Standard (80x52) World Map TSL

[bwoww78]

OK, reporting back... (sorry no screenshots)

Notes on changes I made to the map:
CS:

• I kept Cahokia's starting location per your suggestion. This works out perfectly as a buffer between Washington and Hiawatha. Additionally, with Old Faithful tile nearby (east of the Uranium, SE of the nearest mountain) was well positioned in N. America throughout.
• I moved Quebec City north (swapping it's location with the nearby Furs) per your suggestion regarding tile acquisition in that region. Ultimately, I think this was unnecessary. Quebec has yet to reach even all it's coastal tiles and will likely never get that whales in the ocean nearby. I'd consider reorganizing those resources to benefit the CS moving forward.

CIVS:

• I moved the 2 luxury resources in the English channel to the straight between Ireland and the main island. England is in it's original starting position on the southern coast.
• I moved the Mayan starting location to the Yucatan, as previously described.
• I moved the Incan starting location from the coast to NW of the lake, as previously described.

Results through 92 turns:

• Mayan 2nd city on northern coast of S. America nearby El Dorado. (New city placement works out really well; making lost of money and claiming tiles in Caribbean, etc.)
• Incans stayed on eastern coast, founding 2 additional cities: one north and one to the south, both coastal.
• No expansion in Pacific (Polynesia) or Africa (Songhai, Carthage, Egypt, Ethiopia).
• Spain still one city, claiming some North Africa.
• England not only did not bite on settling in Ireland, as of turn 180+, Elizabeth has yet to found a 2nd city anywhere. Moreover, being so close to Paris, England has also claimed up both marsh tiles around "Brussels" as well as the western-most "Brest" tile in France. So, there you go. In future playthroughs, I may put those luxuries back or place one of the two north of Ireland. Also, I'm interested to see what would happen if I moved England's start position NW one tile. France is doing relatively poorly in this game, but I digress...
• France 2nd city (late) east on coast.
• Russia settled 2 cities on coast to the north, one almost directly north and the other closer to the Ural mountains. Big land grabs around Moscow.
• Sweden went north 2nd city.
• Berlin went east for 2nd city, then south near alps for 3rd.
• Byzantium went directly east across Caspian for 2nd city.
• Arabia still one city.
• Persia stayed lonely, then ventured out east of Urals for 2nd city... in constant conflict between Russia/Mongols...
• India made a tri-fecta, first near Bangladesh then on west coast of subcontinent.
• China placed Shanghai directly south, then west (stopping any Indian expansion and butting up to nearby CSs).
• Japan settled one directly north.

Results through 154 turns:

• France settled 3rd city in the Baltics region! Pretty smooth placement, actually.
• Songhai expanded through jungles of Africa, with 3 total cities spanning across continent (Carthage/Egypt/Ethiopia/Arabia = still one city)
• Mongols settled one NE, above mountains.
• China added 2 cities, one NE then later NW, butting up to Mongolia now and keeping Japan off mainland.
• India snuck a city into what is actually east coast of China today. It has changed hands between China and Japan I believe already.
• Spain/England/Polynesia = still one city.
• Russia conquered Persia's second city east of the Urals and settled another. Moving east now in (eventual) conflict with Mongols.

Turn 164

• Spain settled second city on NW coast (whoo!)

Turn 180:

• Incas settle first city in Brazilian territory, Mayans nearly immediately declare war.
• Mongols taking over Russian expansion and pushing back west. Pretty neat.

Overall impressions: So far, this has been a super fun game. Given, as the US I'm influencing a lot of Hiawatha's plans and I think I've kept the Mayan's from settling north for fear of reprisal after I placed New Orleans, I think a lot of the city placement opportunities are realistic and repeatable. Hiawatha got greedy and settled on present day San Francisco and down the peninsula there, to claim Cerro de Potosi. By the time I got my minutemen, that is all changing...I'm only around turn 200 and am now starting to officially meet the rest of the world. This is a great game so far!


Recommendations:

• Keep Quebec & Cahokia as is. Change nearby Natural Wonders in North America per previous notes.
• Move Mayan starting location. As is with so much gold and silver nearby, Mayans make INCREDIBLE money at the game's start. Having Cerro de Potosi within reach of it's capital would only make that more so... plus I think this helps in their southern expansion.
• Move Incan starting location north of lake. I think not having a coastal start put Inca down a different tech priority which helped in slowing their expansion and runaway (not to mention that string of mountains...)
• While the Persians and some others seem to be under-performing, it's bound to happen to some civs and may be COMPLETELY different in a different playthrough. While I thought it'd be worth removing a civ somewhere, I've put some thought into it and here's the best idea's I've got:
• You could remove Persia and Almaty and add the Huns near Almaty's starting position... I do like the idea of seeing more new G+K civs in action and this would be interesting.
• Likewise, if you wanted to be creative, you would add Warsaw west of current Berlin and add the Netherlands to northern Europe or Austria in central Europe. Maria Theresa could then actually BUY up Vatican City and others...
• Nobody seemed to claim anything in the desert areas north of the mountains north of Lhasa. Maybe a spare incense or something there would be helpful.
• While not historically totally accurate (but neither is Hiawatha...) if the Incans do runaway with South America in the future, you could always throw the Aztecs in there. With their jungle movement bonuses, this would be really interesting. Perhaps a swap with the USA for an "old world" start for those who prefer it? Just an idea.

