A new standard sized world map - potentially excellent for multi-player

Greizer85

Emperor
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Mar 7, 2009
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http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=22184

EDIT: Some screenshots of the map (not the final version but close).

(Not sure if this is the right forum, if not then please move the thread there.)

Hello. I have just finished making a new world map for Civilization II (MGE, but maps should work in any version). You might ask why make a new map now, after 18 years (!), when there are plenty of maps available. Well, to be frank, most of them are terrible, having distorted land shapes and/or monotonous/inaccurate terrain; and the good maps are all meant for huge games, which I dislike. On my map you'll have on average 5-15 cities if you don't go a-conquering. The map size is 48 x 92 = 4416 squares, so about 10 % larger than a Standard sized map.

Apart from its size and accuracy in terrain forms, what sets my map apart is the fact it has an enlarged Europe and Japan and greatly shrunken oceans. In my opinion, moving ships around in Civ games is a huge drag, and on most world maps they're obsolete once you get to the enemy! Not so here. On this map, world-conquest is perfectly doable in a long afternoon, like a leisurely stroll in the park. (A park slippery with enemy blood, that is. ;)) As for Europe and Japan, I like them to look like their real-life counterparts and to be viable starting places; as there is no way to manually place resources in Civ II (lul wut?), the only ways to 'improve' a place are to add good terrain or increase its size, both of which have been done for Eu and Japan.

Due to the balanced starting locations, the map should work very well in multi-player. Take care not to pick Persia with either India or Babylon, though, as they're a bit too close for comfort. It was an unavoidable size-effect of the map distortion that is caused by an enlarged Europe. It's no fun if one player gets wiped out within the first 20 turns due to a bad combat roll. Remember: no Persia with India or Babs. India + Babylon is ok though.

Without further ado, have fun playing! :) And remember to give feedback, whether you like the map or not; any improvement suggestions will be taken into consideration.

Cheers,
Greizer85

P.S. Btw I wouldn't bother with generating new map seeds. The seed that the map uses now (43) is unequivocally the best out of the 64 that are possible. I know because I checked all of them. :crazyeye: Ofc if you want a better starting place for your *own* civ, then feel free to generate a new seed. But the starting positions are pretty well balanced as it is, so again I wouldn't bother. This seed is the one where you get Coal in Scotland, Peat in Siberia and Silk in China... Please have some respect for my work here and refrain from re-seeding. :p

P.P.S. In the future, I may make a version of my map with altered terrain and rules to fix some things about Civ II that I consider tedious/exploit-y, and to further enhance the realism of the map. But I've recently started another project, and will need to work on my Civ V map, too, so this likely won't happen for some time (if indeed ever). In the meantime (and always), feel free to alter my map or use it in any scenarios or projects that it seems fit for. You may give me credit if you wish to; I don't really care as long as my map is out there for people to play on.

EDIT: I played a test game and edited almost all starting locations for added viability. You may want to re-download unless you're in the middle of a good game. I forgot that in Civ II you want less Hills than in Civ V, since they won't have production if you irrigate them. Should be enough food now for all starting locations.

I also noticed that North America is too narrow by just a smidgen... Gah. It kinda fails to project that whole 'Manifest Destiny' thing when it's just a stone's throw from the Rockies to the Appalachians. I moved Washington to the East one tile to make an 'illusion of width', but I'll see if I cba to edit the entire coast to make NA wider. No promises here though. I will need more than 6 downloads for that at least. :p Although I'm glad if even one person apart from myself finds it fun to play on my map.
 
Nice work. I actually do still enjoy vanilla games on the pre-made maps from time to time. I'll give this map a try the next time I do:)
 
Thanks for the dl and comment. :) It makes sense that after all these years, most people would prefer scenarios to the vanilla game. I may make a scenario using my world map; but before that I'll try and finish my Finland scenario. I'm only just starting to learn modding in Civ II, and currently some terrible graphical problems are obstructing most of my modifications. I'm sure I'll figure it all out eventually though.

I've made some further improvements to the world map, but I'll refrain from making new uploads too often. I must play a few test games with each starting location and modify the terrain to make for 'ideal city sites' in the place of rl cities. Ofc it's frustrating to watch the AI found cities in the tundra that are 1 tile off the coast... But them's the breaks for working with older games, heh.

My Civ V world map is suffering terribly from all these distractions... But frankly, had I known how much better I'd be able to make my Civ II map look, I'd never have bothered with it. I much prefer the graphics of Civ II over those of Civ V; imo they achieve a perfect balance between functionality and aesthetics.

