This thread exists to plan, build, and analyze the map for the proposed RFC: Antiquity modmod.


Here is the idea I had for the map.
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z311/SHARPCLAW117/RFCAMapol.jpg
-I accidentally snipped the top of the Black Sea.
-The Straight between Somalia and Arabia won't be that small.

That's a good compromise between our ideas actually. Skewing some stuff keeps almost everything still on the right North/South orientation. I don't mind Spain being squashed, I compressed it in mine anyway. I don't really think we need anything above the black sea anyway.

The main things that need to be discussed right now are our map's dimensions and boundaries.

I for one propose that the map size be close to what my original map's size was. In particular, I'm really happy with both the shape and size of Greece and it's nearby islands in it. Greece shouldn't be squashed (nor should Italy, for that matter), and it really doesn't need to be bigger. In fact, I think the scale of most landmasses was pretty good. The map is meant for 12 civs, max 14, and there is already plenty of room in most places. Greece proper can already hold 6-7 good cities, so in the interest of game speed and redundancy I don't think the scale of most existing landmasses should really be larger, just changing where the map ends and skewing Spain and Africa to make it all fit.

I also don't think Ireland should be present, as the Romans never reached it, but that's a much smaller issue.

I think all the space below Egypt's borders is a waste, it's just one big dessert. Though 1 tile of water for passage for ships from eastern Egypt to the Arabian sea should remain.

Is it necessary to have all of Arabia in the map? Most of it will be a waste.

Also kravixon, if it'll be 12/14 civs it'd be better to discuss which civs will they be. As I said, if you have 3 in Mesopotamia that zone of the map must be big.

I'd have a bit more to the north, just to complete the Black Sea coast, the northern border of Britannia and the Oxus river in Central Asia; and a bit less to the west, only 1 or 2 tiles of sea next to Hispania and no Ireland.

Well, Idealy you would make a map ranging from Spain to the east to the Persian west border to the west and from Hadrians wall and southern Scandinavia on the north to southern egipt to the south.
I don't know if you think it is doable thou.

Two suggestions:

They're different in that instead of deforming some areas, they're downsized, so the focus is on the Middle East, Egypt and Greece.

The second image allows an indian civ, giving it a little room. Would be interesting to pack with luxury resources and give some meaning to having all the Red Sea to enable commerce.

ooo nice. I like the first one, but I still don't think we need that much land north. I don't really think India would be a good idea, as Alexander only won some battles at its borders and I can see the Persian player just always having a monopoly on luxury goods since it's right next door and inaccessible from the south or east.

The civ list is not final, but for Mesopotamia there would really only be Babylon and Assyria, and maybe an independent Ur or Uruk. Persia's to the east, and the next civs to the west would be the phoenicians/maybe Israel.

What about the tilted map suggestion? It would help clear much potentially useless map from both north and south.

Here's another way.
http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee216/athenai777/CFC/antiquity-20090326.jpg

Jet, the lower map seems to be best, enlarging Greece and Italy, without too much waster space north and south.

The englarged Greece/Italy is nice, but I like JediClemente's non-warped picture. Anyone with photoshop able to enlarge Greece in that one?

Cethegus- These maps cover the same area and solve the same problem as the slant, only these are slightly distorted to allow things to appear how they would on a map.

Edit: I changed Spain so it wasn't so obviously distorted. I really like this map idea. And because I had a few minutes before class I colored the map to see what it would be like if nobody managed to die off. Don't take it too seriously :D

I like that it looks real, even if the resize is quite evident; but the other one is too distorted. Now bigger Greece (I think it's already big, more than that would be pushing it) and narrower Anatolia.

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/9386/option3.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/my.php?image=option3.jpg)

Jet's one is not that much different. The only things I don't really like are Arabia and Eastern Persia. Too weird.

So I assume kravixon you think about including Egypt, Babylon, Assiria, Hittites, Persia, Phoenicians, Carthago, Athens, Sparta, Macedon, Rome and Celts?

I'd also have Greco-Bactrians, now that either map allows them. And I'm not so sure about playable Celts. They're quite limited.

But who would settle the greek colonies?

The small indian part (Indus valley) should be allowed to respawn as independents.

I'm really excited about this.

On this thread, we should also discuss civilizations. So in the OP you should include Definite and Proposed. Here's my list:

Definite:
-Egypt
-Athens
-Sparta
-Macedonia
-Phoenicia
-Babylon
-Assyria
-Hittites
-Persia
-Carthage
-Rome

Proposed:
-Etruria*
-Sumer*
-Hebrews/Judea
-Akkadians
-Lydia (could incorporate Pergamum as DN)
-Mycenae
-Minoa
-Greco-Bactrian- (Seems kind of pointless IMO, Maybe independent?)
-Elam*
-Phrygia
-Medes (could be Persia DN)
-Parthia (could be Persia DN)
-Uratu/Armenia*
-Syracusae- They only inhabited one island, right?
-Epirus- Weren't the Epirotes just tribes/barbarians?
-Pontus- Could this be replaced by just Spartan/Athenian colonies?
-Thracia
-Nubia

Some of the Proposed are just Dynamic Names of eachother.
*-I'm a strong advocate for. Especially Etruria.