Thanks again for a great map and your consideration.

(BTW I knew all this information because of the InGame Editor mod, a great tool for this purpose)

 

[Veneke]

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Would you mind telling me what speed and difficulty level you were playing on? I wouldn't have thought that this would make any difference but there are some rather curious differences between my couple of test games and what you're saying.

Anyway, in order:

• Completely agreed on Quebec.
• Inca development is dramatically different to what I experienced with Inca as a coastal start.
• I've seen some unusual Songhai city placement. In one game they went north to settle immediately beside Carthage. I have no idea why this happened. Regardless, however, Songhai's starting position is OP'd, it was well ahead of any other city in terms of population for the entire game and was particularly apparent early on.
• Carthage, Ethiopia and Egypt all expanded in my games to a second city at least. Ethiopia and Egypt settled near their own borders to their south. Carthage on the other hand went well down the African continent.
• Spain AI will eventually settle 2nd city in penisula and I have seen them knocking around some spare settlers. It is inconsistent though with its timing.
• England AI seems to stubbornly refuse to settle Edinburgh, let alone Ireland. This could be a unique luxury issue. Culture wise Brussels will happen almost definitely, while Brest is theoretically a toss-up between a number of tiles it seems to hit Brest before any of the others. I think at this point moving London is just about the only option.
• French AI has actually done the best on average in my games. I was rather shocked to see just how aggressive he was settling (he was up in the Baltic before the Medieval Era).
• Russia seems to develop fairly similarily across playthroughs alright. Although her second city I've found tends to the south towards the Caucasus followed then by North of Moscow and towards the Urals.
• Yeah, Sweden likes going north. I'm not terribly sure why, although I think the AI has difficulty with the mountain placement in Scandanavia. There was a French scout going back and forth between the same two tiles for the better part of two games.
• Germany has settled in dead centre of Eastern Europe for me when it can and has avoided settling otherwise. Did you alter resource or terrain placement anywhere near Germany?
• Byzantium has never gone directly East for me. Usually, if it settles anywhere, it'll go for northern Iraq which is then usually (but not always) puppeted by Persia reasonably quickly.
• Arabia needs a serious boost to food in her starting location but does generally tend to underperform. I'm hoping solving the food issue will fix this.
• Persia is a mixed bag. Sometimes it goes no where and other times I've seen it beat India to that city spot on the west coast of India and then conquer Byzantium and Arabia.
• India does tend to do well, regardless of Persian moves.
• China seems about right.
• Japan same.
• Polynesian AI does seem unable to use its UA to benefit its settlers.

As for your recommendations:

I think you're right on Quebec, Cahokia, Maya and Inca.

I've seriously considered adding Antwerp on a few occassions. I'd wanted to avoid it so that the French or German AI will settle in the Alsace-Lorraine region but this does not seem to be happening consistently. I don't think the Netherlands would work as well given the already very tight nature of Europe. Warsaw was one of the back-up plans if Germany/Russia refused to settle Poland. So far I'm still of two minds about it. I'm quite against Austria at the moment, partly because of geography and partly because I think it's UA is rather overpowered.

I have, in my test map, thrown in some sheep and incense to that area north of Lhasa but it doesn't seem to have affected settlement patterns very much. Frankly though, I'm quite comfortable with it being left as a barren region.

A couple of thoughts of my own:

Unless the modifications to England, Polynesia, Spain, Persia and Arabia make them any more viable I'm strongly considering cutting them from the map.

England needs to settle up in Scotland at least or it's simply not going to be able to compete. I'm a big fan of England both to play and to play against but if they can't compete as an AI their inclusion is debatable at best, especially as there is an alternative. What I'm going to explore is swapping England out for the Celts and placing the Celts up in Edinburgh to see if that helps. Resource placement in England/France would have to be adjusted to prevent France from running rampant over England but it has the potential to work. I am reasonably positive that the Celts have a stronger inclination to expansion than England has, though I need to double-check the XML.

I had high hopes for Polynesia, but it's so inconsistent and so utterly unable to do anything but meet everyone really early that their inclusion is little more than that of a city state. The fact that it is also a DLC is counting against it in my eyes.

Persia and Arabia are a problem and, unlike the aforementioned, are intertwined. I think the region is simply too overcrowded and too awkward to give either a fair shot. I also think part of the problem is that Arabia's AI is simply not expansion-orientated, unlike Persia's. So, the plan being considered at the moment is to remove Arabia and reposition Persia to immediately on top of the Oil directly West of Persia's current placement. Honestly, I'm not happy about that and it is becoming increasingly tempting to buy the Babylon DLC and remove both Persia and Arabia and use it instead.

 

[bwoww78]

Thanks for the detailed feedback! Would you mind telling me what speed and difficulty level you were playing on? I wouldn't have thought that this would make any difference but there are some rather curious differences between my couple of test games and what you're saying.

speed: standard
difficulty: prince (4)

In randomly generated maps I usually play one level up on 5, but in TSL maps my goals usually vary significantly from a straight victory path, so I turn it down a notch so it's fun.

• Inca development is dramatically different to what I experienced with Inca as a coastal start.

I'm well past turn 200 now and STILL no one has touched the Argentina side of the southern cone (so much free wine!). I'm fully aware my game's progression could be the anomaly, but I like to think the non-coastal start AND mountains landlock makes a difference.