EDIT: I couldn't resist the urge and tried what the map would look like if it was 75 x 120 (Large size)... :mischief: It's ideal for my purposes, both for scenarios and for regular play. I think I'll abandon the smaller map (well, it's almost finalized anyway), and focus on the new, bigger map instead. Kinda wish I had made this map in the first place... But hey, it only took two days to make most of the small map (I copied the terrain from my Civ V map, which took a year to make :eek:). I'm feeling a bit burned out by map-making atm, but I think I'll be able to complete the big map in a week or two, give or take. We all have our vices... I like making maps far better than actually playing any of the Civ games, although they are a blast to play too ofc.

EDIT2: If anyone has ideas on how to cut down Siberia while retaining some sort of aesthetics, I'm all ears. The problem with world maps is always that there's a huge amount of empty tundra in Asia that the AI loves to colonize. I play without Barbarians, but if you play with them on, it's also an endless breeding ground for humongous hordes of Barbarians. With the small map this wasn't such a big problem, but the bigger the map, the bigger the Siberian wastelands...
 
Did a final update (for now anyway) to the small world map. I noticed there's just enough room for a Northern passageway from Arkhangelsk to the rest of the world; although it looks a little queer, you can just suspend disbelief and pretend the ships are sailing a bit further North. :p I also updated some places with slightly more habitability. It's best to stop now, though, before I make the whole world to be covered in optimal city sites! :eek:

I've encountered some unexpected problems with the second world map... I really want to make it the best shape possible, so I may have to re-think my entire approach. I'm also still burnt-out from making my first map. My mind often zings from one place to another with no warning; it's a wonder I got the first map done in so little time. :p For now I think I'll work on my Finland mod... The graphical issues are still unresolved btw. They will need resolving soon, or you will have to play the mod with Desert graphics in Northern Finland, etc. :lol:
 
It's kinda disappointing to make maps and not have any comments. I realize that Civ II is an old game and only 64 people have downloaded my map, but if even one of them would like to give their impressions and/or criticisms, it'd be very welcome. :)

I might do one more update on this map, but I most likely won't be adding real resource placement to it (via TheNamelessOne's excellent ToTPP), since I've moved on to other projects and I haven't the heart to discard my good work in finding the correct map seed for the current resource distribution. :p
 
This forum is not the hotbed of activity it once was. Given the age of the game, I think you should be pleased with 64 downloads.

Enlarged Europe and Japan and downsized oceans do not set your map apart; this is a very common feature going all the way back to the (awful) maps included with the original Civ2.

I prefer maps that are scaled accurately. I realize this creates problems, given the concentration of civilizations (and wars) in smaller places like Europe and the middle east. But a world map is not ideal for vanilla play in any event.

Some years ago, I created an accurately scaled giga world map (127x177) for a scenario long since put on the shelf. I wanted to represent the real size of the oceans, particularly the Pacific which is narrower than the Atlantic in most available maps. Using a giga map format left Europe just big enough to put in all the major cities, and to allow cramped, but workable, military activity. To compensate for the very large oceans in scenarios at least, ships need to be given very large movement factors, and land and air unit MFs need to be increased as well.

I'd be interested in knowing about your experiment with seeds. I've never given them much thought. Why is 43 the best?
 
This forum is not the hotbed of activity it once was. Given the age of the game, I think you should be pleased with 64 downloads.
Obviously, and I am. Thank you for your comment at least. :) I do wish I'd have stuck with Civ II, but in the past I used to enjoy playing Civ more than I do now. I could overlook the flaws of Civ III due to my youth, playing with friends, etc; and Civ IV was actually a good game, despite some annoying features. But graphics-wise (which is what counts for map-making) Civ II still hasn't been beat imo. Despite the limited audience, the maps I will make will all be for Civ II from now on (until someone makes a mod that replaces Civ V graphics with Civ II ones :p).

Enlarged Europe and Japan and downsized oceans do not set your map apart; this is a very common feature going all the way back to the (awful) maps included with the original Civ2.
Please, do not mention the original maps in the same sentence with my map! :D It makes my skin crawl to think about their distorted land forms and empty stretches of Siberian grassland. :lol:

Most of the maps with reduced oceans, etc, must be gone now, lost to the sand of time. If I'd have found such a map in the dl section of this site, I wouldn't have had to make mine. There were a few bigger maps that had some of these adjustments, but my map does them in the extreme. Europe is the biggest it could comfortably be on this map, as was proven to me by hours and hours of tinkering.

