Hello fellow players,

today I started to collect some statistics with the possible goal of creating a 2008 AD scenario for GEM.

After doing some calculations, it turned out that with 35 civilizations, I would be able to cover 85% of world population and 92% of world GDP, but only 68% of world land area.

Theoretically, it would be no problem to include a DLL that allows for like 60 civs... however, that would probably mean very minor cvis included in terms of production/economy and population, and lead to a major inconsistency with regular GEM scenarios.

So I was wondering, would you rather like to see a map with many minor nations for a 2008 AD map, or would you propose to create supernational civilizations in some areas of the world? By the way, I already have the EU planned as a single civ, otherwise the numbers would be far worse. Expecially African nations are rather sparse right now.

In theory, I could add three more civilizations without reaching the scenarios limits.

Curently planned civilizations (ordered by population):

People's Republic of China
Republic of India
European Union
United States of America
Republic of Indonesia
Federative Republic of Brazil
Islamic Republic of Pakistan
People's Republic of Bangladesh
Federal Republic of Nigeria
Russian Federation
Japan
United Mexican States
Republic of the Philippines
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Arab Republic of Egypt
Republic of Turkey
Islamic Republic of Iran
Kingdom of Thailand
Democratic Republic of Congo
Union of Myanmar
Republic of Korea
Republic of South Africa
Ukraine
Republic of Colombia
Argentine Republic
People's Democratic Republic of Algeria
Canada
Republic of Iraq
Republic of Peru
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Commonwealth of Australia
Republic of Kazakhstan
Mongolia

Best Regards,
Ace / Martin

Hello fellow players,

today I started to collect some statistics with the possible goal of creating a 2008 AD scenario for GEM.

...


Don't forget you can use the 'Minor Nation' civ and 'Barbarian' civ for representing those smaller countries just like all my scenarios.

Why there hasn't got North or South Korea??They quite important, aint them??

AnTy, because he is already scratching the limit. Sure, he could leave out the USA to alloow for some more minor states....

As Kai said: use minor and barb nations.

The following states should be in in any case:

- all nations with a population above 50 million
- all nations that do have or are close to aquiring nuclear weapons

The following supranational organisations can help you:

SAARC (8 states, 1.300 mio inhabitants) probably too large
AU (52 states, 770 mio inhabitants) probably too large
AFTA (10 states, 600 mio inhabitants)
EU (25 states, 500 mio inhabitants)
NAFTA (3 states, 440 mio inhabitants)
CIS (12 states, 275 mio inhabitants)
ALBA (5 states, 50 mio inhabitants)
CER (2 states, 25 mio inhabitants) could be subsumed in the AFTA
EFTA (5 states, 13 mio inhabitants) could be subsumed in the EU

I do have South Korea (Republic of Korea) and recently added North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and Israel for precisely the reason you mentioned (i did not want the minor nations to posess nclear weapons). I am at 38 civs (including minor nations) now... but I need to have some flexibility left, so I do not really want to add any more without removing one or two.

Kai, did you do calculate the units on the map by dividing active military sercive personnel/50.000 - i.e. 1 unit = ~1 divison? I found numbers for all the nations, including reserves. I was planning in adding hich-tech units for active and maybe some infantry for reserves.

Given the current calculations, that would mean I would have to place about 1100 units... but maybe I will omit the reserves or reduce their number, like dividing them by 2.

Nuclear balance is really frightening... I divided the (estimated, in some cases) number of active warheads by 50 and rounded up ... that would mean 117 nukes for russia, 82 for the USA, 11 for the EU, 4 for China, 3 for India/Israel and 1 for North Korea. Of course it would be more realistic not to divide the number by 50... but that would mean too many units on the map.

As Bastian suggested, all nations with a population of > 50 million should already be in the map - I will have to check again if this is true for african nations though. Probably africa will see a lot of minor and barbarian states if I go with the current distribution of nations, but that's fine with me, since most african nations do not have a great influence on world politics (at least not in an active way).

I will try to prepare a map with the nations colored that are planned to be in the map, to get a feeling for what it would look like.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Best Regards,
Ace / Martin

I do have South Korea (Republic of Korea) and recently added North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and Israel for precisely the reason you mentioned (i did not want the minor nations to posess nclear weapons). I am at 38 civs (including minor nations) now... but I need to have some flexibility left, so I do not really want to add any more without removing one or two.

Kai, did you do calculate the units on the map by dividing active military sercive personnel/50.000 - i.e. 1 unit = ~1 divison? I found numbers for all the nations, including reserves. I was planning in adding hich-tech units for active and maybe some infantry for reserves.

Given the current calculations, that would mean I would have to place about 1100 units... but maybe I will omit the reserves or reduce their number, like dividing them by 2.

Nuclear balance is really frightening... I divided the (estimated, in some cases) number of active warheads by 50 and rounded up ... that would mean 117 nukes for russia, 82 for the USA, 11 for the EU, 4 for China, 3 for India/Israel and 1 for North Korea. Of course it would be more realistic not to divide the number by 50... but that would mean too many units on the map.

