i did try to wipe them in World Builder and it still hung. If i get more time i may go through and try to wipe a bunch of civs at a time and see if i can isolate it. I'll probably start with all of my cities except a minor one to see if my civ is causing the bug. It would be nice to isolate it.

BTW - since it doesn't appear to be the Shadow mana i'd leave it in as it is a neat addition. I wish it was possible to add some function to the Shadow and Sun mana while we wait for Shadow but that would require modding not a map i assume.

I tried to test by wiping out a handful of civs but when i go back from World Builder the game crashes on me. Guess i give up the troubleshooting.

One question would be if people are having the WfoC hang what civ were they playing? I was playing the Calabim.

- feydras

i had wfoc hang one time playing the elohim when i went for altar victory, so i had only few land. that would exclude a cause by cultural expansion. at least for the elohim area :)

Roughly, I'd expect, but if something starts as 2-3 tiles huge, I could see it getting truncated down to zero on large, or vice versa. And I sympathize with your design steps. :)

I checked them with the mapview, they should be the same with 95% accuracy guarantee in the current version. These professional tools make mapmaking a lot less tedious, so I really appreciate your classical worldbuilder tinkering. Not all have patience for that, especially if they follow those design steps:D

Some things really get tiny but the main features are still there: the dale and pass of Malakim-Svartalfar mountains and the ring shape of the Lanun lagoon to name a few. The conversion is done so that 2x2 tiles becomes 1x1 so it's pretty realistic with 21 civs and quick speed, as techs still come relatively slow because of the few cities
(now imagine that with epic speed:p)

These are pictures of the original map and the small version:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/116386/Knight_s_erebusoriginal.jpg
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/116386/Knight_s_erebustiny.jpg

Might need to cut back on the number of peaks in the upper left hand corner though.

I tried to make it unenterable but from south, like in the huge version. I admit it has far too many peaks when compared to other mountain areas but how else i'm going to get it such?

Hrm, not seeing where there is a blockage on the big map (is the whole thing showing? Seems that it doesn't wrap quite right top to bottom). I'm talking about the sideways "C" of mountains in the corner of the map (encloses 3 grassland and a forest, can only get in through a diagonal on the southwest)

The original map was too big to fit in that picture, these are not the whole map but approximately same parts of it, here's the original corner:

Nikis-Knight,

You probably read the .25 bug thread and so already know this but the 'Waiting on other civilizations' hang bug doesn't appear to be anything to do with your map. It is reported there and i just had the hang again on a random map.

Okies, kinda figured I was missing something important there when I looked closer :)

You could replace some of the mountains with ice on the Northeast to keep it inaccessible from that direction, but increase the workable tiles available. But now that I see that section of the map I don't know if you really ought to change it up.

That might work but what about blight? It melts half of the ice allowing access there.

Ack, didn't know that one. I rarely have Ice in my games, always play Torroidal maps.

Honestly to me that part isn't overly important. The mountians weren't there to block access, but to suggest that it is a sheltered valley which, along with volcanoes, explains why you see warmer terrain there. Basically just trying to make it interesting and a bit reminiscent of AoI.

Well that's what you get when you outsource:)

Oh, it's fine work, you just needn't be overly concerned with preserving a vision that was a whim. ;)

It was like that and I didn't know exactly what it was or why it was there so I thought it was important and recreated it.

I'm having this same problem in my Hippus game. I'm unable to use the hotkeys to quick-save and quick-load while the WOC message is up. Are there any other fixes to this problem?

If it helps to know, I was at AD 269 when I get the WOC.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot using the hotkeys. I have tried using the menu to save and then reload, but I still got WOC'd. Going back and replaying older turns didn't work either. I hope using the hot keys work since the game was one of the most interesting I've ever played. And the AI was just getting the late game units which is very rare for me when playing the smaller maps. I couldn't wait to finish this game and play other civs. It really is a great map, you've done a fine job with it! I just wish it was smaller, but I guess it just wouldn't be the same then. But most of all I wish that Firaxis had been able to fix the MAF and also avoid whatever it is that causes the WOC. Everyone should be able to play your map and experiance FfH at its finest!

Edit: Although I wasn't able to get pass this error, this was my first experience with FfH and I greatly enjoyed it. I'm going to try the Crusades map next. Thank you so much for making these maps. :)

I'm having this same problem in my Hippus game. I'm unable to use the hotkeys to quick-save and quick-load while the WOC message is up. Are there any other fixes to this problem?I haven't had time to try this yet, but Kael has posted a possible solution here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6149814#post6149814).
A few posts after that he tells how to install the possible fix.

Certainly, since current version wouldn't work with it, due to civics changes. Anything else bothering you while I'm at it? I know somewhere there is a forest on the coast :rolleyes:
Well, there's the water forest near the elven capital. However, seeing it turn into ancient forest has me thinking this may be a natural defence for their main harbour (and have come to assume you intended it that way). You should add another water forest next to it to complete the protection ;)
(I've decided to use this idea in my D&D campaign)

There's another I found, but I can't remember off the top of my head. Since most civs got wiped out by the barbs in my last game, I don't have any landmarks to place it. I'll get the tile location the next time I play.

Well, there's the water forest near the elven capital. However, seeing it turn into ancient forest has me thinking this may be a natural defence for their main harbour (and have come to assume you intended it that way). You should add another water forest next to it to complete the protection ;)
(I've decided to use this idea in my D&D campaign)

There's another I found, but I can't remember off the top of my head. Since most civs got wiped out by the barbs in my last game, I don't have any landmarks to place it. I'll get the tile location the next time I play.

Its on the south part of the island in the sea to the right of the Lanun start.

To make the Knight's Erebus map compatible with Shadow (FfH 2 0.30) you have to open the map file with a text editor and replace the two instances of "MORGOTH" with "SANDALPHON". Voila.

... wait, too bad the map than crashes during the loading procedure.