Independents:
-1
-2
-Gauls/Celts or separated.
-Indus Valley (Mostly depending on extent of map. Just being proposed as a Comp civ.)
-Germans
-Barbarians- Germans, Huns, Vandals, Goths, etc.

These are open for debate.

I um... have a confession to make... I don't know how to make my own map.
I know... I know... pathetic.

But anyway, do I just edit the world builder of a custom game?
How do I upload a save?
What size should I start out with?

Correct, Jedi. Though I see a strong case for a later spawning Germanic civ also.

Zach- two things:
1)As for size, everyone here should open up the worldbuilder save that I included in the first post. Inspect the sizes of the different landmasses. Look at how many tiles make up Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Anatolia, Spain, etc. Then compare it to what you have in mind, to RFC, and to RFCE if you've played it. Then come back and report on what you think of it's actual dimensions. I like how big Greece and Italy and the islands are now, I think they're about perfect for what kind of scale we need.

2) As for making the map, we should wait until step one is completed by at least a few people. I was planning on making the core of the map again and then fixing it up collectively. If that is indeed the route that is taken, I'd still need a lot of help in adding actual geography to the map and fixing up certain places as micbic helped out with Greece. Regardless, check out this (http://electricarchaeologist.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/civilization-iv-world-builder-manual-other-needful-things/) for the run down on how to make/save new scenarios.

We should use site for reference:
Talessman's Atlas (http://www.worldhistorymaps.info/Maps.html)
It may be one of the greatest archives of maps ever made!

It can drastically help us filter out the best possible civilizations for Antiquity.

kravixon, I've looked at the last WBsave again and I think the main areas sizes are okay, mainly Greece and Mesopotamia. I think Anatolia (Turkey) is too large, though, and the Aegean sea almost a small lake.

Idea for civs and civ spawning dates

4000 BC: Egypt, Sumeria
3200 BC: Elam, Minoans
2400 BC: Hittites
1800 BC: Sumeria---> Babylonia , Assyria
1200 BC: Jews
1000 BC: Phoenicians, Phrygeans, Etruscans, Urartu
700 BC: Babylonia ---> Chaldea
650 BC: Elam--->Medea, Jews---> Juddah, Phrygea--->Lydia, Sparta, Athens, Carthago

More later

To continue:
600 BC: Syracusae
550 BC: Gaul Celts (we are already at 16), Nubia (depends on map), Medea--->Persia
500 BC: Estruscan---> Roman, Macedonia
300 BC: Babylon--->Seleucide Kingdom, Epirus
200 BC: Persia--->Parthia, Lydia---> Pergamum
150 BC: Goths
100 BC: Urartu---> Armenia , Pontus
1 AD: Briton Celts

22 civs. Sure some of them are droppable, unless you guys scope to a smaller map size

I think those are too much. And you must take into account core areas and spawning zones from different civs can never intersect each other.

Is it safe to assume we're all OK with the following core civs (grouped by cultural group, sorta):

Egypt
Babylon, Assyria, Hittites
Hebrews/Jews, Phoenicians, Carthago
Persians
Athens, Sparta, Macedonia, Rome

Those are 12 civs, having in mind they endured at least for some time and it would make sense for them to respawn (even if with other name) later. So the map must give plenty of land for all of them. I think with kravixon's WBsave and the proposals in this thread that is assured.

Now, about the others.

Sumer, Akkad, Phrygeans, Urartu: very shortlived; I'd only have the first one and never allow it to respawn.

Chaldea, Elam, Juddah, Lydia, Medea, Seleucids, Parthia...: those aren't just entities by themselves; I know they were different than others but they can surely be merged with the core ones.

Another greek one, Syracusae, Pergamum...: as I said, I see a problem having Sparta, Athens and Macedonia in Greece. None of them is supposed to colonize the Mediterranean. Athens, if we strecht it, only a little. So I propose an Asia Minor-coastal one. You can dinamically call it Lydia, Pergamum, or whatever.

Early Barbarians: I just liked how celts were portrayed in RFC. Don't think they should appear, just because they're not supposed to be civilized the same way as the other civs. Separate tech tree? Forbidden workers? Dunno. Just don't like them enough. They're already controllable with scripted events. In any case, no gauls, britons, etc. Just celts.

Germanic tribes: those could be in the very late game, but I still prefer the RFC approach for all barbarians and "natives".

In that respect, I don't think the game should end at 476. Seems too late for me. Could be 200 AD or something like that.

Another thing to consider: although Rhye implemented the dynamic civ names and change of personalities, I think it could be interesting to dinamically change a civ when it respawns, changing its name, leader AND UHV and unique power, depending of the current period. And making them accesible from the start scenario window.

Know what I mean?

Athens represents Athens itself and its allies. Same for Sparta. With that in mind, we can have them colonize Black Sea, Anatolia, southern Italy, southern France, and eastern Spain.

The ones that are undeniable I put on post 15. The others are suggested, and I don't want to exclude anyone's suggestion because it is not my choice alone. It is the community's, so thanks for your input. Judea is controversial. I thinks it's a main Mesopotamian civ, but others think it was too short lived.

