Avalon Hills Civilization Map Project

PDMX

Warlord
Joined
Nov 13, 2012
Messages
164
Thank you for all those who downloaded and played the map.
Version 3 of the map pack is now released.

Fixes Jungle on Plains
Adds Cocoa and Bison to the map
Adds a random version, which works outside the mod menu.


As you know, all maps of Europe, Asia and the World have the same fundamental issues. There is a lot of empty unused space or too much room for civilizations to expand.

Preciseley the following:

1. Siberia is too big, and always gives Russia an unfair advantage
2. The deserts and boreal areas in Asia are too vast and empty.
3. A scaled down map gives not enough room for European civilizations and contradicts with 1 and 2.

All this is caused by looking at the earth from a perfect horizontal angle. To fix it, we simply have to tilt the map to the right. We will span our map from England to India, leaving out Siberia, Kazakhstan and Tibet. While still enabling Suez canal and Bosporus as shippable waterways. Trade routes from England to India? no Problem!

I hope I captured your attention. Because the title says it all, Avalon Hill has already created this map for its boardgame in the 80's. And I am currently working on the Civ5 version of it!

Because of the tilted angle it was completely redrawn from sketch.



Here are the final Civ 5 maps:


Dawn of History 120x72 (BNW)
Spoiler :


Playable Civs:
(in alphabetical order)

1. Arabia
2. Assyria
3. Babylon
4. Byzantium
5. Carthage
6. Celts
7. Egypt
8. Ethiopia
9. France
10. Germany
11. Greece
12. India
13. Indonesia
14. Mongols
15. Morocco
16. Persia
17. Poland
18. Rome
19. Russia
20. Siam
21. Spain
22. Sweden


Reasons for excluding Civilizations:

Austria, Venice, The Netherlands -> Because the map in that area is too small.
England has been dropped in favor of the Celts for a more ancient szenario.
Huns can be used instead of Russia
Denmark can be replaced with Sweden
Assyria can be replaced with the Ottomans


Altered TSL:

Persia -> starts at the Caspian sea, to balance the map and give them room to expand.
Mongols -> start in Afghanistan, central asia, to balance the map and give them room to expand.
Siam -> starts in Bangladesh because the map does not include southeast asia.
Indonesia -> Indonesia starts in southern India and fills the gap there. It was historically influenced by the south Indian Chola Empire, so it fits quite well.
See reference for Chola Empire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India#mediaviewer/File:Rajendra_map_new.svg


Mayor Terrain Features:

Konstantinopel resembles the Bosporos strait, and can be crossed if you have open borders with Byzantium.
Suez Canal can be build by placing a city on the land bridge. Starting places of Tyrus, Jerusalem and Egypt are 4 tiles away.

This enables sailing from Sweden to Bangladesh.


Natural Wonders:

Mount Sinai (Sinai)
Gibraltar Rock (Gibraltar)
Mount Kailash (Matterhorn)
Mount Kailash (Himalaya)
Kilimanjaro (Vesuv)
Kilimanjaro (Ätna)
Krakatau (Santorin)
Great Barrier Reef (Red Sea Reefs)
King Solomon Mines (Central Asia)
Mount Fuji (Ararat)
Lake Victoria (Source of Nile)
Sri Prada (Sri Lanka)
El Dorado (Angkor Wat)


CS balance:

Maritime: 9
Cultured: 8
Mercantile: 8
Militaristic: 4
Religious: 3


CS count: 32

Map Size: 120 x 72



Dawn of History Small 66x40 (BNW)
Spoiler :



Playable Civs:
(in alphabetical order)

1. Arabia
2. Assyria
3. Carthage
4. Celts
5. Egypt
6. Greece
7. India
8. Indonesia
9. Persia
10. Rome
11. Siam
12. The Huns


Altered TSL:

Persia -> starts at the Caspian sea, to balance the map and give them room to expand.
Siam -> starts in Bangladesh because the map does not include southeast asia.
Indonesia -> Indonesia starts in southern India and fills the gap there. It was historically influenced by the south Indian Chola Empire, so it fits quite well.
See reference for Chola Empire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India#mediaviewer/File:Rajendra_map_new.svg


Natural Wonders:

Mount Sinai (Sinai)
Gibraltar Rock (Gibraltar)
Mount Kailash (Matterhorn)
Mount Kailash (Himalaya)
Kilimanjaro (Vesuv)
Kilimanjaro (Ätna)
Krakatau (Santorin)
Great Barrier Reef (Maledives)
King Solomon Mines (Central Asia)
Mount Fuji (Ararat)
Lake Victoria (Source of Nile)
Sri Prada (Sri Lanka)
El Dorado (Angkor Wat)


CS balance:

Maritime: 3
Cultured: 3
Mercantile: 3
Militaristic: 1
Religious: 2


CS count: 12

Map Size: 66 x 40





Attached is the map file.