As Bastian suggested, all nations with a population of > 50 million should already be in the map - I will have to check again if this is true for african nations though. Probably africa will see a lot of minor and barbarian states if I go with the current distribution of nations, but that's fine with me, since most african nations do not have a great influence on world politics (at least not in an active way).

I will try to prepare a map with the nations colored that are planned to be in the map, to get a feeling for what it would look like.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Best Regards,
Ace / Martin

Interesting background work that you have done, I think this will turn out to be a good scenario. :D

The military per unit for each of my scenarios are different. For the 1940AD scenario, I used 2 divisions per unit. There is actually a game default military number per type of unit defined by the game. I have include those numbers in my statistic files if you are interested. It is however, very difficult to follow.

In regards to nuclear warhead, looks like you might need to do a bit of adjustment to the actual figures. My experience is that, I will start off with the real figures and then do game balance.

For nations to include, I would suggest don't give yourself too much limitation... at the end of the day, who would want to play a game with most civ as Africans? If you really want to be a bit more objective, try GDP instead of population.

I think you'd be better off choosing nations of worldwide political importance over less important nations even if they have a larger land area/population. Surely North Korea, South Korea, and Israel would be more interesting to play than countries like Bangladesh, Peru, and Myanmar. As well, even though Britain is part of the EU, I think it would be more interesting to have it as a separate nation.

As for minor African countries, I think you should group countries of a similar culture and current government together (assuming they're geographically next to eachother). That would definitely put a lot of land and such to use there, and not be unreasonable.

From what I understand, much of Polynesia are associated in some way with either New Zealand or Australia. If you put cities on a couple of those islands (if you put one on each there'd be too many cities) belonging to one of those nations, that'd be a way to work those. As well I think you should place New Zealand. [And to the creators of Firefox, I spelt Zealand correctly, I checked, you're wrong]

I would also do a similar thing with the Caribbean...

The problem with Nuke balance could be fixed if there were other types of nukes in game.

The US tended to have smaller yield, but more accurate nukes. They had longer range than their Russian counterparts.

The USSR (and Russia today to a degree) focused on HUGE nukes to make up for their short reach and low accuracy.

Also, seperating nukes into an atomic category and hydrogen category could also fix some things. Atomic is weaker and hydrogen nukes on much stronger.

That way, North Korea's single nuke wouldn't be nearly as strong as a single Hydrogen Bomb from the US.

I'm not even a NZer, but I do agree QwertyKey about NZ. NZ. It could occupy some of the polynesian territory and therefore not leave that whole area just for Australia or minor nations.

Also I agree on the 'group' of african countries with a similar political/cultural background, that way at least they will be able to engage diplomatically with the player/AI and not have their roles reduced to just peace/war as with the minor nations. Plus some countries in Africa are emerging economies, so if you're planning a scenario which would run into the near/distant future, they would also be playing an important role.

Really looking forward to see how it all goes,

Cheers!

Fantastic idea to marry this map with a present day scenario. One big issue I have with your countries list though (and I appreciate that you're never going to please everyone) is why is the EU just one nation?!

UK, Germany and France have popualtions of approx 60m, 80m and 60m respectively, 2 of 5 permanent seats on the UN security council and all are members of the G8 with the UK alone in the world's 5 biggest economies! Amalgamating these countries, whilst convenient for getting the numbers down would be in my opinion a mistake and a massive waste of gameplay potential and realism. Europe is also surely the home to a great many CIV players that will be very disappointed although I appreciate you don't owe anything to anyone :)

In terms of realism I'm sure you're aware that the EU is a world away from political union so this would be a real simplification anyway. Surely you can't justify having Peru, Kazakhstan and Myanmar for instance included instead of the major European powers? In terms of gameplay I would go with the idea of either making these minor, or if you can work it without slowing the game down too much use a larger dll file as this would be awesome.

Fantastic idea to marry this map with a present day scenario. One big issue I have with your countries list though (and I appreciate that you're never going to please everyone) is why is the EU just one nation?!

UK, Germany and France have popualtions of approx 60m, 80m and 60m respectively, 2 of 5 permanent seats on the UN security council and all are members of the G8 with the UK alone in the world's 5 biggest economies! Amalgamating these countries, whilst convenient for getting the numbers down would be in my opinion a mistake and a massive waste of gameplay potential and realism. Europe is also surely the home to a great many CIV players that will be very disappointed although I appreciate you don't owe anything to anyone :)

In terms of realism I'm sure you're aware that the EU is a world away from political union so this would be a real simplification anyway. Surely you can't justify having Peru, Kazakhstan and Myanmar for instance included instead of the major European powers? In terms of gameplay I would go with the idea of either making these minor, or if you can work it without slowing the game down too much use a larger dll file as this would be awesome.

However now you have to decide which European Nations are worth being independent and which aren't. Spain has about 45 million people, and Italy 60 million. They each have more people than a lot of those countries lower on the list (Mongolia only has about 3 million). But if you were to do those then you should also do Poland, Romania, Hungary, tons of others. If you say just UK should be separate, it's easier to defend, because it's an island, the culture has more differences (generally) than other EU countries have with eachother, and it is the 5th largest economy. Germany would also be understandable: non-Romantic, 3rd/4th largest economy (between it and China), large population, however you would have to (well... almost) break up the EU into 2 parts if you made Germany independent. With there being mountains there, it becomes logistically odd.

