Does "Magna Graecia" work?

[culthero]

hi everyone,

i've just installed the mod and played the map Magna Graecia for several hours. i can build my own civilization quite fine, but the other civilizations don't seem to work correctly - i've searched more than half of the map now, but i've seen only one unit of one opponent so far, and a little black sign showing "Lycia" - but there's nothing. no cities etc., although they're far better than me in tech-research and wonder-building... what is going on there?

i also wondered why i could only start it by clicking on the map-file in windows-explorer, it's not shown at "mods" in the game.

isn't it working when i have Warlords installed, do i need to uninstall it? or is just that map not working and i'll have to chose another one? or what could be wrong here?

[Jet]

You should be able to play it by loading the TAM mod and then choosing Play a Scenario or Custom Scenario.

At least as of a couple versions ago it worked fine. It's a big map with a lot of open space between civs so I wouldn't be surprised if it took a while to meet them.

Some things about it I find very cool, like the aridity and the sparse resources. However it does have some balance issues IMO -

Spoiler:

* The civ start positions are pretty unbalanced, which is perhaps OK, but you really need to adjust the difficulty level depending what civ you play. The biggest problem is that Phoenicia has a big advantage. Almost any game you play, Phoenicia will be the leading AI.
* For most of the map the barbs are hard, although in an OK way, but in Asia Minor they can get ridiculous. In one game they eliminated both the Hittites and Lydia, it was pretty funny.

[jefmart1]

My problem with this map and many of the others, is the lack of contact with AI civs and the high number of barbs.

You can go an entire game without fighting with any other civ mostly because you almost never have touching borders, and I grow huge. Have like 20+ cities.

Mostly you spend time policing your borders against the barbarians.

And the other civs hardly fight either.

What is probably needed is minor civs that "fill in" the gaps, to be conquered or grow to be big civs in their own right...

[culthero]

Originally Posted by Jet

In one game they eliminated both the Hittites and Lydia, it was pretty funny.

maybe this happened in my game too - might be that little black sign was the starting point of an eliminated civ?

oh, stupid me... just found out i have to start civ4, not warlords, to see the mod in the "load mod" screen...

[Drtad]

The "little black signs" are just things that Dionysius the mapmaker put on the map to show you which region of the map that is, Lycia is a region just below Lydia, nothing to do with the game.

[moonraker65]

Just started playing Magna Grecia. I am playing as the Phoenicians. It started me on Cyprus so had to research Boat Building fairly quickly. But I now have a firm foothold in Southern Greece. Not quite so many Barbs as the Fertile Crescent Map... But it must be a very large map because there's only one other Civ in site.