The Ancient Mediterranean MOD (TAM)

thamis

King of Kish
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
1,583
Download

Install:

Conquests
Install it into your CIV3\CONQUESTS\CONQUESTS folder. You will get errors if you do not install it into this exact folder!

Play the World
Install it into your CIV3\CIV3PTW\SCENARIOS folder. You will get errors if you do not install it into this exact folder!

Plain Vanilla Civilization 3
Install it into your CIV3\ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN folder. You will get errors if you do not install it into this exact folder!
Mac users click here.

Other Stuff:

Justus II has compiled all the data you need to understand the MOD in one Excel file, as well as in a website.

Ankhenaton wrote:
"To all of the newcomers to the mod: This mod is incredibly well-balanced as it is the sum of a collaborative effort by dozens of individuals giving their input as to recreating a very accurate simulation of Ancient World interaction amongst the various civilizations. This mod is far superior to the unbalanced main game and it ranks up there within the top five civ mods for uniqueness and playability. I love this mod so much that even though I bought the Conquests expansion I have yet to play it. In my opinion the civ franchise should concentrate more on the Ancient World aspects of the game than it does right now. But if you must have an Ancient to Modern game then play TETurkhan's mod/scenario that is almost as good as TAM."

Proto-Elamite Taurus says:
Check out the various sections in this forum for all the information on changes in the MOD. You can learn about the new civilizations, about the ages and technologies of the Ancient Mediterranean world, as well as the CIV-specific abilities, which is a complete novelty in any Civilization 3 MOD! I also recommend that you read a few tips and tricks on how to deal with all this new stuff. We've also compiled some Historical information for you. And if you have a comment or you found a bug, feel free to post it.
 
There were an Iberian leader called Viriato, in Spanish, who was murdered by order of Caesar, because he was still fighting against Rome.
He was killed by one of his men, bribed by the romans (well, in fact, he was never paid, when he went to take his money Caesar said "Rome doesn´t pay traitors")
I think his name in Latin could have been Viriatus, I am not sure
I hope this will help you.
 
Thanks, I'll use the Spanish name... sounds more "Iberian".

With the update I fixed some major bugs, mainly concerning units. Now I have the following problem: I am in 610 BC and at the beginning of my turn it says "The Greeks are building The Hanging Gardens". When I klick the message away, the game exits.

Does anybody else have problems with "The Hanging Gardens"? When someone built "The Colossus" all was fine... :confused:
 
This sounds like a very promising mod, but it still needs tons of work done. Actually there is a (rather large) number of inacuracies and errors, but I am glad somebody has the time and devotion to develop a mod I'd play like crazy if completed.

If you need more accurate information on some of the civilizations, you might check out the Apolyton Civ3 civilizations forum, there is a huge pile of info.

Anyway, I am glad you could start this off and if I may help you with historical accuracy (that would mean to change a number of units, though, and also leaders, names etc.) and the relevant civilopedia entries, just let me know.

My free time is sparse but I can work on 2-3 civs to provide you with accurate data, valid city lists, fitting units (not the animations, though) and other stuff. Just let me know.
 
Hey
there was a Roman rebel who led the Iberians against Rome and won many battles before tasting defeat at the hands of Mettellus Pius and Pompey.
His name was Quintus Sertorius. there is a picture of him on page 592 of Fortune's Favorites by Colleen McCullough.
And have you considered the Arabs? Their rise came a little later but I do believe they were always there Otter
 
Originally posted by thamis
Thanks for the leader. Can you scan that picture? I don't have that book... :love:

The Arabs... well, of course they were always there, but where would you place them? Into the arabian desert? Good starting position... :crazyeye:

Once the scenario editor comes out, I will being working diligently on an Alex the Great scenario (I was supposed to start it a while ago as a mod but I chose to wait until a scenario editor came around). Of course - the Arabs would be a pinnacle to any such scenario/mod. What I will be doing is adding several bonus recources like cactus/oasis/etc to just that one desert to give the Arabs a chance.

Also, try the Cretans or the Cimmerians as a civilization. Keep up the good work! :goodjob:
 
Hi,
Nice idea for a mod. What year exactly does it start? Depending on that, I have some thoughts regarding which civs to include.

Given that you have stuff as early as the Minoans and Troy, you shouldn't have the Carthaginians. Carthage was founded about 800 BC by the Phoenicians. It became independent when the Phoenecians were conquered around 600 BC. So have the Phoenicians instead, but make them a very strongly water based civ so they tend to expand that way, and settle in places like Cyprus and Carthage.

