Aeon mod, game 2 - USA

[MeteorPunch]

This is another test game of the mod I'm making, Civilization III Aeon. The story is told through images and comments from a game play perspective, rather than with elaborate storytelling

I have 3 goals for this play through:
1. Make sure everything works. Some recent improvements and changes have been added and I need to see how it pans out.
2. I usually play standard and small maps, but here I am playing the largest map size. It is 122x122 (14,884 tiles) and designed for 12 civs. The normal map is 100x100 (10,000 tiles) for 8 civs.
3. My warmongering ways have prevented me from getting enough playtime in the industrial and modern eras. I'm pretty certain this difficulty and map size will change that.

SETTINGS
Map Size: 122x122 (Huge)
Civs: 12
Difficulty: Emperor/Demigod equivalent
World: Archipelago

Spoiler :

BC 4000 Game start with lots of rivers.

BC 3823 First builds are scouts and canoes.

BC 3425 Contact is made with Russia to the east.

BC 3337 Boston founded.

BC 2850 Contact with the United Kingdom and Philadelphia founded.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

BC 2673 Contact with Korea.
BC 2407 Contact with India.

Future planning

BC 2230 Atlanta founded.

BC 1965 Contact with Italy.

BC 1832 Contact with Mexico and Mongolia. Traded for contacts with Germany, Spain, and Netherlands. Just need 1 last contact now.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

BC 1699 Chicago founded.

My canoe made it around the world and I got this! (not really)

BC 1522 Slave Market built in Washington.

BC 991 A Mongol city has been spotted on my island. I start moving units there to take it over.

BC 682 San Fransisco founded.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

BC 460 3500 years have passed and now the game begins. The Mongol city has hit size 2 allowing me to capture it. In addition, they founded a second city, this one to be razed.

MAP

BC 416 The Mongols ally Russia against me. That's okay, but I'm not sure what to do here with Mexico. I would prefer Mongolia and Mexico not to be at war yet, because I think whoever wins will become very powerful...not the kind of neighbor you want. I would rather wait until I'm ready to take one of them on, then cause war between them.

On the other hand war between the two is inevitable, and I really don't want to take the chance of having all 3 civs to end up against me. The price was steep..half my gold.

BC 372 Darhan destroyed.

 

[CommandoBob]

Just two quick questions.

1) Where can I find out more about this mod?

2) I really like your water (coastal/sea) graphics. Where did you get them?

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

BC 151 2 ships of 8 Mongol units arrive to take back Hovd. Luckily my ships scouted them early and I had offensive units waiting. Ugh, attrocious RNG though.

BC 151 Miami founded.

BC 106 Worst RNG ever continues! Contact with the final civ, Ethiopia is made.

End of BC. Mostly uneventful, peaceful expansion.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Just two quick questions.

1) Where can I find out more about this mod?

2) I really like your water (coastal/sea) graphics. Where did you get them?

I haven't made a real preview for it, so if you have any questions or suggestions, ask away. Basically it's an epic mod of the game that I'm hoping to have finished by the end of this month. A short rundown is:

24 civs, ~1250 units, new wonders and buildings and all that. A few big changes, but it still feels like Civ 3 mostly.

The terrain is "Snoopy's Terrain X," but I made it brighter green like "Snoopy's Terrain Greener." I did the recolor yesterday, so it's not available yet. I'll probably get it uploaded in a day or so.

 

[vmxa]

Looks like you liked the Civ4 circumnavigation award.

 

[wolf_brother]

I have a question; why are your units in dark blue (navy blue), but your cities in red?

 

[MeteorPunch]

Looks like you liked the Civ4 circumnavigation award.

Yeah that is pretty cool. I kinda expect to get that bonus when playing Civ 3, but it doesn't happen.

I have a question; why are your units in dark blue (navy blue), but your cities in red?

Glad you brought that up, I think a slight improvement has been made. Most of the civs have their flag colors used, and for America I wanted red/white/blue. While I could make a navy city panel - navy blue is unique to America, red and white as borders are really unavailable, as you can imagine, many civs would like to have those colors.

So it's been changed to all navy borders - the text conveniently acts as the white color.

Left (how it looked up til now), Center (opposite - doesn't look right), Right (current)

 

[MeteorPunch]

Update 2

Spoiler :

AD 159 Russia gets Italy to declare war on me. I don't even care, they are pretty far away.
AD 248 Italy gets UK to declare war on me.
AD 602 Middle Ages begin.
AD 614 Lots of uh, petty disputes going on. Kumbaya anyone?

AD 650 Mexico gets persuaded by someone (I forgot who) to declare war on me. which reminds me - I need to start preparing to invade them or Mongolia, one of the two.
AD 794 I've managed to get Italy, Ethiopia, Germany at war with me in the past ~10 turns, but signed peace with Mexico. Everyone is at war with someone, so I need only be worried about my closest rivals (Mongolia, Mexico, Russia, Spain). The global war acts as a buffer, rarely if ever do I get land invaded by anyone but those nearby.

An early exit for Britain. Many alliances were made against them in the beginning and I think Korea getting the Great Wall wonder sealed it.

AD 806 A small fleet is finally ready to strike the Mongol lands. The goal here is just to capture this one city and it's Cotton luxury, then sign peace. I have some infrastructure I need to build, and the invasion force has left my mainlands lightly defended...no reinforcements are coming here.

AD 818 Landing at Almarikh.

Another one down.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

AD 830 Feasting Hall completes in Washington. I lost 3 units during the AI's turn, but had enough left to capture Almarikh and sign for peace.

