AGoN (A Game of Nations) preview thread
- Thread starter Nanuk
- Start date
A lot of where I was before has been rebuilt up to that point. I have some ways to go yet to get to the stage I was at before (balance testing and more unit diversity), but it's going much faster this time around than when I was first trying to figure out the direction of my mod. Right now I'm at the stage of re-sorting the units into the editor library (there's a lot, including culture and era-specific units), compiling their root folders into the pediaicons file, and rewriting the civilopedia. After that it's a quick test to make sure all unit sounds and animations won't crash the game, and re-making the map. Once that's all done, it will be ready for initial release. I won't test game progression too thoroughly, so there may be issues with that (some civs may just overpower and destroy all the other civs before you even meet them, tech progression may be too slow/too fast, some civs may get stuck on certain tasks too much, etc...). I also won't test balance as that is where I was before I lost everything, and I can't remember all the issues I found. So those who will actually play the scenario will have some rough edges to deal with until they all get smoothed out over updates.
I was also reworking some unit sounds I had made to be timed better but I may just push out the rough cuts for now, or use generic/other modder sounds until I can get it all timed better. Some of the sounds may be too ambitious (line infantry battle sounds became problematic depending on how I cut them up and what units they faced in battle).
Once E is done being polished, I'll work on the random map version which will have classic/vanilla difficulty and rules (mostly).
I'll post pictures once I'm at the stage of finishing the map. Expect a huge size mod file though. Easily 3GB. It could be downsized a whole gig but I found it much easier for myself to manage files by including all unit sound files in the specific unit folder, even sounds that many units share. My very first effort at trying to manage sound files with a shared root folder just had too many errors for me to not give up on over and over.
I will post updates when I get the map done if people want a very early rough copy to actually test. Otherwise I ask you wait for initial release if you just want the units.
I was also reworking some unit sounds I had made to be timed better but I may just push out the rough cuts for now, or use generic/other modder sounds until I can get it all timed better. Some of the sounds may be too ambitious (line infantry battle sounds became problematic depending on how I cut them up and what units they faced in battle).
Once E is done being polished, I'll work on the random map version which will have classic/vanilla difficulty and rules (mostly).
I'll post pictures once I'm at the stage of finishing the map. Expect a huge size mod file though. Easily 3GB. It could be downsized a whole gig but I found it much easier for myself to manage files by including all unit sound files in the specific unit folder, even sounds that many units share. My very first effort at trying to manage sound files with a shared root folder just had too many errors for me to not give up on over and over.
I will post updates when I get the map done if people want a very early rough copy to actually test. Otherwise I ask you wait for initial release if you just want the units.
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wolf_66
Lone Civer
Hi There
sorry to bump but I'm really curious about situation....
thanks
sorry to bump but I'm really curious about situation....
thanks
Ivghenii
Chieftain
Hello)
Some good news about the mod?
Some good news about the mod?
Good news? Not abandoned. My life has taken a bitter turn for a little bit, but I'm doing okay. I'll get back on this full-swing when I find the focus. I've been doing tiny bits of this project when I can. I downloaded a bunch of Delta's new units but then had to stop myself because it would just bloat the project. Right now I'm still working on ancient and medieval units.
What a mess - after dropping the project for many months due to life just going all bad, I'm starting to hate that I made no documentation of what I was doing, things I found out, planned fixes for errors, etc... I'm looking at upwards of 10GB of very messy work to sort through. The final project won't be that big. There's a lot of units, sound files, artwork, etc that won't get used but now I have to figure out which ones I meant to ditch and which ones keep. All of Gwendoline's units made for this mod will be keepers, of course. I did a lot of customizing of animations for several units downloaded from this database, and right now I have to figure out which ones those were. I'm flipping off my past self, for not documenting my progress.
It doesn't help that at the time when I was better motivated and life was pretty okay, I was working on seven different game mods at once (Civ 3, Civ 5, Superpower 2, Sims 3, Red Alert 2, Tiberian Sun, and Project Zomboid). So my desktop is an utter mess right now. Going to focus on Civ 3 only until it gets released, this time.
It doesn't help that at the time when I was better motivated and life was pretty okay, I was working on seven different game mods at once (Civ 3, Civ 5, Superpower 2, Sims 3, Red Alert 2, Tiberian Sun, and Project Zomboid). So my desktop is an utter mess right now. Going to focus on Civ 3 only until it gets released, this time.
