Civ5 & Earth maps

[Rhye]

I need your help.

First, in the maps I posted I'm still getting random starting locations despite I check load scenario.

Second, I can't load Umarth's saves because "currently enabled mods are not compatible with this saved game" despite I have no mods loaded.

I am doing something wrong, or it is Civ5 to be extremely annoying?

 

[blizzrd]

I think you have to have the same mods enabled (or disabled) when you make the saves as the person who is trying to load them for the saves to be compatible. That probably means disabling any mods that you have downloaded at any time to be sure.

I'm not getting random start locations, but I've only tried the 128 map to date.

 

[Úmarth]

I need your help.

First, in the maps I posted I'm still getting random starting locations despite I check load scenario.

Second, I can't load Umarth's saves because "currently enabled mods are not compatible with this saved game" despite I have no mods loaded.

I am doing something wrong, or it is Civ5 to be extremely annoying?

Oh, sorry, I had the "Simple 24 Hour Clock mod" enabled. I disabled the rest, but I didn't think that one would make a difference :S

 

[Rhye]

I could open the file. But I cant reveal the map. And how come in 1900 you have discovered only half Europe??

 

[killerkebab]

Exploration is much, much slower in Civ V than it was in previous incarnations. Some way to trade maps is paramount to a mod such as RFC working in my opinion.

As for mods, the mods you load aren't as important as the mods that whoever made the save has loaded.

The starting locations work for both of your maps on my computer. I have Babylon files installed, maybe this is your issue?

Speaking of mods, if you go into the mods browser, you should search for and install the map reveal mod. It adds a button to the UI that allows you to reveal the entire map. Bear in mind the map won't be explored, just simply the fog of war will be removed. That means you can't see resources or tile yields of the tiles until you actually visit the area yourself at least once, but it is very useful to get an idea of your surroundings and the locations of every other civilization

 

[Mxzs]

The river doesn't mean anything. I told you that it's raw. I only care about size

EDIT: actually there should be the river there, because I did not delete it

I haven't found any rivers or ancient ruins in 128sc, but there are both rivers and ancient ruins in my 150sc game. (Interestingly, one of the ancient ruins was Atlantis or something, because it was in the middle of the Mediterranean and I popped it with a trireme. Dunno if it was a map quirk or a CiV bug, but I thought I'd mention it, for amusement value if nothing else.)

I've launched two 128 games and one 150 game so far, and I got correct starting locations in all three.

I think you have to have the same mods enabled (or disabled) when you make the saves as the person who is trying to load them for the saves to be compatible.

Oh darn. That means I have to launch and play another round if I'm going to give Rhye any saves. (I think I only had "map packs" enabled in the mod section, but, you know, better safe than sorry.)

I could open the file. But I cant reveal the map. And how come in 1900 you have discovered only half Europe??

Like killerkebab says, the lack of map trading means that the world is grossly underexplored. It takes serious effort to go out looking, and for me at least, it's not much of a priority. Especially early in the game, when coin is at a premium and I begrudge subsidizing a scout.

EDIT: FWIW, about army maneuverability on these maps. In my 128sc game I have fought only one war in western Europe. I was playing Rome and when I felt I had happiness and coin in hand, I attacked Napoleon, who was trapped in Gaul with Paris and one other very small city. He had only four defensive units, and I pushed up what would have been the Rhone valley if there had been a Rhone river in it with nine attackers (1 Legion, 3 Musketmen, 3 Crossbows, 2 Ballistas). It was a little tight; he staged a fighting retreat and I had to rotate front line units in and out as I pushed forward. But there was enough room I could make the swaps and get my men into siege position. Afterwards, there was more than enough room for me to sweep across the rest of Gaul with my armies. So, Europe was big enough for a war on that scale.

 

[Úmarth]

Yeah basically I lost my early game scouts in various mishaps and then never bothered to make any more. I don't think you don't get passive money from trading with other civs any more (might be wrong), I had no spare resources to trade and I didn't plan on colonising, so there was really little point in exploring. But I never claimed to be a good player

If you didn't already know:

Go to Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5
Edit config.ini
Change "DebugPanel = 0" to "DebugPanel = 1"
Then hit ` (tilde) in-game and select reveal all

I think you can also use CTRL-Z as a shortcut, after changing the config.ini setting.

