An Ancient India Scenario

[Blue Monkey]

Comments on the Ghats were legit even by my standards because 3x60 is a lot bigger than 3x3.

Struggled with the long post about the work pipeline only to have the "server too busy" gobble it down. Then I felt the little pop in the wrist that says it's time to stay away from the intense sessions for a couple of days. I can work for about15-20 minutes, but not long enough to compose a detailed post. I will post it soon - I really think it will help to focus comments on the stage the map is at. In the mean time you can take a look at the graphic & wonder about the explanatory text.



@ 7ronin: the monsoon winds & the dry loo are not quite the same as the santanas because of the geography. Winds off the sea stopped by mountains or desert winds moving towards the mountains rather than high plains winds towards the sea funneled through multiple ranges. The closest analogy, afaik, is the channeling of katabatic winds (same mechanism as here) from Tibet down the Brahmaputra. But the extreme altitude drop & levels of humidity in the Brahmaputra Valley make for quite different results. We don't grow much tea or bamboo in the San Gabriels, San Bernardinos or the coastal ranges. And they don't grow a lot of oranges around Darjeeling afaik.

@ Rambuchan: very glad you got Vuldacon working on palettes for the other project given my need to slow down the pace. There are also quite few comments to make based on your last pm. The reply is coming.

 

[7ronin]

I find it interesting to see how you work on the map. It is a very organized and very scientific process. It is great that you have a system where you can shift back and forth between the map itself and the references. When this is said and done we are probably going to have one of the most carefully crafted maps in Civ III history. Did you use the same methodology with your Asia map?

Do what you can when you can. Just remember that growing old is not for sissies. The particular bane of my life at the moment is arthritis.

 

[Rambuchan]

I know you're focussed on the map right now Blue. But I've been thinking about things and clarified a few ideas and need to splurge. So here's a bunch of stuff for 7ronin to note for putting in...

The Game Plan for The Tamils:

These guys sat on the spices and manufactured goods. They were also the guys who got up to the most sea trading and maritime exploration. So let's bring that out. Trade victory and exploitation of the spices seems the best way to do this.

So...let's have a few different types of spices down there (pepper, cinnamon, cardamon at least). Have these as resources. Let these guys build improvements that are tied to these resources - within the city radius. Something like Cinnamon Plantation, Pepper Plantation etc. Have these function just like the plantations in The Age of Discovery scenario from Conquests, ie they pop treasures. There's probably a trick to pull off on top of this with sea trading. I can't think of it yet but can feel there's something there.

This is the mechanism by which to let these guys get rich and go for the Trade Victory. It's also the 'race against time' incentive for the Gangetic civs to get to them.

Now, given the comments about the Deccan Plateau, we can (and should) effectively trap these guys between the sea and their respective Ghats Sections. Use the wheeled trick here so that they don't start settling and spreading out onto the Deccan till much later. But there should be some units they have that can get up onto the hills and mountains (Ghats) in order to access the spice resources and get the plantations built. Most of these plantations irl exist in the hills and mountains. Maybe the elephant workers and something else.

On top of that, we need to bring out the Sangam poetry and The Brass Shiva Statues. So there should be, at the very least, some Cultural improvements here, maybe even the lingum stones as resources working in conjunction. I'm also thinking that there should also be (a) treasures popped from poetry wonders and improvements and (b) Dedicated Sangam Poet units to capture and transport these back. Maybe even some form of renamed enslavement and sacrifice device can be used for these for the culture. Again, some form of sea activity could be used to further enhance this.

Both these - along with the wheeled trick - will focus these AI's activities down there and provide human players with a nice little mini-game and a shot at victory.

The Game Plan for The Buddhists in the North:

The same kind of thing can be done for these guys up in the Himalayas. Indeed, the same template should be used, for giving a proper balance. Of course, these guys aren't doing it with Spices and Sangam Poets and Shiva Statues. They're doing it with Holy Rivers, Holy Mountains, Stupas and Buddhist Monks. It's important to essentially copy and paste the same template as in the south for the balance - just rename the various devices and resources.

The likes of Takshila play the same game, but with a twist.

The Western 'Land Pirates':

These guys can play a marauding and enslaving game. Fast mounted units with enslavement abilities. And the deserts and mountains dovetail with their units to give the old 'home terrain advantage'. All other civs cannot pass through their lands, except for a few restricted routes they have to follow. (Wheeled trick again).