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Ivghenii
Chieftain
: hatsoff:
If you guys are wondering about current progress, I ditched my 222x222 custom-made map from scratch. I just couldn't get the size of certain regions the way I wanted them to be without it being extremely warped. This was honestly the biggest roadblock to the mod other than time to make all the custom units (still ongoing but won't stop mod from being released with placeholder units). Finally decided to bump it up to 362x362. Downloaded Yoda Power's Earth map as a template. Wiped all the resources (my mod will have alternate resources) and set all tiles down to one. Then started heavily modifying the shape, sometimes redoing entire continents (Europe, NA, SA, Australia are all completely hand made from scratch, but also several regions like Japan are completely redone). So far done with the first pass on the basic form and finished with the Americas and most of Europe (may go back to do touch-ups as I test out city placement). Here's a preview;
As you can see, it's not a 1-to-1 representation of many things, including terrain types. A lot of choices were made for gameplay reasons, some were made for visual appeal. For example the desert tiles in Nunavut - since Tundra doesn't border with plains or desert, I used desert and plains tiles a lot in the arctic regions. In the game, desert and tundra will also be barren and will only allow limited worker actions. Hills and mountains are also going to be mostly barren and largely impassible to most units. Other times rivers that are frequently used by navies were turned into coastal tiles to allow movement of ships deep inland. For example the St. Lawrence is a narrow straight that runs into land tiles as chokepoints. Thus the player can build strategic cities along this route to canal deep inland into the Great Lakes, just like in the real world. Other times this was decided against for various reasons across other regions (for example gameplay or visual appeal).
I tried to otherwise make the Earth as recognizable as possible. But you may still seem odd things that just passed my attention. If you notice a region that has curious terrain choices (pine forests instead of jungle or regular forests or where there should be none, for example), then let me know. More than likely it was done for gameplay or visual appeal reasons, but I'm open to modifying it based on someone who's been to/lived in those regions and know the topography and history better. Keep in mind, this is not the finished product but just a preview. After the design phase of the world map is complete, I'll make several more passes as I begin plotting city locations, historic battlegrounds, etc...
The unit rosters have changed drastically, so ignore the list I posted earlier that shows how unit hierarchy will look. The new design will be based on unit formations (infantry battalions, air combat wings or squadrons, ancient warbands and cohorts, etc...). The civilizations that will be present in the mod have also changed.
Also in the future, I'll post most previews in my discord server, as it is easier for smaller updates and talking back and forth about mod progress. Big updates will be posted here for sharing and discussion. If you're interested in that, let me know and I'll send you a discord invite.
This will be an epic-slow-paced game. I put in a lot of flavor units and slowed things down a lot. Some time periods will go quickly, but I'm trying to balance it so that the Space Age (1950 - 22nd century) doesn't start until about 400-500 turns in. Being that some people won't want to play for this long, my initial completed test pass I will use a multiplayer tool to play as all the civs, and will progress as close to real history as possible. Releasing save games for certain time periods (Rise of Rome, American Revolution, WW2, etc...)
PS: the Earth scenario name has been changed from AGON:E to Saga. AGON will be the main folder mod to come long after Saga is completed, and will be as completely balanced for random playthroughs as possible (whereas in Saga, the choice of which civ you play will determine the difficulty level).
As you can see, it's not a 1-to-1 representation of many things, including terrain types. A lot of choices were made for gameplay reasons, some were made for visual appeal. For example the desert tiles in Nunavut - since Tundra doesn't border with plains or desert, I used desert and plains tiles a lot in the arctic regions. In the game, desert and tundra will also be barren and will only allow limited worker actions. Hills and mountains are also going to be mostly barren and largely impassible to most units. Other times rivers that are frequently used by navies were turned into coastal tiles to allow movement of ships deep inland. For example the St. Lawrence is a narrow straight that runs into land tiles as chokepoints. Thus the player can build strategic cities along this route to canal deep inland into the Great Lakes, just like in the real world. Other times this was decided against for various reasons across other regions (for example gameplay or visual appeal).
I tried to otherwise make the Earth as recognizable as possible. But you may still seem odd things that just passed my attention. If you notice a region that has curious terrain choices (pine forests instead of jungle or regular forests or where there should be none, for example), then let me know. More than likely it was done for gameplay or visual appeal reasons, but I'm open to modifying it based on someone who's been to/lived in those regions and know the topography and history better. Keep in mind, this is not the finished product but just a preview. After the design phase of the world map is complete, I'll make several more passes as I begin plotting city locations, historic battlegrounds, etc...
The unit rosters have changed drastically, so ignore the list I posted earlier that shows how unit hierarchy will look. The new design will be based on unit formations (infantry battalions, air combat wings or squadrons, ancient warbands and cohorts, etc...). The civilizations that will be present in the mod have also changed.
Spoiler Saga Civilizations :
Also in the future, I'll post most previews in my discord server, as it is easier for smaller updates and talking back and forth about mod progress. Big updates will be posted here for sharing and discussion. If you're interested in that, let me know and I'll send you a discord invite.