I'm looking into it now, apparently there's more than I thought here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6259528&postcount=58)

Hey, I'm trying to convert your great scenario to .30, and changed the map according to your link. It does not crash once I activate it, but I am instantly "defeated," for some reason, even before I play my first turn.

Yeah, sorry, I've tried for a few hours this afternoon to avoid that. If you get success, lemme know, but I'll keep cracking at it next week.:confused:

Does anyone know what causes the instant defeat? I get that alot when trying to upgrade maps from older versions.

Tried modifying some of the stuff to get it to work, but I can't get the map to not crash during the loading procedure. Changed all units assigned to team 40 to team 35 for new barbarian team, tried removing the now "extra" teams, changed all the lines talked about in this thread... can't get it working, has anyone else managed to?

I love this map so much that its hard to go back to playing just random map games... After playing a map where, you know, the terrain actually makes sense its really difficult to play games where mountains just kind of randomly spawn and resources are splattered about at random. I'd go so far as to say this map should probably be included in new release downloads...

I completely agree with you. :D
And I got it to work, by doing all that you did, but also removing some of the winning conditions: time and altar, I think.

I completely agree with you. :D
And I got it to work, by doing all that you did, but also removing some of the winning conditions: time and altar, I think.

Aiee! I still can't get it to work. After playing this map I have trouble playing random.

EDIT: w00t, got it, missed the part about placing the barbarians on team 35. Now it works.

Alright, Shadow version linked in first post. Thanks to snarko who told me first to change the team ownership of barbarian units from team 40 to 35.

Yay!567890

Hey, does anyone have tips for improving the loading time in between turns? Not sure if anyone else has this problem. It's bearable until rival civs go in to the 1500 point range, making the wait excruciatingly long. My computer is fairly new and I have the graphics cranked up pretty high (not sure if that affects load time). This is probably the first time I've had problems playing Civ4 but seeing as how this is by far the best FFH map I've seen, I can't really settle with anything else.

hmm, I still CTD on the first turn with .30 patch d.. can anyone get this working or is it just me?

hmm, I still CTD on the first turn with .30 patch d.. can anyone get this working or is it just me?

Even if it CTD's you should be able to load up the turn 1 autosave and play that way.

"On" the first turn, or as the game loads up (before you even can take any actions)?

If it's the latter, that's expected. Just load up the auto-save for turn 1.

Ok so just had my second game in a row where Auric Ulvin founded OO, AV and CoE and everyone else converted to Empyrean, RoK or FoL. Except for Auric and Charadon, everyone was Good or Neutral and on the Overcouncil. Happy joyful hugfests are nice, but they don't make for a compelling game I'm afraid.

I guess I'll remove his goodie huts. I wanted to keep him competitive, but it isn't worth him founding religions.

Auric founds more religions than anyone else in a normal game. I don't think it is because of goodyhuts on your map. I think all the leaders are made to have different weightings towards different techs, and he would be made to never research religious tech. In the meantime he should be given the agnostic trait.

would be cool if you add in a few islands or archipelagos near falamar... colonies and such would be a nice addition and good flavor-wise for that civ

Does this map work in mp over direct ip ? i cant seem to get it working :mad:

There's two large islands near falamar, two more elsewhere. I could fit in another under aurics isthmus.

I don't see why it wouldn't work in ip; can you get other pre-made maps to work? (And of course you need the newest version of both the map and of FfH 2, both players must have the latest patch, etc.)

we both have bts 3.13 + ffh0.30, the problem is i cannot select a civ when i join the game, the civs for the host are all greyed out means he cannot change the ai nor open a slot? We can load any other scenario so far :confused:


edit:

Ok the problem is via direct ip the player max is 16, im trying to edit it and removed som civs but the game keeps crashing on loading, could you make a 16 player version please ?

Just downloaded your map. Its great. But I noticed you have 2 remnants of patria (maoi statues) on the map. Thats intended? And wondering why rantines hide out was neer the elves, while in his background story he was hiding out near the bannor.

I'll pu up a 16 player version, but I'm not sure if it will work--there will still be 35 teams, but some will be empty. Who do you want removed?

---
Yeah, it is intended. It's a big map and there aren't quite enough features to go around.
Rantine's retreat is where he went after leaving the clan, but before returning west to the orc/bannor lands in his entry.

Cool, id say kick grigori, sidar and luchiurp. The teams are implemented to force civs to form powerblocks ?

I really enjoyed the .25 version of this map. It played better than any map i generated. I'm looking forward to playing again now that it is .30 compatible.

- feydras

Yep this map is great for SP (I only play SP) do not change it, you're cute, and so much whatever. May the gods bless you, what's sure is that they will be fighting about who will get you in their paradise. (now, was that a tad too much ?...)

Got a question.. is there a way to change leader? I only get a leader by civ ... is it me that do something wrong.

(sorry if it as been asked but .. 8 page of text ;)

I do have a concern about the ljosfalar startloc, i tryd them and decided to rush to the yggdrasil tree instead of settling, which took me 3 turns. However the 5 food resource allowed me to grow way faster than anybody else and i reached pop 6 within 30 turns. During the whole time i built warriors and rushed with them the svatalar. I killed a scout of them and my first warrior was level 3. Together with the others i attacked their city which had a size 3 by that time guarded by 2 warriors and a scout. They didnt stand a chance.
Im afraid this tree is a bit unfair considering you can use him instantly + 2 deerspots which also give +3 food you can grow very quick. So i have an idea: Why dont u place one or two barbarian Fawns on the tree like the lichking on his tomb but give them an (inmovable promotion) like the red dragon has. This would hinder an emediate exploit of it. :rolleyes:

Got a question.. is there a way to change leader? I only get a leader by civ ... is it me that do something wrong.

(sorry if it as been asked but .. 8 page of text ;)I wish I could set it up so players could choose. But it is easy to edit. Right click on the file, open with wordpad, hit ctrl-F, type in the name of the leader of the civ you want to change, and replace it with the other leader's name in caps.

