South America on an Earth Map

I've only played a couple games on an earth map. My first game, I was fairly amazed by the array of luxury resources available. I eventually learned I was in West Asia, around Turkey. A smashing victory for the Netherlands.

Decided to give it another shot. Picked the Celts. Found myself in the middle of a hell of jungles, broken up only by the occasional marsh (yay!) and hemmed in by a reverse-question-mark-shaped array of mountains. This big plate of turned out to be Civ's interpretation of South America.

So, workers couldn't do anything until I had Masonry, and any time I tried to improve a tile, it meant five turns of removing whatever was there, not to mention the turn spent just moving there. Exploration moved at a relative snail's pace, since I couldn't effectively support my scout with my warriors because every tile was difficult terrain.

The bright side was that rivers abounded so I was making decent gold without even trying. I was trying to make a beeline for a pantheon, but it took too long and somebody beat me to sacred path. What a pity that was. Also, tried making it to Education for universities, but I realized when other civ's caravels were swooping around my trireme that I wasn't making a good go of it.

All in all, it did a pretty good job of simulating real-world history.

It's a pretty bad hand to be dealt though.

It's a good start for culture but it really lacks production.

If you max out the number of city states, one will usually spawn too close to the South America civ spawn to settle their city, so at least then you get an instant free worker that won't be able to do anything for 150 turns (marathon).

If you like earth maps you may want to try the Legendary Earth Map mod and run the scenario, which places civs in their correct location. South America is interesting as the Incans, although fairly isolated (only the Mayans are close in Central America). Very different than if you play as a European civ (e.g., France) where everyone is packed in like sardines to start. Makes for a lot of replayability as different civs on this map.

RedRover57 said:

If you like earth maps you may want to try the Legendary Earth Map mod and run the scenario, which places civs in their correct location. South America is interesting as the Incans, although fairly isolated (only the Mayans are close in Central America). Very different than if you play as a European civ (e.g., France) where everyone is packed in like sardines to start. Makes for a lot of replayability as different civs on this map.

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Try the Yet (not) Another Earth Maps Pack, actually. Same idea, but it launches as a custom game giving you the standard advanced options plus a few extras--you can pick & choose your opponents, enable quick combat, etc. Plus you get different sized Earths and a few regional maps.

You're not supposed to get bonus production for clearing a jungle, are you?

steveg700 said:

You're not supposed to get bonus production for clearing a jungle, are you?

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No you don't. In a s-america start you should keep the jungle and prioritize sacred paths pantheon (and universities!)