Furthermore, if there's trade (treasures) running through their land that's great. It provides a challenge for the other civs to get through the 'pirate territory' and for these marauders to get rich through ambush. They never have a shot at victory though. These are the 'upsetters' for players who like that stuff.

The Other Central Civs:

These play a much more traditional war / conquest / empire building / expansion type of a game. The Domination Victory is theirs for the losing.

---

Tech Tree:

I don't know how these will pan out but, after some reading and thinking, I think the following elements should be represented with the specific branches of the tech tree, revealing and allowing the following things:

- Religion Branch: reveals 'spiritual resources' and allows associated improvements.
- Conversion: The bit that allows the switch to Buddhism for the Mauryans, leading onto the columns. Comes later of course.
- Poetry Branch: Provides the Sangam stuff for the Tamils.
- Manufacturing Branch: reveals 'skilled craftsmen resources' and allows associated improvements. Gold and gems and this sort of stuff comes from these. Dovetails with Trade.
- Agriculture Branch: Like manufacturing, but separate; with rice and wheat, teak and bamboo, spices, and the elephant workers.
- Seafaring: Does what it says on the tin.
- Trade: Ditto.
- Statecraft: Allows the likes of Manu's Code and Arthashastra Wonders and corruption improvements.
- Military, of course: Includes the metals and units.

There will likely be others. But these are the core ones to start designing the tech tree with.

Wishing you smooth joints!

 

[Blue Monkey]

I know you're focussed on the map right now Blue. But I've been thinking about things and clarified a few ideas and need to splurge. So here's a bunch of stuff for 7ronin to note for putting in...

dude, I'm not expecting you guys to wait on me. Quite the contrary. On the one hand gameplay design affects the map details very significantly - your comments on the Ghats and the Deccan are exemplary. On the other hand having something for the other parts of my mind to ruminate while engaged painting the map keeps the juices flowing. On the gripping hand I'm only focused on the map as a practical contribution. If there's nothing posted to challenge and extend my own ideas about the overall scenario design then I can't contribute to the discussion.

practical
Many scenarios don't take complete advantage of the civ. traits. I've played very enjoyable scenarios where there are as many as 3-4 civs with identical traits and other combinations not present at all. There 28 possible combos. Each represents different routes to success and will be favored by a particular style of play. Why leave any of them out? The chart linked in my signature may be helpful in planning culture groups and assigning traits to individual civs.

I always play with Science GLs available. How many places in India have a major temple complex because a holy man walked into town and sat down for a while? I also like to play with mass regicide flagged. I'll use some of the king units like early scout/diplomats. Some might see it as unfair, I perceive it as making up a bit for the Ai cheats. Considering that I often lose 2-3 in the process and keep the others in my capital throughout the game while most of the AI factions split theirs between cities the advantage is reduced to simply a different style of play.

What I'm suggesting is that proper use of specialty units can help concretize elements like religion and the Sangam era. We're talking about either one-off or autoproduce-only units. EFZI has heroes that start very weak but upgrade to be strong. Alexander the Great scenario has units like the companions who have some abilities peculiar to them that are very strong (like being a fast unit with a very deadly bombard) but also have weakness that keep them vulnerable. Balthasar has units in the Lost Worlds steampunk scenario that start immobile and have no A/D value wiorth mentioning, but can upgrade to hero units when certain techs are discovered. TAM (iirc, it might be another scenario) has spies with the radar flag. People are still exploring the charm flag. Interesting effects happen with certain combinations like charm units bombarding charmed buildings.

Those are some of the specific ways to implement things like:
Poets who can kickstart cultural improvements - clearly Brahmins - but not affect warfare - allowed only to Kshatryas.
People who achieve their destiny only after prolonged meditation - whether insight into a new spiritual path or gaining esoteric martial abilities.
Saddhus who are doing something mysterious - either wandering through territories completely unseen or have actually developed some kind of intuitive sense of what is going on elsewhere.
Sending an ambassador who can damage your enemy's ability to defend a city - like Krishna ostensibly giving the Kaurevas one last chance for peace.