I see two options if Incas can't be contained by resource/starting location adjustments:
1. Keeping Mayans in central america, add the Aztecs to the jungles somewhere and open up a pathway or two between the mountains for the Incas to compete.
2. Add a second city state to south America where the Buenos Aires wine is (Ragusa or Genoa or Venice something. One can argue there is strong Italian heritage from immigration to the region and plenty of CSs that might work). It's not perfect, but it might help curb runaway.

• I've seen some unusual Songhai city placement. In one game they went north to settle immediately beside Carthage. I have no idea why this happened. Regardless, however, Songhai's starting position is OP'd, it was well ahead of any other city in terms of population for the entire game and was particularly apparent early on.

I could easily see this happening. Lots of food in the area between jungle and river flood plains...

I might suggest more pre-placed barbarians. I'm curious how setting raging barbarians would impact the more open space on the map (siberia, southern Africa, Australia, etc.). With so many civs in play, barbs are barely a threat to the player after the first 30 turns. likewise, if they continue to spawn in the mid game, it might stop those weird german/french settlements in siberia (the AI is still pretty horrible about accompanying it's settlers). I might try my next playthrough with raging barbarians on...

• Carthage, Ethiopia and Egypt all expanded in my games to a second city at least. Ethiopia and Egypt settled near their own borders to their south. Carthage on the other hand went well down the African continent.
• Spain AI will eventually settle 2nd city in penisula and I have seen them knocking around some spare settlers. It is inconsistent though with its timing.

This is what makes these types of maps fun: the potential variety. As long as some civs don't continuously take off and run over others, then I'm fine with it (I'm actually happy with it if it's a historically accurate conquest!).

• England AI seems to stubbornly refuse to settle Edinburgh, let alone Ireland. This could be a unique luxury issue. Culture wise Brussels will happen almost definitely, while Brest is theoretically a toss-up between a number of tiles it seems to hit Brest before any of the others. I think at this point moving London is just about the only option.
• French AI has actually done the best on average in my games. I was rather shocked to see just how aggressive he was settling (he was up in the Baltic before the Medieval Era).

For me, as much as I like the Celt's, if France is in game then it's just not right if the English aren't as well...

As such, when I have more time I might try a total re-haul of the British isles. If it's possible to create some space in the channel, I think that might change things for the better.

• Russia seems to develop fairly similarily across playthroughs alright. Although her second city I've found tends to the south towards the Caucasus followed then by North of Moscow and towards the Urals.
• Yeah, Sweden likes going north. I'm not terribly sure why, although I think the AI has difficulty with the mountain placement in Scandanavia. There was a French scout going back and forth between the same two tiles for the better part of two games.

That's all good news to me. I think those mountains look good, at the very least. Also, speaking of good looking maps, if you haven't seen the Legendary Earth Mod map, it's worth a look. Very well done (even down to each mountain tile's graphical "continent" designation). It's a much bigger map, but it might help give you ideas. All credit to it's creator, of course.

• Germany has settled in dead centre of Eastern Europe for me when it can and has avoided settling otherwise. Did you alter resource or terrain placement anywhere near Germany?

Actually, I might have just described it inaccurately. That's basically what happened. Later once the map is fully explored in my savegame, I'll zip it up along with the two mods I'm using (Infoaddict & InGame Editor) so you can take a look for reference.

• Byzantium has never gone directly East for me. Usually, if it settles anywhere, it'll go for northern Iraq which is then usually (but not always) puppeted by Persia reasonably quickly.

I'm starting to think the Jerusalem CS might be taking up too much real estate...

• Arabia needs a serious boost to food in her starting location but does generally tend to underperform. I'm hoping solving the food issue will fix this.

definitely. turn 200+ and Mecca only has 4 population. I would recommend more Oasis tiles (like at least 3) in the area. It's an immediate boost that can't be upgraded with farms on the tile itself, but allows for fresh water in nearby desert tiles. Personally, I think it looks weird to have an entirely farmed Saudi Arabia in the mid/late game, and at least graphically the oasis tiles look better to me (plus whatever farms do get created will then add +1 more food due to fresh water... right?)

• Persia is a mixed bag. Sometimes it goes no where and other times I've seen it beat India to that city spot on the west coast of India and then conquer Byzantium and Arabia.
• Polynesian AI does seem unable to use its UA to benefit its settlers.

Beating India to that city placement would annoy me I think. More on Persia and Polynesia below.

As for your recommendations:

I think you're right on Quebec, Cahokia, Maya and Inca.

I've seriously considered adding Antwerp on a few occassions. I'd wanted to avoid it so that the French or German AI will settle in the Alsace-Lorraine region but this does not seem to be happening consistently. I don't think the Netherlands would work as well given the already very tight nature of Europe. Warsaw was one of the back-up plans if Germany/Russia refused to settle Poland. So far I'm still of two minds about it. I'm quite against Austria at the moment, partly because of geography and partly because I think it's UA is rather overpowered.

I have, in my test map, thrown in some sheep and incense to that area north of Lhasa but it doesn't seem to have affected settlement patterns very much. Frankly though, I'm quite comfortable with it being left as a barren region.

Thanks! Agreed on the status-quo of Europe, as at least in my game technically Germany did go to Eastern Europe (and good point on Austria). Regarding the barren region, I see your point. I'd just rather have settlments there than see Frankfurt and Susa out in Siberia...

