[BETA] Putmalk's Ancient Mesopotamia

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Putmalk

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Moderator Action: New version here.

Author's Note

This is a scenario Beta. It is designed for feedback generation. You can leave feedback here or in the preview thread, it doesn't matter to me. All things are subject to change. Mostly this is a tweaking period, but if serious balance or gameplay issues arise it may require drastic changes. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy. It has taken me about two months to work on this.

When play testing, please test the Scenario included with the mod files. Please check "Load Scenario". Playing random maps does not test the scenario, but it will test balance. The end result will only be the scenario, so this is the most important to me.

Scenario Features
  • 9 Playable Civs (Macedon, Egypt, Achaemenid, Babylon, Hittites, Lydia, Phoenicia, Mitanni, Medes)
  • 13 new techologies
  • 12 new units
  • 4 custom civs
  • 9 new buildings
  • 8 new Wonders, 2 New National Wonders
  • 3 (soon 4) new Social Policy Trees, 2 Updated Trees
  • Custom art assets for every new entity in the game (2D icons only, 3D art help greatly needed!)
  • Immersive timeline (400 turns over 2100 years (2000 B.C. -> 100 A.D.)
  • 3 Victory Conditions (Culture, Domination, Time)

*Spain/Inca and Babylon DLC required
Version 5 and above (Not Yet Released): *Mongol DLC required

Download Link/Instructions
(Version 4)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MNGL7GXC

Spoiler :

1) Unzip the file
2) Move the scenario map file into Documents/My Games/Civ V/MAPS
3) Move the .civ5mod file into Documents/My Games/Civ V/MODS. DELETE THE OLD VERSION!
4) Load up Civilization V.
5) Go to MODS, BROWSE MODS
6) On the bottom right-hand side is an Install Mods button
7) Click it, let it do its thing, enable the mod, disable all others and leave
8) Click PLAY GAME, SETUP GAME, select "Ancient Mesopotamia" and click "Load Scenario"
9) Choose a civ, play!
10) Don't forget to leave feedback here or in the scenario thread! Thanks!


I hope you enjoy, and please leave feedback so I can get this out of Beta!

I've screenshots to post, but civfanatics is loopy and not letting me upload them. So, I guess...wait a bit?
 

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Reserved for updates

Version 4
Spoiler :

AI
  • AI now correctly understands what the Temple of Artemis does.
Bugfixes
  • Burial Tomb now correctly requires Polytheism
  • Egyptian War Chariot now correctly requires Horses
  • Barbarian Axeman now correctly requires Bronze Working
  • Corrected error in Musician civilopedia tooltip
  • Education tooltip corrected

Civilizations
  • New Civilization: The Medes
  • Leader: Cyaxares
  • Trait: Might of Media (Great Generals provide +20% combat bonus, and 50% chance to convert Land Barbarians)
  • Unique Unit: Skirmisher (Replaces Horseman, 12 Strength, no combat penalty when attacking cities, more expensive)
  • Unique Building: Qanat (Replaces Aqueduct, 40% Food carried over, +2 Food, Wheat provides +2 Food)

Gameplay
  • Satrap's Court Redesigned: Now replaces the Courthouse, and provides +50% Gold in addition to removing all Occupied unhappiness in a city. The Satrap's Court requires no maintenance.
  • Garden now provides +2 Food
  • Babylon's Ingenuity trait now awards a Free Great Scientist at Alphabet, instead of Writing
  • Alphabet no longer requires Sailing
  • Philosophy now requires Optics
  • Temple of the Gods now generates 25% culture, down from 33%
  • Temple of Artemis increases Great Person generation rate by 33% in all cities
  • Temple of Artemis now generates +5 Culture, up from +4
  • Swordsman cost 85 Production to build, up from 75
  • Onager costs 110 Production to build, down from 120
  • Horse Archer now has a Strength of 5, down from 7
  • Aqueduct now requires Mathematics, cost reduced to 80, but now only grants +25% food after a new citizen is born

Scenario
  • Media are now a fully playable civilization on the map
  • Land area north of Persia and around Ganzak has been improved to allow the Medes to grow
  • Achaemenids now start much further north

UI
  • Seaport has a new icon
  • Observatory has a new icon
  • Visual improvements to Shukuthlu, Peltast icons
  • Mariyannu Chariot has a new icon
  • Civilization Dawn of Man text now has been changed to the Scenario Dawn of Man text


Version 3
Spoiler :

AI
  • Readjusted policy flavors so the AI has a better grasp of understanding of the new policies.
  • Alexander now has a strong naval and military training flavor. Diplomacy and culture flavors have been significantly reduced
  • Darius is now a more hostile leader bent on building a strong military and expanding his empire as fast as he can. He is not a deceptive leader.