This will be an epic-slow-paced game. I put in a lot of flavor units and slowed things down a lot. Some time periods will go quickly, but I'm trying to balance it so that the Space Age (1950 - 22nd century) doesn't start until about 400-500 turns in. Being that some people won't want to play for this long, my initial completed test pass I will use a multiplayer tool to play as all the civs, and will progress as close to real history as possible. Releasing save games for certain time periods (Rise of Rome, American Revolution, WW2, etc...)
PS: the Earth scenario name has been changed from AGON:E to Saga. AGON will be the main folder mod to come long after Saga is completed, and will be as completely balanced for random playthroughs as possible (whereas in Saga, the choice of which civ you play will determine the difficulty level).
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I think it looks mighty fine!
Gwendoline makes excellent units. He and I have been workshopping together for a while now. I've also been getting practice with Poser and plan to make a good chunk of units myself.
My mod will start in 10,000 BC and run (that is to say, have progress and content) until 2200 AD. The sci-fi units will represent advances in mechanized and armored warfare in the 21st and 22nd centuries. In the lore of the mod, large battle mechs will arrive with the proliferation of railguns in anti-armor roles, typically around 2050-2100 AD, though this can vary based on player experience.
As combat becomes more and more urbanized, and mines become as common as bullets, the need for taller and more agile weapons platforms arise. Taller vehicles disperse mine blasts better, and coincidentally can also have a height advantage in urban combat. Heavy battle mechs will operate independent of infantry, and so can outfit more powerful APS countermeasures such as magnetic and reactive armors, whereas regular tanks have to take into account any friendly infantry in the area that could become secondary casualties due to an overzealous use of APS. The big bad monsters of the 22nd century will be heavy battle mechs with hundreds of drones, and armed with massive railguns capable of MOAB-like destruction. However, these units will be extremely expensive and only a few civilizations will even be able to build them. They're so powerful that if one side has no heavy battle mechs, they are almost guaranteed to lose the war if they don't focus on destroying all enemy battle mechs. Heavy battle mechs will be offensive monsters but defensively only as strong as any other mechanized unit. So stack plenty of protection with them, and let them bombard and attack.
The Wolverine will represent one of several light mech battalions, which will be similar to mechanized infantry, and are there purely as flavor. They offer negligible differences in stats. In the lore, they exist merely as a consequence of armored walkers becoming the ideal vehicle in a mine-heavy environment. Light mechs are disposable and are built to survive initial strikes from mines and anti-vehicle weapons, and also carry less crew (one or two).
However, as nations have done with every weapon platform ever, someone gets the bright idea of expanding the walker platform for more general purpose use instead of specialized vehicles. Thus models like the Star Wars AT-TE come into play, where certain civilizations adopt a doctrine of turning armored walkers into troop transport and equipping them with railguns. They will be less agile than light mechs, and so can still potentially lose a fight to a lighter-armed and armored foe, and much weaker than heavy mechs and so will almost always lose a fight to that foe. However, their defense strength is increased since they carry infantry. But, this makes them more prone to bombardment since they'll be near the head of the line of any stack. But hey, some armies figure it's worth it even if it's a disaster on paper. As is so often the case in military history.
Robocop's ED-209 will represent the proliferation of drones on the ground, and will be one of several field drone units. In the lore, even though population is increasing, for 21st and 22nd centuries civilizations to thrive they must shift their economies away from the mobilization of their citizens and instead focus on the welfare of their population. This staves off social upheaval and civil wars. However, geopolitics remains as hostile as ever, if not more so than at any other time in history with the proliferation of WMD's and general weapons capable of decimating an entire nation in the opening hours of a war. The balance for this arrives with the mass production of automated societies. Robots will become the majority of the workforce by 2100. And so military doctrines shift to follow suit, and robots will comprise the majority of modern nations' armies. In the game, they will be much cheaper than even basic infantry, and won't require population support. Initially I was also making them one of the few units that didn't require financial support, but I removed that completely from the game to keep lag down. The downside is they are much weaker and less mobile, to represent the huge amount of logistics a nation has to pour into their upkeep and mobility.
The Star Wars LAAT will be one of several dropships in the mod. Dropships are more expensive versions of helicopters, however they have infinite range. In the lore, as mankind becomes more and more active in space, the ability to field military shuttles in orbit becomes more readily available. The doctrine for these units is to take mounts into orbit and then wait for the planet's rotation and the dropship's momentum to take them to their target. This is one of those "somehow more complicated yet more feasible"-things of the future. With advances in armor due to the requirements of speed and protection in space, dropships are sturdier than helicopters yet use less fuel. They also don't require refueling over long ranges like jets and helicopters due, since the majority of their flight time is spent in orbit where their engines are almost completely inactive. However dropping off anything more than infantry is not a good idea. ...well unless you're the nation that decided giant troop transport walkers were a good idea, so of course your mad scientists and generals think "how can I take this into space and back?" Thus the LAAT/c built for dropping of AT-TE's is also in the mod. Figured that's a balance to the nation that decides to make counter-intuitive walkers.