Here's an example of how to implement something along the lines of a social/religious tech: The "Epic" is discovered. Some scenario (MEM?) has wonders available only to specific cultural groups. Maybe there can then be both a Mahabharata (North) and Ramayana (Tamil) GW. An immobile bhiksu can now upgrade to a wandering yogi. But only if the sandalwood resource is available. The hero stone resource appears - allowing construction of a kalari small wonder that autoproduces an urumi wielding warrior. The tales of Draupadi & Sita inspire women of the region to become ankatharani - warriors armed with a katar. Now that's a distinctly Tamil UU - even if the unit name is a spur of the moment portmanteau. The decisive actions of Draupadi & Kunti inspire the Tharavadu form of government. If bamboo is available any village can build a Togalu Gombeyaata which increases happiness and reduces war weariness.
Even though it's a Tamil word maybe we can get into one the text files and change Golden Age to Sangam Era.There are so many other sparks and responses to the current run of posts I'll have to take some time to distill the ideas and gather my thoughts. To mention one example, I've bookmarked or written down quite few names for things like forms of government, improvements, etc over the last few years. We definitely won't have to use generic names - but it may be useful to stick with them temporarily for clarity of understanding their function in game. Sometimes I feel like I can't keep up with how much you guys give me to think about. That's a good thing. Been too long since anyone else seemed interested enough in India to focus on it and keep me running intellectually.

 

[7ronin]

Gentlemen: Fantastic ideas and inspiration. My head is spinning. I find that I am much like my friend and neighbor Aoi Saru (Japanese translation of Azul Simian) in that I like to focus on one major thing or module at a time revising them later as they intersect and interact with other modules.

Course of Action: I think then that I will troll through all the posts and come up with straw man lists of resources and civ traits for your consideration. Note: We still need leader names for the civs. I'm slowly working on a list of cities for each civ as well. Not easy.

I am still reading and researching. No chance though of catching up to the level of knowledge about India displayed by your esteemed selves.

Eventually, I should have a 3x5 card of each proposed resource, wonder, advancement, improvement and unit. When I'm done, then I will lay them out on the floor to see how they all might fit. A manual heuristic solution, if you will.

Tech Tree: I think each culture group should procede on a different tech tree. Religion can't be the start because then the civs would never be able to convert or be converted to a different religion. Perhaps it can be something as simple as "Ganges River" or "Northern India" tech. Thoughts? Hugin's tech tree tutorial has some good ideas about this as well as the one by Plotinus. Plotinus suggests that the tech tree "tells a story" which is think is an important element in our scenario.

Other scenarios: These offer some unique ideas for consideration: Hegemon, Rise of Imperialism[trade, playing time, auto production], The Ancient Med.

Map Comment: Blue, if you decide to make the initial placement of Civs on the map, may I suggest that you enter the list of playable civs into the editor in alphabetical order. It makes many other things much more manageable. For example, the "select your player screen", the espionage screen, and others. Not a problem with games of only four or five civs but it makes it easier to find things in games with many, many civs such as ours.

Great Leap Forward: Undaunted by this amazing 21st century , I have purchased some 3D software. There is a very steep learning curve but I hope to be able to provide some graphics to our endeavor. You must know that I grew up in the era of slide rules, manual typewriters, carbon paper, black and white movies, 33 and 1/3rd monaural LP records, and the analog landline telephone - very ancient history . I originally intended to become an artist and attended an art college for several years. I know what's good and I know what I want - it's just a matter of getting there with this newfangled software.

My philosophy of game design:
1. It should be playable (whichever civ is chosen and at whatever difficulty level)
2. It should be enjoyable
3. It should be challenging
4. It should be educational (should the player wish to take advantage)
5. It should advance the state of the art
6. It should be fun to create

 

[Blue Monkey]

... much like my friend and neighbor Aoi Saru (Japanese translation of Azul Simian)

I don't mind people finding alternative handles for me. Much more creative than BM. I always wonder, though, why no one ever thinks to fracture it by calling me "Handyman". I've scattered enough clues over the years.

I think then that I will troll through all the posts and come up with straw man lists of resources and civ traits for your consideration. Note: We still need leader names for the civs. I'm slowly working on a list of cities for each civ as well.

Civ traits & resources are essential at this stage since those will help determine where there are gaps in the tech tree. Starting on unit lines should follow on from the traits - at least in terms of UUs.

A list of LHs soon is a good idea. Then we can come up with a rogues' gallery. Alternatively, Assembling a rogues gallery of what's available may spark ideas for some names.

OTOH city lists can be one of the last things done - the list exists in a text file that can be edited later on. So I'd suggest adding names as they occur to you/us, but not stress on it when there is so much else to do.