You might want to add the tech tree of the "Next War" scenario to make it interesting. Otherwise it will finish too quickly. I mean, what is left on the standard tech tree? Genetics is almost complete, and then Fusion. A tech tree of a total of 2 techs doesn't sound like fun.

In any case, none of the civ versions so far has been suitable for simulating modern age technology research (which is that size does not matter). So I am sceptical about any civ scenario after ww2.

As for the civ list, I would ditch Mongolia. Having EU as a single civ will balance the game better. As I mentioned above, civ research mechanic depends on the country size. To simulate how the scholarly world works, EU as a single civ is mandatory, otherwise European research will be no match for US, China, Russia, and even Brazil or India. Of course, if you don't add the Next War techs, and stick with just Fusion and Future Tech remaining, then research might not matter much for the game balance.

For dividing the EU, I guess a middle ground would be dividing into three as Scandinavia, UK, and the countries that use Euro.

knigh makes a very good point regarding the size- research equation. But size of what, geography? How does this work? I was under the impression that technology capability and spending came down to the size of your economy ie how much gold you have, and then you use the research slider as a % of this.

If so then I see no problem with the smaller land mass powers (or population compared to India/ China) such as UK or Japan being able to compete technologically according to the size of their economies (large, but not compared to the US or the growth potential of China and India or probably Brazil). This would be represented I might imagine by some pretty big gold deposits outside London, Edinburgh, Tokyo, etc.

But this leaves one point Knigh aludes to, which is that the EU effectively acts as a reserch bloc in order to compete and that the only or best way to represent this in the game is to band the whole EU together full stop.

As Knigh aludes to, the answer to this really depends on what role you want technology to play in the game, but why not just make it much easier (cheaper) to steal technology and this would allow both an expanded technolgy tree and reduce the need to represent research blocs? (otherwise you may as well make Canada part of the US and same goes for Israel, Australia etc) This is the reality anyway, where technolgy transfer occurs startingly quickly across the world.

It is actually, in my opinion, one of the few weaknesses of the CIV game that this reality is represented badly and you can end up rolling your modern armour over your neighbour's riflemen etc. In reality this has never really happened with the exception of the conquering of previously unknown and detached faraway civs (e.g. Aztecs, Zulus).

Where you have open borders scientists and businessmen move and go to libraries, universities etc and technology quickly transfers (hence the UK's ban on any Iranian national studying anything remotely relating to nuclear physics). So reality in the civ mod would be making it damn easy to use open borders to take other people's technolgy, or you could close borders and lose out on all the trade income generated in the global economy. You'd still have the USA, China etc researching everything first as they could spend more on research, but this would transfer before they could gain a massive lead.

Personally I would like to see at least the majot EU countries in (UK, France, Germany, preferably Italy, Spain, Poland) and I've reasoned this in a previous post, but regardless the tech issue is something we need to get right and I agree with knigh that if we leave as is then as turns progress we will not be playing a realistic looking game.

But size of what, geography? How does this work? I was under the impression that technology capability and spending came down to the size of your economy ie how much gold you have, and then you use the research slider as a % of this.

Well, in civ your size (land and pop) directly affects your economy, and hence research.

The tech problem of civ games is that in real world a country does not gather all of its institutions and try to get them invent a single thing. I would be much happier if civ allowed each city to research a separate tech (or when two cities research the same tech they need slightly more research points to finish it). But that is a discussion for another part of the forums.


By the way, isn't it possible to give Internet to all countries of the world for this scenario? that could somewhat solve the research problem.

Another way would be increasing the city maintenance costs. That would give an economic disadvantage to the larger countries, and balance the research.

Well, in civ your size (land and pop) directly affects your economy, and hence research.

The tech problem of civ games is that in real world a country does not gather all of its institutions and try to get them invent a single thing. I would be much happier if civ allowed each city to research a separate tech (or when two cities research the same tech they need slightly more research points to finish it). But that is a discussion for another part of the forums.


By the way, isn't it possible to give Internet to all countries of the world for this scenario? that could somewhat solve the research problem.

Another way would be increasing the city maintenance costs. That would give an economic disadvantage to the larger countries, and balance the research.

That's a good idea with the internet, but I think it should be modified a little bit, but allows a lot better of a scenario. Maybe most major European countries could be independent, with an internet which grants after 2 civs have a technology (along with US, Japan, and India - maybe Russia), 3 for China, and so on, changing the numbers for other countries which are technologically behind.

Well, in civ your size (land and pop) directly affects your economy, and hence research.

The tech problem of civ games is that in real world a country does not gather all of its institutions and try to get them invent a single thing. I would be much happier if civ allowed each city to research a separate tech (or when two cities research the same tech they need slightly more research points to finish it). But that is a discussion for another part of the forums.

By the way, isn't it possible to give Internet to all countries of the world for this scenario? that could somewhat solve the research problem.

Another way would be increasing the city maintenance costs. That would give an economic disadvantage to the larger countries, and balance the research.

Agreed that the more land and population you have the greater the potential for your economy, dependant of course on the contents of the tiles.