 

[Mxzs]

FWIW, I wouldn't overthink the lack of exploration by early test-players, at this point at least. In my games, at least, I've keenly felt a shortage of luxury resources, which has really kept my growth throttled back. I find coin and happiness are very tight early in the game, and it is easy to lose scouts, so it just doesn't seem worthwhile. That may change if Europe is stocked with more luxury goods.

It's also true, though, that there isn't a pressing need to go looking for civs, for a couple of reasons:

1. No tech trading. You don't have to worry about being outside the "club" because you're not in contact with other civs. Also, most of the civs in my games haven't even had the coin to execute Research Agreements.

2. No trade routes (that I can find). Trade seems to be entirely an internal matter in CiV, so you don't have an incentive find big, distant foreign cities to goose your income.

3. No map trading. Meeting new civs is not going to open up new areas to exploit or explore thru map trading. You meet 'em, you get open borders, and then you have to make your own maps. This is even more tedious to do without road networks to speed things along.

That only leaves two reasons to go looking for new civs: Execute resource trading (which is a necessity, but on these maps many luxury resources are at a premium); and if you're feeling lonely and want to be buried under avalanches of "Let's you and me be friends and go beat up that other guy!" messages.

BTW, Killerkebab says his maps work with starting locations, and he has Babylon installed. My maps are four-for-four at launching with correct starting locations, and I don't have Babylon.

 

[Úmarth]

I also don't have Babylon, and I've had no problems with starting locations.

I know we're not supposed to be focusing on the details of the map, but I have to second what Mxzs said about luxury resources: they're a crucial factor to get right. The lack of them in RFC128sc means your economy is on life-support through the whole game, but on the other hand I've played games where because I was lucky and spawned on top of a cluster of them I could just buy my way to victory.

 

[Rhye]

could you post what you exactly do when you start a game?

 

[killerkebab]

Start Civ
Go to Mods
Then Single Player
Then Set up Game
Then pick your map
Tick Load Scenario
Set up the other things like what team you are and difficulty
Then kick ass

 

[blizzrd]

FWIW, I wouldn't overthink the lack of exploration by early test-players, at this point at least. In my games, at least, I've keenly felt a shortage of luxury resources, which has really kept my growth throttled back. I find coin and happiness are very tight early in the game, and it is easy to lose scouts, so it just doesn't seem worthwhile. That may change if Europe is stocked with more luxury goods.

It's also true, though, that there isn't a pressing need to go looking for civs, for a couple of reasons:

1. No tech trading. You don't have to worry about being outside the "club" because you're not in contact with other civs. Also, most of the civs in my games haven't even had the coin to execute Research Agreements.

2. No trade routes (that I can find). Trade seems to be entirely an internal matter in CiV, so you don't have an incentive find big, distant foreign cities to goose your income.

3. No map trading. Meeting new civs is not going to open up new areas to exploit or explore thru map trading. You meet 'em, you get open borders, and then you have to make your own maps. This is even more tedious to do without road networks to speed things along.

That only leaves two reasons to go looking for new civs: Execute resource trading (which is a necessity, but on these maps many luxury resources are at a premium); and if you're feeling lonely and want to be buried under avalanches of "Let's you and me be friends and go beat up that other guy!" messages.

BTW, Killerkebab says his maps work with starting locations, and he has Babylon installed. My maps are four-for-four at launching with correct starting locations, and I don't have Babylon.

Also, there are no city states? So not much need for exploring.

 

[killerkebab]

Map issues I've found right from the start:

128sc map has no rivers and no city states
150sc map has weird rivers and no city states

Both maps load fine and again, starting locations are good.

 

[Rhye]

Map issues I've found right from the start:

128sc map has no rivers and no city states
150sc map has weird rivers and no city states

Both maps load fine and again, starting locations are good.

Thanks, but I'd like to hear from you a gameplay and loading time comparison.

 

[Mxzs]

I hope this is relevant: I've been thinking about these maps and the lack of resources, and what these show about the CiV economy and war-making. This is what I notice:

1. It takes a large number of units to fight a war. Maybe others will tell me I'm too cautious, but I don't like to go into battle with fewer than 6 units: 3 ranged and 3 footsoldiers, typically. Units cost quite a bit of production to build, and it hurts to lose any. The more you have, the better your chances of survival because you can swap around damaged units, or pull them out of sieges without breaking the siege itself.