A couple of thoughts of my own:

Unless the modifications to England, Polynesia, Spain, Persia and Arabia make them any more viable I'm strongly considering cutting them from the map.

England needs to settle up in Scotland at least or it's simply not going to be able to compete. I'm a big fan of England both to play and to play against but if they can't compete as an AI their inclusion is debatable at best, especially as there is an alternative. What I'm going to explore is swapping England out for the Celts and placing the Celts up in Edinburgh to see if that helps. Resource placement in England/France would have to be adjusted to prevent France from running rampant over England but it has the potential to work. I am reasonably positive that the Celts have a stronger inclination to expansion than England has, though I need to double-check the XML.

I'd be interested to see how this tests out. It will have to be a pretty nifty trick to keep France from claiming up southern England, but an interesting test. As I said earlier, I'm more inclined to keep England in game.

Regarding Spain, Lisbon is also an easy stock CS (right?) swap out for the peninsula, which would open up Carthage to be more of a Mediterranean power (harbors everywhere, anyone?) rather than running south into Africa. Likewise, it would entice France to settle south, I'd think, which then in turn supports a stronger Germany start location, etc. AI Spain unfortunately has a rough time taking advantage of it's unique bonuses; on TSL maps if it's not given Gibraltar to start with, it's bonuses are basically useless. In short, I'd put Spain on the block next for European civs, if I had to...

I had high hopes for Polynesia, but it's so inconsistent and so utterly unable to do anything but meet everyone really early that their inclusion is little more than that of a city state. The fact that it is also a DLC is counting against it in my eyes.

Agreed. A bummer too---there are so many luxuries in Oceania... In fact, in my game they have literally denounced everyone and civs are basically asking me to DOW. Just making it easier for the US to go for Honolulu, I guess, which is great for this game, but I doubt will ever happen for an AI. Polynesia even has 2 settlers just sitting in within it's one city borders with no plans to expand! Very weird. I'd sacrifice having that extra civ slowing down the game for another civ that would be more of a competitor.

Persia and Arabia are a problem and, unlike the aforementioned, are intertwined. I think the region is simply too overcrowded and too awkward to give either a fair shot. I also think part of the problem is that Arabia's AI is simply not expansion-orientated, unlike Persia's. So, the plan being considered at the moment is to remove Arabia and reposition Persia to immediately on top of the Oil directly West of Persia's current placement. Honestly, I'm not happy about that and it is becoming increasingly tempting to buy the Babylon DLC and remove both Persia and Arabia and use it instead.

I have the Babylon DLC and would be willing to take a crack at adjusting the map for this very change. I think it will be impossible to keep Jerusalem if we want to accurately place Babylon, but then again, I'll make the effort.

Here's a tentative plan:

• Remove Spain, replace with Lisbon on western coast.
• Revamp British Isles to try to support stronger English settlements.
• Remove Arabia & Persia to include Babylon in TSL, while trying to keep Jerusalem (Mt. Sinai is really powerful for a civ that early...).
• Remove Polynesia.
• As such I'm removing 4 civs and only adding 1. These changes make it very tempting to add the Huns to the game (in Almaty's place?), but I'd rather not rock the boat too much.

I'm in no rush (still playing out this game), so if you'd like me to work those changes on a beta map you have been testing, just send my way.


Lastly, has Ethiopia always been the first to found a religion? In every G+K game I've played so far with them on the board they are first to claim one...

 

[bwoww78]

See attached ideas for British Isles (and some Atoll tiles for Denmark, etc.) as well as my idea for Babylon (vs. Persia and Arabia). Note that I did some resource replacement for England but nothing for Babylon. I just added a new desert flood plains tile for the starting location. This may be a good split between the two spots of Arabia and Persia...

Edit: now with attachments. Also, i DID add some Oasis tiles to the Saudi peninsula to add some food to the region...

 

[bwoww78]

ok last thing here is a screen shot of what i mean about Europe and Germany.

 

[Veneke]

I have the Babylon DLC and would be willing to take a crack at adjusting the map for this very change. I think it will be impossible to keep Jerusalem if we want to accurately place Babylon, but then again, I'll make the effort.

Here's a tentative plan:

• Remove Spain, replace with Lisbon on western coast.
• Revamp British Isles to try to support stronger English settlements.
• Remove Arabia & Persia to include Babylon in TSL, while trying to keep Jerusalem (Mt. Sinai is really powerful for a civ that early...).
• Remove Polynesia.
• As such I'm removing 4 civs and only adding 1. These changes make it very tempting to add the Huns to the game (in Almaty's place?), but I'd rather not rock the boat too much.

I'm in no rush (still playing out this game), so if you'd like me to work those changes on a beta map you have been testing, just send my way.


Lastly, has Ethiopia always been the first to found a religion? In every G+K game I've played so far with them on the board they are first to claim one...

Sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this. I've attached my testing map so you can take a look at it if you want.

In terms of changes to the published version, I think England is salvageable if its unique luxuries are spread out to Edinburgh and Dublin. That should facilitiate the AIs desire to obtain new luxury resources. I believe you actually mentioned this way back when but I disregarded it, very sorry about that it would appear that you were entirely correct.