I do have a concern about the ljosfalar startloc I was wondering if it was OP or not after the recent change; I can tone it down a bit; the barb is a good idea, maybe a barbarian guardian vines.

moved .

I was wondering if it was OP or not after the recent change; I can tone it down a bit; the barb is a good idea, maybe a barbarian guardian vines.

Whats OP ? I use your most recent version i think. I managed to cut down the scenario to 16 civs for direct ip btw, works like charm now.

Ill have a look on your new map :)

Whats OP ? I use your most recent version i think. I managed to cut down the scenario to 16 civs for direct ip btw, works like charm now.

Ill have a look on your new map :)OP = over powered. Glad you were able to edit it okay. I was doing so, but removing the "team=reveal= got to be a pain, I think I was going about it in a backwards way.

Here is another map I'm working on, quite different. Your goal is to lead the Bannor out of Hell. You start with a number of strong units. I think this is probably wildly imbalanced now, but I'm not sure in which direction. Try it if you like and let me know.

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(Actually attached it this time)

I should say, it won't win when you go to the portal, my scenario-making powers are not that good.... that is the goal of the player, though.

Now that is a cool idea :-D.

Tried the map with .30f and couldn't get it to work. It crashed to desktop while initialing the map. I loaded up the auto save but it put me in my prior game. I don't think it got far enough to make a save.

- feydras

Started playing the new map. After 5 or so turns I get the message, "you have founded a new religion, what would you like to call it" every turn.

okay, I'll check that

I've had a few more games that turned out very interestingly.

Some things I've noticed:

The Doviello will attack the weaker of the Illians or the Amurites, in games where the Amurites are weak the Doviello expand that way and the Illians become a major power, in games where where the Illians end up weaker, the Doviello crush them and the Amurites become a major power. If the Doviello take out the Amurites, they tend to butt heads against the Bannor. All of this is fine, but that one continent is a very interesting power struggle.

I like interesting. ;)
I've seen them go down for the Lanun before, too.

I've seen them skip the amurites and attack (and conquer) the Bannor! I was Lanun....

yeah doviello are strange... he has 1 city (but no war) and send a stack of 2 hunter 1 scout 2 beastman and declare war to me .. lanun... lol

Okay i have tried the calabim on king and had an easy run. I pushed the malakim out of the eastern desert, took 3 of their citys but let them remain as a buffer against arendel. Around turn 300 now the amurites got exterminated by the doviello as usual, they need help asap in 2/3 games they are just getting owned. Strangely i dont see many wars going on, and if they just skirmish around a little. I would prefer worse relations between good and evil civs. The ai does not very well in some cases, especially the kuriotate and amurite do horrible. The kuriotate cant build proper citys and spam everything with their settlements. The sheaim have problems with the bumpy unfertile terrain, i suppose its ok when they have a though run. Im trying again on emperor now, hope to see a proper competition there.

In every game on this map I've played, both in shadow and the old version, the Calabim are one of, if not the, strongest civilizations. Both the Amurites and Luchurip do very poorly (when Im not playing them). Kurioates seems to just spam cities/settlements but do not build anything in them, most cities, lowest score.

With the Luchurip I tend to start about 3 squares to the north-east to get the river, ancient tower, and that unique improvement that gives life mana. This also blocks long enough for me to build up a dozen wood golems to crush them.

Well, I made a few changes based on your suggestions, removed some Calabim food, Illian goodie huts, Ljo forrests, and added a little to Amurite & Kuriotates.

Yea the kuriotates are awful because the ai cannot handle their special city abilitys. On a wild world like this they dont stand a chance. The calabim do very poorly in all 4-5 games i have played yet, the malakim crush them, they dont expand fast enough and end up sorrounded by the malakim. As a player of course i know that problem and simply settle on the northwestern coast to block them and move southwards then. When i have OV i rush them with 4+ drown and take their eastern settlement, make peace and repeat the procedure. Once they have vampires noone can stop them anyways.

The ljosfalar dont have problems at all, water to the north mountains to the south and lots of space to settle, plus the svatalar are not strong and are hindered in expansion in the west and the malakim come up from the south.
Just dont try raging barbarians and barbarian world, i did very well but kuriotate, doviello, amurites are about to die due to massive barbarian attacks :lol:

If you weaken the calabim take some malakim food as well, but add some resources to the west and south, especially that dry half isle to the south of the calabim that stretches from the east to the west is so barren even the barbs rarely settle there :D I know you want to have the world willd and harsh but the ai is not as smart as a player is :sad: Strangely i never had the red dragon yet, although i encountered some barbarian settlements.

The luchiurp are squeezed between hippus and balseraph, sometimes they get beaten, sometimes those three sit around drinking tea. Clan is fine, Bannor too, Sidar usually rank top as do hippus thanks to the leaders financial trait. (i wish the lanun had hannah :p) The rest is doing so lala, i have yet to find a proper game setting though.

Strangely i never had the red dragon yet, although i encountered some barbarian settlements.I think there is a problem with the latest patch.

I can tinker with Malakim.
Also, what are peoples opinions about some preset diplomacy modifiers?

I always find the world in endless war, but it takes a while to get to this stage (400 turns epic speed). Currently at game is around turn 475, me (Amurites) and my vassals (Lanum, Svartalfar, Kuriorites) are at war with the Calabrim and her vassals (Malakim, Khazad). The Bannor are at war with about everyone and about 5 turns ago about 7 civs ganged up and mass declared on the Sheaim after they founded Ashen Veil.

The fighting will come, usually along religious lines.

I always find the world in endless war, but it takes a while to get to this stage (400 turns epic speed).
The fighting will come, usually along religious lines.

Oh well i usually play on normal, and by turn 300 im usually bored because the ai mostly does not wage war and simply doesnt have proper troops at all.
My latest game was on emperor, sadly i choose barbarian world + raging barbs which ended in the termination of doviello, amurites and kuriotates by 150s.