Sumeria could have many turns alone as one of the starting civs. It has room to have multiple cities and we can have a City-State civic.

I think Celts should just be a computer civ.

Updated Reference Map.
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z311/SHARPCLAW117/RFCAmapol2.jpg
-Expanded Mediterranean
-Give Italy, Greece, and islands more space. More playing room + room for Malta)
-Added Grid

Been playing a bit with the BMPtoWBSConverter, and before anything else I adapted my proposal to a BMP and edited it a bit.

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3708/option4.th.jpg (http://img21.imageshack.us/my.php?image=option4.jpg)

As you can see, the tiniest islands are exactly 1 tile.

I think Greece is big enough. It even allows another greek civ in Crete (minoans, which could be "mixed" with mycenae and settle proper Peloponessus).

Anatolia can support a greek civ in the west coast, Hittites and even another one east or north of that.

Edit: it's 205x75 tiles, by the way.

I like it. All our ideas are meshing like cultural diffusion! Ahh.. most important word in 9/10th grade global... ahh...

Well, I started my FIRST map ever, and I'm pretty excited about it. I did the east until Anatolia (Anatolia looks like crap! But I think everything else is nice.) I have everything in plains, and finally taught my self how to use the river tool. Jedi, do you know how to upload a WB save or a regular save?

Personally I wouldn't take such a large map. 205 x 75 not only means longer loading times, but less wars as well. There are more than 50 tiles between Persia and any Greek civ, which is way too much. So I'd suggest to scale the map down to something around 80 x 40.

RFC is 124x68; RFCEurope 100x73.

80x40 seems too small for me. Having 75 tiles vertically is OK.

Can try to squeeze it horizontally to 125x75. It will still be a bit bigger than those, but have in mind it's not just the size of the map, but the number of cities which makes it longer to load. Arabia, the Sahara and denses forests in Europe won't be settled.

As for the distance between Greece and Persia, the latter is supposed to conquer a lot. And yes, they're really that far in the world. I've already thought units movement and roads movement bonus have to be drastically increased anyway.

I know, but I think that it takes ages to move armies over such a large map. Large areas remain unsettled because of natural limits, and some because the map is quite large. In RFC things were a bit different IMO, since large parts of the map are oceans, and many of the others are supposed to be empty (like the Pacific Islands, some parts of Africa, SA, NA and Siberia), so the productive area is actually rather small. I like the shape of the map, but it is simply too big. New players (me included) probably want to recreate historical empires, and that's only possible with: A) enough cities so there are no large gaps, and B) Enough time to conquer everything. I understand that Caesar's and Alexander's conquests are not possible in civ, but a Persian empire all the way to Byzantium should be possible.

Cities can be set to be at least 3 tiles apart, and maintenance costs lowered.

Units can have 2 movements instead of 1, and roads multiply x3 instead of x2.

It's just not possible to have a map from Hispania to the Indus valley with a huge Greece and space for the aforementioned civs if it's any less than, say, 125x75. Even like that it's pushing it a bit.

The goal of this mod BTW should be to make Caesar's and Alexander's conquests possible.

I like it. All our ideas are meshing like cultural diffusion! Ahh.. most important word in 9/10th grade global... ahh...

Well, I started my FIRST map ever, and I'm pretty excited about it. I did the east until Anatolia (Anatolia looks like crap! But I think everything else is nice.) I have everything in plains, and finally taught my self how to use the river tool. Jedi, do you know how to upload a WB save or a regular save?

Upload to a comment, you mean? Hit advanced and add it as an attachment. Better if compressed with zip.

BTW I don't recommend using WB from the very beginning.

Edit: 125x70 tiles

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/153/option5.png (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=option5.png)
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/option5.png/1/w500.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img19/option5.png/1/)

Some of the proposed forbidden areas for settling cities (Egypt is narrower than that):
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/9663/option5forbiddenareas.png (http://img19.imageshack.us/my.php?image=option5forbiddenareas.png)
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/option5forbiddenareas.png/1/w500.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img19/option5forbiddenareas.png/1/)

I think it might be too big too, but we'll have to see. While maintenance costs can be lowered an such to allow more cities, each city increases loading times. If you could get it up to the point of a worldbuilder save, it'd be easier to get a feel for the size.

Geography-wise, it looks good, however Sicily and Crete seem much too large and Crete is rather the wrong shape. I'd also make the "heel" of Italy's boot shape a little narrower.

I would also make the Hellespont and the Bosporus straights connected and place a river where the water would be, for game play reasons. That will allow Alexander and Xerxes to be able actually able to cross it for a land invasion.

EDIT: NVM Learned how. Thanks Jedi.
What I did was I made Kravixon's map completely ocean and added a grid and saved it as anew. So for my map is 52* vertical. I didn't do the west so I don't know the horizontal. Also, no matter whose map we use, we must remember the Persian Gulf used to be longer and the Tigris and Euphrates weren't connected in ancient times..

*I said 75 by mistake

I like the map, and am no worldbuilder wizard, but I wonder if you need all of Iberia. If the Celts aren't going to be playable (honestly, I think they should be, as two seperate civs, but I'm Irish), then you really don't need anything other than a strip from Barcelona to Gibralter. So, I think if you rotate France, Italy, Spain, and England about 35-40 degrees clockwise, cutting down on spain as needed, the map will feel less warped, and have less dead space.

