Sorry, I no longer support this mod.

If you've got Conquests, you can find newest version of Rhye's of Civilization: the fastest loading mod here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=77848

And an older version for vanilla Civ3 and PTW here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=46415

You might want to actually give us a d/l link ;)

and yes - a .bic would be wonderful :)

oh, the file:


(removed)

and you might want to give us a bic file;)

if you tell me how to...

wow, can this be true?

With the new PTW expansion, I just decided to fire up a new round of civ on a huge earth map. And what do I find? Rhye has just finnished EXACTLY what I was looking for. Thanks a lot, you made my day.

Anyway, I have one comment to:
(I saw someone put horses in America!!)

There were horses in America before the humans arrived there. They were probably hunted to extinction by the indian tribes. Whether this happened before or after 4000 BC, I don't know...
But could it justify the addition of a few horses in the american part of this map? :D

Thanks.

Please if you're going to play a game with this map try to do it with the version with adapted rules:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37339

I need someone to test it to find something to improve

Originally posted by Spate
There were horses in America before the humans arrived there. They were probably hunted to extinction by the indian tribes. Whether this happened before or after 4000 BC, I don't know...
But could it justify the addition of a few horses in the american part of this map? :D

I think it doesn't justify :)

Aztecs and other native people feared horses, something never seen.
But year by year they learned how to use them.
And in fact AI manages to have them by trade. I've seen in my test games cavalry units from american civs

Rhye, Thanks for putting resources on my map.

Originally posted by Rhye
I think it doesn't justify :)

Aztecs and other native people feared horses, something never seen.
But year by year they learned how to use them.
And in fact AI manages to have them by trade. I've seen in my test games cavalry units from american civs

I agree. Just because there are horses in America now doesn't mean they should have them at the start. How did horses get to America anyway? Trade of course! That's the whole point of strategic resources in the game, you trade for what you haven't got. And there are plenty of people to trade with on this map.

Also, resources can disappear and reappear in other places, yes? Anyone know if this happens with horses? If so then horses might appear in America later in the game.

Paul

Originally posted by Rhye
I need someone to test it to find something to improve

Okay then. I haven't played Civ3 for a long time, but I've just bought PTW (in the UK) and I'm glad to see many of the gameplay improvements they've added. Of the ones I've looked at, this seems the best world map to play on, and I like the sound of many of your rule alterations, so I started a game yesterday.


After much playtesting, I decided to make a very rich Europe, while other regions are very poor. This is surely true, but it's enhanced in order to balance gameplay. In Earth maps China, Iroquois, Aztecs, Zulus always become too strong just because they have a lot of land in which to expand. So this is an advantage to all the European civs (and Japan, too).

I agree with this idea, it seems to work well. But of course the reason why China etc. become so strong in the game is because there are too few civs in those areas. In reality there were many different Chinese civs and a number of different civs in India for example, but Civilisation is a Euro-centric game which places too much emphasis on western civilisations and not enough on eastern ones. If you've ever played History of the World you'll know how many eastern civilations there should be.

Another important factor is the map projections used. With most map projections Northern America and northern Asia are way too large. The projections used in this map are better than most IMO, but the northern lands are still larger than they should be. When you look at the world on a globe, or on a Molleweide projection, you realise just how small Alaska is for example. If the northern lands were represented accurately, there'd be huge sea distances between northern America and Asia.

Also, many civs included in the game are modern civs who shouldn't really be there at all in 4000BC, which is the main reason why Europe is so crowded. The English, French and Spanish shouldn't really be there at all because they didn't exist back then (the Germans could be thought of as representing the various barbarian tribes).

Still, this may not necessarily be a problem from a purely game point of view, except for the huge difference in size of the areas available to them. Making Europe richer in resources does seem to be a pretty good way of dealing with the problem. If you like to play Civilisation with lots of early warfare then a crowded Europe can be a good thing, but personally I find it a bit too cramped.

More ancient civs spread over Asia and no modern civs would be my ideal way of setting the game up, but the game is the way it is.


No cities on desert, tundra and jungle

This is good.


Increased cost of roads (8), railroads (20), mines (18), irrigation (20), plant forest (24), clear forest (24) and clear jungle (96). Otherwise AI would irrigate th whole Sahara, clear all jungles and cover every tile with roads. A central Africa full of rich cities really isn't realistic.

I agree on the whole, but I'm not very comfortable with it. I think it takes far too long to cut down forests and build mines for example. I agree with making jungles very difficult to clear. I think it's more realistic overall, but not so good from a gameplay point of view.

I think the natural reaction of most players would be to build loads more workers in order to get the jobs done faster, which just means lots more micro-management of workers, lots more units cluttering up the map and lots more strain on the player's finances paying to support all the extra workers. It may be more realistic, but I think it affects game balance too much.

I think a compromise would be better, more expensive than normal, but less expensive than they are now.


Tech rate is set at 400, but timeline was made a bit shorter in the ancient age. I didn't want to do this, but I couldn't stand AI reaching middle ages in 900BC. That's because of the AI-to-AI trade between 20 civs since early phases.

I'm finding it very frustrating having to wait so long to develop techs. I know I can trade, but it takes ages to get something new and it's very hard to beat the other civs to anything. I think the problem is with having so many civs on the map. It may be realistic from a world point of view, but I don't think having so many civs works as well from a game point of view. The game seems to have been designed for a relatively small number of civs, i.e. 8. I think less civs works better, trading is too easy with so many civs, and it's difficult to keep track of who has what.