The major problem in ai behavior is that evil civs get converted to runes or leaves, once that happened theres a rather limited chance for war, i wished there would simply be a mechanism that prohibits evil civs to take good religions that easy, as long theres no such thing, i would strongly recommend to set relations between sworn enemys at least. Doviello is always a jackass, the horde could be way more agressive and the balseraph as well.

especially the east is a peacful place, once the malakim killed the calabim, they and the ljosfalar dominate the place, the svatalar join the leaves and do much either. The runes spread from the khazad mostly to all southern ppl, balseraph, hippus especially.

Okay, check the first post for another version (included in the same zip). Map is identical, but it has every civ have two starting -5 relationships, one +2 and two -1's. Two exceptions are Amurites have one less -5, and Lanun have -4's and -2's instead. Some might not make sense, they're half flavor and half geography based, but all subjective. Please lemme know the effect. I haven't tested other than to make sure it loads fine. If it doesn't spice things up I'm happy to double the modifiers.

I have not used the new map yet but in the old one (before the tweaks to Calabim, Amurites, et al) I am playing as the Clan of Embers, have taken out Sabathiel (he tried to settle in MY river valley), and find the Sheaim and Kuriotates at the top of the leaderboard. The Calabim are third from the bottom and the Illians are at war with the Svartalfar and were winning until Faeryl called me in for some help.

Other than the Illian-Svartalfar war, there has been a lot of posturing on the part of the AI (especially between Cardith and the Sheaim begging me to drop my deals with the other) but no other wars.

My game was quite fun. I started as Sheaim and was bringing death and destruction upon the world. I switched to Hyborem upon spawn which was up near Doviello. I pursued a path of war since they were OO and wouldn't convert to AV. However everythign went sour when Basium (I think it was him) used some kind of spell that killed my Hyborem :(

i played you map (old version)serval times allways with makalim, my favoirt, but what i really not like was very near to the catital i found a mana none , no problem but fire ? fire i have orginaliy, so my wish is to remove is maybe for water etc, but what i need two fire mana , for trade ok , but not really...

at total i like your map ...is fun to play in sp

last time i try to play the map in mp but anytime oos
we try it via hamatchi over dircet ip

Okay, check the first post for another version (included in the same zip). Map is identical, but it has every civ have two starting -5 relationships, one +2 and two -1's.


Im curious to see the effect.

"last time i try to play the map in mp but anytime oos
we try it via hamatchi over dircet ip"

Delete your cachefolder in c:\docs&einstellungen\user\eigenedateien\my games\civ4, all players have to do that. Then you should not have oos anymore.

where i found there cache ?

was it not :
C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\{Nutzername}\Anwendungsdaten\My Games\Civilization4xx\cache

The whole civ folder is the cache, delete it completly :cool:

i played you map (old version)serval times allways with makalim, my favoirt, but what i really not like was very near to the catital i found a mana none , no problem but fire ? fire i have orginaliy, so my wish is to remove is maybe for water etc, but what i need two fire mana , for trade ok , but not really...All mana should revert to neutral when it changes cultural control, and none should start in your borders. Is this not the case?

edit: Oh wait, you mean the mirror of heaven. That's sun mana, but yes, it is a little redundant. But the tile still has hammer and sight range bonus, and having two sun mana means you can trade one, or have your mages start with a spell for free.

I'm still unable to play this map with .30f. I load up the game by either choosing Load Scenario, Custom Scenario or just double-clicking the map icon to load it and i get the same result - as soon as i enter the map building mode the game seems to pass through the brief 'Initializing' phase but as soon as it says Setting up map (or something similar) it crashes to desktop.

Does anyone have any ideas? I've tried a couple different civs to see it that was it didn't matter. I'm using the latest version of the map, the one done on 1/6.

Nikis-Knight - could you make available a link to a version of the map (.30f compatible) just prior to the one tweaked and released on 1/6 so i could test it and see if that one works. If so i'll just play that for now.

Thanks for any help.

- feydras

I will, here, but I don't expect it to work; nothing major was changed.
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Wish I had some advice, but I don't know....

Something I have been wondering, whats the deal with the goblin that starts with courage and woodsman I promotions? He starts somewhere near the amurites because I always see (and kill) him when Im running them.

I don't remember. Probably no significance. I put in a couple barbs that start with healing potions, maybe I have them some other silly promotions as well?

Thanks N-K. I tried it but as you guessed i've got the same problem. I used to be able to run your map on .25. Wish i knew what happened.

- feydras

Ok i started a new game with the updated map.
Settings: Emperor, Raging Barbs, Barbarian World, Normal speed

Again i choose the ljosfalar and rushed to my beloved yggdrasil, although there was a spider my settler dodged it and settled on turn 2 :P
I recognized you changed the resources, moved the 2 deers and added a pelt resource. So far so good, the spot is less overpowered now but the pelt helps in the start as there is no such resource aviable elsewhere for the elves.

Heres a map of my current empire...
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/8587/newmapes8.th.jpg (http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=newmapes8.jpg)

My scout got a warrior from a goodie hut north of the svatalar and so i decided to pay a visit to my dark brethen. Although the city was well defended by 3 warriors around turn 30 i managed to catch their worker and destroyed two farms :cool: After that miniraid i focused on building, in the 70s barbarian rush until 100 ca. then world became quiet which is a little odd.
If you dont mind you might want to change the encircled silk resource in the next version, maybe a deer in the nw corner next to the incense as it is never reachable yet i always think about an hour if it would be worth to skip the +3 foodfield and a hill for it but usually decide its not worth it. :rolleyes:
Exept that nothing special to report, the svatalar havent yet shown up but its still too early to tell what might have changed.

Playing the version with the pre-existing relationship modifiers as Amurites. It seems to be far more varied religion wise with lots of nice little conflicts. I have noticed that the slave trade from the Undercouncil is a little overpowered when you are making over 67g a turn.