What I think we need to find an answer to is how to simulate economic strength, without just relying on the land mass and population dynamic, as this would mean as discussed that we'll need to rely on creating regional super powers. I know civ already tackles this to an extent, at least compared to civ3, but in the modern era not enough.

And this is my point that to correctly simulate the relative capabilites of nations in the present day we should perhaps be looking at altering the tile overlays and city contents in certain places.

e.g.

Compare Russia and UK. The economies are roughly the same size although Russia occupies a ridiculously massive amount more territory. The only way this can be simulated (through gold output) is by altering the tiles in the UK. The UK could have cottages already built and/or (bigger) gold tiles. The UK could also have alot more bulidings contained within cities, a bank or stock exchange in each city etc. The same may go for representing population.

The internet idea is something I agree with to aid technology transfer, but a maintenance cost increase would just penalise all larger land mass nations against all smaller ones, regardless of economic strength. This isn't what we're trying to achieve I don't think, as the whilst this may help rich countries with few, but populous cities (on the civ map): Uk, France, Japan etc it would also give the same boost to the likes Bangladesh, and numerous African nations, would it not?

Correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding is that the maintenance function would hit those with more cities, more spread out and less populous (I believe maintenance to be a fixed cost within a city which does not increase along with output or population).

My favoured solution so far is to edit certain tiles ad hoc to represent relatively strong nations with smaller land mass, (or indeed population). This could be done either by creating new resources (Gold A= 20 gold, which you have outside New York, London, Tokyo, Gold B = 10 gold or something). This would be pretty easy to do and would only requrie editing in a few places. I'm not sure on the numbers and this would have to be tested to get the decent balance. Maybe you'd need 50 or 100 or 500 gold outside London etc, I don't know, but it should be easy enough to do and would hopefully deliver much better realistic results than editing global level parameters.

Ps:

Ace, Genghis, what do you think? I notice you've thrown this out and are keeping your counsel?!

Also, I remember someone saying that having more nations slows the game down disproportionately. ie 30 nations requires alot more than twice the effort from your computer than having 15 nations. Hence why having 60 civs here would be a nightmare presumably. Does anyone know then whether after civs have been destroyed this frees any requirement up? Because if so you could probably get away with having more smaller nations?

Apologies for my lack of clear articulation on this issue as I'm bereft of the terminology!

My favoured solution so far is to edit certain tiles ad hoc to represent relatively strong nations with smaller land mass, (or indeed population). This could be done either by creating new resources (Gold A= 20 gold, which you have outside New York, London, Tokyo, Gold B = 10 gold or something). This would be pretty easy to do and would only requrie editing in a few places. I'm not sure on the numbers and this would have to be tested to get the decent balance. Maybe you'd need 50 or 100 or 500 gold outside London etc, I don't know, but it should be easy enough to do and would hopefully deliver much better realistic results than editing global level parameters.

However then you disregard other things. For instance, it costs a lot more to upkeep an army of the same size in America than it does in Africa, same with city maintenance, and other things. As well, it doesn't allow for expanding economies to compete at all. India and China for instance, at current probably wouldn't have any special gold resources, but if we were to think of what it might be like in 20 years, there could be plenty.

Maybe something like modified corporations, possibly maturing corporations, or large numbers of corporations with replace eachother, each being slightly better than the last, with corporations giving large amounts of money to their home cities, and each city they are in. This way expanding economies can actually expand, and you can give wealthier countries a larger economy.

Edit: Another idea I just though of. Maybe there could be several levels of cottages, and several buildings which add small amounts of gold to each tile. Wealthy countries would start with many of these, where as poorer countries would start with few, but this allows them to expand.

However then you disregard other things. For instance, it costs a lot more to upkeep an army of the same size in America than it does in Africa, same with city maintenance, and other things. As well, it doesn't allow for expanding economies to compete at all. India and China for instance, at current probably wouldn't have any special gold resources, but if we were to think of what it might be like in 20 years, there could be plenty.

Maybe something like modified corporations, possibly maturing corporations, or large numbers of corporations with replace eachother, each being slightly better than the last, with corporations giving large amounts of money to their home cities, and each city they are in. This way expanding economies can actually expand, and you can give wealthier countries a larger economy.

Edit: Another idea I just though of. Maybe there could be several levels of cottages, and several buildings which add small amounts of gold to each tile. Wealthy countries would start with many of these, where as poorer countries would start with few, but this allows them to expand.


Fair point and great idea about the cottages. This is along the lines that I'm thinking with the gold, same principle but if the cottages thing could be done then I agree that this would be better. I just think we need to do something to the tiles, whether this is the resources or improvements. I can see that cottages idea working well as this would allow the likes of China and India to build them and grow, whilst US, Japan, Europe etc could already have them in place.

However, with cottages we'd need to somehow afford them greater protection or make them easier to replace as otherwise it would be mighty easy to bring someone's economy to it's knees using a few bombers/ gunships etc to wipe out 2 or 3 massive cottages. Although this would be fun. I'd quite enjoy sending a gunship or 2 over the channel to cripple the French economy in one turn so all their units go on strike and their army evaporates (surely not? lol...) ;) just kidding, but figure this might end up being a little too easy unless we're careful and would be interested on how this is developed.