I set optimal number of cities to 16 to disvantage empires too big.

This is something I've never agreed with. Why place artificial limits on large empires? I can accept gradually increasing corruption, but it doesn't increase gradually, it hits you like a brick wall, every city over a certain number is automatically crap. This is just a cheesy game limitation IMO, to stop any one player getting too strong. I agree there should be problems managing large empires, but I don't think this strict number cap is the best way to deal with it.

I also don't like the way that corruption increases with distance from the capital. I accept that it should, but not as strongly as it does. I constantly think of the British Empire, which was probably the most far flung empire ever, and it just doesn't seem to be practical to simulate the British Empire in Civilisation (which I often attempt), mainly because of the artificial limitations of distance from capital.


I excluded Celts.

Aargh! The very side I wanted to play! Still, no matter, I understand your reasoning, there isn't enough room. But what on earth the French, Spanish and English are doing there in 4000 BC? ;-)

Anyway, a few other points;

NORTH POLE

This is something that's always bugged me about world maps. Why does no-one ever put ice (or tundra which is the nearest thing) at the north pole? Is it because all the atlases show it as water? Well of course it is water, but we all know that it's frozen! Being able to sail around the top of the world just isn't realistic. There is no "North-west Passage", and the only ships that can make it across the top of Asia are icebreakers (not represented in the game) and they can only do that in summer, so to all intents and purposes it's best consider that route blocked.

Perhaps it's because few people have access to a decent ice map? I've attached a small pic to this message to show the ice at the north pole. Probably best to just add the year round ice, not the winter ice.

While we're on the subject, I'm not sure that having rivers running through tundra is terribly realistic either, considering that they'd be frozen solid for most of the year.

SHIP SPEED

Another thing that's always bugged me, why are ships so slow in the game? In the real world you can sail around the world multiple times in just one year, but in the game, even in the modern age with the fastest ships, it can take half a century to sail around the world on a map of this size! This is totally ridiculous!

The main reason that the British Empire was so successful was because "Britannia ruled the waves". Sea power was vitally important, but if ships had travelled as slowly in real life as they do in the game, there'd never have been a British Empire, they'd have stayed at home and not bothered. This is another reason why it's very difficult to create a decent British Empire in the game.

Considering how fast a ship can sail around the world in real life, modern ships should be able to move an infinite distance each turn. If this sound silly, consider that land units can do exactly that with railways! Theoretically a unit could move from the west coast of Europe to the east coast of Asia in one turn if connected by a continuous railroad, yet a ship could take half a lifetime to get there! This is just plain silly.

I suggest therefore that ship movement speed should be increased, quite considerably. I'm not suggesting silly numbers like 100 movement points per turn, but they should be able to move a helluva lot faster than they do, especially on a map of this size. Perhaps 10 to 20 movement points for modern ships? (just a rough guess, but I haven't tested anything like this).

As things stand, you could build an army, load them on ships, sail them to another part of the world to invade another country, and by the time you get there your army is out of date. A bit like loading up musketmen on one side of the Atlantic and meeting tanks on the other side! (Okay, a silly example, but you get the idea.)

I'd recommend giving serious consideration to increasing ship movement rates, at least a little, if not a lot.

PLAYING THE GAME

I started a game last night and chose to play the incorrectly-named English in yet another attempt to create a British Empire. I chose Monarch level. I've only just reached the Middle Ages, at 575BC.

I managed to fill Britain with 5 nicely spaced cities. I purposely cheated with each goody hut, reloading until I got an advance or a settler (I'm a bit crap at playing on Monarch level, so I felt I needed a helping hand at the start, some techs to trade to the other civs, otherwise I'd get left behind). I don't usually do this, but I felt I needed to this time.

I'm not used to playing in such a cramped space. It seems strange to have so little room on such a big map. I don't think I like having so many civs in one game.

My first big problem was happiness, I had trouble keeping my cities out of disorder. I restarted the game twice before hitting upon a decent start strategy. I built two military units and a temple for every city, and made sure I got the Oracle wonder first. All for the sake of happiness, giving me size 6 cities without disorder.

My main goal was Map Making (obviously) but in spite of devoting everything to it, the other civs got it much quicker than me. I had to trade a lot for it, and although I was desperate to build the lighthouse first (to give Britannia that vital naval edge) I stood no chance.

Once I got Map Making I started building galleys and loading up settlers and spearmen. Then I got into major financial problems. I just couldn't support all those units. Too many buildings (mainly temples), too many military units keeping the people happy, too many workers because it takes so damn long to do everything. So keeping everyone happy put me in a financial crisis.

I think the main problem is that there are no luxuries available in Britain. A few furs or dyes scattered around the British forests would help this situation enormously, and I'm sure they were available in ancient times. Britain had plenty of wild furry animals roaming around and the Ancient Britons used to dye themselves blue.

If anything there is too much food in Britain and not enough luxuries IMO.

As for trading. Too easy, too many other civs, too hard too keep track of everyone else. Maybe just my preference, but I think less civs would work better. Trading would be more challenging and Europe wouldn't be so crowded.

