I've always "complained" about the lack of terrain mods for Civ4 (they were, afterall, one of my favorite things that came out of Civ3 (here's looking at Warpstorm...).

While a lot of people like BlueMarble, I never did because it reduces the contrast between terrains even more than the default. This was the only real terrain mod I'd ever seen around for the game. So, I mocked up my own set of base terrain textures.

Here I came on this morning to post them, even though I've had and used them for a couple months, just to make sure that I liked them myself before sharing, and I see the FfH Terrain Graphics posted. It looks pretty good, though maybe a little dark.

Anyway, here is a zip file of my terrain folder from CustomAssets. To describe it, it's bright, almost comical, and also it's rather high contrast -- it's easy to discern one terrain from the other (in particular, my main goal was was to make ocean/coast noticeable, and to make floodplains easier to distinguish). It has bright white sandy beaches, so the landforms are well-outlined and green (rather than brown-yellow!) river outlines.

There are a couple problems though: I made these just by passing some filters through the GIMP across the base terrain graphics. They are a little rough. Some of the terrain, particularly grassland, looks different whether grid is on or off. Also, the green around the rivers is kind of ugly. I haven't found a better way to do it yet, nor have I tried to revise it. Clear boundaries between terrain types, however, is a feature.

http://www.pitt.edu/~dkpst5/mqs.jpg
Default terrain:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dkpst5/default.jpg

Anyone suggest a place I can upload this, should anyone want it?

Megaupload.com?

Those colors look like they might be good for people with color blindness.

I like the idea of another terrain mod but this is too vibrant to be realistic but you could be on to something!

Thanks Dvalin. However, not everyone considers realism the apex of gaming. :)