History in the Making Map Exchange Thread

The purpose of this thread is to promote exchange of fun/good maps for the History in the Making Mod for BTS. Maps could be randomly generated ones which a bit of play reveals are fun/good/challenging. Or they could be self-made maps.

I'm beginning to feel like I'm beginning to understand the History in the Making Mod, at least the early eras. Have yet to get a good match where I can play with the late Industrial and Modern stuff much.

I was originally interested in making the most hugiferous Earth map possible for use with this Mod, but a bit of playing with Planetary maps convinced me that, I don't have the rig to handle such a map, so probably lots of other folks do not either.

I enjoy making custom maps that people will enjoy. For example, some guys at 1BC wanted a good team PBEM map. They specified which tribes they'd like to play, and what sort of game they liked (e.g., ancient tooth-n-nail struggle to survive vs. plenty of room to expand postponing conflicts till Mediev or Rennaissance, or a map that is conducive to an "Age of Discovery and Colonization" type scenario, etc.). Anyone have any requests?

I for one would love it if someone would make a map that was huge and Terra like, and involved America vs. most of the new "bad guy" leaderheads in this mod (Hiro, Hitler, Ami, Saddam, the Korean nutjobber, and a couple of "good guys" like Churchill and De Gaulle or something) but was set up so that the "bad guy" tribes had a real chance to get developed and the conflicts that eventually occurred were largely postponed till Modern era. Maybe a map with 4 or 5 starting cities per tribe and starting in the Industrial era?

For a while there me and another guy had this reciprocal map-building thing going with C3C. He'd specify the type of scneario he'd like to play in an SP game, I'd build a map for him (but with maybe a few surprises and mysteries). Reciprocally, I'd specify a type of map I'd like to play and he'd build a map for me. Would be good to get a HiTM map-exchange network going!

The map that I am attaching is a completely randomly generated Prince map for HiTM (Large, PerfectWorld, Odyssey speed). I've played it up to about 900 AD and I'm not "winning" but I have a long-term shot at winning In short, a good/challenging but not ridiculously hard map.

I have one other one that I might load up later on, but I need to play it a bit more first.

I'd intended to get into mapmaking for HitM, thinking it was a way in which I could contribute my time to the project. I had some ideas . My limitation is a total lack of experience in map-making. Is there a general tutorial on mapmaking somewhere?

Not that I'm aware of, though there are some tutorials that cover pretty much everything about modding in Civ4 on this site. I pretty much learned to use the Worldbuilder by trial and error. It is pretty straightforward: generate a map, click on the upper left button with all the options, choose worldbuilder, start fiddling till you figure it out! That is what I did in both Civ4 and Civ3

Rusty Edge said:

I'd intended to get into mapmaking for HitM, thinking it was a way in which I could contribute my time to the project. I had some ideas . My limitation is a total lack of experience in map-making. Is there a general tutorial on mapmaking somewhere?

Click to expand...

Sorry to be delayed on a substantive response Rusty Edge. Here is a link to Page 4 of Weasel Ops guide to modding in Civ4. This page deals with the basics of the Worldbuilder. That should get ya goin'!

Another good map that was randomly generated. This one is a Large Prince diff with the Terra2 script. I set myself to be Gilgamesh, one less rival, and also Raging Barbs. Other than that pretty much random.

Anthropoid said:

Not that I'm aware of, though there are some tutorials that cover pretty much everything about modding in Civ4 on this site. I pretty much learned to use the Worldbuilder by trial and error. It is pretty straightforward: generate a map, click on the upper left button with all the options, choose worldbuilder, start fiddling till you figure it out! That is what I did in both Civ4 and Civ3

Click to expand...

Thanks for all of your help

I'll get results eventually, one way, or another.

I played around with the map maker last night; still not as facile with it as I was with the C3C editor. Wish I knew where the code was to create a "Ocean" map of any particular size, i.e., a map with nothing but ocean tiles. Ah well, will probably figure it out eventually.

Anyway, I've got one map that was randomly generated that I liked the look of (PerfectWorld sometimes does some really cool maps), but the only problem was it was a hopeless location on Prince because of lack of resources. So I have been playing around with it sprucing it up a bit, and now I'm playing it as David of Israel. It is turning into a pretty fun game, I'm up to about 200AD. I'm not in the lead, but I'm about number 3. Lots of wars, lots of defense, a few wonders: basically my ideal type of civ game on Odyssey speed: I will not be able to win for a long time, and the AI is going to keep me on my toes for the long haul. I'm pretty sure the map is okay how it is, but I would like to play it out a bit more to make sure I did not make a couple of the AI too powerful. But if anyone wants it before I finish (which might be a quite a while) just let me know.

ADDIT: I'm taking down the Shaka map cause I discovered something that could spoil someone's game. When you use the "Change All Tiles" command it goes to coast not ocean. Thus the whole dang map would be navigable by galley, so that could seriously spoil a game. I'm going to fix it by hand, but anyone building maps note: if you generate a random map, then tell it to "Change All Tiles to Ocean" it will actually change it to coast, and you will need to go in and manually drag the change tile cursor over the whole dang thing

The David map was randomly generated using PerfectWorld, and I did not change the basic layout of the continents, just changed some of the land, and also added and took away some. There should still be oceans surround the continents for that one.

Here are a couple more large maps. Both are Terra-esque, but I've pretty heavily modified both. I play tested both on Odyssey speed up to about the 500 ADs, and while I had not yet won, I certainly have a viable shot. I hope I will eventually finish both.