This originally started just as the Mediterranean. Then we added the Middle East. To keep this centered around them, we decided it would be best if we compacted places such as Iberia. This way there wouldn't be that much empty space and we could still get a ship from say Phoenicia to the British Isles. This would make trade easier as well.

I think it looks pretty good except for the things that I pointed out.

My 2 cents would be to go for a smaller map. Big maps are slow. Slow makes it hard to debug problems that crop up at later turns.

137x50 tiles
That is 80% the number of plots from RFC

Still too big. Huge, I'd say. It's different to see a BMP than the actual WBsave.

kravixon, if you can look at the size and number of plots of Greece right now and propose a lesser number, that'd be great.

I mean, after playing with the generator it's just a matter of making the BMP any size we want.

I'm not sure about the Bosphorus. Closing it means that if Byzantium isn't built or is razed, any city in the Black Sea will be disconnected from Mother Greece.

Wasn't the AI supposed to be better at naval invasions than before?

208714
I think I did it.
Ignore west of mountains, except Africa.

Jedi, I'm gonna post an edit of yours. It will be a compromise between our 3. (you, me, and Krav)

208716

Change Log:
Changed southern Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily..
Trimmed western north Africa to allow more room for Sicily.
Added Malta
Trimmed southern France and western Spain
Created a connected Bosporus Straight and divided with a river.

I'm not sure about the Bosphorus. Closing it means that if Byzantium isn't built or is razed, any city in the Black Sea will be disconnected from Mother Greece.
But we have to weight pros with cons.
Pros:
-land routes between Europe and Africa/Asia
-trade available with River.
Cons:
-are no ships allowed to pass if there is no city. But we can edit settler maps for multiple civs to make it a priority.

Added mountain line to divide map. (I'll do the Middle East, as I like your Mediterranean and my Middle East.)
Added mountain arrow to show that we should make Africa go lower (see my map for details).

Edit: nevermind, I see zachscape managed to upload an attachment.

208714


Jedi, I'm gonna post an edit of yours. It will be a compromise between our 3. (you, me, and Krav)


Added mountain line to divide map. (I'll do the Middle East, as I like your Mediterranean and my Middle East.)
Added mountain arrow to show that we should make Africa go lower (see my map for details).

THIS. The "JediZedit" is the best one so far. I'd say that it doesn't need to go any lower at all, any lower and we'd have to include a bunch of useless desert and maybe a Nubian civ.

Pros of the map:
1) it's a pretty good size
2) Spain doesn't look distorted at all, unlike the reference pics
3) Map borders are where I think they should be
4) It looks really good
5) It's a compromise between a lot of our ideas

Cons
1) Some parts of Greece need some minor adjustments
2) I definitely think Sicily should be detached from Italy

In fact, I'll change my two cons and upload the file. I think this is getting pretty legit.
Edit: my file is uploaded. The Peloponnese looks a lot more like it should, and it will give a little more breathing room between Athens and Sparta. Check it out.

Cool.I'll do east of the border by Friday at least.
The things I like most about my map are:
-Egypt (little distorted Nile Delta)
-Persian Gulf
-Gulf of Aden

It looks nice, yes.

I had done a 90x33 version of mine. That is 43% size in plots of that one.

I now think the former is too big. Take a look.

Edit: some areas aren't well enough, but the important thing is if the size is OK.

After looking at yours, I'm undecided. Yours would definitely allow for faster gameplay in most of the map, however, Greece and Italy look cramped. Zach's would allow for the optimal size of each, but some areas are much too large.

I'll work on Italy a little bit, but Greece is already huge. Can try to narrow Anatolia even more.

First I wanted a big map but it's too much. I'd like this one more.

Edit: attachment

I'm guessing that by the end of Spring Break, we'll have the outline done and probably a lot of the terrain. Krav, can you put the recent map in the OP?
Also, we should first get approval on the main thread if any of us decide to create a new Ant thread. That way we can decide the first 3 posting order so we can edit them given the opportunity (Like the RFCE Files thread).
I'll work on the map later today.
Edit: We should also put a date on each map.

I've edited Jedi's last small map in a few very important ways. Greece is now larger and much more realistic looking, the Aegean has been changed up some, I expanded Italy by a slight amount, and I pushed Italy up by a tile or two to try to gain a better relation to Greece. To counteract that, I moved Britain and parts of France one tile up. My rationale was that Northern Britain wasn't Romanized, and irregardless Italy is going to be more important than the Isles in this game.

As of now, Greece is as large as it needs to be, as close as what it's shaped like in real life as possible, Italy is larger, everything has just enough room, and it's kept in proportions as much as possible without hindering gameplay(ie tiny Greece with 3-5 civs)

Check it out and give me feedback on it.