So I sailed my little fleet of 4 galleys loaded with settlers and spearmen down to the Ivory Coast area of Africa, and plonked down a couple of settlers. I noticed there were one or two barbarian camps around, so I was wary of sending my other settlers inland. I decided to send the galleys back to pick up some swordsmen to deal with the barbs (I really should have taken the swordsmen first but I just couldn't afford the unit support - I desperately needed to found some new cities to reduce the unit support costs).

Of course, since it takes hundreds of years to sail back to pick up a few swordsmen, there was no chance of them returning before a massive barbarian outbreak occurred, sacking my cities and putting them in a hopeless position where they just couldn't build anything.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, three civs were attacking my good friends the French and I decided not to let the Germans bully me into giving them Literacy (they are currently in the lead) so I've joined in the war and allied with France to help stem the Kraut onslaught. The Spanish and Romans are also allied with the Germans and are attacking the French so I've got a feeling I'll be battling them soon also.

Somehow it seems that matters in Europe are of more pressing urgency than those in Africa, so I doubt my colonies down there will be receiving reinforcements for a long time to come. In fact, I may as well cut my losses and abandon those cities altogether, so it seems my first attempt at a far flung empire was a complete disaster.

So where does that leave me? Well with only five cities in Britain, I can only support their defenders, my workers and a few galleys for free, so the Expeditionary force I need to send to the continent will cost money! Money I haven't got.

Where can I get money from? Marketplaces? But I haven't got time to build them because the Germans are landing on my shores and I need to build swordsmen now! My money problems mean that my science is suffering, and the world is on the verge of discovering Feudalism. I won't discover it first, and I've got sod all left to trade for it when it does come along, not that anyone is likely to trade it to me. And I haven't even got Monarchy yet!

Maybe I should just start again on Regent level... :-(

Am I right in thinking that the best way to start a monarch level game is to be aggressive and start kicking butt right away?

Paul

First of all, thank you for this reply!!
This is what I was waiting for! (btw, you've posted in the wrong thread: this is for the standard rules map)




Originally posted by Paul Saunders

Also, many civs included in the game are modern civs who shouldn't really be there at all in 4000BC, which is the main reason why Europe is so crowded. The English, French and Spanish shouldn't really be there at all because they didn't exist back then (the Germans could be thought of as representing the various barbarian tribes).


This is a Civilization long time non-sense. Everyone who knows history dislike to have French and Celts together (they're the same!!) and America fighting with Babylon. But this is Civ, we must understand that this is a sort of "Greatest Hits" of all the civs.

Originally posted by Paul Saunders






screenshot removed
I agree on the whole, but I'm not very comfortable with it. I think it takes far too long to cut down forests and build mines for example. I agree with making jungles very difficult to clear. I think it's more realistic overall, but not so good from a gameplay point of view.

I think the natural reaction of most players would be to build loads more workers in order to get the jobs done faster, which just means lots more micro-management of workers, lots more units cluttering up the map and lots more strain on the player's finances paying to support all the extra workers. It may be more realistic, but I think it affects game balance too much.

I think a compromise would be better, more expensive than normal, but less expensive than they are now.


I based my corrections looking what AI did, not on what a player could do. Again, this cuts Zulu, India and China advantages.
I'll post a screenshot down here to let you see what happened with "only" :rolleyes: 24 as cost to clear jungle


Originally posted by Paul Saunders

I'm finding it very frustrating having to wait so long to develop techs. I know I can trade, but it takes ages to get something new and it's very hard to beat the other civs to anything.


Standard civ3 huge maps (160x160) have 400 tech rate.
I thought that 180x180 should have nor less nor more.
But setting it to 300 is really a good idea, because it reduces times but not for ancient age (already fast); but I'll have to play AGAIN a test game to adjust timescale.
And if I don't see a little more people asking for that, I won't do that only to see 1 reply.


Originally posted by Paul Saunders

This is something I've never agreed with. Why place artificial limits on large empires? I can accept gradually increasing corruption, but it doesn't increase gradually, it hits you like a brick wall, every city over a certain number is automatically crap. This is just a cheesy game limitation IMO, to stop any one player getting too strong. I agree there should be problems managing large empires, but I don't think this strict number cap is the best way to deal with it.

I also don't like the way that corruption increases with distance from the capital. I accept that it should, but not as strongly as it does. I constantly think of the British Empire, which was probably the most far flung empire ever, and it just doesn't seem to be practical to simulate the British Empire in Civilisation (which I often attempt), mainly because of the artificial limitations of distance from capital.


In fact I agree that distance corruption should be low to allow British-style empires, but history teaches that large empires on a continent are often weak. Just think China before communism. It wasn't a really united country. This is Civ3 corruption. And in fact China lost control by European powers, so little countries. This is a missing concept in civ, and I think that could be a little simulated lowering both city cap and distance corruption (which I didn't edit this time, but I'm planning to do). And I think 16 is a reasonable cap, you can fill USA with 16 cities.

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

Aargh! The very side I wanted to play! Still, no matter, I understand your reasoning, there isn't enough room. But what on earth the French, Spanish and English are doing there in 4000 BC? ;-)


I was forced to do that. If not, Celts, Rome, Spain and France would build 2 or 3 cities and get stuck each other. I play-tested that.