Eventually, I should have a 3x5 card of each proposed resource, wonder, advancement, improvement and unit. When I'm done, then I will lay them out on the floor to see how they all might fit. A manual heuristic solution, if you will.

You're in good company. Napoleon pretty much created the modern db system. The first thing set up at any new command post was his card files. Info on anything relevant to the campaign was updated constantly by a dedicated aide de camp who was also responsible for pulling cards as needed.

Tech Tree: I think each culture group should procede on a different tech tree. ... Perhaps it can be something as simple as "Ganges River" or "Northern India" tech.

Zero era techs can be assigned to culture groups or even individual civs. Keep in mind that shared required techs on completely separate trees actually means duplication. Separate civ pedia entries, ...

Blue, if you decide to make the initial placement of Civs on the map, may I suggest that you enter the list of playable civs into the editor in alphabetical order. It makes many other things much more manageable.

The first, and resources as well, are logically part of making the map. Anything entered in the editor is something that can be done with the temporary biq as discussed above.

I have purchased some 3D software. There is a very steep learning curve but I hope to be able to provide some graphics to our endeavor. You must know that I grew up in the era of slide rules, manual typewriters, carbon paper, black and white movies, 33 and 1/3rd monaural LP records, and the analog landline telephone - very ancient history . I originally intended to become an artist and attended an art college for several years. I know what's good and I know what I want - it's just a matter of getting there with this newfangled software.

wi9sh I had knnown before you purchased. Could have made some recommendations, or even steered you towards some of the free options. IMHO all those analog tools and the skills developed with them give a big advantage in creative design. There's a reason animators still study the classic Disney studio's work. Elemental Magic v1 & v2 are the animator's equivalent of those by Tufte or Holling C. Holling.

 

[7ronin]

wish I had knnown before you purchased. Could have made some recommendations, or even steered you towards some of the free options. IMHO all those analog tools and the skills developed with them give a big advantage in creative design. There's a reason animators still study the classic Disney studio's work. Elemental Magic v1 & v2 are the animator's equivalent of those by Tufte or Holling C. Holling.

Rob gave me some advice which helped me avoid some bad purchases. I'm always all ears though for free stuff.

Do you have a particular book by Tufte in mind? I have two H.C.H. books: The Book of Cowboys and The Book of Indians. Great stuff. Check out the Disney Animation Studio's Archive Series of books about animation.

 

[Blue Monkey]

My free graphics work-horses are Gimp (2D) Blender (3D) & Unity (game engine). It's also worth the price of a community college course to get the free & unlimited student editions of Maya, 3DS Max, Mudbox, etc.

Tufte's first - Visual Display of Quantitative Information - is the best (imho) but any of them are worthy. Elemental Magic is a "how-to" by a Disney animator on environmental effects such as reflected light & water motion. Rendering, surface mapping, etc. don't make as much sense without knowing about such things. for HCH my favorite are Minn of the Mississippi & Tree in the Trail. At a conference in about 1992, iirc, heard Ted Nelson specifically mention HCH as one of the inspirations for his early work on hypertext.

Back to India: Been thinking about the geo-label resources. my concern is the dance we'll have to do with the resource bug. Threads on that topic: 1 2

 

[Blue Monkey]

Map update :

Started the usual working notes file with all the comments you've made. They'll be important guides for the first pass at adding hills & grasslands.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Time to wade in - only just got to chance to read through the whole thread!

Some ideas and such:
Nagas
Make Naga lands unsettleable terrain (Jungles?) which units can travel through, and which can be roaded. Pre-place many strong defensive Naga barbarian units there. Deep in "Naga" territory could be a resource allowing a wonder to be built which produces one of these lasses, perhaps? Thus they become a side-quest, of sorts. For additional fun, their units could be strong enough on the defense that a wonder which doubles combat vs. barbarians could be needed to comfortably defeat them and claim your prize.

Mountain Passes
Could be volcanoes or surrounded by volcanoes. I think Civinator uses this concept. "Eruptions" become "avalanches". If the passes themselves were impassable to wheeled (most?) units, then it could take considerable time to repair them.