AD 842 Guildhall completes in Boston.
AD 854 Netherlands coaxes Russia into a war with me, great. My Russian border/coastal cities are pretty terribly defended.

AD 962 Mongolia and Mexico have built some powerful era-specific wonders and Mongolia begins a golden age...Gotta get some D to my little cotton town quick. I get peace with Russia.

AD 1046 Hmm...are you thinking what I am? Magna Carta puts a courthouse in every city, so I cancel all courthouse builds and send units to Miami for another little invasion.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

AD 1082 First invasion group arrives in Almarikh and more are coming with most core cities producing units full time now.

AD 1118 Heavy losses, but Ulaanbataar falls and my courthouse coup completes. Rather than a short war though I should probably go ahead and try to kill them off, there's no reason not to now with my civ in full war mode and if I don't, I think Mexico will.
AD 1142 Nuevo Leon captured.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

AD 1166 Korea lands 4 Knight by a new undefended city...good thing a peace deal was available.

Tabriz falls. Thanks Mexico for softening their defense for me! Tatu is captured as well and my first MGL is created.

AD 1190 Kazan is captured and a stack of 7 lands outside of Choybalsan.

AD 1214 Heroic Epic completes in Atlanta. Choybalsan captured.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

AD 1226 Karakorum captured and for the first time in ages, I'm at peace with everyone.

 

[BuckyRea]

Most of the civs have their flag colors used, and for America I wanted red/white/blue. While I could make a navy city panel - navy blue is unique to America, red and white as borders are really unavailable, as you can imagine, many civs would like to have those colors.

So it's been changed to all navy borders - the text conveniently acts as the white color.

I was wondering the same thing, but your answer doesn't explain how you did that with your units blue, but your cities red? I've changed civ colors before, but they always just have one color. Did you go deeper in the programming that what the customization window normally allows? You must have if you've made the Magellen wonder contingent on circumnavigation like Civ4 has.

Did you also set up the Great Wall wonder to copy Civ 4?

Last question: Can you post your tech trees, or are you still modding them?

Eagerly following this thread.

 

[MeteorPunch]

I was wondering the same thing, but your answer doesn't explain how you did that with your units blue, but your cities red? I've changed civ colors before, but they always just have one color. Did you go deeper in the programming that what the customization window normally allows? You must have if you've made the Magellen wonder contingent on circumnavigation like Civ4 has.

That part was a joke, I wish I could do that though.

The colors I changed are really easy to do. In the palette folder (civ 3\art\units\palettes) you edit the Civ colors. From Rhye's palette editing tutorial:

• N.64 contains the colour of the inner pixels of the city borders in the game.
• N.65 contains the outer pixels of the borders.
• N.66 contains the colour used for disc under units, histograph and mini-map.
• N.67 is unknown.
• N.68 contains the colour of the cities.
• N.69 contains the colour of the name of the civ in histograph.

Did you also set up the Great Wall wonder to copy Civ 4?

No it's the same Civ 3 one.

Last question: Can you post your tech trees, or are you still modding them?

Okay here are the Industrial and Modern tech trees for USA. I consider these to be sort've the best of the best in that there's lots of units available here for the USA. Germany is probably the "best" of the Industrial era though, with UK/Italy/Russia about on par with USA here.

The medieval and ancient era tech trees are not nearly as interesting in my opinion, with the ancient one I really don't even like.

Techs and science in general work differently in this mod, so there's reasons why it's set up different from the original tech trees.

Spoiler :

 

[MeteorPunch]

Update 3

I looked into the difficulty settings some more and determined that this game I'm playing is more of a Emperor/Demigod level, not Deity, so I've changed the opening post to reflect that.

Spoiler :

AD 1298 Mexico and Ethiopia begin their golden ages. I was planning on building city improvements and military for awhile before trying to attack Mexico, but allowing them 20 turns of golden age time to build up an army would be a mistake.

AD 1334 Mexican front. I'm letting them strike first against my defenders, hoping they hold and allowing my attackers to counterattack and clear their wounded units.

AD 1346 4 attackers hit Almarikh during the AI turn, nothing major, but some silly AI units decided to try to make a train to my undefended workers, leaving themselves open to attack.

AD 1370 The third round of Mexican attacks was weak so I'll start my attack. Guadalajara captured.
AD 1394 Monterrey captured and I get a second Leader.

AD 1406 Puebla captured.
AD 1430 Chihuahua captured.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

AD 1466 Acapulco captured and 3 MGL created. I have 30 cities, just enough for a third Army (1 per 10 cities).

AD 1490 Mexico City and Merida captured, giving me control of the ex-Mongol/Mexican continent.

AD 1514 Landings made on Mexico's small remaining continent.

The colonialism tech will be learned in 4 turns which will allow settlers to be built (until now they were time-released/autoproduced). I need to build some transport ships and have them ready to go for when I can build some settlers and take over the last remaining lands that are left. Time for America to colonize the world?

AD 1526 Veracruz captured.
AD 1538 Queretaro captured.
AD 1550 Morelia captured.
AD 1562 Last 3 remaining Mexican cities surrounded and captured.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Spoiler :

AD 1622 Italy is a bunch of jerks - capturing my poor colonist city the turn after it is founded. Maybe I should have defended it or something.

AD 1646 Colonizing fail.

AD 1658 More Colonizing fail.

So I've caught myself playing apathetic and badly. I'm at war with Italy, Russia, and Ethiopia now, lost 4 recently built "colony towns," and am about to lose a fifth here.

AD 1742 Traffic jam between civs trying to kill me.