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

NORTH POLE
This is something that's always bugged me about world maps. Why does no-one ever put ice (or tundra which is the nearest thing) at the north pole? Is it because all the atlases show it as water? Well of course it is water, but we all know that it's frozen! Being able to sail around the top of the world just isn't realistic. There is no "North-west Passage", and the only ships that can make it across the top of Asia are icebreakers (not represented in the game) and they can only do that in summer, so to all intents and purposes it's best consider that route blocked.
Perhaps it's because few people have access to a decent ice map? I've attached a small pic to this message to show the ice at the north pole. Probably best to just add the year round ice, not the winter ice.


If you put ice all around, you'll be able to explore the whole world. And Americas would be discovered in 2000BC

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

While we're on the subject, I'm not sure that having rivers running through tundra is terribly realistic either, considering that they'd be frozen solid for most of the year.


There are no problems with no cities on tundra.

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

SHIP SPEED
Another thing that's always bugged me, why are ships so slow in the game? In the real world you can sail around the world multiple times in just one year, but in the game, even in the modern age with the fastest ships, it can take half a century to sail around the world on a map of this size! This is totally ridiculous!
I suggest therefore that ship movement speed should be increased, quite considerably. I'm not suggesting silly numbers like 100 movement points per turn, but they should be able to move a helluva lot faster than they do, especially on a map of this size. Perhaps 10 to 20 movement points for modern ships? (just a rough guess, but I haven't tested anything like this).
I'd recommend giving serious consideration to increasing ship movement rates, at least a little, if not a lot.


I agree with that. (but not galleys)
But I didn't do it this time because I didn't want to tweak too much the rules. When people see a lot of changes tend to be distrustful of the mod.
And if I put myself in changing units, then I would do the following things:
1)Improve:
Man-o.war (Firaxis thought that to increase by 1 something from 2 to 3 is the same of increasing from 14 to 15; but the real gain is much lower!! 150% versus 1.07%!!!!)
F-15 (same as above)
Panzer (same as above)
Cossacks (same as above)
Legion (they should be the best unit of the ancient era)
Conquistador (useless as it is now)
Cavalry (attack (6) too weak versus infantry (10 defense), and they fight each other before motorized transport)
Weaker:
Immortals (they lost versus Hoplits, why the hell it's 4 attack versus 3 defense?)
Swordsman (in order to leave a 3-3 legion)
Maybe Berserks and Sipahi (I haven't played a game yet)

But more the changes, more the things I risk to upset.
Expecially when I try to present this map as a Civ3 game on Earth.
But maybe sea movement is necessary.


Originally posted by Paul Saunders

PLAYING THE GAME
I started a game last night and chose to play the incorrectly-named English in yet another attempt to create a British Empire. I chose Monarch level. I've only just reached the Middle Ages, at 575BC.


575BC?? With custom rules?? Very strange, it always happened near 400AD


Originally posted by Paul Saunders

If anything there is too much food in Britain and not enough luxuries IMO.


Thanks. I'll correct that

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

As for trading. Too easy, too many other civs, too hard too keep track of everyone else. Maybe just my preference, but I think less civs would work better. Trading would be more challenging and Europe wouldn't be so crowded.


You can exclude them when beginning the game. But my efforts were based on adapting timescale for 14 civs.
It's a matter of opinions, but I prefer to have both France and Germany, not a civ1 and civ2-like with France OR Germany => no wars between two very rival civs.

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

Am I right in thinking that the best way to start a monarch level game is to be aggressive and start kicking butt right away?


Yes, I noticed that this map makes the game a lot more difficult! You find problems of lack of space in one case, and in the other case you find poor resources and lots of barbs.

Originally posted by Rhye
First of all, thank you for this reply!!
This is what I was waiting for! (btw, you've posted in the wrong thread: this is for the standard rules map)

Whooops! Sorry, I got the threads mixed up. Shall I continue in this one now it's here?


This is a Civilization long time non-sense. Everyone who knows history dislike to have French and Celts together (they're the same!!) and America fighting with Babylon. But this is Civ, we must understand that this is a sort of "Greatest Hits" of all the civs.

Yeah. The more I think about the unrealisms in Civilization, the more I have to remind myself that this is just a game. Good gameplay is not necessarily realistic and realism doesn't always make for good gameplay. I don't think it's a good idea to change the rules too much, because it can unbalance the game design. The more "realistic" you try to make the game, the more you can upset the game design, and you can never make it totally realistic anyway. So what's more important? Realism or good gameplay? The eternal game problem... :(


I based my corrections looking what AI did, not on what a player could do. Again, this cuts Zulu, India and China advantages.

True, but I'm still finding it very frustrating, and I don't want to build loads of workers with all the extra problems of micro-management and unit support. I still think jungle should be very difficult to clear, but I'm not happy with the expense of all the other improvements.

Isn't there some other way of limiting what the AI does? Perhaps tell them to build workers less often? I'll have to have a closer look at the editor.


I'll post a screenshot down here to let you see what happened with "only" :rolleyes: 24 as cost to clear jungle

Yes, I know. I think the main problem here is that chopping jungle gives you lush grassland, if the terrain underneath were less desirable then chopping it down wouldn't be so appealing, but I doubt you could change that. The thing with jungle in real life is that the climate is very hot and wet, so even if you do chop it down, you've still got excessive heat and rain, so that wouldn't make for ideal farmland.

How's this for an idea? You've increased the cost for chopping down jungle and forest, but there's a very quick way to chop them down, simply build a city there! It destroys the forest or jungle instantly. Why not prevent city building on forest and jungle terrain? You could still build cities in these places but you'd have to chop the trees down first! Wouldn't this be more realistic?