Flag Units
Something I was thinking of for some of my scenarios (including my Indo-Greek scenario) which I believe Rambuchan was getting at, was to make flag units pilgrims; thus you have to take them to the pilgrimage spot Victory Point Locations on the map - and they repay your efforts with victory points and a donation. This could work especially well with the localized resources idea, where pilgrim-producing improvements/wonders could tend to need to be built further away from the VPL's. Additionally, you could:
*Give the pilgrim units 1 defense and -20 HP, so that they can't be captured by rival civs, BUT give them a hefty shield value. You'll then have to protect them, else enemies could gain many victory points through killing them alone.
*Make them require support but not able to disband. Thus helping them to their destination becomes priority.

But on a different note, what I was also thinking:

Trading Victory
How about something somewhat similar to the Mughals "trade mastery", i.e. a space race, representing trade diversity? A small wonder could be built once a certain number of trade ports or markets or such are built. Then you'll build a space ship part requiring one resource from each of the 4 trading powers, and the rest of them would require the various luxuries. Also, pending on free improvement slots, you could perhaps "double up" spaceship parts: so if Cinnamon Trade was Part 1, then you could also put Black Pepper Trade as Part 1; thus 1 spice of either spices would be required. To make this a bit tricky, a couple of the spaceship parts could revolve around location-based wonders, so you'll inevitably have to take a little bit of an interventionist approach if you wish to get this victory.

I don't think I've seen a scenario where the space race would have been diversified this much with a few rather different routes to winning it. Just a thought

 

[7ronin]

Virote:

Some ideas and such:

Nagas
Make Naga lands unsettleable terrain (Jungles?) which units can travel through, and which can be roaded. Pre-place many strong defensive Naga barbarian units there. Deep in "Naga" territory could be a resource allowing a wonder to be built which produces one of these lasses, perhaps? Thus they become a side-quest, of sorts. For additional fun, their units could be strong enough on the defense that a wonder which doubles combat vs. barbarians could be needed to comfortably defeat them and claim your prize.

Great idea. There is another area which could use this approach: the tropical rainforest area between Maghada and Kalinga. I like the Naga snake woman. Are those vines or snakes? There seems to be some confusion. I wish she didn't have that Native American looking headdress.

Mountain Passes
Could be volcanoes or surrounded by volcanoes. I think Civinator uses this concept. "Eruptions" become "avalanches". If the passes themselves were impassable to wheeled (most?) units, then it could take considerable time to repair them.

Another great idea. I will defer to our cartographer on this one.

Flag Units
Something I was thinking of for some of my scenarios (including my Indo-Greek scenario) which I believe Rambuchan was getting at, was to make flag units pilgrims; thus you have to take them to the pilgrimage spot Victory Point Locations on the map - and they repay your efforts with victory points and a donation. This could work especially well with the localized resources idea, where pilgrim-producing improvements/wonders could tend to need to be built further away from the VPL's. Additionally, you could:
*Give the pilgrim units 1 defense and -20 HP, so that they can't be captured by rival civs, BUT give them a hefty shield value. You'll then have to protect them, else enemies could gain many victory points through killing them alone.
*Make them require support but not able to disband. Thus helping them to their destination becomes priority.

Interesting. I think this and the following are the elements which will require the greatest amount of thinking.

Trading Victory
How about something somewhat similar to the Mughals "trade mastery", i.e. a space race, representing trade diversity? A small wonder could be built once a certain number of trade ports or markets or such are built. Then you'll build a space ship part requiring one resource from each of the 4 trading powers, and the rest of them would require the various luxuries. Also, pending on free improvement slots, you could perhaps "double up" spaceship parts: so if Cinnamon Trade was Part 1, then you could also put Black Pepper Trade as Part 1; thus 1 spice of either spices would be required. To make this a bit tricky, a couple of the spaceship parts could revolve around location-based wonders, so you'll inevitably have to take a little bit of an interventionist approach if you wish to get this victory.

I don't think I've seen a scenario where the space race would have been diversified this much with a few rather different routes to winning it. Just a thought

Interesting concept. I've looked over your scenario threads and there are lots of things I think we might use. Thanks for your input and feel free to jump in whenever you wish.

Blue:

Back to India: Been thinking about the geo-label resources. my concern is the dance we'll have to do with the resource bug. Threads on that topic: 1 2Back to India: Been thinking about the geo-label resources. my concern is the dance we'll have to do with the resource bug. Threads on that topic: 1 2Back to India: Been thinking about the geo-label resources. my concern is the dance we'll have to do with the resource bug. Threads on that topic: 1 2

Yes, it looks like it might be a problem. Ram seems to have managed it in Hegemon. An alternative, and I don't know how hard this might be, would be to do them as "terrain" rather than as "resources".