Spain, Persia and Arabia I've kept for now; Spain because even with only two cities it's still somewhat viable, Persia & Arabia because I don't have the Babylon DLC. I have buffed Arabia's starting position though as discussed, which should help. Regarding Spain and Lisbon my initial thoughts were that if Spain were cut then Lisbon and Valetta would replace it, however, as they don't seem to be lagging too far behind I haven't given it much consideration.

Polynesia I've cut and a great deal of the changes you've suggested are included in the test map, including raging barbarians.

Ethiopia does seem to go heavy towards religion, this could be because their UB is a Monument which gives faith.

 

[iloveciv5]

Move Jerusalem up a tile, it's on the Sinai. Also put Mt. Sinai on the Sinai peninsula. Egypt then will have a chance to found Islam quickly(like on every earth map)! Egypt owned Mt. Sinai and has almost always owned it.

 

[Veneke]

Move Jerusalem up a tile, it's on the Sinai. Also put Mt. Sinai on the Sinai peninsula. Egypt then will have a chance to found Islam quickly(like on every earth map)! Egypt owned Mt. Sinai and has almost always owned it.

Thanks for the feedback. One of the driving factors in putting Jerusalem into an already overcrowded part of the map was to ensure that a city would definitely be available to act as a Suez canal.

Mt. Sinai is a bit of a toss-up. In earlier versions it was located where Egypt could get it rather quickly, a bit too quickly really. Unfortunately, there isn't a Sinai penisula worth mentioning in which to put it, the map simply isn't big enough to include that level of detail and not make it look all sorts of weird.

 

[bwoww78]

haven't had much time to edit, but will comment on your test map.

in the mean time, i totally placed Cerro de Potosi wonder incorrectly (it should be in present day Bolivia)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potos%C3%AD

it's probably for the better to at least remove it and most likely not replace it as I'm not sure south america needs another money producing natural wonder. perhaps remove el dorado (since we can more accurately place the cerro)?

just a thought

 

[Lachlan]

@Veneke :

Your map is great, one alone asking : when the next version will be downloadable ?

Why not activating all victories modes in same time ?

Thanks ! I liked to playing Carthage in current version GK"setc"

 

[Veneke]

Lachlan:

Unfortunately RL has reared its ugly head, so I haven't had the opportunity to playtest the potential changes to England and a few other bits and bobs. I'm not entirely positive that I'll be in a position to release by the end of the weekend, but I fully intend on doing so.

The 'normal' maps (the ones without SETC or SDD at the end) have all victory conditions enabled with no special settings.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the map!

 

[santoo]

thanks a lot for the map - very nice!

The 'normal' maps (the ones without SETC or SDD at the end) have all victory conditions enabled with no special settings.

could you please check again? I've been playing a looong game on the normal G&K map - although with DLC - and NONE of the victory conditions seem to be enabled?!
(I tried for UN, which I couldn't build, same with the spaceship. So I thought I'd conquer the world, which yielded no victory, and finishing utopia didn't help either. I've just passed turn 500 and - nada )

 

[Veneke]

Lachlan & all, the next version is up. Songhai now has horses and should no longer run quite so far ahead in pop so early and Arabia should do much better pop wise. Polynesia was removed, Rome was removed for the Vatican in the non-DLC map and a few other bits and bobs were changed which are more fully documented in the Readme.

One that I forgot to put in though was that I shifted India's starting position one hex west. This was to prevent Persia from settling along India's western coast which, if done, prevented Arabia from settling on the tip of the Saudi penisula. I'm afraid that I still do not have the Babylon DLC mainly because their inclusion will not solve the problem for the non-DLC map.

santoo - You're welcome. Glad to hear that you're enjoying it. Unfortunately, you're quite right; the non-special settings maps lacked for any kind of VCs. I'm not quite sure what happened there but it's fixed now. Very sorry that it buggered up your game.

bwoww78 - I am almost 100% positive that the Cerro refers to this mountain in Mexico: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Potosí

 

[bwoww78]

bwoww78 - I am almost 100% positive that the Cerro refers to this mountain in Mexico: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Potosí

Oh good! I'm sure that's what I was originally thinking when it was added..... ha thanks for the clarification.

 

[santoo]

santoo - You're welcome. Glad to hear that you're enjoying it. Unfortunately, you're quite right; the non-special settings maps lacked for any kind of VCs. I'm not quite sure what happened there but it's fixed now. Very sorry that it buggered up your game.

wow, that was quick! thanks a lot!
I was really astonished when playing on your map - a lot of civs seemed to settle their 2nd and sometimes 3rd cities pretty much where they should be geographically - very fun.

Two main observation from a long game

.) Incas don't seem to be a problem, being mountainblocked too long to matter - but mayans will be the runaway-civ (at least if human, but probably as AI too?). they block americans and iroquois from going south and can take (allmost) all of south-america, meso-america and, if early-expanding north, even a sizable part of north-america.

