Middle Earth (56x49)

Hello Civfanatics,

Since the SDK was released, I wanted to try out the World Builder, and what quickly came to my mind as the first map I wanted to make? Middle Earth of course!



It is based off of this Middle Earth map, which I believe is quite accurate as per the one in my LOTR books: http://files.meetup.com/238907/middle earth map wallpaper.jpg

Hope you all like my map. Also I'd like to say that I hope that someone will start an Arda mod (Arda being the name of the world Middle Earth is in) for Civ5. I tried starting my own Arda mod back in Civ4 ... lets just say it didn't go well. And then there's also the current Arda mod for Civ4 which is ... well, on life support.

Anyways, comments and criticisms are welcomed.

Looks good so far. I am a big fan of Tolkien's works, so it will be interesting to see how this comes out. To answer your questions...
1. Yes, it is. Just don't click one of the options in the Misc tab, and it won't curve.
2. The Misty Mountains should be littered with iron, and, of course, silver (for Mithril). The Lonely Mountain in the northeast should have a bunch of jewels around it. Lots of horses in Rohan, wheat in the Shire, war stuff in Mordor, and maybe gold in Lothlorien or something.

Agreed it looks great I look forward to playing on it once it's complete

I have just finished the foundations of a middle earth map that I made in Civ IV.

As a scenario it has 7 races all with starting positions and perks:

The silvan elves start with Archers, Archery Tech, and have good access to Silver and deer. They are also allied with Caras Galadhon and Rivendell.

Rohan have good access to horses, are at war with Isengard directly opposite and have access to Helms Deep as a Fort.

Isengard are allied with Mordor, and start with barracks.

Mordor have good access of Iron Working and population of 3.

Gondor have access to Osgiliath which act as city ruins and are allied with Rohan.

The free peoples have good resources, roads leading too Bree and a higher population than other civs.

The Dwarves start with two cities and good gold and production resources.

There is also a road that cuts across the misty mountains into Caras Galadhon, which would be the mines of Moria. This offers a route to the Eastern side of Middle Earth if Rohan borders cuts of the gap of Rohan.


Your map looks fantastic and a lot neater around the edges than mine, I had to keep switching to look at maps on the net! Anyway, if you want I can send you the map and you can suggest changes and it can help you with terrain and resource placement. We could make a hell of a map.



Pics:
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/calavera999/CivilizationV_DX112010-10-0220-13-45-03.jpg
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/calavera999/CivilizationV_DX112010-10-0220-15-11-87.jpg
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/calavera999/CivilizationV_DX112010-10-0220-11-54-56.jpg
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/calavera999/CivilizationV_DX112010-10-0220-09-03-93.jpg
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/calavera999/CivilizationV_DX112010-10-0220-06-31-99.jpg
http://i1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa332/calavera999/middleearthtop.jpg

I've got a rather large 3'x5' map of Middle Earth in my home office (found it one day back when I was still playing LOTRO, so had it framed) and the map that you show in the first post in this thread is near identical.

So, looking good so far. I started on a map for M.E. but the world builder choked for some unknown reason after about 10 hours toddling with the map and so the map started to come up with 'invalid map file' at the bottom of my maps listings so I tossed it out. Hope you don't get hit by whatever glitch is causing this on some peoples maps.

You two have a nice foundation for a LOTR mod - which would rock!
It think the map needs a bit more refining, but should suit nicely to get the middle earth feeling started, once we have appropriate unit art.

Anyone able to make unit art, models etc? any ideas for the map? custom buildings? Would be great to have helms deep as a fort.

Well, I worked on the map some more and uploaded it. I feel that perhaps I put too few resources on the map, but then again, it makes for a more challenging map. Thanks for the suggestions NiRv4n4.

@calavera999: No offense meant, but I think the map shape needs redone quite a bit. Also, if you didn't know, several Middle Earth maps have already been created. I think it'd make your life a lot easier if you just modify past Middle Earth maps for Civ4. Look HERE and HERE.

And to be quite honest, I would like to see an Arda mod project spring up instead of just a Third Age-themed scenario. Many LOTR fans I know hardly know about the Second Age, much less the First Age. Tolkien wrote more then just The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (The Silmarillion, The Book of Lost Tales, The Children of Hurin, among others).

For a game like Civilization, an Arda mod could cover all four ages that Tolkien talked about in his works (each age being an era). An Arda mod could have all the important civilizations in Middle Earth and Beleriand. After the flood that flooded Beleriand, there is a lot of overlap (the survivors of Numenor started the realm of Gondor), but I still think what may seem like overlapping civilizations could be seperate (so there could be a seperate Numenor, Arnor, and Gondor civilizations even if, lineage-wise, they kind of overlap). Here are some of the most important civs I could think of for such a mod (I must admit, I wouldn't call myself a Tolkien lore-ist):
- Numenor
- Arnor (lead by Elendil)
- Gondor (lead by Elessar (Aragorn))
- Rohan (lead by Theoden)
- Dale (lead by Bard)
- The Noldor (A LOT of different choices here for leader)
- The Silvan (Again, a lot of different choices)
- The Dwarves (lead by Durin the Deathless)
- Angband (lead by Morgoth)
- Mordor (lead by Sauron)

Not sure about whether the Easterlings (those of the First Age, around the area of Hithlum, or those in Middle Earth in the area of Rhun) or the Haradrim should be full-blown Civilizations or represented as City-States, since they are pretty minor in Tolkien's mythology.

