An Ancient India Scenario

Update on civs research:

Working through Civilization in the Buddhist Age R C Dutta, Early India Romila Thapar, and Gem in the Lotus Abraham Eraly for contemporary civ names & starts on city lists. Lots of maps as well as textual references in those. Then there are six more books on the home shelf to look at. All with overlapping but different info - a somewhat confusing mix of ethnic, regional and dynastic names. So comparing to find the best choices for the civs in question may take some thought.


At an initial glance over the traits: there are some civs with 4 traits & some with 1 or none. 2 is customary although it's possible to have more. Are you looking to have 2 per civ?

I think at least two per civ. There are a couple of civs though that I think should have an edge by having more for game balancing purposes. I'm in the middle of Early India myself.

Realized that the search for contemporary names is taking up time that could be spent working on the map itself. Placeholder names can do for now since we know who and what area is under discussion. Then building the actual biq map can be a higher priority again - while name search happens in the background. sound like a plan?

Also - started to take a closer look at the civ traits. hopefully something to post in a few days.


RE Terrain: Screenshot of the LM Hills masquerading as mountains. It was made to match Rhyes' set - which means Ares also, iirc. Could make a set for Snoopy's if that's what the scenario ends up using.

Sounds good. I think the Civ list as it now stands is fairly accurate. At least as much as it can be with conflicting sources and a paucity of historical records. I've been working on city lists as well, and probably from some of the same sources as you.

I think I will defer to your excellent eye for graphics. Choose the terrain set which you think best serves your map and the scenario.

At the moment I am learning Italian which is taking away from my available Civ3 time.

City Lists
Post which of these you don't have. I've got them & can scan maps with many cities on them. Overlapping lists with some differences:

• Age of Imperial Unity, Majumdar
• Daily Life in Ancient India, Auboyer
• Archaeology of Ancient Indian Cities, Chakrabarti
• Gem In The Lotus, Eraly
• Early India, Thapar

Lacks the Tibetan region, but can get those from other available sources.

More Books
Ancient India in Its Wider World, Parker & Sinopoli (eds.) has a detailed chapter on the organization & economy of the Mauryan Empire. The Legend of King Asoka by Strong is a translation and study of the Asokavadanda (2nd c. CE). Got them both - only skimmed them so far. for your purposes probably better tracked down at one of the univ. libraries.

Terrain Graphics
I'll stick with the standard set in the wip screenshots. Simplest for anyone who wants to look at the biq wip in detail. Once it gets to fine tuning I'd like to switch to Ares set. But you had some objections to that one, iirc.

Civ Traits
Chartified my take. Mostly the same as yours with a few key changes. Got to write up the reasoning & post it. Might want to add the traits post to the links in the OP. It was a minor pain to track it down.

Languages
Italian & not Sanskrit? Seriously folks, learning another is one of the best ways to keep the mind sharp. Hopefully it won't completely remove you from this project. Visual thinking - like looking at the tech tree - may be a good break form the language work. And there's always the critiquing of further map work.

City Lists: I have Thapar and Majumdar.

Books: I will try requesting the two you have listed.

Terrain Graphics: "Ares Terrain" is fine.

Civ Traits: Yes, the this thread is growing in length. I'll put the list in the index. I've printed the whole thing out, put it in a three ring binder, and liberally salted it with stickies and highlighting.

Languages: I agree completely and at my age I try to do everything I can to exercise that pre-frontal cortex. Civ3 certainly helps.

The two you've got have the most complete city lists. If I dilly-dally too long remind me about the others.

Here's my take on the civ traits:



Why these choices?