2. Units cost serious coin. I'm not completely sure how it calculates costs; it seems to be a non-linear relationship between number of units and your military expenses. At any rate, unless you are planning a quick smash-and-grab campaign, followed by a near-total demobilization (which is kind of a dumb tactic, IMO), it is pretty clear that you need a large economy to support a decent-sized army.

3. The biggest source of coin (I've found) is trading post terrain. Early in the game, at least, roads connecting cities to your capital will only pay for themselves; Marketplaces only add incrementally to base revenues. You must have cities with quite a lot of trade in their hexes if you're going to support a medium to large-scale empie.

4. To work the terrain you need citizens. By itself, TPing (what an unfortunate acronym, but there it is) the terrain does something between diddly and squat if you don't have citizens to work it. But citizens cause unhappiness. So you can't grow your cities unless you have things to make them happy. Which means ...

5. You need luxuries. Some buildings will make a difference to happiness, but luxuries are what really cure it. When luxuries are few and far between, as they are on the raw maps, you need lots of cities to gather them in. And cities themselves cause unhappiness.

I don't know what your plans are for the European civs, but I'd wryly suggest that this dynamic is a pretty good way of keeping civs from fielding large armies: No luxuries = small armies for a very long time. I have not seen many troops fielded by my neighbors, and I've had to keep my own armies pretty small. Exploration is hard; on the other hand, once you are big enough to afford the expense of sending out a strong unit or two to sniff around, you do have a pretty good incentive to find luxuries, since these will fuel the population growth that will support a decent-sized army.

On the other hand, it is easy to reach a tipping point, where one civ that has enough luxuries will have enough coin to field an army that will sweep all nearby contenders (and maybe some distant ones, too) away. Since I don't have much faith in the AI, it would probably be the human player who emerged as a successful Napoleon or Charles V.

I'd also like to mention that the "scale" issue doesn't bother me nearly as much on the large/huge maps as it did on the smaller ones. On the big ones, the tactical interest of moving units on a 1upt board nicely outweighs the disbelief it sometimes causes.

 

[blizzrd]

Early thoughts on the 128 map. I've been playing on King setting a couple of times, although I've not actually finished a test game to date. Given the early status of the map, it just doesn't seem worth it to slog out a victory in the late game.

No rivers means you (and I presume the AI) are pretty gold-poor. Obviously this can be changed, but at the moment it does have a fairly significant impact on your economy.

Resources are still random at the moment, which is fine. But it makes life in Europe very difficult due to their scarcity.

As Greece, I had a lucky source of Marble near my capital as well as Whales off-shoe near Crete (by the way, where is Cyprus?) But Turkey quickly expanded from Istanbul and cut me off across the north by founding a city on the Dalmatian coast. This was acceptable because there weren't any exciting resources there. Spain on the other hand, had three unique luxuries that could all be grabbed with a single city placement, which is where I founded Sparta.

But for strategic resources, something will need to be done to ensure that each civ can access at least one of Horses/Iron. I had neither, and Rome and Germany similarly did not have either. France had the only source of Iron and the only horses that I could find were near the south coast of France, although nobody had yet claimed them by around 250AD.

Aesthetically, I think that north-western France is probably a bit too large. Greece felt about right as did Italy. North Africa seems pretty barren though, especially with no rivers.

I definitely dislike the mountains blocking land access between Bulgaria/Romania and Ukraine.

 

[Mxzs]

Maybe we need some more specific guidance on what constitutes being "raw"? I was assuming that mountain placement, random distribution of resources, and lack of rivers was "raw" and something we should ignore. I mean, the Panamanian isthmus is missing on 128sc. Should I be offering notes on things like that?

 

[Úmarth]

Thanks, but I'd like to hear from you a gameplay and loading time comparison.

Keep saying it, it's bound to sink in eventually...

 

[Rhye]

yeah, you keep reporting about details of the map, but before placing resources/rivers/whatever accurately I need to decide the size of the map. This decision depends on you.

 

[blizzrd]

yeah, you keep reporting about details of the map, but before placing resources/rivers/whatever accurately I need to decide the size of the map. This decision depends on you.

Aesthetically, I think that north-western France is probably a bit too large. Greece felt about right as did Italy.

Call me simple then, but I thought that I had discussed the size of the map (128).

I just tried to start a game as France on the 150 map 4 times, each time I crashed to desktop during loading. My computer has loaded Huge maps before OK, but I can't get this map to even load.

EDIT: It's not a French thing, I can't load the 150 map as Rome either.