Jabarto's Giant Maps

Introduction

"Jabarto's Giant Maps" is a comilation of maps made by me, Jabarto. The defining characteristic of my maps is their enormous size, and I decided that a small mod was needed to better balance the gameplay. That mod is located at the bottom of this post, so go ahead and download it if you're in hurry. Otherwise, read on for more details on the maps, mod, and my future plans.

The Maps

Currently there are only two; a Europe map and a Eurasia map.

160x130 Europe


This map contains 15 civs, including one not shown in the screenshot. It was the first map I ever made, and is consequently very rough around the edges. To be honest, I never really liked the way this map came out, and I have no plans to update it. I may, however, make a new Europe Map, and will keep this one uploaded for those who may want it.

250x80 Eurasia


Info to be added shortly.

The Mod

The mod that stores these maps is exactly the same as vanilla BTS, with four exceptions:

- A 50 civs .dll is used, to allow for more civilizations on each map.
- All naval units have +1 movement
- Road movement is increased from 2 to 3.
- Add two new world sizes, "Gargantuan" and "Colossal".

Future Plans

I'm working on a 240v150 Earth map at the request of another CivFanatics member, and this will likely be in the next release. I'm very strongly considering making a new Europe map, but that's on the backburner for now.

FAQ

Q: How good of a computer do I need to run these maps?
A: I'm honestly not sure. The Gargantuan maps are about the same size and Genghis Kai's Giant Earth Map (GEM), so if you can run the latter, you should be able to run the former. The Colossal maps are, as far as I know, uncharted territory. Use them at your own risk.

Q: Can I use your maps in my own mod?
A: Yes, as long as I'm given credit. I make this easy by signing my maps; just leave my name in the description and you have my full permission.

Q: What about editing and/or redistributing them? Can I do that?
A: Yes, as long as the above condition is met. If you edit the map, you can add your own name, of course. Oh, and if you do this, shoot me a message telling me what you're doing with the map. I don't strictly require this, but I like seeing what others are doing with my work.

Version History

v0.1 - Initial Release, 7-29-10

Credits

- Gr3yHound for the MapView utility.
- Rhye, Jon Shafer, and everyone else responsible for the .bmp to .wbs utility
- Everyone who's ever given me feedback on my maps.

Downloads

For now, I can upload the file directly to CivFanatics, but as I add more maps, I may have to upload them elsewhere. I'll let you know if this happens.

I really like the concept of the Eurasia map, shame that places like Arabia, the Sahara, and Central Europe don't go to well on big maps of this sort. I think the new Europe map would be a great idea, perhaps encompassing a larger area with some less detail. Again, those crummy expanses with little to show for. These maps are some of my favorites though, nice job.

thx for the credits ;D

I like this idea. Shame my laptop can't run large maps well. Though i loved large maps early in my Civ career.
Though i'd double all movement for all units, and increase the city radius to 3-4. to help live with the hugeness of this map.

NiRv4n4 said:

I really like the concept of the Eurasia map, shame that places like Arabia, the Sahara, and Central Europe don't go to well on big maps of this sort. I think the new Europe map would be a great idea, perhaps encompassing a larger area with some less detail. Again, those crummy expanses with little to show for. These maps are some of my favorites though, nice job.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I've been thinking it over and I probably will do a new Europe map before too long.

Gr3yHound said:

thx for the credits ;D

Click to expand...

You're most welcome.

kristopherb said:

I like this idea. Same my laptop can't run large maps well. Though i loved large maps early in my Civ career.
Though i'd double all movement for all units, and increase the city radius to 3-4. to help live with the hugeness of this map.

Click to expand...

I think increasing the city radius requires a new .dll, and this mod already has one. So I don't know if that's possible, someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Doubling land movement speed, well...that's certianly doable, but it's a pretty big change, especially on top of the increased road movement. I'm willing to try it, though. Anyone else have any thoughts on it?

Played the Europe maps; few observations:

There is simply "too much space" for the civs avaialible; whilst I like the detail of it.. in fact I appauld it; but there is simply too much space for each civ to expand into. Take italy for example, Italy and the surrounding islands fil outs approximatly 30 cities which plays havoc with your economy.

If there were more civs avaialable the map itself will be lot more active to play

As it stands these are great maps.. but as far as playability concerns there is too much expansion needed before you can start to play the game against other civs... and in some case you can expands right untill the end.

for example split "England and Celtics" into Enligsh, Scottish, Welsh, Irish.
"France" into Normans, Toulouse, Aquitaine, Burgundy

etc etc... so each civ has the potential of say 3-5 cities in a high resource area or 10 cities in a lesser resource area.