.) no one ever ever settles oceania. even when every piece of land is taken, even when there is dire need of uranium or aluminium - australia, indonesia & co remain empty. probably a ciV/AI-problem, not a map-problem. maybe use the space for another city-state or two? (OTOH: I was playing the version where all victory-conditions were turned OFF, so maybe the AI didn't look as much for conquest/expansioin as it otherwise would have? maybe both territorial gains and acquiring strategic ressources became non-issues?)

some other points:
.) russia ate up most neighbors in the late game and held what was surprisingly close to the USSR-territory at max. expansion. (in addition: russia started to dominate the game fairly early on)
.) india became a high-pop powerhouse, confined mostly to their subcontinent.
.) china & japan stayed mostly where they were supposed to be and remained rather inconspicuous
.) no civ in africa ever really took off (don't think there was a single wonder built in all of africa)
.) european civs did well tech & money-wise but never expanded much - largest european civ by # of cities: sweden, by far.
.) polynesia never expanded IIRC
.) very cool map to see AI-religious bias in! most civs got to found their preferred religion, which lead to rather appropriate distribution of religions: shinto and taoism were dominant in SEasia, christianity conquered europe (and after infecting russia, spread across their lands as well), islam held a good part of africa and one or two cities in the middle east. (btw: is there really not a single new-world religion in GaK?)

once again, thanks for quite an experience

 

[Veneke]

No worries, I'm glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the feedback.

I've found that city settlement is hit and miss across playthroughs, it seems to depend on how the random adjustment to the AI's expansion trait (it moves up or down by 2 every game from its base on a scale of 1-10 - this happens for all games, not just my maps).

A. This is a problem, usually either the Mayans or the Americans (provided the player isn't one or the other) will expand into South America. My current game has the Americans settling the entire South American continent after having thrashed the Mayans and Incas. bwoww78 suggested that the Aztecs could be put in S. America to avoid this problem but that takes shifting Civs slightly to an extreme I'm not comfortable with. An old Civ IV map got around this problem by putting ocean between North and South America but it looked ugly as sin. Unfortunately, I can't see a good solution to this without doing more extensive modding (eg. adding in a custom Civ, adjusting the base expansion traits for the Civs in America, etc).

B. I don't think this is an issue with victory conditions. The AI seems to have a mental block when it comes to anything beyond Jakarta. I have seen Japan settle in Indonesia but it's very rare. I've seen Civs settle up in Siberia or that dead desert between Lhasa and Almaty with no resources but Australia is treated like it has the plague. I don't know if the confluence of city states is affecting it or what but something does seem to be off. I don't think there are any more City States or Civs to add in down there though, unfortunately.

1. Russia usually does fairly well, yes. I've seen it get beat to the punch with regards settlement, but it's a rare game when they don't conquer far and wide. I'm actually rather pleased with Russia's performance, out of all the AIs on this map, I think they're the most consistent.
2. That happens in about half of my playthroughs, the other half of the time Persia will settle their second city southwest of Delhi and India will then usually expand into modern-day China.
3. Yes and this is a problem. Japan will, once in a blue moon, poke its toe either into Siberia or down into Indonesia, but its rare. China, for reasons I cannot fathom, typically does rather poorly.
4. Really? That now is odd. Africa usually ends up founding at least one religion (usually Ethiopia) and Egypt will normally grab a few wonders while either Carthage or Songhai die by the other's hand. That said, I was rather excited to see Spain take out Carthage and become a strong African power in my current game.
5. Now that's unusual. I've yet to see Sweden found more than two cities (its capital and one to its north - who knows why there and not to its west). Usually what I see after that is two of the following (Russia, France, Germany, Byzantium) conquer/settle the rest of Europe and remain at war for most of the game. The other two are typically killed off.
6. Polynesia should have been really exciting. Definitely the single most disappointing performance of any AI on the map to date given its opportunities.
7. That sounds perfect! Religion I've found a bit hit-and-miss, especially if any of the American Civs found a religion. Japan will usually pick up Shinto, India will generally get one and Ethiopia almost always gets Christianity. One thing I want to do, if it isn't too difficult, is expand the number of religions that can be founded from 5 to 7. If the Inca grab a religion, for instance, that typically makes for rather large blocky religions in the Old World. Oh and yeah, it's all Old World religions I'm afraid.

 

[santoo]

A. This is a problem, usually either the Mayans or the Americans (provided the player isn't one or the other) will expand into South America. [...]

I see, thanks for the explanation. would it be viable to add another CS in the middle/northern part of south-America, blocking of the rest? would that discourage (rapid) expansion southward, either from America or the Mayans, thereby giving the Incas some time to settle the southern part of south-America? or a really crazy amount of barbarians roaming the continent?

4. Really? That now is odd. Africa usually ends up founding at least one religion (usually Ethiopia) and Egypt will normally grab a few wonders while either Carthage or Songhai die by the other's hand. That said, I was rather excited to see Spain take out Carthage and become a strong African power in my current game.

well, to be more precise: all african nations lagged behind the european ones and most of asia technology-wise. Ethiopia did found the first religion, but they seemed to get into an early war with Egypt, thereby crippling the wonder-factory. none of the african nations got taken out (by AIs), unlike some european (Germany) and asian (Russia's neighbours) nations - but no african nation was ever in the top 5 score-wise

5. Now that's unusual. I've yet to see Sweden found more than two cities (its capital and one to its north - who knows why there and not to its west). Usually what I see after that is two of the following (Russia, France, Germany, Byzantium) conquer/settle the rest of Europe and remain at war for most of the game. The other two are typically killed off.