Playing the version with the pre-existing relationship modifiers as Amurites. It seems to be far more varied religion wise with lots of nice little conflicts. I have noticed that the slave trade from the Undercouncil is a little overpowered when you are making over 67g a turn.

Try playing the lanun and build 5 or 6 pirateships and blockade some ports of neighbouring civs hippus blaseraph especially. You make 20-30 gold with each ship per turn :goodjob:

Any plans to make a slightly smaller (maybe half the size) map? Because even with rather decent system speccs (dual 3,8 Ghz+, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 8500T) it gets rather slow motion after 700 turns. Plus smaller size would mean a bit competition, where now there isn't that much reason because every civs has space for 8-12 cities easily.

Ok this game is going to be interresting, although many of the exposed ais are still strongly weakened by barbarian activity the calabim and als always sidar rank just behind me. 5 civs joined ashenvale, which resulted in a 40+ counter just around turn 250. Worsening the relationships definetly had an impact, i only have open borders to 2 civs maybe, everyone else hates me, due to ashen veil mostly but the penalty as well. I really enjoy the ljosfalar mapregion, its definetly art what you did there, i wished to have more hidden places all over the map, like the northwest coast which is blocked by the mountains and only acessable via 1 point. This would be a perfect spot for acheron :D Probably a barbarian world version would be a good idea, adding some warriors to the exposed would help them surviving the initial charge, although noone died this time at least 2 lost their capital again :lol:
Ill add a save here (http://ultrashare.de/f/9076/AutoSave_n._Chr.-0280.CivBeyondSwordSave.html).

I could do a barbarian world version. Some people have reported less rage with preset cities, though.
I could also do an advanced start version if there was interest, though I don't know if there is need due to advanced start feature...
As for a small version, I think zxcvbnm may have made one, I'll have to check.

I have tested the old version of the map without the relationship penaltys on emperor, normal, no raging barbs no ai building requirements as the calabim. As raging barbs simply destroys some ais its pointless to use it atm. By turn 300 im top ranking since the start, hippus and sidar 2 and 3 as usual, sadly i havent seen any higher units than axeman while i use vampires since 100 turns. Again the runes spreaded across the world, grigori and kuriotates are getting owned by multiple factions but exept that wars are not really fought intensively. So i come to the conclusion that worsening some relations may help to spice things up. The khazak and luchiurp are always getting squeezed, the area is really a bit too populated, while malakim and ljosfalar have more space than they can settle.

As for a small version, I think zxcvbnm may have made one, I'll have to check.

Not yet, shadow still refuses to work. My BtS disc is crappy:(

I have the bmps 99% ready, lacking only what can be done only by playtesting

Not yet, shadow still refuses to work. My BtS disc is crappy:(

I have the bmps 99% ready, lacking only what can be done only by playtesting
I'm quite sure that if you released it there would be a great number of people here that would gladly playtest it for you.

Some more thoughts on the scenario:

This time relations version, settings: Emperor, Normal, No techtrade either way, agressive ai, no raging barbs :sad:

I decided to start with the sheaim as i never played them and their position in the scenario looked very challenging. The start was easier than expected, although the terrain is really hard to come by, the whine and the gems help at the start though. I noticed you gave them 5! goodie huts, is this some sort of bonus for their hard startloc? Which is indeed too hard imo, heres a screenshot why.
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/7263/barbariansmi6.th.jpg (http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=barbariansmi6.jpg)

At turn 115 ca. 8+! Barbarian units came at once from the north until turn 130with a total number of 20+. Now imagine this on raging barbs :lol: I must admit i had to load an earlier save. having the lichking around isnt healthy, also the halfcircle landbridge to the east is a notorious barbarian spawn, surely a player can handle that, the ai will suffer heavily though.

The map is marvellous - perfect ratio of civs and lands, nice collisions. But it is too big for my PC. Have no sense to plan, let us say, archmages - it becomes unbearably slow. May be it is possible to cut it on standard size 3-4 civs maps? :D

The map is marvellous - perfect ratio of civs and lands, nice collisions. But it is too big for my PC. Have no sense to plan, let us say, archmages - it becomes unbearably slow. May be it is possible to cut it on standard size 3-4 civs maps? :D

Nothing is perfect imo, im just trying to help to improve it. I also wonder though what kind of pc you must have to play a huge map past 300+ turns without lag.

Some more thoughts on the scenario:

This time relations version, settings: Emperor, Normal, No techtrade either way, agressive ai, no raging barbs :sad:

I decided to start with the sheaim as i never played them and their position in the scenario looked very challenging. The start was easier than expected, although the terrain is really hard to come by, the whine and the gems help at the start though. I noticed you gave them 5! goodie huts, is this some sort of bonus for their hard startloc? Which is indeed too hard imo, heres a screenshot why.

At turn 115 ca. 8+! Barbarian units came at once from the north until turn 130with a total number of 20+. Now imagine this on raging barbs :lol: I must admit i had to load an earlier save. having the lichking around isnt healthy, also the halfcircle landbridge to the east is a notorious barbarian spawn, surely a player can handle that, the ai will suffer heavily though.
That little stretch of (mostly desert) land is intended to reserve a portion of land for Hyborem. Unfortunately, between that and the desert and the Lich, there is a lot of space for barbarian spawning. Maybe I can try to make some better choke points around there, or cut off the Infernal desert from them.

That little stretch of (mostly desert) land is intended to reserve a portion of land for Hyborem. Unfortunately, between that and the desert and the Lich, there is a lot of space for barbarian spawning. Maybe I can try to make some better choke points around there, or cut off the Infernal desert from them.
hmm of all my games on this map I've yet to see Hyborem spawn at that point. He's only ever appeared around the Doviello/Illians/Amurite and Malakin/Calabim

My last game had Hyborem settling between the Bannor and Kuriotates along the southern coast. Interesting spot really, Hyborem took 3 Kuriotate cities and had a small but effective empire until I allied with Sabathiel.

Is it possible to let every lair and ruin start with a barbarian/animal on it? Most of them get destroyed before they ever spawn an animal/barbarian.

