Maimonides
Emperor
Wow, thanks for the comments and nice to get lots of feedback!! I will attempt to answer your comments below:
Sorry to hear that you had problems with the interface; it was the one I chose (by Tom2050) and I think it's great, but am interested in any comments about it.
I agree that it's great. Here's what I was talking about:
The screenshot doesn't show the mouse pointer, but it's over the City Improvements link which, as you can see, turns a shade of brown that's very hard to see against the brown background. This occurs throughout the interface. Suggest using a font color that doesn't disappear into the background.
Waset was ancient Luxor and is more in line with the 4000BC start. You'll find that some other mods use it as their starting city, including TAM.
Thanks. Didn't know that.
Speaking of the city list, in my 2nd game my Egyptian empire grew quite large. I had dozens of cities, but the mod never ran out of city names. Kudos on having such an extensive city list.
Except for Alexandria, I didn't really recognize most of Egypt's city names. Never saw Memphis, Luxor, Heliopolis, Elephantine, etc. I haven't researched it. Assuming you used earlier names or more authentic names for the cities that I am familiar with as you say you did with Waset/Luxor.
No victory marker? That's hard-coded and you'll find it does appear soon.
OK. I'm an idiot. I didn't have it because I hadn't met another civ, yet.
I'm waiting with barbarian names, as I was finding that I'd choose a name then have the civ as part of the game.
That makes sense.
I've not done the civilopedia part where the traits are described. Stable = limited anarchy when changing governments. They are going to have cheaper corruption-busting improvements.
Cool. Thanks.
Capitalisation? That's the one thing I will not do. I'm an ex-English teacher and it just doesn't look right to me. Sorry, but it's something I'm quite anal about.
FAIR ENOUGH.
The comment about gold being required for a well? You're right, there's no direct link. However, certain civs, such as Egypt, have the "metropolis" tech. This allows them to build some extra buildings throughout the game which, in turn, allows those cities to be able to support a larger population more comfortably. I chose for gold to be available with the metropolis tech and therefore being the factor as to which cities can build the extra buildings. If you look under the metropolis tech description in the civilopedia, the details are there.
Cool. Thanks for explaining.
Speaking of resources:
-The Bactrian camel used for the Camels resource looks really good, but Dromedaries were domesticated earlier so it might be more appropriate to use a Dromedary. Not a big deal either way.
-The Reeds resource is used to allow certain Improvements. It doesn't give the terrain any bonuses. Suggest having it add 1 Trade to the tile. Egyptian papyrus was traded all over the Near East. It was much easier to make, transport, use & store than parchment or clay tablets.
-You used a nice variety of bonus resources. I haven't seen Spearwort used outside of Rood & Dragon & I haven't seen Mushrooms used outside of LOTM. The images look good, too.
-It's not a big deal at all, but the Seals resource is an image of a walrus. Technically, I guess a walrus is a type of seal, but it might make more sense to rename it "Walrus" or change the image to that of a seal. Again, not a big deal.
Noah's ark...didn't see that coming. Any ideas for a replacement effect?
I highly recommend just removing it. It's very out of place. All the other Wonders I've seen in the mod are real. Noah's Ark is mythological. Furthermore, Noah's Ark is the tradition of a civ that isn't even in the mod. It's just very odd that you included it.
As I said earlier, I started another game as Egypt. It ended when this happened:
Regarding the tech tree, I'm finding that it doesn't seem to follow the historical timeline:
-With a huge empire on Chieftain, it takes Egypt until around 800 BC to get the Dynasty tech & government. Should be happening much earlier. I made a beeline for this tech & got some help from Goody Huts, too.
-It also seems odd that the Pyramids come long before Dynasty on the tree. They also come before Ship Building & Agriculture which is unhistorical. Historically, the Pyramids were possible only because of agriculture & the ships to transport stone & supplies on the Nile.
-Again, with a huge empire on Chieftain, & with the help of some Goody Huts, it takes Egypt until about 600 BC to get out of the Bronze Age. Should be happening about 6 centuries earlier.
-Egypt gets ancient chariots pretty early, but the good chariots don't show up until about 500 or 400 BC which is roughly 600 years after it happened historically. Historically, horsemen had replaced chariots in importance by the time the good chariots show up in this mod.
I'm not sure if the fix for all this would be to add more Turns to the early years or to shuffle some of the techs or both. Don't get me wrong. It's obvious that a ton of forethought & work went into the tech tree. It's very impressive. I'm just trying to be helpful.
The Pedia entry for the Temple of Artemis says it's available to all civs. Should say all civs except Egypt.
I will definitely enjoy playing this when it's finished. I'm already enjoying it in it's rough state. This mod, finished, on a real world map with accurate starting positions or pre-placed cities will be a masterpiece!
I started a 3rd game with Egypt on Chieftain. This time I made the world large, arid, hot, 3 byo. I played with a house condition that Egypt would only place cities on rivers & try to dominate the river valleys. Was a very fun game, but I fell even farther behind techs vs. timeline than I did on the previous games since I couldn't expand like mad.
I'll d/l the next update when you post it & playtest again then. Thanks & keep up the great work!