Huge Europe/Middle east map, 11 civs (84x52)

This is a big (84x52) map of Europe, North Africa and the Near East.

The latest version of this map is 3!

There are 11 civilizations unlocked, they are: Arabians, Carthagians (by Jecrell's mod!), Egyptians, English, French, Germans, Greek, Persians, Spanish, Romans, and the Russians.

As always I appreciate comments on balancing, input on historic topics, and anything else related to this map. I will keeping updating this to make it more fun, realistic, and balanced based on your comments. Please mention the version number you are using, or just make sure you have the latest. I am especially interested in multiplayer critism! Private message me or reply to this topic. I check both regularly.

I thank all of your for your contributions and I hope that you enjoy the map!

Version 3 updates
- Made eastern russia less habitable (tundra, plains, and desert).
- Chopped down alot of the forest in Germany and Russia using patches of plains with hills.
- Fixed early victories of epic games, and long victory on fast games. They all end on 2050.
- Strengthened England, Carthage, Rome and Greece areas.
- Made map contain less team/player/scenario information to let game setup more like a custom game. This unlocks the AI advantages on harder settings.
- Jecrell's Carthage mod integrated.
- Added furs and deer (forgot them).
- Added floodplains for Egypt, but remove oasis to balance the new food output.
- Turn more desert into plains for Arabs and Persians (They actually are pretty balanced against each other, but not the rest).
- Made AI more likely to build on the coastlines where applicable.
- Sorted empire list by name.
- Improved habitability of central Turkey.

Version 2 updates
- Added many fishies
- Removed lots of ivory
- Added oasises for Persians, Carthagians, and Arabians.
- Put more wine in (Spain esp), and fixed Spain's northern coast.
- Many more tweaks for the weaker civs, including more bonus foods.
- Put goodie huts in game (d'oh).
- Also let the game place the starting location units so that different difficulties have different amounts of units at start.

Known Issues
- You can't select a specific leader for those civilizations who have 2.
- If the Jecrell mod is active when you are at the main menu, you can't select this map. You have to restart Civilization 4, or go into "Advanced" then "load a mod" and finally select "none".
- People are reporting problems with the Jecrell Carthage Mod. Try to unzip it into the main game directory ("C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods\Jecrell [Carthage]"). You may have to remove the old install from your "My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Mods directory" if you had put it there.

Important Install Instructions
Unzip to your "My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\PublicMaps" folder. You will also need to download and install Jecrell's Carthage mod from this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=139107.

How to play
Run the game, click "Single Player" and then "Play a Scenario". Then pick "Lehawk's Ancient World Freeplay ver3" and then you are off.

Downloads
I keep old versions on here for archival purposes, the latest version is "Lehawk's Ancient World Freeplay ver3.zip". Please download only that version unless an earlier version is needed.

Version 4 to-do list (due late November):

- Add aluminum (and concentrate most of it in Greece and France).
- Add grasslands in and make Turkey habitable.
- Consider adding Turks civilization.
- Turn most of nile desert to fix potential floodplain issues (debating).
- Try to get Rome not to build so close to France for its third city.
- Get Google Earth and be more accurate about grasslands/plains vs desert.
- Since I may add the Turks, I should just make an installer that will install the map and the new combined mod.
- Nerf Egypt. Whoops!

Yes it is minor stuff and if I wanted I could fix all this by the 16th, but I want to wait for newer versions of the Turks and Carthage mods and the official patch from Firaxis since this will most likely be the last version unless Firaxis breaks it later.

This is the minimap of version 3.

Awesome! *Exactly* what I've been looking for--hoping someone would post, but too lazy/inept to actually do it myself.

Thanks!

WOW nice!

I was hoping for just europe but this works too thanks

LOL whoops, I forgot to add goodie huts on this version! I'll have to do it tomorrow, looks like ver2 is sooner than I though . Any other requests are welcome.

Amazing work Lehawk. I'm going to try it out right away and I'll tell you what I think. =)
(Oh and if you like I can help you mod in Carthage a little better)

Looks like a nice map but why do people only make huge maps?

I have been working on a standard size Europe/Near East map.

Judging from the look of the mini-map in the pic you posted, it looks like the Near East might be a little under powered but perhaps that is for the purpose of the scenero that you are working on.

I might give it a shot but my machine desires a smaller map.

Looks like a nice map but why do people only make huge maps?

Click to expand...

I made this huge because I really wanted the Roman and Greek Empires to be more than a single city or two. They always get shafted as far as normal maps sized maps go. Can't tell you how many times in Civ2/3 that the historical map would put Rome too close to Greece and France.