Is it possible to let every lair and ruin start with a barbarian/animal on it? Most of them get destroyed before they ever spawn an animal/barbarian.

Yes of course. This will also increase the pressure on the bordercivs though.


Im currently playing a new game as the ljosfalar on immortal with the usual settings normal speed/no techbrokering no ai building requirement, and can now confirm that the initial relationship change has an impact, on turn 160! jonas sent an invasionforce of 3 axeman and 2 catapults, which is a pretty far walk from orclands, (about 30 squares i think) even more it is astounding how quickly he developed those units.

I changed some religios stats on the balseraph, hippus and clan, so they do not like to adapt runes really. I do hope to lower the influence by the runes through this, as in most games runes dominate the world and this certainly lowers the agression of the evil civs.

I have a game in progress, the Svartalfar are way in front, followed by the Malakim / Mercurian team.

I am playing the Sheam and converted to Hyborem just as the Grigori and Malakim began to overrun me! This worked out well for my infernals since Basium used his world spell before Hyborem was summoned, and also the dying Sheam provided a surge of manes as they were being overrun!

I'm having a blast with this scenario, thank you for making it available. And now a quick question - I believe I have the most up to date version of the scenario, do you guys think I will have luck upgrading this game from patch f to patch g? The game was created with f. If I am already playing the infernals, am I likely to receive their new benefits (i.e. the demonic citizens building in particular) should I upgrade?

Edit: I now see that patch G is labelled as breaking saved games in the 0.30 Bug List thread. Guess I will have to push on without the Infernals' new bonuses.

I have a Amurite game just about to end with a tower victory for me. Its a great map though the default starting area for the luchurip is a little weak (I head NE 4 spaces and do quite well, but the AI is always very weak).

I am playing the Sheam and converted to Hyborem just as the Grigori and Malakim began to overrun me! This worked out well for my infernals since Basium used his world spell before Hyborem was summoned, and also the dying Sheam provided a surge of manes as they were being overrun!Sounds cool, where did you start as the Infernal?

Since I was being overrun I didn't have much chance to prepare the Sheaim for handing over all their stuff to Hyborem once he was summoned. I had to give the Malakim three good techs to buy 10 turns of peace just so I could finish Corruption of Spirit before his two stacks of doom arrived!

Hyborem spawned flush against the North East border of the Sheaim, between them and the Malakim!!! So I find myself smack, bang in the middle of the same fight. I was worried about being immediately wiped out, but as it turns out it has been a blessing. The hell terrain has spread well, all over the Sheaim terrain and up to the edge of the Malakim (who worship the Order and summoned Basium). While the infernal cities take a while to get running, Hyborem himself has been amazingly effective at fighting the Malakim. The Malakim ranks were quite Lightbringer-heavy in his border cities so I had stolen three cities before Cassiel declared war on me too. At least I provided a distraction and saved the Sheaim from the Malakim, they fought back with a stack of Tar demons, chaos marauders, pyre zombies and an adept and took a Malakim city too!

I am definitely lamenting the lack of Infernal Citizen building for my Infernals, the three cities I stole all had around 15 unhappiness, and each stagnated with just the one central tile workable until I moved to Slavery and whipped those captives to get the cities up and running. Now they are stable at ~7 population and I am desperate for manes now. At least with the Blight a few turns away I am set to weather the storm, and the Sheaim should do OK as well with Sacrifice the weak. I am running God King with the Demon's Altar and Planar Gate in the capital so I am able to produce a Scourge, Iron Weapon Swordsmen with 2XP each turn and gate them out to where they are needed, which has been crucial. Unfortunately with the Order having spread well and convinced some civs to cease being evil, we are pretty much the outcasts of the realm and we are getting asked for tribute / threatened / attacked by most people nearby!!!

With few evil civs still around, the incoming manes are slowing down. I wonder if the Infernals should have a chance of earning manes when they themselves do the killing, regardless of the victim's alignment. Surely I should be rewarded for slaughtering the good?

hmm of all my games on this map I've yet to see Hyborem spawn at that point. He's only ever appeared around the Doviello/Illians/Amurite and Malakin/Calabim

Agreed. I just saw him as the Amurites, and heroically killed him (by hiding like a scared little girl behind someone else's borders and hurling very long distance fireballs until him and his entire empire had been completely leveled).

What happened to the Crusades map? Wasn't that in this thread? Was it ever updated for 030?

sorry again but i follow the adive to start the map in mp ..."delete my games / bts folder also my friend do is ...but no way to connect...

or is the map not fit for patch h ?

you guys play this map without any prob in mp ? how ?

is it posblie do put a giud on the first post
how to play this map in mp ?

I just played a Svaralfar game on Shadow Relations. It was quite fun. the map is very good, and I like the special locations like the Vale of Arwan alot. Are you ever going to make another map?

I've only played 4 games on this map (an awesome map for this mod).

I;ve played 2 games as the Khazad and 2 as the Hippus, and each one the Balseraphs destroy tyhe Luchiurp. I can't tell if its because of locations of each benefit one over the other, or that the Balserpahs actually use Loki (they always rush to get him), or if the Blaserpahs just get pretty agressive each game and build a huge ass army and want to use it.

Next game I will play as the Luchiurp and see how it comes out.

What happened to the Crusades map? Wasn't that in this thread? Was it ever updated for 030?

No it wasn't updated. It could be...

sorry again but i follow the adive to start the map in mp ..."delete my games / bts folder also my friend do is ...but no way to connect...

or is the map not fit for patch h ?

you guys play this map without any prob in mp ? how ?

is it posblie do put a giud on the first post
how to play this map in mp ?I haven't tried mp, but I don't see why it should be a problem, and afaik nothing in patch g/h should break maps. Anyone else having trouble?