• Chola had the most extensive overseas empire of any of these civs. Swapped with Pandya to make it expansionist. Kept third trait of religious because it seemd the closest match to the official support that kept the Sangam era arts & culture thriving. Happy people in beautiful new temples, etc.
• Pandya - industrious seemed like it would convey somewhat the same benefits as commercial/expansionist. It was the easiest of the seafaring civs to shift to allow Chola's new slot.
• Arachosia - added scientific to its sole trait. No particular reason other than the Greeks general interest in science & engineering.
• Nanda - expansionist seemed to make more sense than agricultural. Sets them up for early conflict with Magadha. Got them out of the large initial cluster in Ag/Relig.
• Kosala - Ag for Gangetic plain. Expansionist to compete with surrounding civs.
• Matsya & Malwa - guess work based on their history of forging a cultural identity out of numerous conquests by more powerful kingdoms. Survive by getting smart, providing whatever the conqueror asks for, not caring who's running the show and praying for better days.
• Malla was arbitrary - based on balancing traits of adjacent civs. Done more to fill an empty slot than anything.
• Gedrosia - both traits based on the Alexandrian history. Plus it makes for a seafarer in every culture group.
• Kalinga kept 3 traits as a better edge vs. Asoka than any dual combo.
• Monyul - militaristic so they'll have a lot of cheap low end fighters to delay Magadha's inevitable expansion. Agricultural for the same reason.
• Zhang Zhung - Big history of conquering surrounding petty kingdoms. A major center of pre-Buddhist culture. Thus exp/sci.
• Paurava & Macedonia both kept third trait as a regional edge over the others. Paurava especially should be in a position to nearly hold off the Yavanas single-handed.
• Magadha - being the only civ with 4 traits ought to be enough to ensure dominance without any other game advantage.

If you want to know my method in detail:


It goes without saying that these are only suggestions. I have no particular attachment to any of them. The only one I'd even speak strongly in favor of is Chola.

Great work. We will go with this on the Civ traits.

7ronin said:

Great work. We will go with this on the Civ traits.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Took a page from your notebook & charted the whole process. Visual thinking.

Would have had a new version of the map posted, but bmp2bic was being very recalcitrant. Things like coast instead of desert one time, instead of hills the next - on exactly the same file. Seems to be working today So hopefully a postable map sometime this week - with all the base terrains, foliage & rivers.

Got bmp2bic cooperative again. so here's something not a wip but more of an "I'm on the job" screenshot:



Think I'll take one more pass to beef up the Ghats before settling down to the detailed work in the editor.

Will the map be reaching east to Tonga/Andaman? Just thought of it.

I think the Andamans don't show up because we are seeing only a portion of the map. I do notice though that the smidgen of Arabia seems to have vanished. Otherwise, things are looking good!

7ronin said:

I think the Andamans don't show up because we are seeing only a portion of the map. I do notice though that the smidgen of Arabia seems to have vanished. Otherwise, things are looking good!

Click to expand...

Both were forced into the early map for the sake of the "trade" civs. Both were mislocated by hundreds of miles. Look at posts 54 and 63 to see the magically shifting Andamans.

With the trade civs removed there is no strategic value to the aberrant islands. The map has - in that sense - returned a bit closer to the desired level of authenticity.

It might be interesting to try an Andaman civ.

Blue Monkey said:

Both were forced into the early map for the sake of the "trade" civs. Both were mislocated by hundreds of miles. Look at posts 54 and 63 to see the magically shifting Andamans.

With the trade civs removed there is no strategic value to the aberrant islands. The map has - in that sense - returned a bit closer to the desired level of authenticity.

Click to expand...

Good point! I hadn't realized that we had some geographical "fudging" going on. In any case, this latest iteration of the map looks great.

On trade civs, might interest you to read this thread, including my latest post.

Takhisis said:

On trade civs, might interest you to read this thread, including my latest post.

Click to expand...

Tak, thanks for pointing out this very interesting concept. I think we might be able to use it. If you have some specific applications I am all ears.

Tundra is not used as the map is now. Himalayan valleys are using pine forest, plains & desert. Maybe some LM variation of those. This means that tundra (with different graphics) can be used for the coral reefs, etc. of Lakshadweep (the small archipelago SW of the mainland).

Edit: Another possibility would be to use LM mountains there. Then tundra/tundra forest could be the salt marsh & mangroves as distinct from the regular marsh that would be in more standard riparian zones.

Just thinking out loud. Right now there are several lm slots as well as tundra that are unused & a few different types of unique terrain that have been discussed as possibilities.

I'd suggest using tundra as the coral reefs for 2 reasons:

1. Tundra tiles can't connect to either Desert or Plain-based tiles, they can only connect to Coast and Grassland-based tiles. Thus having them dotted around the mainland might require making too many sacrifices with regards to Desert/Plains placements.

2. Mountains (and hills + volcanoes) use a larger-than-default grassland base tile, which might mean the graphics would have to cover much more "ground" than is preferable, in order to nullify this. Though all grassland tiles connected to the tundra would also be the same large format, you might be able to work it so that either the base tundra tile or the forested tundra tile (depending on how forests will be set up on the mainland) can be settled.