[CiV pack] Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations

Pouakai said:

Any chance this could be made so it doesn't replace Vanilla CS?

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Maybe when I'll complete it with a full set of 30 CSs

I've posted a step-by-step instructions in order to play AMC civs, CSs and Maps with TSL for civs, CSs and resources (thanks to Gedemon and his YnAEMP mod)

See post #3

Have fun and post here your comment

Hey Ambrox, I had a look at your map, and I have some remarks about resource placement which I believe may improve the gameplay.

First, city states. On randomly generated maps city states are always placed near a luxury and strategic resource. On the Mediterranean map most city states have neither of those near them. This seriously reduces the value of allying yourself to a city state. Would it be possible to change the resource placement so that all city states have access to them?

Second point: this map has a lot more land than a usual standard sized map has. This has as a consequence that:
1) the resource density is much lower, and you're less likely acquire them all.
2) the terrain is monotomous. There are fewer resources to make city placement decisions interesting.
3) The proportion of resource happiness in your total happiness is lower. This makes colonization harder despite the ample space.
4) The fact that there are still only 8 civs despite there being much more land means there is much less interaction between the civs.

As a consequence I was wondering if it would be possible to increase resource density. One could counterargue that luxury resource quantity needs to be tied to the number of players, not the amount of land, but for simple bonus resources like Stone and Wheat there's no reason not to up their frequency.

That doesn't address point #4 however. Alas, the only solution for that is either increase the number of civs, or make a smaller sized map. Do you have any future plans for that?

Yes, I HAVE future plans. Mostly depending by user feedback. More feedback = more plans Thanks for your report

I've asked to Gedemon to create a feature in order to assign resources to CSs. ATM it might be done with regions logic, but I strongly prefer to use the same resources placement logic that civs already have. Thus I hope in the next versions to solve this issue with Gedemon help.

All points you remarked are intentional. Obviously I don't want an unplayable game experience, but lack of resources, harder colonization, reduced happiness and barbarian spread because of large spaces beetwen civs are exactly what I wanted. Of course, these maps need to be balanced and optimized, and I'll take into serious consideration every game report from each user.

Having CSs with resources will be a staple, of course. Having more bonus resources in the empty spaces will be very likely. But having more strategic and luxury resources on the map is something that I need to consider very carefully.

ambrox62 said:

All points you remarked are intentional. Obviously I don't want an unplayable game experience, but lack of resources, harder colonization, reduced happiness and barbarian spread because of large spaces beetwen civs are exactly what I wanted. Of course, these maps need to be balanced and optimized, and I'll take into serious consideration every game report from each user.

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Great to hear about the city state and bonus resources. I'm wondering though what the result is you intend because of lack of resources, harder colonization, reduced happiness and barbarian spread because of large spaces beetwen civs. The logical result would seem to be either less cities or small cities, meaning civs' borders will never meet up. You'll essentially be playing a single player game, as if the other civs weren't there. What reason do you have to go to war if you've still got lots of unsettled land near you and are already running near the happiness limit?

I would expect a different kind of play compared to vanilla: less city number, large cities built close to the few resource areas, more spaces among cities of the same civ, wars for strategic and luxury resources or, alternatively, more friendly diplomacy with CSs, slow down of the starting civ development, less globalization. In other words, something close to the ancient world and warfare instead of the modern one. As the words "ancient mediterranean civilizations" mean.
All that is on paper: the goal will be to put it on the maps

ambrox62 said:

less city number, large cities built close to the few resource areas

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Has the strategic and luxury resource placement been changed, so that these resources are placed more concentrated than in vanilla, in order to create such resource areas?

more spaces among cities of the same civ

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While the human player would understand this, I worry for the AI. They will just keep planting down cities like they're used to, which means that if a human players is at war with an AI, he'll have to raze the majority of the AI's cities and only keep a few. Not fun IMO.

Has the strategic and luxury resource placement been changed, so that these resources are placed more concentrated than in vanilla, in order to create such resource areas?


Although not implemented on AMC maps, YnAEMP already has a "gisement" logic to accomplish that. It is easily doable.

While the human player would understand this, I worry for the AI. They will just keep planting down cities like they're used to, which means that if a human players is at war with an AI, he'll have to raze the majority of the AI's cities and only keep a few. Not fun IMO.


Good remark. In the ancient times city raze was fairly common. If it is fun or not depends by the player style.

All in all, YnAEMP lets a great flexibility on the map setup. I'll work to open different options for different player types

ambrox, can I use the Dacian and Assyrian art for Mesopotamia? They'll be used for the Mitanni and Lydians, respectively.

Yes, of course
(although Decebal as Shaushtatar and Falxmen as Mitanni warriors look quite funny, imo. I think you might better replace Mitanni with the AMC hittite set - Unfortunately on the web there are no figures and backgrounds about ancient mesopotamian civs, otherwise I would already produced lots of ancient middle-east civs... )

It's okay. I don't think anyone would even notice. XD

Hittites are already in use, lol. Thank you very much.

Lydia's in and working, which is great.

I said Assyrians in my first post, for some reason. I meant Lydia.

ambrox62 said:

I think you might better replace Mitanni with the AMC hittite set - Unfortunately on the web there are no figures and backgrounds about ancient mesopotamian civs, otherwise I would already produced lots of ancient middle-east civs... )

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Hmm, and I was hoping you will eventually make all the civs from TAM, along with a couple civs missing from there :/

Ancient Mediterranean City States - version 2 released

30 City States - 30 Unique Colors

ambrox62 said:

Ancient Mediterranean City States - version 2 released

30 City States - 30 Unique Colors

Spoiler :

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This is great
But I guess having Tartessos, Knossos and Scodra there means you won't be making a Tartessian, Minoan or Illyrian ancient civilization

ATM I have no suitable leader pictures for any further AMCs (other than Medes)
In the next, if they will be available, I could easily replace a CS name

Hey, Ambrox, how do you make your leaderheads? And, are there any possibilities of getting you to make leaderheads for other civs?

CivOasis said:

Hey, Ambrox, how do you make your leaderheads? And, are there any possibilities of getting you to make leaderheads for other civs?

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Usually you just get google images and then apply various filters to them to change their appearance. You can also handdraw them, scan them in, and then change the file to a .dds. You can use various programs to do this, such as Photoshop, GIMP, and others. You can take a screenshot and do the same thing; usually, you just have to get an image and change it to the appropriate dimensions.

CivOasis said:

Hey, Ambrox, how do you make your leaderheads? And, are there any possibilities of getting you to make leaderheads for other civs?

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As I wrote on previous posts, they come from figures and miniatures. For a better overview click HERE

Putmalk described some methods. Usually I take it from figures and work on it using GIMP. The hardest thing is finding a valuable HD background, really difficult because of 1600x900 pixels size.

ambrox62 said:

ATM I have no suitable leader pictures for any further AMCs (other than Medes)
In the next, if they will be available, I could easily replace a CS name

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Yeah, I spent a couple hours searching for suitable leader pictures for you, but it's not easy for those ancient civs :/
It's absolutely out of the question that I am willing to read or check another article or picture about Teuta for example
Hopefully you are more patient than me (or get some hints from somewhere), and will be able to create many more of these awesome civs!