Guys, I have briefly read your comments and suggestions in this thread. It is nice to see so many people interested to contribute making GEM scenarios.

A few things I would like to point out:

1) Ace of Spades is on holiday right now. He is probably not going to answer any of your suggestions until late August.
2) About changing the gold income. Actually, in the 1940AD scenario, the Corporation centres and Religion centres are already quite profitable. If I remember correctly, the entire Russia, which has no corporation and religion centres, earn less than, say London. So, I think it is already possible to have a scenario with separate EU nations to produce as large amount of gold as Russia, China or India.
3) Gold is however different to commerce. So generating high gold doesn't necessarily generate high research, but commerce does. So to have the EU nations to generate fast research, one still needs to think about how to boost the commerce to simulate the real world today. Another idea is to have the EU nations separately but start out as a team?
4) One more thing I would like to clarify too. I think research is not directly related to territory. It should be directly related to population. Of course, with larger territory, one could of course potentially have more population, but there is a difference here. For what we are discussing, the better way to start this out is to try balance the scenario by adjusting the population, rather than start out by changing the default setting of the game. I can ensure that will generate lots of problems if we do it the other way around.
5) Changing the tech tree is probably necessary too. But instead of changing it just for the scenario, I would prefer to change it globally (i.e. all GEM scenarios will have an extended tech tree). I always prefer all the GEM scenarios to be consistent like a series of snap shot of history, rather than all being customised for its own.

Just out of interest, I did a list myself:

The EU team:
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
Netherlands
Sweden
Poland
Romania
Greece

The Commonwealth team:
United Kingdom
Australia
Canada

Russia

The Muslim team:
Turkey
Saudi Arabia
Iran
Pakistan

The African team:
Algeria
Egypt
Ethiopia
Nigeria
South Africa

India

China

The Japan-Korea team:
Korea
Japan

The South East Asian team:
Thailand
Indonesia
Philippines

United States

The Latin American team:
Mexico
Venezuela
Peru
Brazil
Argentina

So a total of 35 nations split into 7 teams and 4 standalone nations

And some fictional events of my suggested list. (HIGHLY UNLIKELY, but purely for the game balance purpose).

2010AD scenario:

1) The Sweden, Poland and Romania joined the Eurozone.
2) The former USSR nations are coming together again.
3) Unions of various types are formed as listed.
4) China is unified.
5) Korea is unified and formed an ally with Japan.
6) The American continue to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan.

I'd split the latin american team. Venezuela should form the 8th team together with Cuba and maybe Nicaragua and so. The new latin american socialism (if you can call it that way) will likely be the next target of us-american aggression once they have sufficently wasted ressources in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this time with the communist Sovietunion out of the way there isn't even nuclear retaliation to be feared. As I see it, all it needs to get such a result is either a McCain gouvernment going even more along the war drum path then the Bush gouvernment (unlikely but possible). Or more likely a Jeb Bush presidency in 2017 after Obama was kicked out by effort of the increasingly hostile media for undoing G.W. Bush's tax redistribution towards the rich. Remember, the Axis of Evil, and the definition of terrorism will be adapted to what is needed by the people ruling the (faltering?) US hyperpower.

Also such a scenario should be prepared for a quick and decisive economical boost of the two giant nations India and China. Both states are in a position in 2008 as are the USA and Russia in the 1940 scenario (though without a direct war looming).

I'd also suggest an event chain which will either pull together the EU into one full fledged civ, or else let it splinter with the core states (Germany, France, Benelux, questionably Italy) remaining as one entity. The EU is today at a breaking point: either it manages to pull together ... or it looses so much momentum that the dream is basically over for the next 50 years.

Just out of interest, I did a list myself:
...
So a total of 35 nations split into 7 teams and 4 standalone nations

For game balance it looks ok, but for the purposes of simulating relations of the real world I would Join North African civs to the Muslim team, and remove Turkey from there. Turkey gets along better with Europe or US than it does with the MiddleEast. Maybe round it in a team with US and Israel. As far as Tech is concerned, those are the countries with which Turkey cooperates most.

Can it be modded such that Turkey is in the US team for the first ten years and than joins the Euro team (as that is the likely course of events in the near future)? Or that Turkey automatically joins Muslim team if it has a state religion? Nah, probably too complicated.

You could do an event chain, which placed turkey either in the muslim team (given the current gouvernment most likely) or the EU team (rather unlikely, most european nations dislike the idea).

I like the idea of teams. Agree that turkey needs to be seperated from the 'Muslim' team, as they are a strictly secular state (whislt 99% islamic population), pressing very ahrd for EU admission. Although to put them in the EU would probably be a step too far as well as numerous nations especially France are vehemently opposed.

Also where's Israel? a victim of the team format?

To simulate city populations more food resources are needed around large cities. Tokyo metropolitan area is size 43 in civ4 terms, NYC is 36, There will be over 20 cities of 30+ size in total. Tokyo would need about 95 food and 75 for NYC.

