Terra map and an undiscovered land

[noto2]

Hi there, fellow civ fanatics. I have a 2 part question.

First: The terra map, do people find it plays much differently than a pangea map? I used to play terra a lot when I was new to civ, playing on noble, and of course I rushed to the new world often. Now I've moved up to a much higher difficulty and I find that the new world just isn't much of a factor in most of my games. The problem is astronomy comes so late that it's rarely worth it to put a lot of resources in colonizing the new world in any significant fashion, in my opinion. I might settle a city or two to grab some specific resources that I lack, especially things like coal and oil, but trying to settle many cities just doesn't seem a high priority, especially because usually what's happening in the old world in the renaissance age is major wars, and I simply can't afford to be focusing anywhere else. So to those of you who play, say, monarch and up, do you find the new world playing a major role in the majority of your terra map games?

Second: Does anyone know of a map script that creates a situation where there is more than 2 continents and one of them is uninhabited? So...like a continents/terra hybrid. Example: 3 continents, players only on 2 of them, and ocean separates all of them.

 

[noto2]

115 views and no replies

 

[Fluffy_Rabbit]

Pervs who like this map are mainly playing Earth18Civ - why play Terra when you can play the real thing?! I like Terra, played it once or twice, then there is RFC RAND, and the other RFC variants - Terra has no point in the context of much better maps/scenarios.

And btw I am just being cheesy and promoting my own Earth18Civ map - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=480606

Though the above comments are correct :/

I mean, shizzriously, why play Terra with the RFC mods/scenarios out there. Forget my crappy map, just ain't a happening thing, d00d x

 

[noto2]

but Terra and the earth map are not the same thing at all. The earth map is basically a scenario with the same map each time. The terra map is randomized, the only thing that is the same about it between games is that there are two continents with all the players starting on one.

 

[Manco Capac]

The particularity I just found about Terra is its innate boost for corp-fueled space colony race. After stomping the old world, you just settled strategic cities in the new world for more mining corp hammers or suchi food. If done correctly, might end up with ~18-20 and 35~40 , which goes way over the possible power of SP.

 

[Dr.Null]

Sometimes I wish there were a script for Pangaea + Australia. Not a whole big "new world" out there, but a decent reward for winning the race to Astronomy and being first to settle it.

 

[Manco Capac]

^
Play Joao II.

 

[noto2]

Sometimes I wish there were a script for Pangaea + Australia. Not a whole big "new world" out there, but a decent reward for winning the race to Astronomy and being first to settle it.

Yes, I would love to play that. The new world is far too big to grab all for yourself, I agree.

 

[nekom]

One interesting thing I've found, and you'll need worldbuilder to set this up unless someone out there has a script for it, is playing in Terra and moving your settler to the new world. Especially with raging barbs. It's an interesting experience. Until optics, you're out of the tech trading loop but in time you can build plenty of good cities before anyone else shows up.

 

[elmurcis]

Yes, I would love to play that. The new world is far too big to grab all for yourself, I agree.

Make vassal state with 3 first cities from 1 side, than settle few cities that you "must have" there.. and that land is yours

 

[nfw]

You can use a mod with revolution build in, so the barb cities in the new world develop into full fledged civs by the time you encounter them.

 

[noto2]

that's not the point. The point is that in every other kind of map all the islands are accessible with galleys, so that by turn 120-160 all land is claimed already. I like the idea that some land has to be won through superior technology, I just wish there were more options with the map scripts. The default scripts are so boring. Pangea is boring as hell. Continents maps have no other landmass to explore. MandS and BandS maps are just weird - you get snaky continents, millions of 2 tiles islands, and really imbalanced starting positions, and of course fractal maps are horribly imbalanced as well. Terra is okay but often just ends up playing like pangea. I really just want something that is 3 continents, all separated by ocean, and 1 continent uninhabited.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

You could trying playing an Islands map, but that's not exactly what you're describing, and it's not all that exciting, in an "everybody's-isolated" kinda way.

 

[nfw]

Or set the number of continents to number of civ plus 1

 

[Dr.Null]

Or set the number of continents to number of civ plus 1

Wouldn't that guarantee isolation? (... plus Australia.)

Not really the same thing as Pangaea plus Australia.

 

[lindsay40k]

So to those of you who play, say, monarch and up, do you find the new world playing a major role in the majority of your terra map games?

Yes.

In some games, the AI wastes time on settlers whilst I send over like nine veteran units to conquer the semi-developed cities ready made by indigenous peop- sorry, Barbarians. I then grant independence to my New World colony and have a grovelling Washington declare me space pope.

In some other games, the AI gets so distracted with its colonisation drive, it fails to notice that I wasn't satisfied with the two Civs I conquered with Elepults and Macemen, and all get crushed by my CRIII Rifles and CombatIV Cavalry.

In some other games, my GLH economy gets super-charged by trading with my and other people's colonies, and I binge on Factories without fear of Global Warming flattening my Towns on account of that massive forest nobody's going to get cleared before I press a win button.

And in some other games, I send a letter from my three Legendary cities to everyone else congratulating them on finally clearing all that jungle from their rubbish little coastal cities costing them 20GPT.

By far the most important non-Pangaea element of Terra is the Australasia-style archipelago it usually spawns. If you're near that and get GHL, brace yourself for epic trade economy. I've yet to see a New World with a unique resource that's anywhere near as effective as that slingshot.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you have a blistering tech pace you can often settle up the new world with SP-workshops, and that's fun for flavor, but it's usually hard to justify doing that instead of just killing people.

Unfortunately that leaves the only point of Terra being what tachy describes: it functions quite well for abusing the old world because you don't have to worry about tripping domination.

Some fractal maps have useful landmasses where nobody starts...up to 4-5 good cities per. However, NO randomly generated map in this game is going to be balanced consistently, because firaxis doesn't do balance. Even on pangaea or continents, they consider 1 dry rice and a flood plain the equivalent of 2 riverside corns and 2 gems. They FAR over-weigh the value of early forests, far under-weigh the early value of a 6 yield food tile, and don't factor relative expansion positions whatsover...meaning even on pangaea you occasionally see an AI with 20% of the land or more (I've seen 25%) without fighting a war/flipping anything. 7 civs, and one gets 25%? Really?

Continents can be even worse. One civ spawns on the coast, the other in the middle of the continent, and there's nobody on the other coast. HERP 28% land. So that's part of civ, unless you want to play pre-made balanced MP maps or get a SLIGHTLY more balanced scenario like wheel or hub...you're going to have land screwjobs.

 

[damerell]

I like the idea that some land has to be won through superior technology

It would help if (although, this way leads the madness of the various grab-bag mods) there was more than one technology that gave access to territory, and that map scripts bore that in mind, so that you could go steadily further from land...

 

[Lord_Herobrine]

I would love it if there was a way to buy/claim large tracts of land without having to immediately rush a band of settlers. Think Louisiana Purchase.

 

[Apricottage]

The problem is that infrastructure takes so long to build up that new colony cities are just rarely worth the effort. In order to get them onto the scale of some of your real cities, you need to spend tons of worker turns and hammers, all at the cost of increased maintenance costs during that period. It sucks, but what are you going to do?