Then there would need to be 4 different types of Tech Trees created: Numenorean (Numenor, Arnor, and Gondor), Northman (Rohan and Dale), Elven (The Noldor, The Silvan), Dwarven (The Dwarves), and Orcish (Angband and Mordor).

And here are the City-States I can think of: Isengard (representing Saruman's turning-to-evil Isengard), Dorwinion, Hobbiton (representing the Hobbits), Cardolan, Rhudaur, Dunland, Goblin-Town (representing the Goblins that invaded Moria), Gundabad, Carn Dûm, and Khand.

@City Builder: Nope, I've never had that glitch happen before.

@ NamesAreUseless

I just posted a query in the Civ 4 ArdaMod forums and asked them if any one of them is going to continue with their idea with Civ V. I would be quite interested to see an Arda mod for Civ V, so if people are starting any kind of project based on that, count me in. I don't have any moddinng experience with Civs, but I know XML and a few programming languages so learning shouldn't be a problem.

And yeah, it definitely should be mod for Arda, not just middle-earth.

Anyhow, I'll be checking the forums every now and them and see if something is happening on this front. Feel free to PM me if some mod project is started (and you need team members). I might even start something myself if the Civ 4 ArdaMod guys are not responding, but due to RL not before Christmas

Shandorin said:

@ NamesAreUseless

I just posted a query in the Civ 4 ArdaMod forums and asked them if any one of them is going to continue with their idea with Civ V. I would be quite interested to see an Arda mod for Civ V, so if people are starting any kind of project based on that, count me in. I don't have any moddinng experience with Civs, but I know XML and a few programming languages so learning shouldn't be a problem.

And yeah, it definitely should be mod for Arda, not just middle-earth.

Anyhow, I'll be checking the forums every now and them and see if something is happening on this front. Feel free to PM me if some mod project is started (and you need team members). I might even start something myself if the Civ 4 ArdaMod guys are not responding, but due to RL not before Christmas

Click to expand...

The Arda mod has been pretty much dead for a couple years. I remember trying to help them with the mod, and the mod simply crashed Civ4 whenever I tried to run it. It was a mess. But I'm not trying to diss the Arda mod, making a mod is hard work.

Anyways, I myself would love to start an Arda mod for Civ5 ... if I wasn't already part of a Middle Earth-themed mod for Oblivion and a mod for Starcraft 2. I could help with ideas since I already have cool ideas for a Civ5 Arda mod, but I doubt I'd get too occupied in coding (I do know some C++ and have some XML experience from modding Civ4, but nothing too extravagant).

I also hope that whoever does decide to make a Tolkien-themed mod for Civ5 to consider expansion packs and patch compatibility. A LOT of Civ4 mods were never compatible with later patches and expansion packs after they were released, which was really disappointing.

Anyways, I probably should more be talking about the map I made, lol. Any major comments?

Cool, very good with few suggestions.



Love to help and play if I have CiV.

two idiots, one mind good luck!

NamesAreUseless said:

Anyways, I probably should more be talking about the map I made, lol. Any major comments?

Click to expand...

I have played almost one game with your map now (yeah, not much of a playtesting ).

First of all, I think that the map should be at least a little bigger. Now the individual cities are much too big in contrast to their surroundings and we lose too much of the smaller features of the terrain because they have to be "generalized away".

And continuing from there, I think that too much of the map is just plains/grassland, like in Eriador. It might be accurate, but for gameplay purposes I think that one/two hill/forest tiles here and there could make a vastly more interesting map. This might be easier to do with a little bigger map.

Mountain areas should maybe have a little more foothills? At least the Misty Mountains.

Anduin the Great should maybe be actual water tiles after Rauros? At least it definitely is not passable without boats "in real life" (or whatever ).


These are just suggestions, I think your map looks great and accurate in general!

Ah, the first Middle-earth map. We've reached a milestone in CiV modding!

It looks very nice, even from the strategic view. Good work! Now the next step is to get a mod rolling....

Looking forward to more work being done on this map for better balance, realism and gameplay!!!

Don't want to sound too stupid, but guess the only way to learn is asking: how do I play this? Where do I extract the files? I downloaded some maps at the in-game on-line mods page and I activated them, but I can't find how to play them. An easy step by step would be nice, thx in advanced,
~IntEr

check out this !
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=450352