Tufte's books look interesting. A little pricey though. I will add them to my bibliophile's wish list.

I've started working on the Civ trait matrix. What an elegant and simple idea. I'm surprised no one ever thought of it before.

This is going to be the Poser jump into the deep end of the pool weekend. We will see how it goes.

 

[Rambuchan]

~ Nagas:

Yes, I'm loving the Nagas idea from Virote and that unit rocks. It's a similar dynamic as would be going on for the Tamils in the South (with mountains and jungle), the Marauders in the West (with mountains and desert) and the Buddhists in the North (also with mountains and desert).

So it seems mountains, desert and jungle would all need to be impassable to wheeled units - and in many cases unsettleable. And most units would therefore need to be wheeled.

~ Flags / Pilgrims:

Yes, that's what I was thinking of to bring out more of a religious game, and also for trade. I've obviously missed a trick because I thought flags had to be immobile and needed to be captured and carried. I also thought that VPLs would always be sat on by the AI and war must ensue to access them. It's good to learn that these needn't be the case. Having Pilgrims (cheap treasure carriers) is a great idea. Whether they are needed to carry flags on not, we should have them in.

~ Trade Victory:

I like the idea forming for this, especially the doubling up mentioned by Virote. You could use that and have subsections to the SS, with each category requiring a number of suitable improvements. The categories to the Trade Victory could be:

- Spice Trader
- Gems Trader
- Slave Trader
- Manufactured Goods Trader (stuff like marble carvings, jewellery, fabrics etc)
- Weapons Trader
- Food Trader
- Something Religious Trader

~ Geo-Labels:

Blue is right about the resource bug. I wasn't aware of it until I saw his post here and, on the very same day, noticed a phantom resource in Hegemon. Didn't see it in other test games but it's there. I'm hoping Vuldacon and Blue are now up to speed on getting round this!

~ Civ Traits:

Using the trait combos is all well and good. However, (a) there's no point in doing this - or anything for that matter - just for its own sake, it's got to come back to gameplay and (b) you need to remember to flag the buildings and wonders with the trait flag or it doesn't carry through. Seems obvious, but it's easy to forget!

~ Civ Leaders:

I put a bunch of these in this post earlier in the thread. Not all, but many places filled. Civ traits suggested too.

~ Upgrading Spiritual Units:

That's an awesome idea of having yogi units upgrading from immobiles to other kinds of unit - after the appropriate period of meditation under the neem tree, of course. You could have Shamans for the horse loving Central Asian type guys in the West.

 

[Kyriakos]

Just to note that i will have the updated ancient Indian set ready probably before 2012

 

[7ronin]

Ram: I will do all of this. I've printed out the entire thread and will paste all of the ideas we've discussed onto 3x5 cards as an easy way to keep track of them.To recap, we will have two new unplayable civs, The "Naga Tribe" and the "East Central Tribe" [someone come up with a name, please]. Each tribe will have one city and no ability to produce settlers. Workers perhaps? Although it doesn't sem in their nature to have workers. Each city will have two preplaced wonders. The first will auto produce the tribal warriors. The second will auto produce a tribal UU. In the case of the Nagas it will be the "Snake Princess." The other tribe will auto produce a "Shaman." Exactly what these UU's will do needs to be determined. What ever it is, it should be nasty. I'm open to suggestions.

First take on spiritual units:
Hindu Monk (or Hindu Yogi) - upgrades to a Sadhu
Buddhist Monk - upgrades to either a Savakabuddha (or a Bodhihisattva)
Jain Monk - ?
The second generation have an enslavement capability.

Kyriakos: Thanks for the heads up. I will be looking forward to seeing them.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Short responses in random order:

Naga headdresses do look similar to Native Americans in many ways. OTOH, I have to disagree about the suitability of the "snake princess" unit. The magical attack animation jars badly with the strictly historical approach of this scenario.

Keep in mind the 31 civ limit. Is there room in the list for two single-city civs? How will you keep them from being instantly conquered?

Resource bug - I'm aware of it's existence & the solution - theoretically. I've yet to deal with it in setting up a scenario.