Arabs: a must have. Place them in the interior of Yemen. Read up about them. Back in the day, the Arabs were one of the richest countries in the world because they had the only incense in the world. They had big cities in that area, and built a large dam to keep them watered. Alexander was planning on conquering them when he died. (The Arabs had fallen down pretty hard by the time of Mohammed because the rise of Christianity greatly reduced the amount of incense used, and the fall of Rome crushed trading generally).

Hebrews. I know that part of the world is crowded, but how can you leave these guys out, with their historical importance? Have the crowded parts of the world start more technologically advanced, to balance out the crowding factor.

Dacians. Not a lot of people know about these guys. They inhabited the Romania area. That area had incredible mineral resources, so a civilization sprung up there to mine and trade with other areas, even in 2000 BC or earlier, while all the areas around remained much more primitive. The Romans finally conquered them around 100 AD (note this is the only place on the other side of the Danube the Romans held onto, because it was the only rich and urbanized place worth holding).

Lydians. Another ancient civ that gets completely forgotten, cos history is written by the winners, not the losers. They had a very important and thriving civ until the Persians conquered them around 600 BC. It is also widely thought that the Etruscans decended from them, so give them naval power with the ability to settle places like Italy. You can also merge Troy into them - Troy was just one town. There's a good theory that a Lydian city was actually the foundation of the Atlantis legend (read Peter James' book Ancient Mysteries), but its hard to know because so much about them has been forgotten.

Romans. Romans go back to 800 BC at the extreme earliest. They remained an unimportant town for at least 300 more years. How do you figure having them in, 1000s of years earlier?

Huns also come way too late, and can best be represented as part of the barbarians anyways.

Welsh? Why just them?? Howabout Celts for the British Isles, and Gauls for the mainland?

The Trojan Horse unit? Please! Too silly - unless you have the "work once ever in the world and then everyone gets wise to it" flag on :).

The med seemed to change a lot around 800 BC. For instance, that's when the Iberians start appearing, with the city of Tartessos. I think you should either start then and skip the Minoans but keep later stuff like Carthaginians and Romans, or start earlier and skip the Romans, as painful as that may be. Civ3 just isn't set up for late starts, at least not yet.

Also, if you start around 800 BC, you could have more than one Greek civ. The Greeks conquered so much of the map (most of the north coast of the Med, including the Black Sea rim), that if your civ follows history at all, they will be too powerful unless they are divided amongst themselves (as they always were). Even though they may only have 1 town most of the game, the Spartans are so different they could warrant a civ of their own, for instance. And make the Greeks extremely naval like the Phoenicians: of the hundreds if not thousands of Greek cities founded, virtualy all were within 100 miles of the sea. A wall of mountains to the north of Greece could force them to go naval to expand.

You should make the Worker unit only come later on, and have some civs start with that already, and some civs not. That way, civs like Sythians, Celts, etc remain undeveloped for a long time. Also, give the barbarians the highest setting, and have barbarians effectively control much of the world.

I also have a bunch of new wonder graphics, many of which you may find useful. I'll post a separate thread about that soon.
 
Harlan

I'd stick with the Minoans and the Romans, if this is going to be representative of the ancient med they are both too important to leave out.

But you have right as for the "more Greek civs". There should be at least two of them (Athens and Sparta, respectively or Athens and Syracusae, it was the great Greek power of the west and had a quite interesting history until it fell under Roman rule) and probably a third would add more value to this mod (Macedonian Greeks is the prime candidate, I guess).

As for the Arabs go... well, their significance and impact outside their territory didn't started before the prophet, so I think we could dismiss them easily. So the Hebrews - their relative significance is the Bible and they are not even comparable to the rest of the civs we are talking about.


thamis

I'll provide you later or tommorow (depending on the workload today :D ) with leader-UU-great leader-city suggestions - civilopedia entry for the Minoan civ. In a couple of days (ok, more like three or four) and if you agree on removing the Trojans (they are not excactly one of the prime med civs you know) and replace them with another Greek civ and also add a third Greek civ (suggestion: Athens, Syracusae, Macedonia), I can provide you with the same data for all three.