I prefer maps that are scaled accurately. I realize this creates problems, given the concentration of civilizations (and wars) in smaller places like Europe and the middle east. But a world map is not ideal for vanilla play in any event.
Why do you prefer such maps? Just for their realistic look? Imo looks are important, but as long as the continents look right, I'm willing to overlook distortion in the oceans, to produce better game-play results. Tweaking movement rates and making giga-maps is the opposite approach, and I find it less satisfying. It's mainly because I dislike long games though; many scenarios are so huge that it must take a week to finish them! :eek:

Some years ago, I created an accurately scaled giga world map (127x177) for a scenario long since put on the shelf. I wanted to represent the real size of the oceans, particularly the Pacific which is narrower than the Atlantic in most available maps. Using a giga map format left Europe just big enough to put in all the major cities, and to allow cramped, but workable, military activity. To compensate for the very large oceans in scenarios at least, ships need to be given very large movement factors, and land and air unit MFs need to be increased as well.
Did you make this map available here on CFC? I'd like to see it, if only to compare land forms etc. I feel I did an adequate job with most continents, given the narrow space I had to work with. Only Australia and the Pacific islands leave something to be desired, as well as North America (the damn thing is too narrow, but adding tiles on either side leaves it looking even more horrible! :mad:).

I'd be interested in knowing about your experiment with seeds. I've never given them much thought. Why is 43 the best?
I manually tested every one of them... 'Seed 31: spice in Siberia, oil in Italy: that's a 'no'!'; 'seed 49: no corn in North America, otherwise good; make a mental note'; etc etc... A very tedious job that would've been fruitless if not for the miraculous distribution on the current map, where after some further editing there is hardly a square on the map that doesn't correspond to the real world in some plausible sense. There's corn in America, oil in the Middle East, gold in the Andes, etc. There's also Silk in Siberia (it's either that or Spice...), but a man's got to know his limits, and besides, if I don't choose to use TheNamelessOne's mod, I'm literally out of options. For my upcoming Finland mod/map, as well as any future maps, I will be using this god-send of a mod though. If only it had existed 15 years ago... :eek:
 
I'll upload the gigamap file a bit later. In answer to your question, why do I prefer accurately scaled maps? Because I use maps for scenarios, where realism is usually a goal. I've played several WWII scenarios on maps with very narrow oceans and they don't work well. You can't simulate the campaign in the Pacific if you can bomb Japan from Hawaii, nor will a U-boat campaign work if there's no room to hide your subs.
 
I think to be fair to both of you, Greizer's map is very well suited to a standard game with the MPS techs, units, terrain, etc. from 4000 BC to AD 2020 (you know the drill), but maybe with one of the updated Vanilla graphics sets, in my opinion, but I digress. For that purpose, this map would work very well, and it's seed gives an added real world feel. However, for realistic world-wide historical scenarios, it's not as well suited, as techumseh pointed out.
 
Here is the Global Giga map file. This is a screenie from the scenario I made it for, Global War. It was supposed to be a multi-player game of the entire 2nd World War, but the multi-player fad had passed before I completed it, so I never did.

note - I used Tundra to represent Tropical terrain. I wanted a terrain (for India and China mostly) that would support large cities, but provide no shields for industry.

Global War.jpg

View attachment Global Giga.rar
 
@Patine: I think you're spot-on with your assessment. Of course by this time most dedicated Civ II players are sick of the vanilla game, with all its many short-comings, and so my map has limited appeal.

I meant to make a bigger world map for Civ II, but got burned out on map-making... We'll see if I can get back into the groove sometime and finish it. The problem lay mostly with the size of Europe and the distortion that is caused by increasing it. However, TheNamelessOne's Test of Time Patch Project (ToTPP) offers huge remedies in this regard. With the introduction of 16 different terrain types (!) and 30 resource types (!!), all placeable wherever you prefer (!!!), the scenarios that can be realized become vastly greater. If we can create, say, a 'dense industry' terrain for Europe only, that gives, like, 4/4/4, then the need for an enlarged continent is greatly diminished. With so many types available, 'sacrificing' existing terrain types for these kinds of tricks is no longer necessary. As much as I like techumseh's giga-sized map -- one of the best I've seen, especially when it comes to territorial variation -- the transition from lush forests to barren snow fields is a little jarring in the far North of the map. Apart from this, it's curious how much space there is between Alaska and Siberia -- was this needed for scenario purposes, so that ships couldn't reach the other continent in one turn?
 
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