I'm thinking about making a smaller map for the punic wars though (A nice two civ duel).

Judging from the look of the mini-map in the pic you posted, it looks like the Near East might be a little under powered but perhaps that is for the purpose of the scenero that you are working on.

Click to expand...

I tried to add oasis and more condensed resources for Persia, Arabians, and Egypt. Egypt may even be overpowered at this point. It will get balanced if needed, I assure you!

(Oh and if you like I can help you mod in Carthage a little better)

Click to expand...

Thank you. If you know of someone else doing it too, maybe I can just attach their mod to my map. The less mods, the easier for the players.

Looks good. I played for a bit as the Romans and noticed a few things about resources you might want to consider. First, in classical times Sicily was one of the vital sources of grain for Rome. Second, you might want to add some marble to Italy; aside from all the great ancient/classical monuments, there're things like the Sistine Chapel to consider. I would put the marble in north-western Italy where the famous Carrara quarries are.

First, in classical times Sicily was one of the vital sources of grain for Rome. Second, you might want to add some marble to Italy; aside from all the great ancient/classical monuments, there're things like the Sistine Chapel to consider. I would put the marble in north-western Italy where the famous Carrara quarries are.

Click to expand...

I did the grain for Sardina, but I forgot Sicily good catch.

I didn't know about the marble (I just now researched it myself), I just thought it was imported from Greece. I was right, but later they did find that marble in N. Italy.

Thanks for the input, I've added both and will come out in Ver2 (80%).

More input always appreciated!

Indeed Lehawk. I also noticed that Germany had a hard time getting an economy going early in the game (classical/medieval). It really made researching techs difficult.

But anyway, Carthage is well on its way. In-fact I am mostly finished at this point, I just have to transfer Hannibal's dialog from the Greek World. Most of the conversion came from Civilization III. I also included the Numidian Mercenary for a full custom civ effect. However, it is virtually alike to the Phalanx in skill until I can come up with something fair that differenentiates the two.

http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/7563/civ4screenshot00246un.jpg

Great map for ancients but I was hoping for a more "European" map of Europe more suited for Napoleonic times with more of Scandinavia. Maybe with starting points for Austria (George Washington-Creative,Philosophical) and the Turks (Saladin-Religeous,Expansive). Denmark also a possibilty.

Great map for ancients but I was hoping for a more "European" map of Europe more suited for Napoleonic times with more of Scandinavia. Maybe with starting points for Austria (George Washington-Creative,Philosophical) and the Turks (Saladin-Religeous,Expansive). Denmark also a possibilty.

Click to expand...

If you use PlanetShifter and move the map 20 tiles downwards, you'll have plenty of room to add it all in. Most of it the new area will be water which will help keep the job simple.

I dumped the Numidian Mercenary and went with the Carthagian War Elephants because the Numidians just didn't make me happy. I'll send you the mod in a moment LeHawk. =)

Lehawk, this scenraio ends in 1873. Is there any possibility to let it end in 2050?

Adler

And LeHawk, a bit of personal advice I suppose. Lay down a plan for your next version before you release a new one. If you keep updating it every time you change it just a little people may not be able to understand the differences between them and may start bringing up some serious problems that you may have already corrected.

I do like that you have a bit of a changelog, that is a good idea.

Keep up the good work.

Jecrell said:

And LeHawk, a bit of personal advice I suppose. Lay down a plan for your next version before you release a new one. If you keep updating it every time you change it just a little people may not be able to understand the differences between them and may start bringing up some serious problems that you may have already corrected.

I do like that you have a bit of a changelog, that is a good idea.

Keep up the good work.

Click to expand...

I have been. I have lots of unreleased intermediate versions, like 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 2.1 and 2.2. 2.0 had a lot of changes, because I forgot some important stuff. 3.0 will pretty much be done, and I'm not probably going to release version 4(final) for at least a month in order to get the most of the feedback. I guess I jumped the gun a bit on my initial release, and now I'm paying for it. Version 3.0 will fix alot of problems and should be extremely playable.

Will it run in epic mode to 2050?

Adler

Adler17 said:

Will it run in epic mode to 2050?

Adler

Click to expand...

Yes it will! I just checked my fix on version 2.5, and it will now always end in 2050! It will be in version 3!

Can you please replace the pig resources in the Arab, Carthage and Persian areas with sheep? Pigs are forbidden (TRAYFE) in this part of the world, but sheep and sherpards are all over the place.

Also can we get multiple leader options so we can play as Elizabeth, Frederick, Peter, etc?

Just some feedback!

Thank you!

Lehawk fan forever!

Nick