Huge Pre-Settled 21 civ map

Here is something I whipped up in bits and pieces over the last few weeks. It was enough work that I figured I may as well share it. Who knows? Someone else may have some fun with it too.

The map is Nikis Knight's huge 19 civ Erebus map which I've been tweaking and modding this map for about 6 months. You can find the original (by NK) here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=6051280#post6051280

This version is specifically modified to accommodate all 19 standard civs (with 6-8 cities each) + the Infernals, Mercurians, and a 2nd Illian civ (Braedan the Laconic) for Auric to kill off (for Wake from Slumber).

Most civs have minor heroes and all religions start off placed. Cities start off placed and have improvements. Two wonders start off in play (Heron Throne and Grand Menagerie). Most civs have contact with their immediate neighbors. The Malakim/Mercurians and Elohim have a defensive pact.

I have not extensively play tested this map for balance, so any feedback is appreciated. I'm anticipating that either the Bannor or Calabim will be fairly easy to play in this scenario though.

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Revision History:
v1.0 - Initial Release
v1.1 - Stability and Balancing Tweaks
* Population tweaks all over the place (slightly lowered Lanun and Amurite, drastically lowered Malakim, slightly raised Clan, Hippus, and Doviello)
* New cities (one more for Shiem, Svartalfar, Ljosalfar, Lanun, and Calabim)
* Moved and improved Infernal city Raglame
* Added missing/incorrect upgrades to several Bannor units
* Added missing improvements to a barbarian city
* Removed Council of Essus religion from several Svartalfar cities to encourage them to remain FoL for longer
* World spells disabled by default
* Flexible difficulty enabled by default

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DISCLAIMER: I haven't tested this new version extensively. If it blows up on you, pop a post in this thread complaining bitterly and I'll show up at some point to blame it on Hyborem.

Looks nice, sort of like a way more progressed version of Knight's Erebus. Looks pretty cool to me.

Fantastic! Developed maps are my favorites to play, and it's rare to see them here. The level of detail is great, too - the heroes each civ starts with are a really nice touch. I started off as the Bannor - wow, 4 uniquely designed heroes, imperial guard, immobile capital city guards - and the barbarian Horde that's pressing from the north right at the start! Really fun to jump into, right from the get-go. Thanks for posting this!

very nice, i played this one and i love it!
especially the civs are nicely placed!

i just have one problem - in most games i start i have the 60 turns "no casting" then straight after this ends my game crashes. happend with my elve game and my game as hippus. if i load my save it will just crash in the same round agian: exactly after this initial 60 turn cast block.

i remember from my first game that afte this 60 turns the calabim cast river of blood and the illians this spell to freeze all production/research for 60 turns.

maybe its connected to one of this spells? any ideas?

I'm not sure what is causing the problem, but it sounds like disabling worldspells would likely fix it. (The inability to cast is from Arcane Lacuna, Amurite world spell.)

Hmmm, good to know this may be linked to a spell, although I am not certain it is a world spell. My game also crashed about 40 or 50 turns in, but I thought arcane lacuna had passed well before that happened. Worth a shot, as I really like the setup.

well, its likely to be the world-spell.
i play marathon and the first 60 rounds is "spellblock" then directly after it crashs when the other civs do their turn.

this happened three times i started now, my very first game as calabim worked fine, now i try one as illians to see if this works as those two civs always spam their spells ASAP.

anyhow, i have another question:
to solve the problem i just saved and played one turn with another civ and switched then back to mine. i realized that once i switched back i got messages that i can not continue to build adepts in some of my citys. computer must have put them in the queue but why can computer build adepts in city without mage guild?

MagisterCultuum said:

I'm not sure what is causing the problem, but it sounds like disabling worldspells would likely fix it. (The inability to cast is from Arcane Lacuna, Amurite world spell.)

Click to expand...

how can i do that? i must add a line to the scenario file when i start it up?

I believe you could play it as a custom scenario and set that option when it is loading, or edit the file to add Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_WORLD_SPELLS near the top of the file. Without knowing what options are set by default it is hard to say exactly where this should be placed, but it would be be right after the options to disable religions and right before the option to disable Acheron if those are in set.


Edit: I went ahead and downloaded the map, and now see that you would want to put Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_WORLD_SPELLS it right after Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_PLOT_COUNTER and right beofre Victory=VICTORY_CONQUEST.

MagisterCultuum said:

I believe you could play it as a custom scenario and set that option when it is loading, or edit the file to add Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_WORLD_SPELLS near the top of the file. Without knowing what options are set by default it is hard to say exactly where this should be placed, but it would be be right after the options to disable religions and right before the option to disable Acheron if those are in set.