GAMEPLAY
  • Barbarians cannot build Slingers
  • Barbarian Axeman are a new unit and replace the normal Axeman for Barbarians. They retain the 50% melee bonus, but their strength has been lowered from 7 to 6.
  • Mitanni and Phoenician traits now correctly REDUCE maintenance of land and naval units by 33%, instead of increasing it.
  • Tower of Babel now increases production of land units by 15%.
  • Numerous updates to correct unit upgrade path.
  • Science and Diplomatic victories can now be chosen in a random game setup again, but have been disabled in the scenario
  • Science and Diplomatic victories will not win the game when their prerequisites have been fulfilled.
  • Minor increase of costs for Sailing, Writing, Calendar, The Wheel, Trapping, Masonry, Bronze Working (60 -> 80)
  • Palace Happiness reduced to 3.

POLICIES
  • Tradition: Now gives +3 Culture to the capital, down from +4
  • Monarchy: Now also provides +1 Culture in the Capital
  • Landed Elite: Monuments now also provide +1 Culture
  • Aristocracy: Strength of all cities now increased to 25% instead of 10%
  • Liberty: Gold reduction of Buying Land tiles reduced to 33%
  • Liberty: Capital Settler production increased to 33%
  • Collective Rule: Now also provides a Free Worker
  • Republic: Settler production in all cities increased to 33%
  • Titanic Worship: Now also gives +1 Culture from each Temple of the Gods
  • Polytheism: Now also grants +1 Culture in every city
  • Heroic Triumph: Now gives +4 Culture from each World Wonder
  • Monotheism: Now grants +6 Culture in the capital, +1 Culture per city removed
  • Slave Infrastructure: Gold maintenance reduction from buildings increased to 33%, and +10% Production in the Capital
  • Slave Infrastructure: Now correctly DECREASES maintenance on buildings, as opposed to increasing it.
  • Slave Trade: Now grants +2 Production per Market, and +1 Happiness per Production building (Forge, Workshop, Seaport)
  • Slave Finisher: Specialists produce +1 Production, and Mines produce +1 Production
SCENARIO
  • Added tons of Horse resources around Mitanni so they can build their Chariots early and often
  • The Ganzak city-state no longer has Horses or Incense
  • Added the Nineveh City-State, north of Babylon along the river
  • Troy now has a higher defensive flavor and a lower offensive flavor.
  • Minor tile additions near Athens and Anatolia passage
  • Silver located near Hittite starting location
  • Added tons of grassland and plains south of the Egyptian starting location along the river, included with new bonus and luxury resources.


Emergency Update - Version 2
Spoiler :

  • Phoenician Trait: Naval units now cost 33% less gold to maintain, a Free Great Merchant appears when you research Currency, and Custom Houses now also grant +1 Gold, +2 Science, +2 Food.
  • Lydian Trait: Trade Routes now grant +1 Gold, Trading Post and Mines now also grant +1 Gold.
  • Mitanni Trait: Great General spawn rate increased by 50%, in addition to 33% land unit maintenance reduction.
  • Mitanni can now build Warriors
  • Mitanni now starts with a Warrior
 
Planned changes for Version 5 (not coming for a while)
Blog topic #1:
Spoiler :

11-4-11

What's taking so long?

I took a really long break after Version 4 hit off around the beginning of September. College had started, and I was starting to get burned out by the scenario. I was unhappy with a few things, and instead of persevering, I decided to call it a day and leave the scenario behind to rot in the dust. I chalked it up as an accomplishment, as I was able to deliver a playable experience and share it with others. And I was content with that. Last week, however, I decided to give the scenario another shot. I wanted to complete this experience and finally make my entry into the modding community.

So, after I returned, I had numerous things to fix. My policies were broken and not fun. My scenario was too large and too peaceful. There weren't enough civilizations and I felt too restricted with the victory conditions. I felt like the gameplay got shallow towards the end and the tech tree needed improvement. So off to work I went! The minute I came back I explored every opportunity for me to improve. No area of the game was safe. I started off with new civilizations. With a bit of planning I managed to get them in, and I'm very pleased with the result. I feel like these civilizations are balanced and have unique playstyles.