I just played a Svaralfar game on Shadow Relations. It was quite fun. the map is very good, and I like the special locations like the Vale of Arwan alot. Are you ever going to make another map?I got lotsa ideas and very little follow through...:rolleyes:
Some ideas I had were to do close ups of various locations of this map, to do a version with every leader, to do an inland sea style map...
I will probably do something more in after a couple weeks... I'm on vaccation next week, and the break ought to help me get more initiative.

Next game I will play as the Luchiurp and see how it comes out.Cool. I wouldnt be surprised if they needed a touch more land, really.

I'm trying the map for the first time, playnig Malakim. Version with relations.
It makes for very dynamic and interesting game, even if a bit, uhm, evil. Half of the leaders follow AV, including Einon and Sabathiel :crazyeye:
Order is not even founded...

Can I convince you to make a Large version of this map. I have to say I LOVE this map but I have a great system and by turn 300 its just so slow for me. 90 Sec in-between turns is just brutal.

Anyways, thanks in advance for what I'm sure is going to be a great conversion. BTW Dwarfs are so fun on this map. Build production powerhouses then steamrole the vamps. MMmmm.

I've only played 4 games on this map (an awesome map for this mod).

I;ve played 2 games as the Khazad and 2 as the Hippus, and each one the Balseraphs destroy tyhe Luchiurp. I can't tell if its because of locations of each benefit one over the other, or that the Balserpahs actually use Loki (they always rush to get him), or if the Blaserpahs just get pretty agressive each game and build a huge ass army and want to use it.

Next game I will play as the Luchiurp and see how it comes out.

I've played plenty of games as the Khazad, and half the fun of those games is saving our unfortunate cousins before they are wiped out. Liberating most of their cities (I reserve the right to keep on or three, if they are on choice locations) helps boost relations, although they tend to be friendly long before then.

The Balsaraph tend to be the first to Warfare, and they use that technology well. They build large stacks of City Raider II Swordsmen and charge the unprepared Lichiurp.

Cool. I wouldnt be surprised if they needed a touch more land, really.

Don't know how well that would help them. The Balsaraph and the Hippus tend to get along, and both pick on the poorly defended Lichiurp (who tend to avoid Bronze Working, leaving them with weaker Warriors than their opponents.

A human player would likely fare better with Barnaxus and an army of well promoted Golems. The AI, however, always loses Barnaxus very quickly.

After several games as the Balseraphs here are a few of my observations.
#1. Those poor Luchiurp don't stand a chance. I have destroyed them in every single game, and have never even had to declare war until I have surrounded their capital. I play exclusively in monarch now, and on that difficulty level between Loki and Gypsy Wagons I can just assimilate their entire culture.
#2. The Falamar civilopedia entry specifically mentions he is about to raid Balseraph coasts for their wine. Why don't the Balseraphs have wine anywhere close to them?
#3 Being the nation on the far right of our continent and having all of that land to stretch out unopposed gives me a huge advantage.

#2. The Falamar civilopedia entry specifically mentions he is about to raid Balseraph coasts for their wine. Why don't the Balseraphs have wine anywhere close to them? heh Falamar smiled. "They always look back. Always. Sharwin, head for Balseraph waters. They have a vintage that should be ripening now."He's not refering to a crop. ;)

#3 Being the nation on the far right of our continent and having all of that land to stretch out unopposed gives me a huge advantage.Maybe the Luchuirp should go there...

Just refreshing my request for you to make a slightly smaller version of this otherwise awesome map.

If you move the Lichiurp to the opposite side of the Balsaraph, it would be impossible for me to rescue them (unless I build a city behind my Eastern frontier and gift it to them). :p

In my experience, the Balsaraph are the first to get the Bronze Weapons promotion on their units, the first to get to Warfare, and the first to build Swordsmen. They even beat the Khazad (me) ffs! If you want to gove the Lichiurp a chance, maybe you could remove the Cooper resource, or make it a little harder to get.

But would that be unfair to the Balsaraph, who still have to deal with me? :D

Maybe the Balsaraph can be pushed back a bit to give the Lichiurp more room to expand before they meet the Balsaraph border. And the land in the Lichiurp back yard (the southern stretch of land) could maybe be made a bit more productive.

Just refreshing my request for you to make a slightly smaller version of this otherwise awesome map.

I'm currently working on it

How can I convert Civ4 maps to Shadow? Notepad keeps them as civ4worldbuildersave, but do they work with Shadow if I just copy the relevant lines there?

I've forgotten exactly; best bet would be to open the Civ 4 version and a current version of this map for shadow at once, and compare the game set up parts (ie, everything until the map-tile information) line by line. I can do it if you like. You need to make sure you use the right set of start locations, of course, and the file name has to be changed to
CivBeyondSwordWBSave

How goes the conversion to a smaller map?

Just an odd observation I have made. Every single time I have played your map, about six or seven games now, the Elohim have converted to Ashen Veil.

I could also do an advanced start version if there was interest, though I don't know if there is need due to advanced start feature...


I tried using Advanced start with your map and it didn't work for me. Am I doing something wrong?

Just an odd observation I have made. Every single time I have played your map, about six or seven games now, the Elohim have converted to Ashen Veil.

What civ are you playing? I've usually seen the Elohim adopt Runes, especially when I play Khazad.

I tried using Advanced start with your map and it didn't work for me. Am I doing something wrong?I don't know, I haven't tested it but I don't see why it wouldn't. What happened, did it crash?

(I will make sure the map stays playable in new versions, but I probably won't do any other tinkering until after Ice phase.)

I don't know, I haven't tested it but I don't see why it wouldn't. What happened, did it crash?



Well I started up the game by going to custom scenario and clicked the Advanced Start option on (although unable to change the amount of start points). When I fire up the game it just starts as normal with no Advanced Start.

No crash though.

What civ are you playing? I've usually seen the Elohim adopt Runes, especially when I play Khazad.

Several, I have played as the Balseraphs, the Malakim, the Calabim, the Lanun, the Grigori, the Kuriotates, and the Sheim. In about 2/3 of my games the Ashen Veil has been the first religion to spread to the Elohim and they adopt it immediately. That just seems strange to me. I wish it was impossible for Good AI's to adopt AV and for Evil AI's to adopt Order without it being forced upon them via peace treaty.

