Conquering the Ancients

[Dor Daedeloth]

This map will only work with the conquests expansion.




Maximum players: 14. Unlike the previous version of this map (Conquering the Ancients) this map has no starting cities and all civilizations are available to choose from.

Game changes

New small wonder added: Colonial Office. Works as a second Forbidden Palace. Requires Magnetism and access to silks and dyes. Silks and dyes can be found on the large group of islands, there’s only six of each.

That’s all! If you don’t like this change you can reverse it in the editor. Other than that this is a complete vanilla map for civ 3 conquests.

Spoiler :

Map layout (may contain spoilers)

One civ starts on the group of islands. The islands contain luxury resources not found on the large continent so they are worth colonizing (prepare for lots of barbarians) There are no saltpeter resources on the large group of islands (unless the game gives you one) and the iron and horse resources are far away for the civ that starts there. However all the modern strategic resources will eventually pop up on the islands, so if you want to make a move against whoever’s there and take their rich land then I suggest you move fast.

Unfortunately there are no starting places next to a coast. To keep the game fair and balanced every civilization starts on a river tile in the center of a territory and everyone has a cattle resource (except on the island where there is no cattle) Most capitols have also have one wheat to ensure fast expansion of the empire. Every civ starts near one type of luxury resource and should eventually have all the strategic resources in their territory (often several strategic resources are in the same city making those cities valueable to defend) Some civs can find other luxury resources not far from their “home territory” so you can make those crucial strategic moves early in the game by placing your own city there. Other civs start a bit further away from others but have more territory to claim.

Enjoy!

 

[Dor Daedeloth]

 

[Ares de Borg]

Congratulations on your first map.
If I may give some suggestions:

- The island is nicely modelled, but the resources seem a little too much. Maybe a little less would be more and would look more natural?

Lots of fruits:

Spoiler :

Lots of sugar, could be diverted a little more:

Spoiler :

Otherwise, very nice at first glance. Maybe add a few more hills around the mountains?

Thanks for uploading your map.

 

[Dor Daedeloth]

Thanks for the reply! You're right about lots of sugar there, I've removed a bit (I'll upload a new version if there are enough changes). But I have lots of bonus resources like that on a few spots to make them more attractive for conquerors. Most of the time they will be on early border spots. That particular spot is close to the Byzantines but the Persian AI likes it too. Same with the "sugar spot" near the Sumerians, the Hittites like it too so there's a chance they will come and try to take it. Nevertheless I'll remove some sugar from the Byzantines and I'll see what happens. I still have to test a number of civilizations in this map so...

But I think I'll keep the tropical fruits. The Zulu are already not very interested in it because they keep trying to settle on Hittite territory very early in the game. The tropical fruits make it worth settling in that jungle, there's enough tropical fruits to share with two cities so it can eventually make a strong border for the Zulu. I'll have to test play it some more, I might remove a few tropical fruits just for aesthetic reasons.

 

[timerover51]

It is a nice looking map, with a good initial premise: "The scenario is called Conquering the Ancients because it contains mostly ancient civilizations and leaderheads (I did not include India and China because their leaderheads are modern).

I like that you have put Barbarians on some of the smaller outlying islands to make them harder to take, as that is one of my standard techniques. As you have a lot of civilizations close together, I would tend to make the Barbarians a bit nastier than standard, but that is one of my quirks.

You might want to consider for your next map a change from putting lots of bonus resources on the map to using fewer bonus resources but making each more valuable in terms of the bonus. I use the following as a basis for bonus resources and terraforming effects. I have added Hot Springs for Tundra terrain, and the special Iron 25 resource as a major production boost to speed the game up. The changes to reduce map clutter, and the AI tends to head for the greater value bonus resources.

Bonus Resource Yields:
Whales = 1 food, 2 shields, 2 commerce
Game = 2 food, 1 shield, 1 commerce
Fish = 4 food, 1 shield, 2 commerce
Cattle = 4 food, 2 shields, 2 commerce
Wheat = 6 food, 0 shields, 2 commerce
Gold = 0 food, 2 shields, 8 commerce
Sugar = 2 food, 0 shields, 2 commerce
Tropical Fruit = 3 food, 0 shields, 2 commerce
Oasis = 6 food, 2 shields, 4 commerce
Tobacco = 0 food, 0 shields, 2 commerce
Hot Springs = 6 food, 4 shields, 6 commerce
Iron 25 = 1 food, 25 shields, 2 commerce

Base Terrain Resource Yields:
Desert = 0/1/0, terraformed 2/1/1
Plains = 1/1/0, terraformed 2/1/1
Grassland = 2/0/0, terraformed 2/1/1
Tundra = 1/0/0, terraformed 0/1/1
Flood Plain = 3/0/0, terraformed 3/0/1
Hills = 1/1/0, terraformed 0/4/1
Mountains = 0/1/0, terraformed 0/8/1
Forest = 1/2/1, terraformed 0/0/1
Jungle = 1/1/1, terraformed 0/0/1
Marsh = 1/0/0, terraformed 0/0/1
Volcano = 0/3/0, terraformed 0/0/0
Coast = 2/2/2, no terraform
Sea = 2/1/1, no terraform
Ocean 1/1/1, no terraform

In my more recent mods, I am leaning to increasing the bonus from terraforming, on the basis that given the worker turns invested in terraforming, the return should be great enough to justify it.

You might also want to play around a bit with the use of Landmark Terrain to provide additional bonuses for players in selected areas.

Again, overall, a nice piece of work for your first map.

 

[Dor Daedeloth]

I've removed a lot of the resources, it's still quite abundant but not nearly as much anymore. I've also placed a lot more mountains everywhere and some additional islands next to the large continent. I'll upload a newer version once I'm done testing and balancing. In the meantime I'd like to warn people that the version posted here atm is incredibly noobish and has too many resources and goody huts. I'd recommend NOT downloading it atm, if you like the shape and size of the map then either wait for the final version or redistribute the resources yourself.

I've got a question: does anybody know how to increase the number of cities required to build the forbidden palace? I'd like to slightly increase it due to the size of the map.

 

[Dor Daedeloth]

Ok, so there's the new version. I hope you like this one better (I sure do, took me long enough to test it)

 

[Ares de Borg]

Much better, thanks.