Improved Mesoamerican Conquest

[HooDoo]

RedAlert,

Are you sure you do not want to add the Caribs (they call themselves Kalinago)? I am in the process of developing the Kalinago as one of my AmerIndian civilizations. I have compiled over 400 pages of material, and I have put together a 25-page dictionary of Taino/Carib words (I'm adding words daily as I go through the material). I am currently putting together a list of cities and leaders.

Attached is a map of the Carribean. It should be fairly simple to incorporate the Carribean map into the current mod map. You already have a lot of the Carribean Islands in the map. You could also include the lower portion of Florida (called Bimini by the Taino/Caribs). The Tekesta and other Taino peoples settled Florida after 8000 B.C. Other Taino speaking tribes in Florida include the Calusa, Timucua, Tekesta, Ais, and Jaega.

CivArmy's Tupi civ units would work well as Kalinago units. The piroga would work perfectly for the Kalinago canoa. And aaglo's Haida ship could be used for the Kalinago Piragua, or War Boat. See the attached image of aaglo's boat and the Gli Gli, which is a smaller reproduction of a Kalinago Long Boat or War Boat.

Let me know if you are interested, and I can get everything together.

 

[RedAlert]

Hello again everyone.
I just wanted to let anyone interested know that I am going to continue work on this mod. It's been a while, so I now have a bit more moding experience behind me. That said, I feel a little more ambitious than before.

It is no longer my intention to make an improved version of the mesoamerican conquest. It is now my intention to make a sort of 'replacement conquest', an alternative mesoamerican mod. So basically, I'm starting from scratch.

First up is a custom tech tree, which I designed a few months ago. There are three eras: Preclassic/Early Horizon, Classic/Middle Horizon, and Postclassic/Late Horizon (the 'classics' referring to central america and the 'horizons' to the andes). I will post my tech tree design, and possibly a list of what each one does. The techs are organized so that some are available to the central american civilizations, some to the andean ones, and some to both groups. There will also be some civ-specific techs (which I have not decided on yet, and will possibly add later, depending on what civs I include).

This mod will cover from about 1000 BCE to european contact. It will take a lot of time on my part, so I hope there is some interest in a mesoamerican mod.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Since people asked about my 'SH' comment; yes, I mean the Silent Hunter. In the original conquest, it's out-and-away the most powerful unit; once you get it, there's no reason to build anything else, and it crushes all earlier units at equal cost.

 

[RedAlert]

To begin with, here is the first era (Preclassic Age / Early Horizon) tech tree. There are a few aspects of the tech trees that I should explain now:

- The central american (ie Aztecs, Maya) and andean (ie Incans) civilizations have segregated tech paths, and many technologies that are unique to one group. However, these two tech trees overlap where there are technologies that were shared between the two groups.

- In the tree above, what techs go to who is shown by different coloured dots. green = central american, red = andean, and blue = both.

- As you can see, Tlachtli (available only to central americans) is a prerequisite for Warrior Class (available to everyone). So in order for this to work out for the andean civilizations, they are given Tlachtli as a starting tech, but are not able to trade it or get any benefits from it. That way they can still have acess to Warrior class. I have used this method in the later tech trees as well.

- If you notice, two of the techs to the far right are middle horizon and classic era. These techs are the only ones required to advance to the next era. All the other techs are not 'required' (but in order to get to them, you have to go through all the others anyway). This makes sure neither group needs all the techs not available to them to advance an era.

- You can see also that all the techs available to the andeans lead to middle horizon and all the techs available to the central americans lead to classic era. Similar to the case with Tlachtli, the andeans will be given classic era from the start, but cannot trade it. The same goes for the central americans, but the other way around.

I hope I have covered everything. Questions? Please ask me. Suggestions? They're very welcome.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Looks like your doing some great work so far Red. What will the civs be?

I reccommend using the same as the Mesoconquest, but perhaps adding some new players.