It would be nice to take advantage of a terrain slot that would otherwise be unused. Are there major blizzards in the Ghats? One big problem with using volcanoes to solve the impassable mountain issue is the pollution graphic. A single graphic is shared by the volcanoes & the city-caused variety. So there would be a lot of sudras shoveling snow all over the subcontinent. The LM Hill solution avoids that problem entirely. If the forces of nature really need to be a major factor in the scenario then there are the various storm units created by people like Rhodie & tom2050.

Jinas tend to retire to complete seclusion. So enlightened Jains wouldn't make sense as a unit. Unless you want a mobile unit to upgrade to an immobile one. Not sure how the AI would handle that.

 

[7ronin]

There are eighteen civs plus the four trade civs. Keep in mind that there are competing suggestions about how to simulate trade so the trade civs may stay or they may go.

Having two barbarian civs (or any barbarian civs) may be over complicating things. Perhaps it's sufficient to have the generic game barbarians who survive (for a while) because the terrain makes it difficult to get to them.

Looking at photographs of some of the mountain passes in the area, they aren't narrow mountain clefts with steep sides and thus not prone to avalanches. They are for the most part very broad (e.g. the Khyber which reminds me a little of that pass north of San Berdoo). So, sticking to "real" geography, no avalanches.

Yes, as appealing as the snake priestess is, she doesn't have a place in a strict historical approach. [Note to self: if this project gets done, start Mystical India.]

If the place names pose too much of a problem, drop the idea. It's just chrome.

 

[Rambuchan]

Resource bug - I'm aware of it's existence & the solution - theoretically. I've yet to deal with it in setting up a scenario.

I've been reading up on this as it seems to have serious implications for fundamental gameplay features in Hegemon. That's if the phantom resource thing really is a serious problem!

As I understand it, bonus resources are not an issue here. Only luxuries and strategics. So it's perfectly ok to have as many geo-tags as you want - as long as they are only bonus resources. So 7ronin's dream of geo-tagging can come true.

Just to double check:

1) Is my understanding of the role bonus resources play in the resource bug correct?
2) Is it an absolutely absolutely holiest of holies golden unbreakable rule that there can be no more than a combined total of 32 luxuries and strategics? I'm really hoping there's a way to get round this!!!

 

[Blue Monkey]

1. Bonus resources can multiply like rabbits, if I understand things correctly.
2. I don't know. I know that the non-bonus resources need to be in a certain sequence to minimize the effects of the bug.

Beyond that it's better to ask questions in the thread(s). I've only read what's there - have yet to try the techniques in making a biq.


EDIT:

There are eighteen civs plus the four trade civs.

This number varies from the front page list. It's important to keep key posts updated. Buried information is hidden - even for those of us deeply involved.

 

[Blue Monkey]

LATEST MAP WIP

The explanation of my working process is posted. If you skip the rest for now, take a look at the second image. It shows the Thar Desert from painted image to map. Helps to see why some details are very rough & need refinement as we go.

Here's the practical application - version 0.3 of the map.
screenshot

Spoiler :

The zip includes the biq, an even larger screenshot, and a much smaller image suitable for adding notes & posting.

Things to be aware of:

• Grassland is present in some places solely as an indicator of riverways. Notably in the Thar Desert & Deccan Plateau.
• "Desert" includes xeric shrubland and thorn scrub forest.
• "Lakes" in the Jamuna watershed (where the great rivers come together) are areas where there will be a lot of small rivers & marshes. They are not really lakes & will not appear as such in later maps.
• Can't deal with the "pinking shears" look of the coastline until a graphics set is chosen. The same goes for a few other aesthetic issues such as the apparent size of islands. Different graphics sets draw the coastlines & connecting tiles in various ways. Let me know which set you prefer & future screenshots will use it.

The floor is open for critiques.

download zip

 

[7ronin]

The map: I am very pleased with the map. I like the way it is looking and have no comments (or quibbles).

Communicating: Comment re buried info noted. I will update the front page. In hindsight, I should have "reserved" several posts for this kind of stuff.

Geo-labels. A simple way around the problem would be to present in the finished scenario thread a labeled map screenie for orientation purposes. Everyone who is interested gets the information, we [you] have less work to do on the map, we have fewer chances for contracting the dread resource bug, and the map is less cluttered.

Terrain Graphics Set: I'm open to suggestions. I like the set in Hegemon v3; I don't like the set in Mughals v2 or the one in Anno Domini. I suppose you could translate that into "simpler is better."