This will lead to a *LOT* of civs; I'm unsure of how good your modding skillz are but if you had many MANY small civs at the start in the starting areas and somehow "merged" these civs into the "empires" you will see at later games.

For example "Normans, Toulouse, Aquitaine, Burgundy" could by virtue of treaties and potitial unions eventually over the course of many years into "france"


So... in conclusion great map.. but too much space for the civs avaialble.

I actually had plans to add upwards of 20 civs to that very map (seriously, check the old thread, I think the list is still there). In fact, it was along very similar lines as what you propose; I think I was going to add Burgundy, along with various constituent states of the Holy Roman Empire, etc. It never really panned out, though. Finding good leaderheads can be hard, and some of these civs are obscure enough that it can also be hard to make city lists for them.

I think I'll give it another try, though. I can see how there could be problems like you describe. Besides, I've always wanted Flemish and Danish civilizations, and I don't think anyone else is going to be making them.

Now that Civ 5 is almost upon us, I can say with some certainty that I'm not going to be updating these maps again for some time (as if I've been doing that anyway ). I will, however, be making use of the ability to import a Civ 4 map into Civ 5's worldbuilder, starting with my Eurasia map. Depending on how well Civ 5 runs huge maps, I may make some new ones to convert as well. So expect to see some of these in the Civ 5 C&C forum before long.

I guess I should update this, huh?

For those who don't know, Civ 5 has issues with really big maps. My Eurasia one won't even convert properly. So it'll be a while before you see any of my work on Civ 5.

The main reason I'm updating this is that I may have a solution for the sparse start locations on these maps. What I'm thinking of is changing the game speeds to last longer, but shorten production times. That way, you would be able to expand much faster in relation to the gamespeed, but things like research would still take a long time, so units won't go obsolete as you're ferrying them across the continent.

Anyway, I'm back to Civ 4 for a while now, so if anyone has a giant map type they'd like to see, I'm taking suggestions.

any idea why i cant saw the map from scenario list?

i can load the mod, but cant see the map from list, i copy it to default BTS public map folder and it also fail.

i am sure that both map in the private map folder in this mod.

pls help me ~~

Jabarto said:

The main reason I'm updating this is that I may have a solution for the sparse start locations on these maps. What I'm thinking of is changing the game speeds to last longer, but shorten production times. That way, you would be able to expand much faster in relation to the gamespeed, but things like research would still take a long time, so units won't go obsolete as you're ferrying them across the continent.

Click to expand...

Actually, I was thinking of doing the exact same thing if I ever get around to adding the "Legendary" map size and game speed. The game would last 6,000 turns and research would take 10x as long as on Normal game speed, but all construction times (including the construction of terrain improvements) would be the same as on Normal. Also, a city would need to attain one million culture to reach "Legendary" status.

Really enjoy the maps, just wish I could play these maps with other mods though. Is there a way to make it workable with default BTS?

boss82 said:

any idea why i cant saw the map from scenario list?

i can load the mod, but cant see the map from list, i copy it to default BTS public map folder and it also fail.

i am sure that both map in the private map folder in this mod.

pls help me ~~

Click to expand...

It should be at the very top of the list. I don't know why it woudln't be there; is there any more information you can provide?

Blake4000 said:

Really enjoy the maps, just wish I could play these maps with other mods though. Is there a way to make it workable with default BTS?

Click to expand...

That should be easy enough. I'll do that today and upload them.

To all:

I'm making a new map. It's a Eurasia one that will look like this:



It'll be 200x100 plots in size, for 20,000 total.

DO you NEED all that space in north russia... won't it make more sense to tilt it lower africa and raise siam?

Boli said:

DO you NEED all that space in north russia... won't it make more sense to tilt it lower africa and raise siam?

Click to expand...

Does this look better?



I don't want to tilt it much further, or else I'll cut off Japan.

Perfect; the last map I made I had to redo after I realised that Russia was half the map and gave a "somewhat unfair" game and a lot of the map was tundra

Much to my surprise, I'm actually making good headway on my latest map. However, I wanted to ask any of the more geographically inclined amongst you how I should handle southern Iberia. According to my climate map, that region is Mediterranean grassland (plains), with richer grassland to the north (grass). The problem is that this leaves a rather unsightly block of plains with a fairly straight border along the grassland. So, should I scatter some grassland there to spruce it up a bit? Or just leave it be?

I tend to keep the NW corner of spain grass, with a few in portugal - and have plains mainly in the centre... sometimes with a couple of desert tiles.

No-one wants to see straight lines of terrain, even if it is geographically accurate