in my game, Russia & France divided the only 2 German cities amongst themselves (ca 1500AD?), while Byzantium remained more or less a one-city-nation (might have made some inroads into north-africa or the middle east, but lost those again).
so Spain, England, France, Byzantium ended up with 1 or 2 cities, while Sweden expanded to 6 or 7 - all of (realworld) Scandinavia, Poland, maybe even a city in north-western Russia

6. Polynesia should have been really exciting. Definitely the single most disappointing performance of any AI on the map to date given its opportunities.

agreed 100%. if it's not too much trouble, could you provide a version of the v3 DLC map for G&K with Polynesia included? yes, they are a waste if played by AI, but after seeing how bad the AI did, I wanted to try playing Polynesia myself to see how much potential it has (room to expand, no close rivals, early contact to both hemispheres, finally a use for Australia.. )

Oh and yeah, it's all Old World religions I'm afraid.

strange how I've never noticed that, until I've experienced them in a more realistic context...

two more observations:
.) everyone loves Hanoi. Whenever there were election-shenanigans and coups going on, it was here. NO other CS *ever* played a role in the espionage-game (and, in fact, all AIs seemed to have stopped maintaining relations with CSs post 1600AD or so - even while banking more than 50k gold). But Hanoi, they did love.

.) it's probably an AI-issue and has nothing to do with this map per se, anyway: Russia DOW'd twice on me for no reason - in situations where I had no foothold in the old world yet and they were landlocked (actually: super-landlocked, as they didn't even have open boarders with any coastal neighbors and no intention of capturing any coastal areas). They had literally no way of getting to me. The most boring 50-turn wars ever
Later on, on several occasions, nations shared intrigue with me of impending nautical invasions of my land from a couple of "friends" - yet no ship ever got near the new world

 

[bwoww78]

1. Might I suggest instead of the Aztecs in south America (which is admittedly a historical stretch) maybe, as suggested, a city state in modern Venezuela... La Venta is the best (g+k) vanilla city state left in the America's. I believe historically La Venta represents the Olmecs, which are of the yucatan region. It's at least accurate in that they would be a potential conflict for the Mayans and would help cover some more ground in south America without introducing another civ.

2. Speaking of other civs, maybe the only hope for Polynesia is to actually place their start position in the oceania pacific region, in line with some of the locations of its 2nd and 3rd city names (tonga, Samoa, etc.) I'm not sure how you mod their city name list, but if it's possible to rearrange to make Honolulu a lower tier city and a start position near those spices...

3. I have a few edits to your test map which I'll post once RL permits; most edits are minor but I think would be helpful (hence my previous (poor) attempt to double check cerro de potosi).

4. Funny, in my game as America (which explains how I kept Mayans and an expansionist Hiawatha in check) china was the tech lead with 4 cities and excellent relations for a long time with southeast Asia (Hanoi included). The Mongols actually kept the Russians in check but their age old wars kept them behind while china eventually took over a poorly defended India. As America, with porcelain tower and plenty of RAs, including one with my dear friend Gandhi, changed that Chinese ambition and resurrected the Indian empire with b17s. I eventually won in science.

In short, I guess my point here is that it might be worth taking a look at the current mix of city state types for balance. Lots of maritime friendships can make the AI imbalances, for example. Right now I think that's the prevailing CS type in this map. As a note, including more new g+k CS will increase variety (ie mercantile and religious).

 

[Veneke]

I see, thanks for the explanation. would it be viable to add another CS in the middle/northern part of south-America, blocking of the rest? would that discourage (rapid) expansion southward, either from America or the Mayans, thereby giving the Incas some time to settle the southern part of south-America? or a really crazy amount of barbarians roaming the continent?

La Venta, as bwoww78 suggests, is a possibility. It's not a great one because it should, technically speaking, be between the Mayans and the US and not the Mayans and the Inca. Also, given the fact that a city state south of the Mayan starting position won't actually prevent spread southwards I'm not sure it's a good fix. Ideally speaking it either needs to be populated with CSs, a south American Civ or transport there needs to be blocked. More barbarians though I think are probably warranted.

well, to be more precise: all african nations lagged behind the european ones and most of asia technology-wise. Ethiopia did found the first religion, but they seemed to get into an early war with Egypt, thereby crippling the wonder-factory. none of the african nations got taken out (by AIs), unlike some european (Germany) and asian (Russia's neighbours) nations - but no african nation was ever in the top 5 score-wise

Africa does seem less able to conquer other Civs than European ones, I'm not sure why because aside from Ethiopia none of them are particularly defensible. I'm not sure how to address there development any further either, the Songhai and the Egyptians have fantastic starting positions so unless someone can spot something the map has that is handicapping them, I'm inclined to suggest that this is a problem with the AI of the African Civs.

in my game, Russia & France divided the only 2 German cities amongst themselves (ca 1500AD?), while Byzantium remained more or less a one-city-nation (might have made some inroads into north-africa or the middle east, but lost those again).
so Spain, England, France, Byzantium ended up with 1 or 2 cities, while Sweden expanded to 6 or 7 - all of (realworld) Scandinavia, Poland, maybe even a city in north-western Russia

Russia and France dividing Germany is fairly typical. I've yet to figure out how to give Germany a better defensive starting position while maintaining some kind of accuracy.