I also decided to fix my policies. They were in a messy state following Version 4. So I did my best to overhaul them. First, I decided to complete the existing branches, finally adding Trade and making it fully functional. Then I noticed how sloppy Tradition was; that got changed as well and I feel the final result is much more coherent than before. Slavery was overpowered beyond belief; the amount of production a city could pump out was simply unacceptable. Slavery received a bit of an overhaul; I decided to slowly deliver the production and in smaller quantities, and in some cases focus on the infrastructure more. Polytheism was a mess; I didn't know where to go with this tree and it shows. The policies were disjointed and didn't follow a logical manner. I decided to can every policy and start from scratch. It now functions very similarly to Piety, but this is good. Firaxis isn't dumb and the results show in the playtesting. Monotheism was a bit tougher. I decided to remove the tree and have one true culture tree. This left an empty hole in the policies, so I filled it with a conqueror's branch. In these scenarios, you need to be strong. I used Autocracy as my base and I crafted the new Operations branch. It's similar to Autocracy but has a few changes, overall, it should be balanced. If I get any ideas, I'll stuff them in here. The last change I decided to make was to add a science tree. And thus, Philosophy was born, and stuffed straight between Polytheism and Operations. Philosophy is pure science, and it may actually unbalance the game, so heavy attention will be focused here.

I also added new techs were I felt the game was lacking. For example, there was no Farm bonuses. So I added Irrigation and Medicine, which both add output to Farms on rivers and away from rivers, respectively. Moving Code of Laws back to allow you to get Courthouses sooner, I slotted Ballistics in its place. I also messed around with many tech links; the new tree should be more logical to navigate but also better, gameplay-wise. You shouldn't be reliant on naval techs until the end of the tree, so if you don't like navy, you're not forced to tech them.

All of these changes just brush the surface of what I've done to this mod. After this patch, I expect the Mesopotamia scenario to be truly worthy of being a Civilization V mod.

I am in the processing of final playtesting. I hope to release this version soon!
 

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Played it and there was a map. You have to manually put it in the maps folder.

Anyways, it was fun. Didn't get too into it but I know some of the social policy branches were showing vannila civ policies, otherwise it looked good.

And do you plan to add a Isreal Civ?
 
Played it and there was a map. You have to manually put it in the maps folder.

Anyways, it was fun. Didn't get too into it but I know some of the social policy branches were showing vannila civ policies, otherwise it looked good.

And do you plan to add a Isreal Civ?

No, I'm sorry. Israel is way too close to Phoenicia. I would only add civilizations that make sense gameplay wise; Mitanni isn't very relevant (minus the possibility that they may have invented Chariot warfare) but gameplay wise they make perfect sense. Jerusalem is a high possibility to become a City-State, however.

What policy branches were showing vanilla civ policies? Honor is staying the same, Patronage has not been changed yet (sometime in a future beta patch), Commerce, Freedom, and Order have been disabled and I want to remove those policies (if I delete them however, the entire UI breaks). Any suggestions on how to hide them?
 
^Ya it was just commerce freedom and order. And I don't know how you would hide them, maybe plan up three more policy branches and just replace them (like you did the others), of course that is more work.
 
I think it's because I have the Cradle of Civilization DLC, and one of those is called Mesopotamia.
 
^Ya it was just commerce freedom and order. And I don't know how you would hide them, maybe plan up three more policy branches and just replace them (like you did the others), of course that is more work.

Well I had one more branch planned for the future, and that was Tactics, that would function like Autocracy and give a bonus to empires that want to war frequently.

Trade is going to be a hybrid of Commerce, and Trade.

I can't even think of what another policy's name or function would be, and I'm not about to add fluff for no reason. It's bad enough Monotheism and Polytheism are so connected (I tried to rectify this by making Monotheism benefit small empires and Polytheism benefit large ones).

I expect these two branches to change a lot. In fact, you may see a complete reversal of the trees: Polytheism offers straight culture in buildings and helps new cities out, and Monotheism offers enhanced Great People, Culture and culture building production.

I think it's because I have the Cradle of Civilization DLC, and one of those is called Mesopotamia.