 

[The Last Conformist]

If you're using the same map as the original Conquest, I'd drop the Toltecs; there's no space for them in their proper location north of the Valley of Mexico, and putting them on Guatemala's Pacific Coast makes no sense at all.

The obvious replacement would be a Highland Maya civ, that could inherit the start loc.

From a balance perspective, adding the Muisca in modern Colombia might be a good idea.

 

[RedAlert]

The civs so far are to be:

Central American

Aztecs
Maya
Olmecs
Tarascans
Teotihuacan
Toltecs
Zapotecs

Andean

Chavin
Chimor
Huari
Inca
Moche
Nazca
Tiwanaku


So that's 7 civs per area, a total of 14.
I may add minor, unplayable civs in the areas around Colombia and the Caribbean, but that would be later on. For now, I'm concentrating on other aspects of the mod, so they will be left as barbarians until/if I make a decision to include them. However, to make sure the Central American and Andean civs don't expand beyond their respective areas too early, for the first age at least, the only settler unit available will not only be auto-produced, and will not be able to go into certain terrain types. This will change in the second age.

Also, no, I don't plan on using the original map from the mesoamerican conquest, or even the map I have previewed at the beginning of this thread. Due to the increased number of civs (all playable, btw), the map will be larger still, with room for all.

And there will be no ultra-powerful silent hunter.

 

[RedAlert]

For those interested, here are what the techs in the first age allow:

Agriculture
- worker action - Irrigate
- resource - Maize

Domestication
- resource - Llamas

Pottery
- improvement - Granary

Trade
- diplomatic ability - Map trading
- diplomatic ability - Communication trading
- resource - Exotic birds
- worker action - Build road

Mining
- resource - Stone quarry
- worker action - Build mine

Metal Working
- resource - Bronze

Engineering
- none

Monuments
- improvement - Stelae

Labourer Class
- improvement - Worker Housing

Pilli
- improvement - Pilli plaza

Ceremonial Burial
- improvement - Tomb

Religious Ceremony
- improvement - Temple

Calendar
- none

Writing
- diplomatic ability - Establish embassy
- diplomatic ability - Military alliances

Chiefdom
- government - Chiefdom

Tlachtli
- improvement - Ball court

Warrior Class
- none

Ritual Sacrifice
- other - Permits sacrifices

*Notes*
1) wonders and units are not included on purpose. I have not completely decided, or am in the process of redeciding what wonders and units there will be. Wonders will probably be restricted to single civs, perhaps small groups of civs. (For example, two cultures may have built a 'great ball court'). Warrior Class, for example lists no new abilities, however, there will be units it allows.
2) I also have not figured out the exact abilities of the improvements listed, although I have a general idea. For now I'm just figuring out what to include in the mod.

Sword_of_Geddon - Would it be possible for me to use your Mesoamerican cities? I think they would work well as the second age.

 

[madviking]

What's a Pilli plaza???

Looks promising

 

[RedAlert]

Pilli essentially means nobility or a noble person. The Pilli Plaza represents the sector of a town where the pilli would live. The improvement itself will give a cultural bonus, or so I have planned.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

The El-Dorado city graphics I made were ment for the mystical advanced legendary civilizations in Mesoamerica such as El-Dorado or the Teotican(spelling lol). You could use them, maybe in some sort of legendary era in the region such as the golden age of the pre-toltec civilization perhaps?

For units:

Utahjazz and Kinboat's Inti Warriors
DPII's Incan unit pack
Utahjazz's Jaguar Warrior
Utahjazz's Meso Swordsman(maybe)
Aluminum's Plumed Archer from AoEII The Conquerors expansion
Many of Civarmy's units
Kinboat's Eagle Warrior/Mesospearman
Kinboat's Incan Slinger

and of coarse the Firixian units

Plenty of Wonders from the Mesoamerican Conquest.

Leaderheads:

-Moche: Sween's Athaluapa leaderhead
-Toltecs: R8XFT's up in coming leaderhead
-Teotican: ???
-Zapotec: ???

Civarmy did a few descent civs from that area which would work maybe.