I'm almost done with the the next one where I'm just working on Egypt, Somalia, Arabia, and the Persian Gulf, basically all of the Middle East and the Caucuses. I changed the Greek Islands a little and added a significant amount of room on the eastern and south eastern Mediterranean coast. So I'm going to upload it in either half an hour. If not, probably tonight or tomorrow at 3. I'm shooting for half an hour. Once I do, do you think you can merge them, because I'm changing Arabia on a large scale?

*If it's good, I mean. (I'm doing a lot of trial and error. I'll explain later)

I can't look at it right now kravixon (not in Windows), but it'd be better to change the BMP also.

You also Zach, for any changes you plan. If it's in both the WB and the BMP it will be much, much useful later.

If you don't know what to use with it, Microsoft Paint should be OK as long as you use the same colors (there's a button to take color from a pixel) and the pencil, though something like Gimp is ages better (for moving, resizing zones and all that).

You could directly generate the WBsave from the BMP but it's a bit complicated if you're not used to those kind of things.

I don't really know what a BMP is.

On another note, I lost the map I was working on for the past 2 hours, 5 minutes before I was going to upload it... stressed the hell out of me. It was exactly how I wanted it.

Also, I check out Krav's map. That Italy looks great game-play wise, but not at all like the real Italy. I'm fine with that. But increasing Italy to that size completely destroyed Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily. Spain and France also look discombobulated. Greece and the islands look great though. I'm going to put a little more emphasis on Crete, though.

I'll use this map to redo what I did, and I'm going to post a strategy layer of what I did*. The map won't be ready for a while though.

Edit: Never mind what I said in Italics. Was too sloppy and confusing. But so we don't have a conflict of interests at the same time, please don't work on the ME or Egypt.

My map will be ready in 10-20 minutes. Check back by 9:15.
BTW, I edited post 3 on the Units/rel thread. Check out the spoiler and see if the buildings look OK (there's a lot for Sumeria).

209021
I worked hard on it so you BETTER like it!!!!:gripe:
Oman looks kinda wierd, but Arabia looks good overall.
-I did many important Rivers
-Completely changed right half of Arica and all of Arabia.
-Changed Caucuses
-Made Mediterranean islands better. (I did something that I think will work for Sicily)
-Touched up Spain and France, north Adriatic, Crete, Cyprus, west Africa.

Seriously, I hope yo like.:smug:

Zach:
Don't like what you did to Arabia (what's the point of connecting Red Sea with Persian Gulf?, there won't be an indian civ anyway) and Palestine. Rivers shouldn't be put yet. A detail about that. In Antiquity the Nile delta was nowhere as populated as it is now (I think most egyptians live there nowadays). It should be made smaller. Remember the map is rotated from a normal perspective and not on scale. The focus on Ancient Egypt wasn't there. And some islands are so huge they look ridiculous next to some regions.

Changes:
Adopted Italy and Greece from kravixon. Only difference is Eubea made as small as it was in the previous version (the island was never important nor highly populated).
Adopted Sicily and another details from Zach.
Gallia 1 tile shorter. (that and Iberia should remain like that, no more tiles)
Smaller Sinai.

I can't find a form for Corsica and Sardinia good enough.

All IMO of course.

One key thing to keep in mind when comparing RFCE, RFC, and RFCA is that the usable map size changes. I noticed when playing RFCE that it felt really big compared to the RFC map, because most of the map is usable. In RFC, Siberia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and most of North and South America simply aren't used or usable until 1700 or so. This helps keep the RFC map feeling much smaller than its simple dimensions.

Water is important for that as well. There's much more ocean in a globe map than either Antiquity or Europe would have.

I'd also like to see how big maps without Rome/Carthage would be. They wouldn't need Germany, Spain, Britain, or western North Africa, and might have more room for an Indian or Greco-Indian civ.

But I think those two are just minor influences on the areas we are focusing on. How important were they? Also, have you been checking out the maps lately. Because your input would be really helpful.

I can't seem to open the worldbuilder files. I get a CTD.

What does that mean?

crash to desktop.

Is there some way I should be opening these? Despite my amateur love of modding and geography, I really haven't fiddled with the WorldBuilder much at all.

What I do is click it, download, then extract to public maps under BtS. What do you do?

I double-click the maps, crashes. I open Civ4, try to start a new scenario with the maps, crashes. I start a different game, then try to load them in the Worldbuilder, and it crashes. The crash comes a couple of seconds after I pick a leader, and while the map is initializing.

AppName: civ4beyondsword.exe AppVer: 3.1.3.1 ModName: cvgamecoredll.dll
ModVer: 3.1.7.0 Offset: 0016cb50

I think you need E-suranse...
Try picking another leader because the civ you pick may have been wiped out in world builder because of turning land to coast under invisible units.

Make sure you run it in normal BtS and not RFC or anything.

I'll check Jedi's file later on.

Did you take a look at mine (post 49)?
-I agree with Jedi on Spain and France. Now that I look at it, I don't know what I was thinking.
-Arabian Sea should get connected to Red for several reasons:
.........-Trade
.........-Many Empires will have access to Persian Gulf/ South Asia. Their Navies should be able to enter ..........Mediterranean if Forts are built on Sinai.
-Rivers are mostly for reference. But Jedi is right about slanted Nile.
-We have to work on Italy and Greece. They should be enlarged, but are too bulky. Peloponesse should be more slanted. And the 'Foot' of Italy looks too stubby.
-Mediterranean has practically no room. I think it is time to make the map bigger. Maybe we can shift Africa down and Iberia/France west?