My map is called Ancient Mesopotamia, though. Would it really conflict? I'll look into it, funnily enough, Cradle of Civilization is one of the few DLCs I don't have. Thanks for reporting the issue!

I believe you can safely rename my .civ5map file to Ancient Mesopotamia or something, as long as you can differentiate the two.
 
The file name was Mesopotamia, so that may have been the problem.
After testing it, the barbs might need to be toned down, I was having trouble fending them off in the ancient era.
 
The file name was Mesopotamia, so that may have been the problem.
After testing it, the barbs might need to be toned down, I was having trouble fending them off in the ancient era.

The filename has since been changed to Ancient Mesopotamia, and the scenario will be changed to Putmalk's Ancient Mesopotamia.

Did you adequately prepare for barbarians? Did you focus on warriors and archers or did you strictly go for civilian buildings?
 
A bit of both, and, honestly, I toned it down to Prince (I normally play on King or Emperor, and, if I have Germany or the Aztecs, might go for Raging Barbs..)
Even toning it down a bit from there, they're still common.
The problem seems to be ~5 encampments around Phoenicia's starting area.
Are encampments programmed in?
 
A bit of both, and, honestly, I toned it down to Prince (I normally play on King or Emperor, and, if I have Germany or the Aztecs, might go for Raging Barbs..)
Even toning it down a bit from there, they're still common.
The problem seems to be ~5 encampments around Phoenicia's starting area.
Are encampments programmed in?

No, completely random.

Check the planned future changes, Post #3.
 
How did you change the names of the natural wonders?

Also, would it be possible to add in the DLC ancient wonders?
 
How did you change the names of the natural wonders?

Also, would it be possible to add in the DLC ancient wonders?

I did a simple update to their names in the text files.

I will not be adding in DLC ancient wonders. I had already completed them prior to the DLC coming out, and I don't want to add another restriction to people wanting to play the game. If you see my code, you'll notice that I have deleted the DLC ancient wonders in order for this to be compatible with people who do not have that DLC.

I'm also balancing the wonders for how I want it, not how Firaxis wants it.
 
Version 3 is out. Patch notes in Post #2.

I appreciate any further feedback. Thank you!
 
Version 4 is now up.

This is my last version until I start getting some feedback. Other than that, I'll continue to playtest and tweak things for myself, but if nobody gives feedback, then I can't assume anyone is actually playing it.

This version comes included with a new civilization, the Medes. The Medes really help the gameplay, as they give Persia and Babylon someone close to fight and get mad at.

The Medes are fully playable.
 

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Feedback, from version 2
Game's still not complete, but I chose Phoenicia, founded three cities.
Allied Damascus and Pelusium, defeated and puppeted egypt. Peltasts are awesome.
DOF with Greece. Mitanni were massive, but puppeted them. Now steamrolling an oversized Babylon. Turn 270-ish. Almost done tech tree (1 tech left).
Built ALL wonders...
One tech tree till Utopia Project
Thoughts:
My navy came in useful early-game, was pleased I actually could use them, even up through the conquest of Egypt.
Peltasts kick butt.
Axemen need an upgrade, catapults should run through to onagers.
Personally, I think the map and number of civs should be scaled up (seeing Medes above, good move)
I like the monotheism/polytheism branch. I think it should be 4 branches for Utopia, lower the culture output of buildings/policies, and give that kind of choice to every policy.
Same goes for the church/temple of the gods option.

I'll edit in anything I can think of later.
 
Feedback, from version 2
Game's still not complete, but I chose Phoenicia, founded three cities.
Allied Damascus and Pelusium, defeated and puppeted egypt. Peltasts are awesome.
DOF with Greece. Mitanni were massive, but puppeted them. Now steamrolling an oversized Babylon. Turn 270-ish. Almost done tech tree (1 tech left).
Built ALL wonders...
One tech tree till Utopia Project
Thoughts:
My navy came in useful early-game, was pleased I actually could use them, even up through the conquest of Egypt.
Peltasts kick butt.
Axemen need an upgrade, catapults should run through to onagers.
Personally, I think the map and number of civs should be scaled up (seeing Medes above, good move)
I like the monotheism/polytheism branch. I think it should be 4 branches for Utopia, lower the culture output of buildings/policies, and give that kind of choice to every policy.
Same goes for the church/temple of the gods option.

I'll edit in anything I can think of later.

This is what I need! Gracias!

Can you please tell me what difficulty you were playing on?
 
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