Not only would the cost of clearing jungle have the same effect it does now, but it would pretty much stop civs building cities in jungles completely. I mean how many cities are there in the jungles of the world? This wouldn't completely prevent colonisation of jungles, but it would make it very difficult.

Also, in the game I'm playing, I've noticed a lot of colonisation on the edges of the tundra. I realised that civs were building cities on the tundra tiles that had pine forest on them. If they weren't allowed to build on forests they'd have to clear them first, but if they cleared a forest on tundra, they wouldn't be allowed to build it there anyway!

They're also building cities on hills, with nothing but tundra and mountains on either side. These are silly places to build cities, but I don't think stopping them building on hills would be a good idea. Maybe it would be better not to place hills in tundra areas, representing them by tundra or mountains instead (or pine forests if not allowed for city placement).

As for the issue of the AI irrigating every desert tile, can you prevent irrigation on desert? That would be the simplest solution. How many deserts in the world have ever been irrigated on the scale represented in Civilization? Each tile probably represents maybe 1000 to 2000 square miles. Just irrigating one of these tiles would be a vast undertaking! I'm not sure it's even possible to irrigate that much desert, the heat would dry it out. I vote to disallow desert irrigation, if possible.


Standard civ3 huge maps (160x160) have 400 tech rate.
I thought that 180x180 should have nor less nor more.
But setting it to 300 is really a good idea, because it reduces times but not for ancient age (already fast); but I'll have to play AGAIN a test game to adjust timescale.
And if I don't see a little more people asking for that, I won't do that only to see 1 reply.

Sorry, I'm not used to playing on such big maps, I didn't realise that 400 was normal. If that's the way it is with big maps then that's okay, don't change it on my account. My research is going much faster now I'm in the Middle Ages.


In fact I agree that distance corruption should be low to allow British-style empires, but history teaches that large empires on a continent are often weak. Just think China before communism. It wasn't a really united country. This is Civ3 corruption. And in fact China lost control by European powers, so little countries. This is a missing concept in civ, and I think that could be a little simulated lowering both city cap and distance corruption (which I didn't edit this time, but I'm planning to do).

As you say, it's large continental empires that are the problem, probably because it's difficult to cross the land quickly. Sea power was the vital element with the British Empire, so perhaps the relatively quick speed of ocean travel was what held it together.


And I think 16 is a reasonable cap, you can fill USA with 16 cities.

So how can the Americans expand further if they want to? I still think it's an artificial limitation. Increasing corruption with distance (much as I dislike that) may be a better way of keeping empires in check.


If you put ice all around, you'll be able to explore the whole world. And Americas would be discovered in 2000BC

Ah, but I didn't suggest putting ice all around! If you look closely at the map I attached you'll see that there's a big gap in the year-round ice between Novaya Zemlya and Greenland. Also, the Bering Straits are not connected by year-round ice. If we assume that the top of the map doesn't go all the way to the pole, then all that is needed is to connect Asia to the top of the map with tundra (from Novaya Zemlya to Wrangel Island) and to do the same with North America (from Barrow to just east of Greenland, leaving Hudson Bay clear and with a gap between Canada and Greenland). It would be quite possible to stop people sailing around the top of the world but without connecting America and Asia.


There are no problems with no cities on tundra.

True, but rivers running through tundra look a bit silly IMO, and civs have been settling next to tundra on the pine forests and hills, and are taking advantage of the cash bonus of the rivers (from trade). Somehow I doubt that frozen Siberian rivers are very good sources of cash! (Although they do actually use them as roads.)


I agree with that. (but not galleys)

No, not galleys.


But I didn't do it this time because I didn't want to tweak too much the rules. When people see a lot of changes tend to be distrustful of the mod.
And if I put myself in changing units, then I would do the following things:
<snip>
But more the changes, more the things I risk to upset.
Expecially when I try to present this map as a Civ3 game on Earth.
But maybe sea movement is necessary.

Yes, I wouldn't be too keen to change the units either, too many different opinions on how strong different units should be. But changing the sea movement rate I think is less controversial, since you're not changing the strength of the units, just how far they can move. And I definitely think modern ships should be able to move much further on a map as big as this.


575BC?? With custom rules?? Very strange, it always happened near 400AD

Maybe it's because of my trading strategies! :) What I tend to do is concentrate on researching something advanced that others may not be researching. When I get it I can immediately trade it to all the other civs to get all the other available techs, plus maps of the whole world and loads of money (I've made nearly 500 gold in one turn doing this).

I even trade the tech to civs who can't offer me much, but I always make sure to get their maps. After I've traded with everyone my map of the world has become quite valuable so I go back and trade it again to the first civs I traded with. Even though I don't get much from weaker civs, I like to give them the modern techs so that their neighbours don't become too strong (Korea and Japan are two of my favourite charities, to try to help stop China becoming too strong).

I also freely trade contact with other civs. The more techs everyone knows, the faster they all research and the sooner I can get the new techs through trade as soon as I develop a new advance. As I said, trading is too easy with so many civs in the game.

I really couldn't care less about the dates being correct. If it weren't for the dark ages, some historians reckon that we might have reached our current level of technology a few hundred years ago. We could be living on other planets by now! So history doesn't have to happen the same way it really did.


Thanks. I'll correct that

I haven't looked too closely, but northern Europe might be a bit sparse on luxuries too.