And another thing, I'd have to agree on the "replace Welsh with Celts" notion made by Harlan. The Celts of mainland Europe are represented by the Gauls, so the Celts of the isles should be represented by a more generic term.
 
Harlan:

I am quite aware that the civilizations that I chose were not "on the map" at the same age. You are right that Rome comes very late, it was even founded (so the legend says) by the Trojan refugee Aeneas. I'm not trying to make a scenario. For me a scenario is bound to a certain era. But -as in the normal civ game- it should be possible to fully rewrite history.

In reality, Babylon, Troy and Persia were defeated before anyone ever heard of the Celts... It's not about "temporal parralelity", I think. In the normal CIV game you have the Babylonians (probably the most ancient civ) and the Americans... They "could" have appeared earlier, you know what I'm saying?

Trojan Horse - yea, you're right. Once it worked and never again. Someone suggested it and I think the "privateer" unit is cool. But if more people don't like it, I have no problem removing it.

I was thinking about adding the Dacains. I tried to find out some stuff about them, but couldn't find anything. It's a good spot, too, because there's a "gap" in the map.

The worker comes early, but it can't do anything in the beginning. You have to research Agriculture and Tools to have a fully functional worker. :)

Oh, and I used your resource graphics, Harlan. Great work!!!

Exsanguination:

Cretans = Minoans?
I can put the Arabs in and place more Oasis around there. I'd really love to put the Dacians in, though, too. What civ to leave out?

General:

Celts = Gaul, Welsh, Irish, Cornish, etc.
The Celts is just a name for a mix of people who had a fairly similar culture and used the same pottery technique (don't know the name in English).

Okay, gotta go. I'll come back to this later!
 
Ad Hominem:

Yea, a Minoan leader/city list would be great! I only had a fairly old book of Crete with only a small part dealing with history... I just picked major sites and used them as city names.

I agreee that Hebrews and Arabs don't seem very important to me. Now we might think of them as important, but imagine how the emperor of Rome thought of them... ;-)

Okay, we can replace the Trojans. What part of the Greek Civ was in Asia Minor? This spot should have a civ. In my playtest the Troians really added to the balance.

Something else:
Does anyone have any idea for other ships? Bireme or something like that. Does anyone have an ani for it?
 
Asia minor? The Ionian... Alicarnassus (Herodotus came from here) was one of the prime cities. Lots of cultural stuff by the greeks in Asia Minor, but not much influence in the general Greek matters or the greek civ in political or military means. You could add a macedonian greek civ and place them in Thrace, close to Asia minor (to give them an expansion window there).

Making an "ionian" civ would be... well, not excactly fitting. I don't know. Anyway, check your pm too :D
 
Ad Hominem, Harland & Exsanguination, thanks for all the good comments!

After taking all your comments into consideration that's what I think:

I want this to be a mod with all the important CIVs of the ancient med. The mod will include all important CIVs that appeared (or were destroyed) between 4000 BC (Ancient Age) to 600 AD (Migration Age). That way the player can either replay actual history by choosing the CIVs appropriate for the time he wants to play in OR just play a normal CIV game with the usual mix of civilizations.

I also want to have a larger variety so that people don't have to make a whole new mod for their scenarios, but just make the scenario for this mod. So let's make it real good! :D

Therefore I believe we should use the following CIVs:

--Rome

--Egypt

--Babylon

--Germanic Tribes

--Goths

--Greece

--Minoans
I will leave Troy out. Both, the Greeks and the Minoans have the Coracle and will be able to expand throughout the Aegaean (sp?) sea very early on.

--Iberia

--Huns
The idea of using barbarians for the huns is good, but the barbarians are just too weak, even if they don't get any bonuses. I tried giving them good units but that just blasts every civ that starts out close to a camp away! Having a crippled civ is better, I think.

--Gaul

--Persia
Very cramped area with the Babylonians in there, too, but it might work, since there's fertile land around. Also, the Persians are supposed to expand north of the Caucasian Mts. Darius invaded Scythia (but was defeated...)

--Scythians

--Carthage
Yes, they are a Phoenician colony, but they played a more important role in history. This way you can replay the Punian Wars in the game!

--Welsh
We can agree on a different name, but not Celts, since that's a huge cultural group that was common in all southwestern Europe.

--Dacians
If anyone can provide me with city/leader details. I know where they live(d), but I don't have any info. I found a site, but that was in Romanian...

((--Thracians
If anyone can provide me with city/leader details. For them I could research in the Greek Sagas that I'm quite familiar with.))