Well I started up the game by going to custom scenario and clicked the Advanced Start option on (although unable to change the amount of start points). When I fire up the game it just starts as normal with no Advanced Start.

No crash though.

This happens to me whenever I try to use advanced start on a premade map, I don't think advanced start works with them. :(

Just an odd observation I have made. Every single time I have played your map, about six or seven games now, the Elohim have converted to Ashen Veil.

I'm soo excited - this is my first response to a post.

I don't normally play as the Sheaim - but last night I was feeling nasty - researched Ashen Veil as soon as possible, got a great prophet right away, built the Sheaim temple in the holy city - and boom, evryone around me started getting Ashen Veil in their cities with no religion - most converted to Ashen Veil, but switched once other religions started coming into their lands.

The Elohim seem to adopt any religion they can - but will switch if a better one comes along. In my game they went to Runes within 10 turns.

Congrats on your post!

I recall one game I was fighting for my life against both the Svartlfar and Calabim as the Malakim. (I think the most fun aspect of this map). The Elohim were my brothers in arms against the onslaught of Evil. While they never directly aided my war effort, they provided me with all sorts of tech and resources to help fight against evil. Until all of a sudden Einion Logos decides worshipping demons is the way to go. Sorry staunch ally, you are on your own. Stop warring with our brothers of the faith! Grrrrrr. Like a hundred years later I was able to talk him into adopting Order, but I never trusted him again.

Luckily in that particular game Arendel came to my aid and together we vassalised Faeryl and I was able to win my war with the Vampires once it became a single front war. Forming a permanent alliance with the Ljosalfar in the process. My favorite game of FFH so far. I actually sat back with a real sense of accomplishment when I finally razed the AV holy city and turned the tide for the forces of good.

awesome story :)

Is there a way to play as a different leader besides the default one? I want to use Capria as Bannor.

Is there a way to play as a different leader besides the default one? I want to use Capria as Bannor.

Surely you could just use the custom scenario option?

From what I remember, you can't actually change your leader even if you do open it up as a custom scenario.

What you can do though is open the scenario file in notepad, scroll down, and change it from Sabathiel to Capria.

On that note, do you know how to make a scenario such that it lets you choose from more than one leader per civ?

On that note, do you know how to make a scenario such that it lets you choose from more than one leader per civ?Sadly, no. I'm no expert, but I don't think it's possible.
What you can do though is open the scenario file in notepad, scroll down, and change it from Sabathiel to Capria. yup. I'd Do it for you, but I don't see the point, since I think version .31 will break it. (Need to put in the new Barbematos.)

You know, if I was Barbie Tomatoes, I'd be ticked. There's about 2 dozen versions of his name out there, and no one remembers which one is real!

Yeah its broken with .31

Hope your doing a .31 version NK. Played this map about 25 times now and its by far my fav FfH2 map.

Thanks, and done, in first post.

I landed a OO Zealot on the scrub forest on that little island to the right of the lanun start pos. It CTD'd... is Scrub forest a new terrain type?

were you using patch a? I think it was fixed, if not let Kael know.

Yeah, it's fixed in a. Thanks!

Thanks so much for updating this map. :)

Using .30 version, played a bunch of game. Some thoughts

1) Sidar always seems to be top tier.
2) Runes usually gets founded first everytime by Khazad which then spreads ridiculously fast and ends up dominating the map by turning the majority into Neutral (including Calabim, which seems to gimp Evil quite a bit).
3) Calabim start loc seems a bit op, nice strategic position with tons of flood plains. Starts slow but becomes a monster once Malakim gets gangbanged in war from multiple fronts.
4) All the tundra civs never really do that well at all. Luchirup has no chance.
5) AI couldnt' handle raging barbs, about 4 civs were wiped out before turn 200 and I had a crazy, 800 pt+ lead over everyone except for Sidar.
6) Basically the Eastern block: Sidar and Calabim, Hippus/Bals/Fal (1 or 2 of this group) is usually on top (unless I actively cripple them early) and then they form an uber perm alliance.

Overall the map is awesome but begins to chug pretty bad around turn 375. I need an upgrade :(

For this map I recommend disabling hell terrain : Burning sands sucks memory real hard !

I've probably played this map at leas ta dozen times now. In every game (that I dont play them) the Luchirup just get totally pwnd. I've started peeking with the editor to try and see why they suck so badly when controlled by the AI. I have a couple observations.

First, their starting location is pretty bad for a first city. When I play them I move a turn or 2 away before settling the first city. The AI will just start where they are. Starting on a grasslands with only 2 (forested) hills in the fat cross make for a low productivity city, even with the copper resource on the plains. The first change I made to try and help the AI is to make their starting location a plains/hill and have a river to the west of them, running north/south from the ocean to the existing river to the north.

Their other big problem is their neighbors, not so much the mercs as the crazy clowns. The Balseraphs starting location tends to be much stronger then the Luchurip's and as a civilization they seem to be faster out of the gate. They will almost allways have a settler first and they tend to want to expand to the west. This blocks off alot of the Luchurip's room and the get squished between them and the Hippus. In my last game I made another change to the map, increasing the mtn range west of the Balseraph starting city so while there are no mtns in their city area they can not head west unless they go south around the older mts. While this did strengthen the Luchurip they are still behind in points.

The main problem the Luchurip seem to have is they dont build any golems, or at least very few. Even after having the tech for wood or iron golems they still stick with warriors for their primary military unit, only ever replaced by slingers. Thus they tend to get rolled by axemen and champions. This seems to be a general AI problem and is not specific to this map.

First off thanks for this great map! played it alot :goodjob:

Gotten 0.31 with d patch (and was the same with c patch), right when i start a game i get "you are defeated" boom game ends .. tried to load the autosave but that only crash the game(CTD).