Trade with who? There are no indians, just Persia up there. It's much nearer across the desert.

The Suez Canal was built in the 1800s. I don't think it should be possible to pass the Sinai with ships. That's also ahistorical. No navy traversed the Red Sea, nor the Persian Gulf in Antiquity other than for commercial operations, which are absent from Civ4 (maybe a Great Merchant mission could qualify as that).

I'll add plots to the south because Egypt seems too short. Most of the new tiles will be desert anyway. And I'll try to connect those two seas, though I don't see the point really.

Why do you want to make the Mediterranean bigger? I think all that part of the map, including Italy and Greece, is fine now. Those two are already huge enough.

I'll also add some rivers (easily editable for me, don't take it as anything other than a test).

New size: 90x40 (was 90x33)

Gets to Nubia, Arabia Felix and the far Transoxiana. Even the Indus valley is large. Every civilized region in Antiquity west of Ganges is included.

Added preliminary version of hills, mountains and some rivers.
Suez Canal can be built. Crete is 1 tile shorter.

I'll always add the BMP images for WBSconverter in my versions from now on, in case someone knows what to do with them...

The only reason I thought it should be larger was because I thought we could use more sea tiles in the Mediterranean. That way we can separate all the islands between Italy and Spain more realistically.

Realistically, in the west Mediterranean they are quite allright now.

Sicily is separated by just a few kilometres from the Italian peninsula.

Corsica and Sardinia, they're quite like that also. Even too big in the map compared to reality, but I suppose it's OK.

The Balearic islands also, are close to Iberia but you must have in mind Iberia is downscaled a lot compared to Italy and Greece.

The main problem is indeed that the Mediterranean is too big! Naval units will need to have a huge movement increase, or ships will take ages to move from one coast to other and the AI will never colonize.

In my opinion the affected settler maps should have 2 cities for Sicily and Sardinia, 1 for Corsica and Mallorca.

Moved Iberia, Greece, Anatolia and Italy 1 tile north, Africa 1 south, Levant 1 east, Iberia 1 west.
Crete 5 tiles long again.

Islands should look better this way as you say. Especially Cyprus, it's now much more detached from the continent.

Edit: I definitely prefer the version previous to this one. That much space in the sea looks weird.

Woah, there a quite a few new posts. I'll update this post once I look through the new saves. It's nice to know I'm not the only one wanting this.

Far from it!

I have some files around here... take a look.

Edit: they're old now.

I had to leave school earlier than I was planning on Friday, so I won't be able to give any feedback until sunday night/ early monday

Allright. A little more advance here.

This is a preview. It only has the terrain and bonuses changes.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1lm1tqmmqyk

Here are the number of bonuses:
http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/7967/bonuses.jpg (http://img2.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bonuses.jpg)
http://img2.imageshack.us/img2/bonuses.jpg/1/w669.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img2/bonuses.jpg/1/)

Most of them are taken from RFC or RFCE.

I think resources are well placed for the most part, historically-wise. One possible idea is to reveal some of them late (as happens to the Americas in RFC), for example the ones in Gallia and Iberia. And make a lot of military units NOT require iron or copper, as they are not all over the map; they could be a bonus for their production.

Also coded two special resources absent from the map: ceramic (to be somehow produced from clay) and slaves.

"Access" would allow the building of "far eastern trade" projects in the late game, much in the way of colonies in RFCE.

All the info is in the pedia.

Unable to open your map but could I ask about tin which was absolutely critical in the production of bronze? Even though the Bronze Age began about 3000BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia those regions had no tin deposits. Therefore they must have had access to supplies from trade with those cultures that did mine tin. The only near areas at that time were tin was found were the following.
Afganistan
The Taurus mts. in S. Anatolia
Spain
Brittainy
But the vast majority of tin deposits were found in Cornwall and Devon in SW Britain.
There is evidence of Phoenician trading vessels in this area from about 1200BC or earlier. And one of the key reasons for the Roman invasion of Britain was the abundant supplies of tin. In fact Cornwall supplied about 75% of the world's tin right up to the early 19thC.
This, and the relative scarcity of copper compared to iron, made the Bronze Age relatively short-lived and the Iron Age that much earlier. Even in the Celts in the 6th.C BC had begun to smelt iron instead of copper, which was only used for jewelry and decoration.
I'm sure you've only put tin in very few locations but I just wanted to emphasize that its extreme scarity made trade for it essential.

I know there's some problem with it but not how to solve it by now. You must load the mod from BtS and then play the scenario instead of just double-clicking the publicmap. (and of course put the folder in Beyond the Sword/Mods, as usual)

Concerning tin, I tried exactly what you suggest, placing it only in those places (with Cyprus instead of Afghanistan, and no Spain). Problem is to get it by trade is difficult, as most of those areas aren't supposed to be settled until late game.

The perfect way would be to someway establish an event after ship exploration of Brittany and Britain that gave the resource to that civ for some time. But I have no idea if that's possible. And if it was, certainly the same would be applied for amber and the northern Balkans.