Or maybe this can be solved by throwing in a bunch of great merchants in each big city (as they each produce 3 food)


As for leader traits, can we make new traits called "corrupt" and "treacherous" and give them to Turkey :hammer2:

To simulate city populations more food resources are needed around large cities. Tokyo metropolitan area is size 43 in civ4 terms, NYC is 36, There will be over 20 cities of 30+ size in total. Tokyo would need about 95 food and 75 for NYC.

Or maybe this can be solved by throwing in a bunch of great merchants in each big city (as they each produce 3 food)


As for leader traits, can we make new traits called "corrupt" and "treacherous" and give them to Turkey :hammer2:

This is what I was talking about with regard to changing tiles for food/gold, but having read Genghis' note about keeping the map uniform throughout scenarios, the great merchant route would be better suited to this goal. Can you start with settled GM?

Also really enlightening point from Genghis about the strength of corporations, sustaining the western economies. Hadn't thought about this at all, (probably because I've not yet got far enough on BTS to get execs, or played 1940 mod... so that's news for me!)

To simulate city populations more food resources are needed around large cities. Tokyo metropolitan area is size 43 in civ4 terms, NYC is 36, There will be over 20 cities of 30+ size in total. Tokyo would need about 95 food and 75 for NYC.

Or maybe this can be solved by throwing in a bunch of great merchants in each big city (as they each produce 3 food)


As for leader traits, can we make new traits called "corrupt" and "treacherous" and give them to Turkey :hammer2:

With corporations, large cities isn't a problem at all. Ace reported that he had a game in GEM with cities of size 60 towards the end of the game. That's because he uses cereal corporation to give him tons of extra food and mining corporation to give him tons of extra hammers. He had some screenshots and some calculations written in the 1500AD thread if you are interested.

I think this modern scenario can try to make use of the unique features of corporations. I mean what makes USA dominating the world today, I think, is their success in spreading international corporations.

I like the idea of teams. Agree that turkey needs to be separated from the 'Muslim' team, as they are a strictly secular state (whilst 99% islamic population), pressing very hard for EU admission. Although to put them in the EU would probably be a step too far as well as numerous nations especially France are vehemently opposed.

Also where's Israel? a victim of the team format?

Yeah, Israel is unique and should probably be added even it is so tiny. There are 4 more spaces in the list I suggested, so there is no problem just adding Israel in.

Anyway, the 2008 scenario is suggested by Ace and I won't be implementing it. (My time is occupied by the PBEM game now!) So I suppose I have no say as to what civ can or cannot be added. I am just excited by the idea and giving some suggestions.

Israel could be US controlled, as it can't really stand on its own, and the US supports Israel (both the government and Jews in America).

India would control surrounding areas (like Nepal and Bangledesh).

The Latin American and African teams seem too strong, and I don't think it will work lumping them all into one team. Either one of those would likely be able to build up an Army easily rivaling Americas, which in real life isn't even close to true (since they are all fighting eachother, or because they have to have their military patrolling their streets). Just can't work I don't think, even if you gave them a very poor starting position, they'd likely take over the world.

So whats wrong with that? Actually the italians WHERE crushed everywhere. In Ethiopia they lost badly. In France the only place where the french forces could withstand, yes even gain ground was at the italian border. And lets not even start about Greece.

This isn't saying that the italian forces did't fight heroically ... but their logistics and equipment simply sucked.

In Ethiopia they had large troops ... but they did have only 50 oudated and almost worthless tanks.

The decision to attack France ... was a large mistake. Italy was in the middle of a restructuration and modernisation of its troops, and thus was barely able to take Grenoble.

In Greece, the italians did not only failed to successfully invade the country, but where beaten back far into Albania ...

The italians fought valiantly ... but under an incredible bad military leadership, and undermotorisation as well as lack of other equipment hampered them decisivly.

So whats wrong with that? Actually the italians WHERE crushed everywhere. In Ethiopia they lost badly. In France the only place where the french forces could withstand, yes even gain ground was at the italian border. And lets not even start about Greece.
:


I think you have commented to the wrong thread. I've replied you on the 1940AD thread.

.oO(internal memo ... don't post late at night :D)

Israel could be US controlled, as it can't really stand on its own, and the US supports Israel (both the government and Jews in America).

India would control surrounding areas (like Nepal and Bangledesh).

The Latin American and African teams seem too strong, and I don't think it will work lumping them all into one team. Either one of those would likely be able to build up an Army easily rivaling Americas, which in real life isn't even close to true (since they are all fighting eachother, or because they have to have their military patrolling their streets). Just can't work I don't think, even if you gave them a very poor starting position, they'd likely take over the world.

Israel is doing quite well as an independent nation - although I'd agree they have powerful allies (which provided the tools with which Israel finished the job).

Similarly, Bangladesh (muslim, BTW) and Nepal are independent countries (not areas) and aren't even culturally dominated by India (although they used to be in centuries past).

Latin America and Africa (AU) need not be too strong, as this depends on starting techs (and the linked available military units), as well as economy. Especially in Africa there are several countries in civil war or civil strife (Liberia, Zimbabwe, former Zaïre, Sudan, etc.). Central America and the Caribbean except Cuba and Mexico barely has any military.

Israel is doing quite well as an independent nation - although I'd agree they have powerful allies (which provided the tools with which Israel finished the job).