Hope I've helped..

I hope I've helped

 

[RedAlert]

Thank you for the lists, I'm currently trying to figure out what graphics to use for units and leaders, so that helps. Thanks.

On the topic of leaders, I still haven't found names of any leaders for the Chavin, Huari, Nazca, and Tiwanaku.

And concerning units, I will probably end up requesting a few. Although we have a wonderfull array of mesoamerican units already, there are a few particular units I need that all available ones just don't fit. I hope in the case that I do request them that someone takes notice.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I will help with the bumping and such..

 

[RedAlert]

Thank you again, bumping will probably be needed.

I will go ahead and request the units in a seperate thread. Hopefully somewhere down the road someone might decide to give them or one of them a shot.

There are two units, btw - a teotihuacano warrior from the 300s CE, and a mercenary/allied warrior from the 1400s-1500s CE. I have concept art as well.

 

[RedAlert]

I have decided on the leaderheads. I had some extra time on my hands, so instead of making a list of what leaderheads will represent each civ, I came up with a picture instead.

I will be using:

8 from CivArmy
1 from R8XFT
1 from sween32
along with four leaderheads already in the game.

I doubt however that I will spend too much time on graphics until later. Right now I'm spending most of the time plunking away in the editor and drafting things up on paper.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

You should use the second era of the Atahualpa leaderhead, it looks cooler... You should use the Maphuche leader as the leader of the Maphuche, they were the greatest enemy of the Incans, and even held off the spanish. Wasn't till 1903 or so that they were conquered by Chile.

 

[RedAlert]

Don't worry, I am using two eras of all the leaderheads shown, usually ancient for the first era, and medieval for the second and third eras (with the exception of Nazca and Teotihuacan, where I've used the industrial for the second and third eras, because they look pre-columbian enough). So that includes the Atahualpa leaderhead - and I agree, the middle age is really cool.

As for the Mapuche, I will probably not include them in the main mod, only because they are just too far south, and extending the map would make it much too big (because I'm already going to make it really big to include every civ without cramping them). Plus the Mapuche wouldn't be around any other civs which would give them a big advantage compared to how I have the rest of the civs set up. The Incas will still have the Nazca and Tiwanaku to the south to contend to instead.
However I will definately include the Mapuche later on. How? Once I finish Born of Fire (Hopefully around or even before mid-autumn) I had the idea of doing a few run-off scenarios using the mod. These scenarios would probably be based around a single culture and a smaller time frame.
So, how does an Incan Empire scenario sound? It could cover the time from the beginning of the Incan Empire to the end of the Incan civil war. It could have a custom map, to include just the andes mountains, and the civs could be modified and would include the Mapuche. Then I could give them back their leaderhead, as the Chavin would be out of the picture.
Such scenarios wouldn't take more than a week to put together once the mod is done. Does this sound like a good idea?

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

diffinitely. Don't forget to use OdintheKings tech icons he made...

 

[Polietileno]

Indeed, I think puting more andean civs is preaty good (Mental Note: Homework for Civ4: The Rise of the Incas Scenario)
My choice for the Civ that Should represent the Andes are:
Inca
Moche
Thiawuanaku
Chimu
Nazca
Huari


And some Wonders:
Sacsahuaman (Inca Fortress outside Cuzco)
The Lines of Nazca (I think somebody did this one already)
Caral (The oldest City in America)
The Temple of the Moon
Machu Pichuu
The Door of the Sun (A building in the city of Thiawuanaku)
The Obelisk of Chavin

I´ll post pictures later.

 

[RedAlert]

Sword of Geddon - Thank you for your input so far. I wouldn't have thought the leaderheads (I was almost going to use static pictures) or the techs (I had forgotton about odintheking's wonderfull mesoamerican techs) without you.

Polietileno - Thank you too for your help. Although I have already included the civs you mentioned, those wonders have not even crossed my mind. I will be sure to work them into Born of Fire, as the more wonders, the better (because I plan most of them to be civ-specific).