Please make sure you open it via the mod menu and load the scenario, if you want to use the preset cities and resources.
 

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  • DoH v3 Marathon Small.Civ5Map
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  • DoH v3 Std Small.Civ5Map
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  • DoH v3 Epic Small.Civ5Map
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Ingame pictures of the map
 

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Wow PDMX this is an amazing idea and I can't wait!!

I have had a ton of fun on all of your maps and have customized them to my liking! I really love to add a lot of the modded civs. I play your maps all the time if you ever need people to test stuff out I'd be happy to help!

Are you going to preplace resources like your other maps? If so, I have a few suggestions on resource placement (that I have used on your previous maps)
 
Wow PDMX this is an amazing idea and I can't wait!!

I have had a ton of fun on all of your maps and have customized them to my liking! I really love to add a lot of the modded civs. I play your maps all the time if you ever need people to test stuff out I'd be happy to help!

Are you going to preplace resources like your other maps? If so, I have a few suggestions on resource placement (that I have used on your previous maps)
There will be preplaced resources for deeper immersion, but I can make an empty one aswell. I would like to hear your suggestions.
 
Here is what the map now looks like. The raw version with coastlines is done. There is one hex each for the Bosporus and the Suez Canal. Everything will be shipable from Sankt Petersburg to Bangladesh.

Map size had to be increased to 120x72, because there was a little stretching here and there, to have better proportions of England for example, which is about 1 hex wider than it should be. The coastlines may still change a little bit during further terraforming.

 
Any way you could add the Maldives to this? I know its not on the Avalon Hills map but doesn't seem too hard to add those few islands (plus there's a ton of ocean anyway it'll put some use to it)
 
Looks nice. :) The concept is similar to my world map, just having a smaller rw area (with more detailed terrain to compensate). I could've made my map a bit larger (it's 59 x 98), but I wanted to avoid the late-game slowdown that usually strikes on Civ V games (and, to be fair, with all the other Civ games except Civ II nowadays). On my map I also reduced the size of the oceans drastically, since imo they are more of a detriment to good game-play than an addition (especially with the state of the naval battle AI in Civ V, even after all the patches). On yours of course there's little to do in this regard, since the geography is pretty much 'fixed' by the fact that 'sailability' around Arabia must be maintained at all costs.

--How large are Huge Civ V maps by default? I forget, since I don't really play the game anymore. It's just that I'd watch the size of the map because of the late-game slow-down issue. Of course Civ V has been out for a while and people's computers have gotten beefier in this time, so maybe it's less of an issue now. If you can bear the reduction in realism, you could shave off a few hexes in the South and squeeze Arabia a little bit to compensate. It's mostly desert and ocean at those latitudes; I understand that the realism angle is big with many people, though. And since there won't be other such modifications made to the map (apart from widening England ofc), it's tempting to forego it and go for total realism instead. God knows I struggled with my map! 'But I want to have Murmansk and Arkangelsk on the map so I can make northern ports as Russia! Waaahhh...' :lol: Anyway I've rambled on enough; good luck with the map, and here are a few practical tips I learned while making mine:

* You can use the different 'continent' designations (found in the WB) to have snow-capped mountains, different-colored plains, etc. Unfortunately there's no way to view the differences in WB; you'll have to start a game on the map to see them, but the effect is well worth it imo. It's especially worth considering that the African desert terrain makes hills look like sand-dunes (perfect for Arabia!), whereas the Asian designation just makes them look like sun-baked regular hills.

* It's good to make coasts two tiles wide (instead of one), so that early game ships have room to pass each other. Nothing is more frustrating than having to either go to war or turn back after sailing down half of Africa, only to find out your way is blocked by two Zulu ships in a row that refuse to move to any polite command. :mad:

* Make sure you do not occupy Team #23 in the 'Scenario' part of the map with either a Civ or a City-State. That spot is reserved for Barbarians and they won't spawn if Team #23 is occupied. You may already know this, if you've made maps before, but I thought I'd mention it since it caused me a bit of a headache.