Edit: I went ahead and downloaded the map, and now see that you would want to put Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_WORLD_SPELLS it right after Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_PLOT_COUNTER and right beofre Victory=VICTORY_CONQUEST.

Click to expand...

thanks i will do that!

xxJFKxx said:

anyhow, i have another question:
to solve the problem i just saved and played one turn with another civ and switched then back to mine. i realized that once i switched back i got messages that i can not continue to build adepts in some of my citys. computer must have put them in the queue but why can computer build adepts in city without mage guild?

Click to expand...

The default settings for this scenario allow the AI to build units without the building requirements.

Anyway, I turned off world spells and have a game well under way that isn't suffering from any crashes... well, beyond memory allocation stuff from such a huge map.

I am wondering if the problem might be Hyborem's Whispers. If I recall right, this will take another player's city. My thought was that the default setting for the scenario has "no hell terrain" and "compact enforced" enabled. I am wondering what will happen if Hyborem gets a new city with both of these settings active.

played it today with 0.41d. crashed as reported when the amurite worldspell ended.
disabled worldspells, played it again. crashed when i vassalized my first enemy.

slowcar said:

played it today with 0.41d. crashed as reported when the amurite worldspell ended.
disabled worldspells, played it again. crashed when i vassalized my first enemy.

Click to expand...

well, i my opponents vasalized already without problems, i did not so far so i cant really answer.

in general i really like this map would be cool if its not "too broken"

Man this map would be just the mfing illest if only it weren't a favorite to crash during the first hour of every game.

Thank you for sharing!
I will play your map this week end: meteo says it will be cold and windy, perfect !!

I just hope patch 3.19 will work fine with the map...

Hola all. I'm a little surprised to see the interest, to be honest. Anyhow, sorry for my absence. I just moved recently and was bereaved of internet access. Very traumatic.

Re: Specific problems with this map

1) I'm going to disable world spells by default. I like them, personally, but I think they cause several specific problems with an advanced start like this. Notably:

a) A deluge of negative effects on turn 3-4 of the game.
b) A tendency to CTD the game -- I'm fairly certain the Clan of Embers spell For the Horde is crashing the game when they decide to use it.

2) I need to tweak certain civs for balance.

a) Svartalfar, Ljosalfar, and Sheim are getting 1 more city each.
b) Strengthening the Lanun presence on the mainland a bit.
c) Lowering the population of the Kuriotate, Malakim, and Amurite cities a bit. The Malakim in particular are a bit stronger than I anticipated.
d) Improving the Doviello wealth and research. They're supposed to be a rising power on this map.
e) Reworking the Calabim southern frontier a bit too.
f) Stronger barbarians on the Bannor frontier.

3) Geographical tweaks.

a) I need to rework the Infernal area. It is a freakish eyesore. Too much pink and purple. Not sure what I was thinking when I did that.


TLDR version: I should have a new version up in the next few days guys. I will do what I can to improve stability and playability.

felwar said:

I am wondering if the problem might be Hyborem's Whispers. If I recall right, this will take another player's city. My thought was that the default setting for the scenario has "no hell terrain" and "compact enforced" enabled. I am wondering what will happen if Hyborem gets a new city with both of these settings active.

Click to expand...

There shouldn't be any problem with Hyborem getting new cities with these options checked. "Compact Enforced" is used for several official FFH scenarios to prevent the Infernals/Mercurians from popping up when their techs are reached. If Compact Enforced was not selected, a second Hyborem would show up when Infernal Pact was researched. Fun stuff.

What could be causing problems is Hyborem could be using his world spell and getting an Ashen Vale barbarian city, which may not react well in combination with his barbarian trait.

Hardly seems like a problem for Hell to be a 'freaking eyesore,' yeah?

Anyway, glad to hear you're working hard on this thing, it's totes appreciated. If you're going to disable worldspells, it might be wise to up the strength / resources of those civs that are especially dependent on them (Grigori, Illians, Elohim, etc) to compensate.

anacardo said:

Hardly seems like a problem for Hell to be a 'freaking eyesore,' yeah?

Click to expand...

Just the pink deserts really.

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***New version up.

Any feedback on map balance or stability is appreciated, though I have very limited ability to effect FFH's stability.

Sick, dude.

<3, <3, <3 this map, will experiment with it later tonight. I would turn cartwheels if and when this thing gets play-throughable.