You can exclude them when beginning the game. But my efforts were based on adapting timescale for 14 civs.

You mean 24?


It's a matter of opinions, but I prefer to have both France and Germany, not a civ1 and civ2-like with France OR Germany => no wars between two very rival civs.

Yes, I'd agree with that, if you want modern civs in the game, but I'd prefer to start with Romans, Celts and barbarian tribes in Europe personally, and have more eastern civs.


THE GAME SO FAR

I really was tempted to scrap the game after my last post, but I decided to continue to see how things would pan out. I abandoned my African cities, they were a dead loss, so a lot of wasted effort there.

The most important thing was to help the French defend against the Germans, so I started churning out swordsmen as fast as possible and ferried them over to France. My initial idea was not to attack the Germans but to disrupt their transport network. I was going to cut road links and destroy improvements to isolate and weaken their cities.

It didn't go to plan though, I never destroyed a single improvement, I was met with vast hordes of horsemen and archers. Although I managed to kill quite a few of them, they were never-ending, and finally wiped out almost every unit I sent over there. I didn't even manage to do a Dunkirk style retreat, they slaughtered me on the beaches.

However, I did manage to sneak two swordsmen around the back and liberated Lyon which they'd captured from the French. They only defended it with two spearmen. I was originally going to give this back to the French, but under the circumstances decided to keep it for myself.

It was about this time that I managed to research Feudalism first, to my amazement (why wasn't anyone else researching it? They seemed to get everything else before me!) I'd been building up my troops in Britain, so I immediately stopped research to get as much cash as I could, upgraded everything to pikemen and medieval infantry, then started ferrying them over.

I landed on a single tile next to a German city. I fortified pikemen in the square and spent each turn attacking the city with infantry. Each turn I ferried new troops over from London, and sent the injured units back to heal in London's barracks. All my cities kept producing new troops with London as the rallying point. I had a complete production line going - build, ferry, attack, return, heal.

The only question was who would crack first, the Germans threw everything they had against my super stack, but the pikemen did their job. The new tech gave me the edge. Eventually they ran out of troops and I captured the city. That was it, Germany was effectively out of the game! (They'd put everything into stopping me, and had weakened themselves disastrously in the process.

The next three cities were easy, I practically walked into them, including Berlin, which had shrunk to just size 2! Unfortunately, my newly captured cities were totally useless, due to population unhappiness because of the war. My new citizens refused to work in the fields (why couldn't my troops force them?) and each city I captured starved itself down to size 1! The first city was originally an 8! I had to stop the war to get the cities working again. But I didn't want to destroy them completely anyway. I wanted to leave them as a buffer zone between myself and Russia, and so that I could taunt them occasionally. :)

Meanwhile the French were shrivelling rapidly because of Roman assaults, and the Romans asked me if I'd like to join in and ally with them. Realising that France was a hopeless cause I decided to switch loyalties. Unfortunately, the Romans grabbed Paris (and the Pyramids) before I got there, but I managed to grab the last French city. It turned out that it wasn't the last though, somehow they'd managed to settle in China and Siberia too! I forced them to give me one more city for peace, so now I've got a useless piece of land right in the middle of Asia.

The situation now looks good. I've got 10 well placed cities in Britain, France and Germany. plus one stupid one in Asia, another small one in Morocco, and another foothold at the southern tip of Italy. My returning settlers from Africa settled there instead. My small empire is now near-flung rather than far-flung (which works much better in this game) and I've made peace with everyone.

My new plans are to switch to a republic, and build, build, build! I've got the makings of strong economy now, if I can develop it quicky enough, before the next war. Russia is already getting stroppy, and I gave in to their puny demands for now (they didn't ask for much). They're too stupid to know what will happen if they get on my wrong side, as they seem determined to do. Ah well, they'll find out soon enough. :)

Currently Russia is topping the charts, China is a fast growing second, with me in third place and the Vikings in fourth place. Just hope I can stay friendly with the Vikings.

Paul

The reason I didn't put the Polar Ice Caps on the Map. I was tempted to do something along those lines, but decided against it because 1) Tundra is not Polar Ice, 2) the map is meant to be an semi-accurate portrayal of the worlds major land masses, not its oceans, and 3) I didn't want people to be able to walk from Candad to Greenland. That would seem just too odd.

Clearly the map doesn't reach up to the pole. It doesn't even make it up to 90 degrees North latitude. As an aside, the map only goes as far south as approximately 70 degrees south latitude. To prevent a northern circumnavigation I almost stretched Greenland to the top of the map, and that could still be done, but it wouldn't really stop the voyage, only prolong it.

Also, keep in mind that this map was designed with the original game rules in mind, or at least to be compatible with them. (It was actually made with my own DyP mod rules in mind) In vanilla Civ3 it is possible to build on Tundra terrain. If I add in all that Ice as Tundra (two completely different terrains - it is unfortunate that they removed the Civ2 polar terrain from Civ3) then the AI would undoubtedly settle all of it.

Just thought I would clarify my reasoning for developing the map the way I did.

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

Whooops! Sorry, I got the threads mixed up. Shall I continue in this one now it's here?



Originally posted by Paul Saunders

Why not prevent city building on forest and jungle terrain? You could still build cities in these places but you'd have to chop the trees down first! Wouldn't this be more realistic?


I've already forbidden!! And look what they did!!