Jediclem- I don't see that much of a difference between your RFCAJedi.zip file and your second JediRFCA.zip file. Either way, you said the sea is a little bit bigger and crete was one tile longer. They both look really good to me.

Your most recent file, the "preview" one, is top notch. The only problems I can see is some of your rivers extend into the sea by a tile, which can be fixed in seconds :p Is that one the same size as the previous file?

Jedi, I opened your version from post 62 (great work! btw), but I can not open the one from post 70. It's in the right folder, but the game is not reading it for some reason. It allows me to select all the other maps from the scenarios folder, but not that one, it's not even a choice.

Open another scenario in worldbuilder and then use the worldbuilder's load feature to find it.

Confused me too.

Why not use the RFC Europe map?

All the civs will have room for all their cities. We can remedy all the extra space by giving a whole lot more movement to all units, and more ways for cities to gain culture so cities will get spaced out more.

We'd just need to add Mesopotamia, and all that stuff eastwards. Scandinavia can get cut, so will the Russia area... etc.

1) The landmasses, Greece and Italy in particular are too small for what we're going for.

2) You can't just add more tiles to one side of a map:)

OK. Now I know what the line "Allow PublicMaps=1" means.

You should be able to load the map now. Overwrite the originals with the two files in the attachment.

(if you didn't download the folder, it's this one:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1lm1tqmmqyk
)

Your most recent file, the "preview" one, is top notch. The only problems I can see is some of your rivers extend into the sea by a tile, which can be fixed in seconds :p Is that one the same size as the previous file?

Hrmm. I don't understand what you mean. I don't see them extending.

I can't believe how good the map, terrains, and resources look! You did a great job Jedi!. :goodjob: But there's a few places I have suggestions for.

1. The thing I remember the most about the Phoenecians (except its navy and colonies) are its world renown purple dye. Maybe we could have a special resource that only the Phoenicians can see (their unique power). They got their dye from snails, so if somebody makes it, that could be the graphics.

2. Italy just doesn't look right to me. Don't get me wrong, I love that we expanded it, but it's missing it's shape. (See lower left hand picture inside the Persian Gulf Picture)
-It doesn't have that little stub thing in the Adriatic (1)
-The lower half of Italy, facing Spain, should maybe pushed in more. (2)
-The bay in the 'heel' of Italy is too compacted. For expanding Italy, it looks like that place got compressed. Maybe we should square it off somehow (I tried in WB, but I could not work it.) (3)

3. I just think the Persian Gulf should look more like this: Maybe the combination of our two depending on yours and other's opinions. (This, like the rest of the picture, I payed no attention to the resources and the terrains, just the difference between land and sea) Also, the Persian Gulf looked different thousands of years ago.
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z311/SHARPCLAW117/JediPersianGulf1.jpg

4. I also redid and added to the Tigris and Euphrates. I used my McDougal-Littell World History textbook for reference to this and the Persian Gulf map.
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z311/SHARPCLAW117/JediTigandEuphRiver1.jpg

5. Now this is kind of a major change. I redid the Nile and lower (North) Egypt. It's further out into the Mediterranean though and the delta is twice as long. Again I used the history book for reference. I also added one coast tile to the East Red Sea. (I forgot to put it, but we should connect the Red Sea to the Mediterranean with a river, so sea trade is possible.
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z311/SHARPCLAW117/JediNile1.jpg

6. That bay thing in North Africa should have a flatter base to coincide with the tilted map. (I'm not sure if coincide is the right word)

Just one question, how did you figure out the placement of the resources?

It's very late here and I'll look at the Worldbuilder tomorrow, but for starters changing Mesopotamia looks good, it will add more tiles to it, even if the Arabian Desert is made smaller in that part.

Italy's boot... the problem is the West Mediterranean isn't as rotated as the whole map.

About the Nile Delta, I deliberately wanted to make it small. It may look too tiny next to Greece, but not so much to the Levant. And for gameplay reasons, (I think) the Delta is not supposed to be intensely settled, as it wasn't that much populated. Egypt is scaled in an strange way, to fit Nubia under it (I think it covers well beyond the 5th cascade). Also, isn't it very near Crete with your edit?

That was my goal, to intend an Egypt with not that much cities (which is why it is so resource-packed and floodplains give an extra hammer).

Finally, I looked at wikipedia for some insight on the importance of resources from some places, which I believe is something similar to what Rhye made for RFC. With something like marble, it's easy; with olives, which I'm familiar with (it was the main product taken by the Romans from Hispania, apart from metals); or dye, as you pointed out. I also tried to make Persia possible to populate (that is why the abundance of wheat and barley there, which anyway is historical, as in the Zagros Mountains agriculture was first developed, or something like that I think), India and the far right corner (Transoxiana) with unique historical resources, and so on.

Oh! I forgot about India! The biggest thing I had in mind for India was that it could supply the West with silk, since we don't have China. Also, even though I don't know where spices are grown around India, we should add some around the Indus.

I put 1 spice in Yemen, 2 in India (I think, also has cotton), 2 in Transoxiana.