My ideal Civ map is one that presents challenges through every age of history, and not one where simply establishing a big powerful Empire in the Ancient/Classical period is sufficient to eventually win. I try to design my maps to serve this agenda. I also dislike it when the AI must have enormous benefits in order for a game to be 'challenging.' I instead try to create maps that play off the AI's tendencies and will present a challenge to a player who normally can win fairly easily against the AI on Prince. With some background in geology and ecology, I do try to keep my maps within realistic boundaries and it is here that I probably deviate from the "patchwork" maps that the random script generator tends to produce.

If you do not like Odyssey speed, just post in here, and I'll put up the WorldBuilder.sav files, which you would only have to save into your My Docs/BTS/Saves/Worldbuilder folder.

If anyone tries them out, and finds anything egregious please let me know and I'll edit.

Anthropoid said:

I played around with the map maker last night; still not as facile with it as I was with the C3C editor. Wish I knew where the code was to create a "Ocean" map of any particular size, i.e., a map with nothing but ocean tiles. Ah well, will probably figure it out eventually

Click to expand...

I'm still learning the ropes, obviously, but the way I do that is start a game with a map the size I want...

Go into Worldbuilder/ top row of buttons, 3rd from left is "Change All Plots"/
then there is a dropdown box with hills, mountains, ocean, etc. / select and enter /AND THEN go into map mode after it changes...

Let me get this straight. Your avatar is Ulysses and you like to play Odyssey?

I enjoy marathon, maybe I should switch mine to Pericles.

Its more ironic than that! My whole life for the past five years has been much like the Odyssey (sort of . . . in my head anyway). My wife and I have been living apart and doing the commute-lifestyle since 2003 while I was doing postdocs and stuff. Now I have a tenure track and we are finally going to be settling down in the _same_ town, let alone the same country!!

Yeah, I had found that "Change All Tiles" command. Only problem with going straight to Ocean is it will leave all the sea food. If you go to Grass, then go to Ocean, it should clear out most of the resources, etc., with some exceptions like Oil. That is how I have been working too. The only real problem I can see with this approach is: you cannot add new tribes to the lineup after you launch out of the custom SP game window.

My solution to this: I started up a Huge Terra map with 24 Civs. I then changed it to grass, then to ocean, and saved it as "Huge Terra 24 Civ Script." Now I can build any map I want with up to 24 Civs using that script.

Have you DLed any of those maps I've uploaded? The Louis and the Gilgamesh were just totally random. I did not finish either one of those. The Shaka and the David are my own special creations. Both should be pretty white-knuckle at various points

I downloaded the Louis one and opened it , but I haven't played any yet.

My current game is still in the longbow stage. It takes me about a week on average to complete one. This week I'm spending more time here than I am playing, beause my wife is in France on business and I'm trying to keep my eye on e-mail.

As I noted in my ADDIT to my post above: I took down the Shaka map cause I discovered something that could spoil someone's game. When you use the "Change All Tiles" command it goes to coast not ocean. Thus the whole dang map would be navigable by galley, so that could seriously spoil a game. I'm going to fix it by hand, but anyone building maps note: if you generate a random map, then tell it to "Change All Tiles to Ocean" it will actually change it to coast, and you will need to go in and manually drag the change tile cursor over the whole dang thing

The David map was randomly generated using PerfectWorld, and I did not change the basic layout of the continents, just changed some of the land, and also added and took away some. There should still be oceans surround the continents for that one.

The Louis map also was totally randomly generated (as was the Gilgamesh) so those three should all be fine.

Here are a couple more maps, and then I will probably slack off on map making for most of the rest of the summer. If folks like what I've made, please let me know, and maybe I'll make some more, or make one that fits a particular theme. I now feel pretty competent with the Civ4 BTS mapmaker, and with HiTM resources, etc. to make maps. It takes a lot of time to learn, and to do a good job.

A bit about my philosophy of map making. The random maps in Civ are fun, but they tend to be homogeneous. They also tend to pose "what ifs" that are slightly grating on realism and not too interesting like: what if the Vikings started out in a jungle teaming with elephants and gems? or What if the Roman Empire was built on a dry desert peninsula festooned with fur, silver and tundra? *yawn*

The vikings were nordic! they should be in the north, they should be close to coast, they should have some basic resources that were staples, namely iron, pigs, but horses very questionable The Romans were a mediteranean tribe, they should have stuff like olives, wine, cheese, etc.!

In short, while I do follow my imagination and try to create reasonable and interesting what-if scenarios, I also try not to make stupid combinations.

Couple warnings on my maps: they are not easy (IMO) but they are also not impossible. I generally give the human a good starting location, and good prospects for expansion and long-term possibilities, though not "perfect" situations. You will be facing some tough rivals who will have their own perks and benefits out there beyond the fog. I generally try to make a map that will be hard for a human to win prior to the Renaissance at earliest, even if you are quite good. I've playtested all of them up to about the early ADs to insure they are doable.

Also, these maps are big, and in some cases complex, turn times might be slow. I play-tested the Dragon Turtle map up to about 300AD and turns were taking about one minute.

Enjoy!

I haven't forgotten about this. I took a break. I was getting frustrated placing rivers.

Rivers are the hardest thing to do. Just relax, mess around with it, and figure out the system to do it. It would take up pages to describe, but if you figure it out it will become intuitive.

Hey! I forgot about this thread. Guess I should link to the upload of my latest Sumeria map "Umalishiki" that I posted in the HiTM thread

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10827571&postcount=3656