Originally posted by Paul Saunders

As for the issue of the AI irrigating every desert tile, can you prevent irrigation on desert? That would be the simplest solution. How many deserts in the world have ever been irrigated on the scale represented in Civilization? Each tile probably represents maybe 1000 to 2000 square miles. Just irrigating one of these tiles would be a vast undertaking! I'm not sure it's even possible to irrigate that much desert, the heat would dry it out. I vote to disallow desert irrigation, if possible.


It can't be done in the editor
But I could set benefits to 0 food (and maybe 0 shields for mining)


Originally posted by Paul Saunders

So how can the Americans expand further if they want to? I still think it's an artificial limitation. Increasing corruption with distance (much as I dislike that) may be a better way of keeping empires in check.


As I said, with 14-15 cities you can cover whole USA.
And in fact if USA expands to the rest of the world, imagine approval :rolleyes: I think arab anti-americanism is due to too much diplomatic expansion.
And if I'm not wrong, with democracy you destroy corruption, no? (I may be wrong, I don't ever play with republic or democracy, only with monarchy and communsm)

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

Ah, but I didn't suggest putting ice all around!


The best way should be to add a new terrain (ice). But it can't be done. And kal-el is right, polar isn't tundra. And I don't want to see that civ2 trick of going around near the caps

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

True, but rivers running through tundra look a bit silly IMO, and civs have been settling next to tundra on the pine forests and hills, and are taking advantage of the cash bonus of the rivers (from trade). Somehow I doubt that frozen Siberian rivers are very good sources of cash! (Although they do actually use them as roads.)


The ability to build cities on forests is a big thing. If I forbid it (and lower the cost to cut down), then I should re-distribuite every single tile. And kal-el is necessary to do this.
A compromise could be to forbid only in forests OR only in pine forests, and just substituting them. But it's a big effort and I'd like to hear kal-el's opinion.

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

Yes, I wouldn't be too keen to change the units either, too many different opinions on how strong different units should be. But changing the sea movement rate I think is less controversial, since you're not changing the strength of the units, just how far they can move. And I definitely think modern ships should be able to move much further on a map as big as this.


I'll do it

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

I really couldn't care less about the dates being correct. If it weren't for the dark ages, some historians reckon that we might have reached our current level of technology a few hundred years ago. We could be living on other planets by now! So history doesn't have to happen the same way it really did.


Instead I care about it. It's a game on Earth, and I want it to be as close as possible to the real

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

I haven't looked too closely, but northern Europe might be a bit sparse on luxuries too.


I need someone's help, 'cause I don't want to put them randomly

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

You mean 24?


Yes, 24

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

That was it, Germany was effectively out of the game!


Germany pays its aggression level: they always declare war to everyone, and with 24 civs it's a BIG mistake :)

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

Currently Russia is topping the charts, China is a fast growing second, with me in third place and the Vikings in fourth place. Just hope I can stay friendly with the Vikings.


Please, tell me of the other civs world ranking, like India, Egypt, Carthage, Zulu (and if you use "retire" without looking at the map, just tell me about american civs rankings)
I want to see if India is so powerful with 96 cost to clean jungles!

Originally posted by Kal-el
The reason I didn't put the Polar Ice Caps on the Map. I was tempted to do something along those lines, but decided against it because 1) Tundra is not Polar Ice, 2) the map is meant to be an semi-accurate portrayal of the worlds major land masses, not its oceans, and 3) I didn't want people to be able to walk from Candad to Greenland. That would seem just too odd.

Fair enough. Yet you can walk from Canada to Greenland. Just walk north through the islands and turn right at Ellesmere, but be sure to take plenty of food and warm clothing!

I think that's the main problem, I can't imagine a band of settlers walking across the north pole without freezing to death, but then again, early humans reached North America by crossing the frozen Bering Straits, so it is doable.


To prevent a northern circumnavigation I almost stretched Greenland to the top of the map, and that could still be done, but it wouldn't really stop the voyage, only prolong it.

But strictly speaking it should stop it, because it just isn't possible in real life. There is no north-west passage.


Also, keep in mind that this map was designed with the original game rules in mind, or at least to be compatible with them. (It was actually made with my own DyP mod rules in mind) In vanilla Civ3 it is possible to build on Tundra terrain. If I add in all that Ice as Tundra (two completely different terrains - it is unfortunate that they removed the Civ2 polar terrain from Civ3) then the AI would undoubtedly settle all of it.

The original rules are the best reason for doing it that way, I agree. I think though, that the original rules best suit a random map, not an earth map. On a random map there tends not to be much tundra or desert, and who cares about the odd settlement there, or chopping down the jungle? A random map isn't realistic anyway so we tend not to worry about it.

With an earth map though, people naturally expect realism, but the game doesn't seem to have been designed with earth in mind. Perhaps it would be better to design a game like this specifically for a realistic world map, including special rules for different parts of the planet, like the extreme cold of Siberia and the Indian Monsoon?

Just thought I would clarify my reasoning for developing the map the way I did.

Thanks for sharing your ideas, they makes sense. But I personally think that a realistic world map needs a few special rules to make it play realistically.

Paul

If you set irrigation benefits of desert to 0, then irrigating desert is impossible (you won't get the irrigation button when on desert). Same goes for mines, be setting shield benefits to 0. Just make sure you leave 1 for road commerce, so they can still build a road on it.