There's no silk on the map, as there was no silk out of China in the time frame of the mod. Instead, the "access" resource, now in 3 places of the map (coastal Egypt = Berenice, Yemen and coastal Persia; I don't know about an extra one in Transoxiana or Indus delta), would allow "Trade Route Projects" (exactly as Colonies in RFCE, one of which would refer to China and provide silk).

Also the point is to NOT have something like silk just by mere conquest.

Edit:
- Changed moreless the Tigris-Eufrates line with your indications, added 4 tiles to the Nile Delta (perfect size for me) and 1 tile to southern Italy.
- Now there's ocean too.
- I understand your concern with Italy, but tried various edits and, as of now, it's the lesser evil. Moving the entire Adriatic cramps Illyria too near the Danube. That region isn't supposed to be important, but it would look really bad. Also, Greece can't be moved without reducing the Aegean. I think it's greatly balanced in this moment, even if it doesn't look at its correct rotation.
- Less wheat. Should be a key resource, with a food bonus % from granary. Very important in Antiquity.
- One more dye for Phoenicia. They are also supposed to control the one in Cyprus; and the only other one in the map (next to Alexandria) should "appear" late, as the other resources around the city, to reflect its appearance near 340 BC (that is, the city will probably be built by egyptians but only get those resources around at that date). That means for the most time only Phoenicians will control dye (no special resource, just dye as it is).
- Don't understand what you mean with Africa.

I'm looking at it now. Are the two coastal tiles in the middle of the Nile Delta intentional? I'm assuming they're a mistake; if not they look pretty weird.

I was going to change it and upload it, but this is much easier. If you examine Britain, on the Western shore it looks like there is grass under the water. If you select the coast terrain and click on the water next to the land it will remove that. The other thing is a river on the west coast of France that is at the same level as Britain; the river extends too far into the ocean by one tile.

But Map-wise it's really, really nice. The resources look good, but they'll have to be tested of course to see how the civs handle them. Good work!

I'm looking at it now. Are the two coastal tiles in the middle of the Nile Delta intentional? I'm assuming they're a mistake; if not they look pretty weird.

I was going to change it and upload it, but this is much easier. If you examine Britain, on the Western shore it looks like there is grass under the water. If you select the coast terrain and click on the water next to the land it will remove that. The other thing is a river on the west coast of France that is at the same level as Britain; the river extends too far into the ocean by one tile.

But Map-wise it's really, really nice. The resources look good, but they'll have to be tested of course to see how the civs handle them. Good work!

It seems there is some problem in either our games, as I see no coastal tile in the middle of the delta, nor continue to see what you mean by rivers extending into the ocean. (?)

Did you download the last publicmap and the mod folder?

I thought so, but I'll download it again.

If the map is workable, which it looks like it is, what comes next?

Lot of coding I figure.
-The civilizations (we could just edit names for now)
-start points and spawn points
-possibly add stability, but that is enormous as we have to redo that, right?
-We don't need technology right away. Let's just see how workable the land is with generic.
-Settler and war maps
-City names map, but only in English at first.

But after we do even one of those things, playing by ear can be easy. I have hardly any time on the computer lately because of multiple school projects, but once that is done, I'll be able to help (mostly as an apprentice. I'm trying to lean how to mod, so at least I'll be able to see what step by step does).

How is that going guys?

I began to do that days ago, using the TAM civs, techs and units as a template, but it's very hard to change that much things in XML. A small error who-knows-where, and it stops working.

Which happened, because I messed up along the way.

Nevertheless I'll try to take some steps back and post the files with just the map, worker actions coded (which aren't in the version posted here) and religions (had some free time back then and completed most of that except a few interface graphics), taking out unused resources (aluminium, coal), units (ICBM...), etc.

BTW, if I understand correctly, for RFCE whoever started it (3Miro? sedna?) took Rhye's files from RFC and changed them directly. It would be interesting to know which exactly is the way to incorporate all that Python and the SDK...

I suggest once that is cleared up we can begin the discussion about techs and civics. And finish the civ list.

What religions were you going to run with? I ask because of the time period and Christianity and someone suggested Buddhism, which I'm pretty against.

ill admit the only thing i know about rome is from rome total war, but are you going to have just the roman empire as a civ, or SPQR and the 3 families?

This project is going to be on halt for a while since RFC: Greek World is the clear winner of the next project. But once/if we do make this mod, it will be the Roman civilization. Thanks to dynamic names, we can have it the Roman republic, then whatever else...

ill admit the only thing i know about rome is from rome total war, but are you going to have just the roman empire as a civ, or SPQR and the 3 families?

The three families in RTW are near-total fabrications, invented for gameplay purposes for that game.

Also, we can make up names for alt history, if desired.

Done nothing for months. Tried making a mini-mod with the map, religions and copying the TAM techs (just for show). Impossible.

I suppose the project is dead now, with only the map.

What is RFC: Greek World?

I say it is just on hold.
Greek World was a mod for Vanilla, and is a circular map of the Mediterranean. You can find it on Rhye's site.

I think we should find out if RFC Greek world is the winner. If it is not, we will start it again.

i can't find any mention of a new RFC: Greek World.

"What will we research next?" in the main RFC forum.