England almost always ends up with 1 or 2 cities, tops. Byzantium and Spain usually. though not always, have 2 or 3 while it's an odd game where France doesn't have a number of cities. I've never seen Sweden go beyond 2 cities but it's good to hear that they can, if circumstances permit.

agreed 100%. if it's not too much trouble, could you provide a version of the v3 DLC map for G&K with Polynesia included? yes, they are a waste if played by AI, but after seeing how bad the AI did, I wanted to try playing Polynesia myself to see how much potential it has (room to expand, no close rivals, early contact to both hemispheres, finally a use for Australia.. )

Sure, I'll attach it to this post.

strange how I've never noticed that, until I've experienced them in a more realistic context...

two more observations:
.) everyone loves Hanoi. Whenever there were election-shenanigans and coups going on, it was here. NO other CS *ever* played a role in the espionage-game (and, in fact, all AIs seemed to have stopped maintaining relations with CSs post 1600AD or so - even while banking more than 50k gold). But Hanoi, they did love.

.) it's probably an AI-issue and has nothing to do with this map per se, anyway: Russia DOW'd twice on me for no reason - in situations where I had no foothold in the old world yet and they were landlocked (actually: super-landlocked, as they didn't even have open boarders with any coastal neighbors and no intention of capturing any coastal areas). They had literally no way of getting to me. The most boring 50-turn wars ever
Later on, on several occasions, nations shared intrigue with me of impending nautical invasions of my land from a couple of "friends" - yet no ship ever got near the new world

I've found that the AI can become fixated on certain City States. In my current game anything done for Kuala Lumpur is destined to be revoked in a few turns when someone coups it again. I haven't noticed Hanoi taking more attention than the others but I have noticed that everybody wants to conquer Jerusalem. Strangely they seem okay with other City States near their borders but Jerusalem seems to attract declarations like flies to a cow pat.

I'm reasonably certain that the problem with Russia is a map issue. The concentrated resource placement means that the AI desires far away territories you own because of the unique luxuries, while it desires nearby territories because of you're so close to them. The AI should realize what it can and can't reasonably accomplish and that is certainly an AI fault but the circumstances in which its placed in this map are different to the norm so depending on the AI's traits you may see more of this than in a typical game.

Fortunately (or not, depending), the intrigue issue is not a map problem. The problem here is that the AI likes to change its mind. In a normal game (random map) I received severals notices that Sweden had embarked a naval force to attack one of my cities. The third time I got this message I took a sub up to Sweden to see what the fuss was about. Apparently, their army was embarking and disembarking every dozen+ turns. It was almost like it calculated the force needed to take the city but once they got on water it seemed to think more were needed so put everything back on land and the cycle began once again!

1. Might I suggest instead of the Aztecs in south America (which is admittedly a historical stretch) maybe, as suggested, a city state in modern Venezuela... La Venta is the best (g+k) vanilla city state left in the America's. I believe historically La Venta represents the Olmecs, which are of the yucatan region. It's at least accurate in that they would be a potential conflict for the Mayans and would help cover some more ground in south America without introducing another civ.

2. Speaking of other civs, maybe the only hope for Polynesia is to actually place their start position in the oceania pacific region, in line with some of the locations of its 2nd and 3rd city names (tonga, Samoa, etc.) I'm not sure how you mod their city name list, but if it's possible to rearrange to make Honolulu a lower tier city and a start position near those spices...

3. I have a few edits to your test map which I'll post once RL permits; most edits are minor but I think would be helpful (hence my previous (poor) attempt to double check cerro de potosi).

4. Funny, in my game as America (which explains how I kept Mayans and an expansionist Hiawatha in check) china was the tech lead with 4 cities and excellent relations for a long time with southeast Asia (Hanoi included). The Mongols actually kept the Russians in check but their age old wars kept them behind while china eventually took over a poorly defended India. As America, with porcelain tower and plenty of RAs, including one with my dear friend Gandhi, changed that Chinese ambition and resurrected the Indian empire with b17s. I eventually won in science.

In short, I guess my point here is that it might be worth taking a look at the current mix of city state types for balance. Lots of maritime friendships can make the AI imbalances, for example. Right now I think that's the prevailing CS type in this map. As a note, including more new g+k CS will increase variety (ie mercantile and religious).

I'm not sure about La Venta, but it's definitely worth a look. The same with moving Polynesia. China did well there. I've yet to see it but the fact that it's possible is the key point.

I think you're right - a review of the city states might well be in order. I'm not sure who's been left out but provided they're not in Europe then they should be free to include.


On another note. I'm trying to collect screenshots of the map in play. I've a few myself but if there are any interesting or cool situations that cropped up during your games on the map I'm very interested in putting them up on Steam.

 

[bwoww78]

La Venta, as bwoww78 suggests, is a possibility. It's not a great one because it should, technically speaking, be between the Mayans and the US and not the Mayans and the Inca.

perhaps that's an answer: (using the Onondaga gameplay principle) move the Mayan start position much closer Panama (enabling the strait which is a major plus on these types of maps...), place La Venta somewhere a bit north of it's TSL in mexico (giving it access to Cerro de Potosi?). This pits US vs. Iroqois to settle north America and Mayan vs. Inca to settle south america. If need be, you could easily slip one open hill near the Incan mountain range. The Inca are defensible with mountains and the Mayans would be defensible with only ~2 non coastal tiles to assault it's capital (if/until the Incas or others build up a navy).

i think it'd be worth a playtest. I'll mark it up in the test map you provided with my other thoughts and try to post that later.