* Lakes can be made more worthwhile by adding Fish to every square (no fishing nets though!). Imo it makes them attractive but not op early-game (realistic), balanced later, and it looks nice as well. And it gives an incentive to found cities so that they're on the coast and have lake-tiles, so that you can give the lakes fishing nets later. There may not be too many places on this map where this is applicable, and I wouldn't do it with large lakes (Aral is about at the limit), but I thought I'd mention it.

* Try to be creative with the Natural Wonders. Even though it says 'Uluru' on the tin, it can very well double for something else (the holy rock at Kaaba comes to mind ;)). On many non-world maps there are depressingly few Natural Wonders due to people's passion for 100 % realism.

* Atolls would be perfect for the Maledives (that's what they are after all), and while a departure from the model map, I don't see a reason to follow it absolutely.

* I'll add more if I can think of anything... Right now I'm drawing a blank. I might play on this map when it's ready, so I try to make it as good as possible. ;):goodjob: (I'd play on my own map but, as I'm sure you know, you can't really play on any map you made yourself since all you ever see are flaws to be corrected. Maybe you can play on my map and I can play on yours? :D)

EDIT: Oh, I see you have made other maps before. Ignore the 'nooby' parts of my advices at leisure. :)
 
Hello Greizer85,

thank you for your comments, but of course I know all this.

I like playing my own maps. I improve them as much as I can, to have fun for myself. I am a perfectionist and I like to have any river or mountain range to be curved and angled in the right way. I also use the firetuner to run AI based games to see how the map is working. ;-) So I can improve starting positions and city spots to make the AI found cities where they should.

I will probably put the following natural wonders in the game:

Mount Sinai (Sinai)
Gibraltar Rock (Gibraltar)
Mount Kailash (Matterhorn)
Kilimanjaro (Vesuv)
Kilimanjaro (Etna)
Krakatau (Santorin)
Great Barrier Reef (Aegean / Red sea or Maledives)
King Solomon Mines (Somewhere in asia)
Mount Fuji (Ararat)
Lake Victoria (Source of Nile)
Sri Prada (Sri Lanka)


Putting other ones in like Uluru as Kaaba and/or El Dorado as Angkor Wat is a tempting idea (Especially because Eldorado has now effekt if it is discovered in the first turn.) But their bonuses right next to your starting positions in Arabia or Siam are game breaking and too much of an advantage.
 
I noticed the tilted axis concept is very popular these days and I'm glad, because it finally resolves the Siberia/Sahara issue. Inspired by PDMX's Extended Europe - 22 Civs TSL I began working on a mini mod centering on the ancient Mediterranean.
I made the map, then started tinkering and expanding it to the north and east (endlessly! :crazyeye: ) and did some crude modding as well. I've been working on it for three months, but it's still WIP and the xml is quite sloppy (this is my first try ever modding CIV). so if I ever get it near finished, I'll post it in a new thread.

Here I would just like to thank PDMX for the inspiration and the EE maps!

small map.png

large map.png
 
@shocky27
Here is what the map now looks like. Its just about 50% done. Eastern Europe is already prepared with rivers and most significant mountain ranges. But Asia is still completely empty. I have recently found the right mood to get on with it, and mage big progress. I even cant wait to start the first test game myself, so this should speed up the building process hopefully. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.




@Erzherzog
The problem with those algorythms you have been using seem to be the same, with those used for scaling and expanding in world builder, if you don't use the right value. It randomly creates bays and lakes around the coastlines, where they should not be. But its nice to be considered as an inspiration.
 
Map is looking wonderful! I'll be happy to not have to spend so much time battling through the Sahara or Russian wastelands.

I really like that how you name the cities (Monaco to Messilia, I also tend to do this especially when I play Rome or Greece or Byzantines, makes for better immersion). Ammon is an interesting addition as a CS as well!
 
Here is how the map has evolved. I am currently only correcting smaller things. I will testplay it over the weekend so it will probably be released very soon. I am really happy how nice it turned out. It was a ton of work.



 
Same here, this map is awesome. This map would work perfect for ancient period mods and scenarios.
 
Its done, I have attached a Standard, Epic and Marathon Speed version to the first post.

Please make sure you open the game via the mod menu, select the map and mark the szanario checkbox, if you want to use the preplaced cities and resources.

The second post contains some ingame pics.


Please leave your comments for further improvement.

Have fun.
 
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