Similarly, Bangladesh (muslim, BTW) and Nepal are independent countries (not areas) and aren't even culturally dominated by India (although they used to be in centuries past).

Latin America and Africa (AU) need not be too strong, as this depends on starting techs (and the linked available military units), as well as economy. Especially in Africa there are several countries in civil war or civil strife (Liberia, Zimbabwe, former Zaïre, Sudan, etc.). Central America and the Caribbean except Cuba and Mexico barely has any military.

Well, if they have no military then they'll just be quickly taken over by some other country. As well, the racial makeup of Nepal and Bangladesh are South-Asian, and not Middle-Eastern. While it's not exactly realistic to make them parts of India, it's a lot less of a stretch than doing a number of the other things mentioned in this thread (EU, Commonwealth team, Latin America and Africa being countries).

As well, how do you simulate civil war within Africa?

And on Israel standing on it's own, I meant in the game. In the game Israel would just be one city, and would be immediately taken over.

Well, if they have no military then they'll just be quickly taken over by some other country.

I didn't say "no military"; I was speaking both quality and quantity. And if they're allied (there is the OAS), who would take them over? The same holds true for Africa (several countries are associated with the EU or unilaterally to their former colonizers).

Anyway, virtually all nations are members of the UN. (Although that may be tricky to simulate in-game.)

As well, the racial makeup of Nepal and Bangladesh are South-Asian, and not Middle-Eastern. While it's not exactly realistic to make them parts of India, it's a lot less of a stretch than doing a number of the other things mentioned in this thread (EU, Commonwealth team, Latin America and Africa being countries).

I won't go into the intricacies of interracial make-up (even more trickier than simulating the UN), and I don't see how that's relevant here, honestly. Also, Latin America and Africa might be a team-civ or something (Civilization does not equal country, BTW,as your own suggestions clearly show.)

As well, how do you simulate civil war within Africa?

Easy: barbs or failed states' units. (And notably in Africa there's usually another nation involved as well,as in former Zaïre and Sudan).

And on Israel standing on it's own, I meant in the game. In the game Israel would just be one city, and would be immediately taken over.

That's what the Arabs thought in 1948, '67 en '73. It just needs to be a powerful enough city-state - military, economical and cultural. (Also, there's plenty of historical examples of that.)

And Iam(and was) talking both in the real world and in-game - which should be accurately represented, IMO.

I'd split the latin american team. Venezuela should form the 8th team together with Cuba and maybe Nicaragua and so. The new latin american socialism (if you can call it that way) will likely be the next target of us-american aggression once they have sufficently wasted ressources in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this time with the communist Sovietunion out of the way there isn't even nuclear retaliation to be feared. As I see it, all it needs to get such a result is either a McCain gouvernment going even more along the war drum path then the Bush gouvernment (unlikely but possible). Or more likely a Jeb Bush presidency in 2017 after Obama was kicked out by effort of the increasingly hostile media for undoing G.W. Bush's tax redistribution towards the rich. Remember, the Axis of Evil, and the definition of terrorism will be adapted to what is needed by the people ruling the (faltering?) US hyperpower.

Also such a scenario should be prepared for a quick and decisive economical boost of the two giant nations India and China. Both states are in a position in 2008 as are the USA and Russia in the 1940 scenario (though without a direct war looming).

I'd also suggest an event chain which will either pull together the EU into one full fledged civ, or else let it splinter with the core states (Germany, France, Benelux, questionably Italy) remaining as one entity. The EU is today at a breaking point: either it manages to pull together ... or it looses so much momentum that the dream is basically over for the next 50 years.

Brazil and Argentina definetly don't fall into this group of South American countries you are talking about, an they are the most important countries there....That said, It'd be great to split South America into the countries with more extreme socialism and another block with Argentina/Brazil.

I know it is an oversimplification, but there can't be too many nations...

I'm sure there's a good answer to this question, but is it possible to use a dll which would allow many more civs e.g. say 60, 100 etc, without slowing the game down to an unusable point? I remember that it goes that a doubling of the amount of civs has much more than double an effect on speed and processing ability?

Is this true?

Because if there's any way of running a workable mod on this map with say 60 civs or more then I'd be more than willing to do alot of work on the research side of things.

Well, I could run some tests regarding this. Just compile a 80-civ-dll and try to auto-run some games... could be some days till I can conduct the tests though.

Best Regards,
Ace

I have a more basic question, not strictly relevant to this thread. When we have so many civs (which is the case in all GEMs), and when we open the scores display, how do we scroll up? Currently it just shows the lowest ones, but the top civs are the ones that matter - and I can't see their research because they are out of the screen. :wallbash:

I have a more basic question, not strictly relevant to this thread. When we have so many civs (which is the case in all GEMs), and when we open the scores display, how do we scroll up? Currently it just shows the lowest ones, but the top civs are the ones that matter - and I can't see their research because they are out of the screen. :wallbash:

My solution is to get a 1600 x 1200 resolution monitor :p

Many people have complained about this, but honestly, I am not the right person to help solving these technical problems.

Bah, better use a 1920x1200.