Requiring forests/jungle to be cleared before a city can be built there would be unbalancing as the AI does not know how to clear these things in order to build a city there. The AI workers would only clear forests that are already on a tile that can be worked by another city's citizen, and only clears jungle that is in it's cultural borders. Same as your automated workers would do.

Some people put horses in North America, so the Iroquois can utilize their UU. Would the Iroquis build mounted warriors when they dont' get any horses until navigation (when they finally trade for them, but by then they can build knights/cavalry).

What's with all these bonus resources directly on starting locations?? The food from the center city tile is hardcoded to always produce 2 food (this was changed in one of the very first patches to help prevent the ICS massive whipping exploit by building directly on every single bonus resource), regardless of what is underneath. So it's pointless to build cities on cattle, wheat, etc.. Shields and gold is not hardcoded (but there is a minimum), so building on resources that give extra shields/commerce isn't a big deal, but food is.

Edit: And there are some whales (like down in southeastern South America) that could never possibly be used by a city.

Originally posted by Bamspeedy
What's with all these bonus resources directly on starting locations?? The food from the center city tile is hardcoded to always produce 2 food (this was changed in one of the very first patches to help prevent the ICS massive whipping exploit by building directly on every single bonus resource), regardless of what is underneath. So it's pointless to build cities on cattle, wheat, etc.. Shields and gold is not hardcoded (but there is a minimum), so building on resources that give extra shields/commerce isn't a big deal, but food is.


Thanks for the tip, I didn't know it

-I'll take a look at these whales
-Iroquois should be backward other civs in the tech race, thanks to some things I changed in the editor. I only need someone to look at them, to see when they reach middle ages and discover chivalry. Plus, if I set 4 movements to caravel, discover of America will be anticipated to Astronomy
-AI finds always a way to clear jungle and cover everything with rich cities. Take a look at the screenshot above. I hope that with 96 cost AI will stop that

Originally posted by Paul Saunders

I personally think that a realistic world map needs a few special rules to make it play realistically.
Paul

That's what I'm trying to do, but you can see that terrains can't be added (impassable frozen water would be the best)



Btw, please could we speak about:

-Resouces -> here

-Rules -> on the other thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37339)

Originally posted by Rhye
The best way should be to add a new terrain (ice). But it can't be done. And kal-el is right, polar isn't tundra. And I don't want to see that civ2 trick of going around near the caps.

Yes, it's a pity there's no ice. But I'll say it again, you don't have to put the ice all the way around. If you just connect Asia to the top of the map and Canada to the top of the map (as per the year-round ice in the map I posted), that would prevent sailing around the top of the map, but Asia and America still wouldn't be connected, so no-one would be able to get to America early.

I've checked my game map again and noticed that Germany, France and the Romans all have cities in Siberia, east of Russia. I can't be certain, but it seems likely that they sailed there. All of the northern coast has been expored by galleys, so some civs have definitely sailed around the top of the map.

(Resources) I need someone's help, 'cause I don't want to put them randomly

I'm afraid there's nothing in my atlases about where luxuries are to be found. I think it would be okay to scatter dyes and furs pretty randomly around forests though, especially furs.

By the way, there are no luxuries at all in northern Europe, and it's become a big problem in my current game. Only a few turns ago have I managed to get my first luxury, wine. This is after 800AD! Nearly five thousand years and I've only found one luxury! Marketplaces are very important for boosting the effect of luxuries, but without them my growth has stagnated. I couldn't get any through trade.

All of my cities have stunted growth now, because all my new citizens are becoming entertainers, I just can't keep them all happy. And because they're singing instead of working I can't get enough gold to support all my units, so my science is suffering. I've built loads of developments to boost happiness and science, but now the maintenance is costing too much. I've built loads of workers because it takes so long to develop the land and that's costing me a fortune too. And my advisors keep telling me how weak my army is. More war is likely but I can't afford to build new troops, and I can't keep up in tech anymore. Everyone is researching faster than me, even the Romans, who only have 5 cities! I have 14 cities yet I can't keep up, even though I should be doing really well by now. :(

I really think that lack of luxuries is the main cause of the problem. With a reasonable amount of luxuries I could keep everyone happy and put them all to work, which would give me lots more money so that I could afford everything, and then my science would be boosted so that I could keep up.

Paul

Originally posted by Paul Saunders


Yes, it's a pity there's no ice. But I'll say it again, you don't have to put the ice all the way around. If you just connect Asia to the top of the map and Canada to the top of the map (as per the year-round ice in the map I posted), that would prevent sailing around the top of the map, but Asia and America still wouldn't be connected, so no-one would be able to get to America early.



If you get Kal-el's approval, there's no problem for me.

The romans and spanish went to siberia both by land and sea, but mainly by land

If you are looking for a guide on resources, Teturkhan did some very research when he was compiling his map. I suggest that you take a look at it. Or at least read the readme which has a little paragraph on why he placed his resources where he did.

I like the idea of "clumping" the luxuries in certain areas, Wine around the Mediterranean, furs in Siberia and Canada, Spices in Asia, etc. The numberof civs you plan to play on the map should help you in determining how many of each luxury to place on the map. I think a good average is 4 to 5 luxury resources per civ. Some will have more, some will have less, but if you average about 4 or 5 then you should have a good balance. Of course this means that you should be making multiple resource maps that can be used depending on how many civs the player is going up against.