Do you think that the terrain is well done? I think that some starting positions are amazingly powerful (Sparta and Athens AFAIK), and some changes need to be made. The mountains surrounding Egypt don't really exist IRL (except maybe on the east coast), and as someone noted, the Pyrenes Mts. appear to be in the middle of Iberia. I don't know about anyone else, but having a circular map annoys me :p. I don't think that terrain is the most of the worries, however.

Another note: I keep having the problem of not being able to make anything other than units because of such high production, but that will certainly be fixed later.

This is the kind of thing we need to test. ARE Sparta and Athens too powerful? Having one great city doesn't help if the competition has five good cities. Plus they're in direct competition with each other.

I'm not sure exactly why Rhye chose the mountains around Egypt - probably to create a Nile Valley impression and protect against barbies.

I really like the circular map, actually. Circles are the most efficient use of space, so it makes the map work as larger while not being that large. Clever. The only thing I'm worried about at all the new coastal cities in eastern Persia - both for play balance as well as trying to name them when Rhye gives us the city names.

It's really important for us to get feedback like the high production - it'll only get fixed if it's known, and Rhye can't play it.

Although I suspect the problem is less the high production level than the slower tech tree - we don't have new buildings, units, or costs put in to make the tech tree, turn limits, and production costs balance each other out. We should probably start brainstorming buildings.

Well, maybe the circle just makes it seem small for me. I don't like the missing features such as the Bay of Biscay (western coast of France). It makes Rome seem small and it takes a short amount of time to conquer all the land. I would support making Spain and France bigger and actually having an England. Those islands up top annoy me, they represent a fantasy land like Shangri-La.

As for the excess production, it is mostly because of the lack of units, buildings, wonders, and the ability to build research, gold, and culture. However, as I said, it seems Sparta will be able to build every wonder since it starts with Marble and Stone in its BFC along with two sheep which will go nicely with its plains hills that make for nice production.

I noticed that there are a lot of resources (like cow and sheep) stuck on mountains. :lol::lol:

I see a cow, stone, and a marble in Asia Minor. Are there any other resources you see stuck on mountains?

EDIT: and a sheep in Israel.




I'm seeing what you're saying about the Pyrenees. I suspect that what happened is that Rhye shifted them over when he was expanding Italy and the Alpes. I'll try to fix the resources for the next version, but map changes may take a little longer.

While fixing the terrain, I kept running into problems with a new map. So I went to the Modiki and found some map programs and some others. Still not working. Then I checked the help for the MapView program, and it said to use the WinMerge program.

First of all, WinMerge appears to be totally amazing for much more than modding. Takes any two files and compares them. ANY two!

Second, I got it to work - the resources are off the mountains. I just put them adjacent to their mountains and tried to keep them somewhat away from other resources. Could have still been somewhat incorrect - Phoenicia now doesn't have dye terribly close.

Finally, it's the Worldbuilder file which has the leaderheads! So I've given each civ a distinct, non-Gilgamesh based LH. Yes, Washington was a Hittite.

Here's the updated map. Once the tech tree gets sorted out a bit, I think it'll be time for a new version release.