I play earth 18 a lot, but since King of the world 8 came out I though I'd give earth 34 a try. However some of the civs just seem unplayable, or require a warrior rush. I tried Pacal, built about 5 cr holkans and got obliterated by monty's double archers in his holy city capital on hills. I probably could've warrior rushed him but wow, is this map tight.

Who else is in a really bad spot? I don't know which civ to try next, was thinking babylon or souix.

Also how could I edit this map without screwing up the mod? Just normal world builder save? I want to remove the mountain blocking south america and give the inca a pass to south america as well.

I just used the world builder. I moved gil into russia (already too crowded in the middle east), removed the jungle around sury, gave cuzco a mountain pass, moved pacal further south and gave him a fur more resources, put Budica in Australia and generally gave the new civs a better chance. I then made a world builder save, which I load my save whenever I want to play. Balancing the starting locations makes the game a lot more interesting.

Yeah, Pacal isn't in a great spot. I mean, the map could have at least removed some of the jungles.

I can't really think of another bad spot. The thing is that almost all civilizations in poor locations can do well when controlled by a human and they go on a conquest rampage.

I had more fun with the GEM since he went out of his way to make the tight areas larger (europe and the middle easter are not to scale). I was a little upset with the minor changes he made to the UUs and UBs though but overall I had more fun on it than any other earth map so far. I think he did 37 civs and everyone had a pretty good start besides Australia (so hard to tech isolated).

Who else is in a really bad spot? I don't know which civ to try next, was thinking babylon or souix.


Zara's spot looks really horrible. :lol: I haven't tried him yet, but Africa is pretty crappy except for Egypt.

I can't imagine that Hammi would be much of a challenge, though - too many nearby civs that should fall easily to a bowman rush (Gil, Saladin, Mehmed, Persia) and copper just to the north. Bull might be fun to play. :)

Honestly, while I appreciate the attempt for Earth 34Civs, I find the map unplayable at best. It's simply too crowded for me to make the game fun and the scale of the game just doesn't...work. For example. Want to play Japan? Good luck. You're probably screwed from the get-go. Same for England.

I just don't think the game can handle a properly sized 34civ map. It'd be SO big as to be basically impossible for the computer to run. Of course, there's also the fact that these civs did not coexist, which is where Rhye's and Fall comes in, I guess.

I'm having fun with the map so far. Then again, I'm playing as Shaka, and Africa kind of has the best of both worlds in that it's isolated enough that you're not immediately strangled by your neighbors' culture, but connected enough that you can get in on the tech trading game. The land is kind of crappy, though.

The Balkanized Europe is kind of cool for a change, but everyone claiming that it's too much is probably right in the long run. It's pretty much Warrior rush until you have enough land to play the game without it being cheesy. That, or play an OCC, I guess.

I'll have to try that other, "not-to-scale" map. Maybe in a future KotW...

England or France as an OOC isn't too bad but you will probably destroy poor, useless Celtia with culture.

Welcome to the Forums The Enigma. :beer:

I think the map is fine, and europe has enough resources to sustain multiple civs. The native americans, khmer, and korea are great addition to put some pressure on china and india. What I think should happen is:

- some civs should go, at least a couple europeans (maybe there should be choices, ie england or celts, germany or hre, 1 or 2 out of rome, spain, and france. Probably remove a middle eastern power as well.
- Maybe moving pacal down (call him tupi if my col memory serves me right :-)) a bit and removing the mountain block with south america while giving passes to HC (the mountains are still there, right?)
- Make the AI more aggresive. Defense does not have such a bonus that europe/east asia/middle east cannot clear itself. Germany or rome are perfectly situated for axe/pret rushes. If either can kill a couple civs it should emerge as a strong power.

I just don't think the game was written with this many civs/maps this large in mind. You can play huge maps, but it chews up a ton of memory. I've played on huge 18 civ maps and hit 1.5 gig of mem usage and the game just gets slow.

Anyway, yeah I am a bigger fan of the 18 civ one. I would really like the 18 civ map but add in pacal a bit further from monty with access to south america, sitting bull where he is, add the zulu and either sury or wang, and possibly carthage. In the 18 civ map it's weird how unpopulated africa and america are compared to europe, as well as the big hole in south east asia. I think I'm going to try taking the 34 civ map and just deleting the civs I don't want.

@civver
That's pretty easy if you open the scenario file using notepad and replace the civ entries with the 'team not in use' entries that you also see at the end of the list of civs. Don't delete the entries outright, this causes it to crash.

There might be an easier way to do this but this seems to work

I just don't think the game was written with this many civs/maps this large in mind. You can play huge maps, but it chews up a ton of memory. I've played on huge 18 civ maps and hit 1.5 gig of mem usage and the game just gets slow.

Anyway, yeah I am a bigger fan of the 18 civ one. I would really like the 18 civ map but add in pacal a bit further from monty with access to south america, sitting bull where he is, add the zulu and either sury or wang, and possibly carthage. In the 18 civ map it's weird how unpopulated africa and america are compared to europe, as well as the big hole in south east asia. I think I'm going to try taking the 34 civ map and just deleting the civs I don't want.

I think you're right and the issues of scale -- both in terms of comptuer resources and in terms of the map and in-game resources themselves -- come into play here.