Just out of interest, I did a list myself:

The EU team:
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
Netherlands
Sweden
Poland
Romania
Greece

The Commonwealth team:
United Kingdom
Australia
Canada

Russia

The Muslim team:
Turkey
Saudi Arabia
Iran
Pakistan

The African team:
Algeria
Egypt
Ethiopia
Nigeria
South Africa

India

China

The Japan-Korea team:
Korea
Japan

The South East Asian team:
Thailand
Indonesia
Philippines

United States

The Latin American team:
Mexico
Venezuela
Peru
Brazil
Argentina

So a total of 35 nations split into 7 teams and 4 standalone nations

I like it. :) 1 or 2 changes though:
Split Latin American Team as such:

I'd split the latin american team. Venezuela should form the 8th team together with Cuba and maybe Nicaragua and so. The new latin american socialism (if you can call it that way) will likely be the next target of us-american aggression once they have sufficently wasted ressources in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then maybe do Africa as two teams, split them as democracies/non democratic or Christian/Muslim I know it's very broad but read on and you'll see why I said this.
This won't be popular but maybe instead of having Poland, Romania & Greece, roll them into East Europe.
This would give space for an Israel nation, maybe with a defensive pact with America, and the countries listed above (Cuba ect.)

Of course, no-one isgoing to fall over backwards to make this work, or fully support it, it's just what I would do and my tuppence's worth.

Ace,

Any thoughts on this scenerio? I think everyone thinks it is a great idea.

Blasphemy! How dare you suggest Sweden as a civ and leave out Finland!

Somebody get me some firewood while I tie this guy to the pole! Righteous flame will purge the soul of this heretic!

I don't see how Sweden makes any more difference than Finland. I'm not adamantly against Sweden but if you add that, add Finland as well. Even if you need a new dll for just 1 more civ.

(Just guess where I'm from.)

And I like the idea of EU = civ. civ != nation ... If we really saw past minor differences we have, we would be a major superpower. Our economy is huge, just add up the numbers.

Zup, while I understand your argument ... it doesn't make sense. Yes it would be much more sensible to call the nation "Scandinavia" as it will for surely include Norway, Denmark and Finland as well, maybe even Iceland, Greenland and Farö. But ... then you'd have to rename other nations as well. Germany will/should include Austria, Luxemburg and maybe even parts or all of Switzerland. Do you want to name it Germania? Also Netherlands, you can be sure that Belgium will be included (and maybe Luxemburg will go here instead), so how to name it? And so on.

In the end there are only two sensible ways to name grouped civs: either by the most populous/prominent nation, or come up with some generic names. Either way you'll have to make compromises.

Zup, while I understand your argument ... it doesn't make sense. Yes it would be much more sensible to call the nation "Scandinavia" as it will for surely include Norway, Denmark and Finland as well, maybe even Iceland, Greenland and Farö. But ... then you'd have to rename other nations as well. Germany will/should include Austria, Luxemburg and maybe even parts or all of Switzerland. Do you want to name it Germania? Also Netherlands, you can be sure that Belgium will be included (and maybe Luxemburg will go here instead), so how to name it? And so on.

In the end there are only two sensible ways to name grouped civs: either by the most populous/prominent nation, or come up with some generic names. Either way you'll have to make compromises.

I say they should be called by collective names like Germania, and Scandinavia. Belgium, the Netherlands and luxembourg should be combined into Benlux. Scandinavia and Germania should have the countries listed.

However, I think just a single EU civ for all of Europe (Barring Russia) is much more Efficient. Also, I think Somalia and Sudan should be Civs because they are noteworthy trouble spots.

I think Somalia and Sudan are most suitable to be called "Barbarian" in civ :)

I think Somalia and Sudan are most suitable to be called "Barbarian" in civ :)

I thought of that, but the problem is there are some big insurgencies going on there, and just slapping barbarian for the whole nation doesn't really work. I say at let the troubled areas (Darfur for Sudan, Non-Puntland Somalia.) be Barbarian but the rest, (Non-Darfur Sudan, Puntland for Somalia) be either Minor Nation, or Playable.

Is this still in development? Does anyone know how close this is to being complete, if anyone is actively working on it, etc?

To be honest, I have not been doing any more work than gathering statistical data up to now, and the way things have developed, I do not think I am going to ever finish this scenario.

However, I guess there will still be demand for this kind of scenario, so eventually someone will try to get it done. If anyone wants the statistics I have (which is mostly from wikipedia though) just send me a message.

Best Regards,
Martin

Since it appears that this scenario is dead or struggling, perhaps people who were interested in it will be be interested in our mod.

The World 2009 MOD (http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=294).

The goal is to as accurately as possible represent the present day world on the Giant Earth Map. We're using 48 civilizations. We have made huge progress on this, I'd say it's somewhere around 70-80% finished.

NOTE: This scenario/mod is not currently playable..
It is under development, the best information about the status can be found by following the last link in my signature. If you are a modder and want to work on this project to help it get released sooner, please head to our forum or send me a PM/email. There are still a couple things that need to be done.

Genghis_Kai has recently volunteered to do city placement. :)

@Ace of Spades: we would love to have you contributing ideas or anything else to our mod. Hopefully we can combine our efforts. I think we could still use GDP statistics, if you have them.