CORRECTION:
-- Macedonian Greeks
If anyone can provide me with city/leader details. They'll start somewhere north of Greece. I'll try to see on old maps where exactly.

That should me 16 civs!

I decided against:
- Arabians: They might have been important, but not a large Empire as most of the other nations were.
- Lydians: Persia is already in a tight spot...
- Hebrews: Well, they moved around a lot, had a major cultural influence on our modern world but they never were a real "power".

With some tricks I could add more CIVs, but I'll only do that if you can provide me with the necessary information (a leader and at least 15 city names).

Whoever wants to help: First post on what you want to work on, so that we don't do double work!

For now I will try to work on bugs, mainly. I could do research on Thracia, too. :king::p
 
Err... Thamis, Thraceans are all but a significant civilization. The only thing they were famous for - before they became "hellenized", "turned-into-Greek-alikes", was their peltastes, a light infantry type of warriors, very sought-after as mercenaries in the Greek world.

So, just putting Macedonian Greeks to start in the Thrace area (which is not very innacurate, anyway, Thrace was one of the first conquered areas outside of the main kingdom of macedonia) would make much more sense.

Think of it: Mainland Greeks (plain: Greeks) with Pericles as a leader, hoplite and coracle as the UUs and the city list provided with Civ3 (plus some others). And Macedonian Greeks with Alexander as a leader, phalanx and hetairoi cavalry as the UUs and a city list I shall provide you with. Wouldn't that be lovely?

Dacians, OTOH, is a quite interesting civ, and their starting location should be in todays Romania. I got some info on them somewhere, but not much. I'll dig it up.
 
As promised, info on the Minoan civilization. I have posted the same stuff at Apolyton, during a (now dead and burried) project I was working on... Anyways, here we go:

Minoan

Leader: King Minos
Capital: Knossos

Unique Unit: Coracle seems fine as one of the UUs. Another one should be the Cretan Archer, or the Cretan Slinger. They had both the best archers and slingers in the ancient Greek world, heavily sought after as mercenaries since the Mycenean times well into the hellenistic era.
If you use three UUs, you should add all three of those. If two, the ship and the archer.

Civ traits: Commercial (that’s for sure) and probably Religious.

Great Leaders: Now, there is a hard one. By mythological sources we know of three (yup, only three) figures of some significance that could be called “Minoan great leaders”: Two men (warriors) Idomeneas and Merianes (or Meriones) are found in “Iliad” as the leaders of the Cretan force fighting the Trojans together with the other Greeks.

Also, we know of Ariadne, daughter of King Minos (mythology again) and also from the later Cretans (on the isle of Crete the Minoan civ flourished) we could add Nearchos, the admiral of Great Alexander.

City list

Knossos
Phaistos
Zakros
Malia
Gortys
Olus
Komos
Amnessos
Nirou
Myrtos
Arkhanes
Ierapytna
Vathypetro
Lindos
Gournia
Rithymna
Males
Rhytion
Miletos
Lycastos
Lindos
Tylissos
Helephthairna
Anopolis
Glamia
Dreros
Lato
Ierapolis
Katri
Grammion
Amphimalion
Istros
Ertaea
Dragmos
Petra
Illatia
Phalaserna
Myrina
Itanos
Keratos
Panormos
Pharai


OK, now you need only a civilopedia entry about the Minoan civ. Right?
 
Thanks for the Minoans!

I found a unit animation, I think it was called "British Longbowman". It's a slightly different-looking Longbowman. I'll use that one and make it the Minoan Longbowman. <g>

There's no slinger animation, so we'll just have to wait. ;-)

As I am very familiar with ancient mythology, I of course know of Idomeneas and Merianes. I'll use the greek -not anglicized- names: Idomeneos and Meriones. Ariadne is hardly a leader, because she went away with Theseus... Nearchos is good, though.

What's the link to your old stuff, maybe we could use some more?
 
First, how about calling the Gauls the Gael? Gaul is a latin word. Small detail... As for the Greeks, does anybody contributing know enough about Dorian, Ionian, et al, to warrant having them separate civs?

How about Hittites or Assyrians? Both were quite important in the eastern mediterranean.

Whatever the final form, it looks to be an excellent mod! :goodjob:

Edit: O yeah, resource idea: MARBLE, olives (+figs, dates, very important foods)
 
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