When you start playing with this many civs, you realize how NOT to-scale the game actually is. For example, let's say you play the Americans. LEt's also say you want to plant most of the major eastern seaboard cities on the map. On pretty much ANY map of the world, you can fit MAYBE 5. So, that leaves you with what? DC, New York, and...uh...Boston? Atlanta? Miami? Wait, what about Baltimore? Or Newark? Or Hartford? Or, or or...

The game isn't really meant to represent full-scale gameplay, and that's why adding 34 civs (several of which are questionable as civs themselves) is an issue.

Personally, on a game based on the map itself, I would not put the HRE or the Souix. (yes, yes, I know people have debated this for ages). You also have issues of timing to consider. Do you place Justinian and one of the Caesars on the map? Or only the Caesars? And where does the HRE come into that equation? Do you place the Ottomas, the Arabs, AND the Sumerians and Babylonians all on the same map?


I mean, if all you want is a huge game with tons of players on it and don't really care about any semblance of historical accuracy or scale, then the 34-civs map rocks. But if you want historical accuracy or gameplay to-scale....well, for starters, 34-civs ain't your map, but in general Civ4 just isn't a "to-scale" game. The cities are less cities in the modern urban sense, and more "city-states" in terms of the scale of the game.

Personally, on a game based on the map itself, I would not put the HRE or the Souix. (yes, yes, I know people have debated this for ages). You also have issues of timing to consider. Do you place Justinian and one of the Caesars on the map? Or only the Caesars? And where does the HRE come into that equation? Do you place the Ottomas, the Arabs, AND the Sumerians and Babylonians all on the same map?

Keep the Sioux... the biggest thing to remove are the Americans. They make no sense beginning over there in 4000 BC... Monty and Sitting Bull can still have some fun.

Plus that opens up the possibility of a few thousands years later a european AI will found cities in the new world and spawn off America as a colony... and that'd just be neat. :p

i'd suggest flipping a coin for each pair of AI's spawning within 6 tiles from one another :)
or, if pretending to be serious, removing all but china/shumer/babylon/egypt/maybe maya (don't remember the school good enough to remember who particularly was around at <3000BC)
or just play Rhye's and fall )

Something I've noticed when I have tried to modify the map with world builder is that some civs have already settled and that trying to move them removes them from the game because their city has been destroyed?

I'm sure this is a topic that belongs in another forum but I wouldn't even know where to begin to search for this - any pointers? Does that get into text file editing?

Something I've noticed when I have tried to modify the map with world builder is that some civs have already settled and that trying to move them removes them from the game because their city has been destroyed?

I'm sure this is a topic that belongs in another forum but I wouldn't even know where to begin to search for this - any pointers? Does that get into text file editing?

The civs have a set order in which they play in... take the civilization on the top of the list where you get to choose, I think that one would be first.

Ah. Duh. Heh. :D

Keep the Sioux... the biggest thing to remove are the Americans. They make no sense beginning over there in 4000 BC... Monty and Sitting Bull can still have some fun.

Plus that opens up the possibility of a few thousands years later a european AI will found cities in the new world and spawn off America as a colony... and that'd just be neat. :p

Not to derail here, but I'd swap out the Sioux with the Iroquis or the Cherokee. I've always thought adding the Sioux was a mistake. But yes, including America at 4000BC is goofy.

I've noticed that the areas lacking a civ that can support one are fairly numerous. I move a Euro civ into Brazil, Australia, the Philippines (I clear the jungles for them and turn some desert/plains into usable land of course), and Siberia, in between Mongolia and Russia. You can also reasonably fit one in the Congo provided you're willing to clear jungle for them.

I almost exclusively move European civs so 2-3 of them are in Europe. Europe has very nice land so I wouldn't let one civ keep it all for map balance reasons.

I'm having fun with the map so far. Then again, I'm playing as Shaka, and Africa kind of has the best of both worlds in that it's isolated enough that you're not immediately strangled by your neighbors' culture, but connected enough that you can get in on the tech trading game. The land is kind of crappy, though.

The Balkanized Europe is kind of cool for a change, but everyone claiming that it's too much is probably right in the long run. It's pretty much Warrior rush until you have enough land to play the game without it being cheesy. That, or play an OCC, I guess.

I'll have to try that other, "not-to-scale" map. Maybe in a future KotW...

It's called GEM (Giant Earth Map) and the map is even bigger then a huge map so you better have a good pc, but it would be awesome if you used it for a KOTW.
There is one flaw on it tho... He adjusted the techrates to be more in line with the scenarios he made for the GEM. Slower... so that it's more suitable for warfare during the scenarios.
This kinda forces me to play at quick or normal speed and ignore the timeline as it will be a lot slower techwise then a normal civ game.

Besides that the map is awesome and it's really interesting what will happen across the world. In Europe for example most european civs will be able to build 2-4 cities, which is a lot better then the 1 on the huge earth map.
Portugal is Brasil and the Celts are Australia.

Heh I just tried what I thought could be a fun game: Earth 34, Ghengis Khan, Always War. The first two games I played one level under the level I'm comfortable at, and got my ass handed twice. First I thought I could build a worker first (GK starts with scout) and my capital accidentally bumped into a Korean warrior. Second attempt went lots better, had three cities (capital, NE gold, NW river) and was about ready to build an army of keshiks to take china out, when suddenly the persians, chinese, and koreans sent their stacks at the same time. keshiks aren't the hottest defenders, and GK has no copper, so that didn't go so well...

I'm going to try again tonight one level lower and see how things go...