The Years of Rice and Salt

Here we go. My second scenario, also for Warlords, represents the world situation in 1350, after an European collapse caused by the Black Plague, basing on the novel "The Years of Rice and Salt". Play as one of the main world powers, or try a challenge playing one of the 8 lesser powers.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=3999

Please post here any comments you have. All feedback is wellcome.

The game starts off very slow and playing on marathon speed (as I'm sure was the intended pace of the scenario) delays any action aside from ending every turn constantly just to finish production. There are no workers to start building infrastructure and pretty soon my units begin to strike because of the lack of money (even with 0% research!). It's an interesting game concept though.

Pax Canadiana said:

The game starts off very slow and playing on marathon speed (as I'm sure was the intended pace of the scenario) delays any action aside from ending every turn constantly just to finish production. There are no workers to start building infrastructure and pretty soon my units begin to strike because of the lack of money (even with 0% research!). It's an interesting game concept though.

Click to expand...

Not every civ has workers. I deduct you're playing with China, but this was intended. Lack of workers caused the Treasure Fleet to go to Africa in search of them. However, financial bankrupt caused that Emperor Zheng He disbanded it, finalizing an era of trade and naval power, to start one of reclusion.

But I catch your sugestion. Next version will feature 1-3 workers per civ, except for China.

EDIT: I have remainded that more civs than China haven't workers. The reason is that, while developing, I found that the AI, for some strange reason, disbands all workers if she has no cities, so while develpment, I decided to add workers after the final release, after checking this bug doesn't happen again. The bug was fixed, but the workers weren't added. Sorry, I forgot about that.

Another issue. It's now available version 1.03. This version features, as major changes, a new AI-controlled civ, Korea; a new barbarian enclave, Reykyavik (full of nasty berserkers and galleys); and makes some other minor changes. In the Readme file you will find the details.

Actually I played as that civ in North America. After like 4 turns my units began to strike due to the lack of money and I couldn't get anything done from there (aside from waiting 100 turns).

OK, understood. Now's available version 1.04, which will feature more workers for all civs, and Hodonesauneean starting gold is increased. Lots of bugs have been eliminated, and except for balance issues that will show up in the way, most of the work should have done for now.

EDIT: more info about the update is present in the readme file. But, fyi, Reykyavik no longer is Mongolian, i.e.

Thank you for the feedback, PaxCanadiana. BTW, "that civ in North America" are the Native Americans, but called the way they called themselves (and the same way they do in the book). The city names are also historical OR usede in the book -like the capital's name-. I used the Carthaginians because traits, UU, and UB did coincide with the description made of them in the book (on the long run, I mean).

Now available version 1.041! This version features:
-Changed the calendar, so the duration of scenario is halved, and now civs discover techs more or less in an adequate rythm, not to history, but yes to the book's one.
-Added a new AI-Controlled Civilization: Califate of Cordoba, so power of Dar-ar-Islam is lessened and more closer to China.
-Added diplo bonuses and maluses to make diplo relations resemble better the ones in the book (and to encourage wars, as long as Islam quickly becomes the world's dominant religion).

Updated version 1.04, to version 1.042. Only minor changes to improve game balance (Ottomans weakened, Persians strenghened) have been done.

Rice and Salt is an awesome book! Kim Stanley Robinson is a genius. I made a similar simple scenario in CIV III right after reading that book. I am excited to play your CIV IV scenario.

Hope you enjoy it! I wait for your comment .

This sounds really interesting. I loved that book.
I'll download asap when i'm home

Looks very interesting.
I'm excited to see my city (Reykjavík) as a barbarian one

I too love this book and think it's a great basis for a scenario. Nice one. But I don't have Warlords. If one buys BTS, will we be able to play this?

Also, can you post some screen shots into the OP please? Those always help to gain interest and excitement.

Some historical nitpickery:

Zheng He was not an Emperor. He was a eunuch noble diplomat of Islamic faith, who lived under the third Emperor of the Ming Dynasty iirc. At best we can call him a naval admiral and explorer. Also, his mission was not to go off to find workers. There were plenty available in China at the time (who do you think built his massive treasure ship fleet?) His mission was primarily to spread the glory of China's Ming Dynasty and, more importantly to said dynasty, to extract tribute from as many powers around the world as possible. Maybe this can be worked into the scenario somehow, maybe not. But each scenario has to have some fellow pitch up with some historical nitpicking!

Rambuchan said:

Zheng He was not an Emperor. He was a eunuch noble diplomat of Islamic faith, who lived under the third Emperor of the Ming Dynasty iirc. At best we can call him a naval admiral and explorer. Also, his mission was not to go off to find workers. There were plenty available in China at the time (who do you think built his massive treasure ship fleet?) His mission was primarily to spread the glory of China's Ming Dynasty and, more importantly to said dynasty, to extract tribute from as many powers around the world as possible. Maybe this can be worked into the scenario somehow, maybe not. But each scenario has to have some fellow pitch up with some historical nitpicking!

Click to expand...

Yes, you're right. I've decided to put him as Chinese leader just because he had a lot of influence on China in the book. As well, you'll notice that the leader of Califate of Cordoba is a woman, the wife of the Sultan of the "Dumb Caravan" don't know if it's called this way in English version, but is the best translation from Spanish one).

About your idea of the tribute, the only thing I can manage is to set a new AI player as "China's vassal states", and, obviously, make it a vassal of China. What do you think, people?

And finally, about a version of the scenario for BTS, I will do it as soon as I purchase the expansion (ok, and after play a bit ). However, it seems not available at my city, for now (It's already on sale on USA? How unfair!). The last time I went to my usual PC game shop it wasn't available, that was last week.

I downloaded this year loved it, I wonder how this could be adapted to RFC