The ODST droppod is one of several that isn't really a unit. It's just a custom animation for paradrop ability. In the lore, orbital drop troopers also exist. Just like we have HALO/HAHO operatives now, as soon as we go into space the military figures "how can I throw people back at the Earth without killing them?" Thus, the droptrooper is born. As with most units, they'll have unique names based on their version and civilization. Droptroopers are just paratroopers with infinite range. Like paratroopers, they have great offensive, but lack in defense. You take a huge risk dropping them into areas that have heavy enemy activity, since they can be wiped out. But maybe this is like H-Hour 1944, and you kind of intend them to be wiped out just to divert as much enemy attention away from the beaches as possible.
The unit library is huge. This is only a taste of some of the mechanics and flavors offered. As always, the player will probably be able to cheese the AI to death even playing the weakest civs. But if you really want to annihilate your forces, you'll make heavy use of the array of specialty units (spy planes, short and long range artillery, CAS, cruise missiles, special forces, etc etc...). But like I said, you can just cruise along fine building a short selection. Most of the units will be nothing more than flavor units. The AI almost definitely won't have a wide selection. Though I will release save games where I've taken control of several AI civs to sort of drive human history along for players who don't want to play 750 turns to get to the 22nd century. These civs will have a wide selection available at least at the start.
My mod will start in 10,000 BC and run (that is to say, have progress and content) until 2200 AD. The sci-fi units will represent advances in mechanized and armored warfare in the 21st and 22nd centuries. In the lore of the mod, large battle mechs will arrive with the proliferation of railguns in anti-armor roles, typically around 2050-2100 AD, though this can vary based on player experience.
As combat becomes more and more urbanized, and mines become as common as bullets, the need for taller and more agile weapons platforms arise. Taller vehicles disperse mine blasts better, and coincidentally can also have a height advantage in urban combat. Heavy battle mechs will operate independent of infantry, and so can outfit more powerful APS countermeasures such as magnetic and reactive armors, whereas regular tanks have to take into account any friendly infantry in the area that could become secondary casualties due to an overzealous use of APS. The big bad monsters of the 22nd century will be heavy battle mechs with hundreds of drones, and armed with massive railguns capable of MOAB-like destruction. However, these units will be extremely expensive and only a few civilizations will even be able to build them. They're so powerful that if one side has no heavy battle mechs, they are almost guaranteed to lose the war if they don't focus on destroying all enemy battle mechs. Heavy battle mechs will be offensive monsters but defensively only as strong as any other mechanized unit. So stack plenty of protection with them, and let them bombard and attack.
The Wolverine will represent one of several light mech battalions, which will be similar to mechanized infantry, and are there purely as flavor. They offer negligible differences in stats. In the lore, they exist merely as a consequence of armored walkers becoming the ideal vehicle in a mine-heavy environment. Light mechs are disposable and are built to survive initial strikes from mines and anti-vehicle weapons, and also carry less crew (one or two).
However, as nations have done with every weapon platform ever, someone gets the bright idea of expanding the walker platform for more general purpose use instead of specialized vehicles. Thus models like the Star Wars AT-TE come into play, where certain civilizations adopt a doctrine of turning armored walkers into troop transport and equipping them with railguns. They will be less agile than light mechs, and so can still potentially lose a fight to a lighter-armed and armored foe, and much weaker than heavy mechs and so will almost always lose a fight to that foe. However, their defense strength is increased since they carry infantry. But, this makes them more prone to bombardment since they'll be near the head of the line of any stack. But hey, some armies figure it's worth it even if it's a disaster on paper. As is so often the case in military history.
Robocop's ED-209 will represent the proliferation of drones on the ground, and will be one of several field drone units. In the lore, even though population is increasing, for 21st and 22nd centuries civilizations to thrive they must shift their economies away from the mobilization of their citizens and instead focus on the welfare of their population. This staves off social upheaval and civil wars. However, geopolitics remains as hostile as ever, if not more so than at any other time in history with the proliferation of WMD's and general weapons capable of decimating an entire nation in the opening hours of a war. The balance for this arrives with the mass production of automated societies. Robots will become the majority of the workforce by 2100. And so military doctrines shift to follow suit, and robots will comprise the majority of modern nations' armies. In the game, they will be much cheaper than even basic infantry, and won't require population support. Initially I was also making them one of the few units that didn't require financial support, but I removed that completely from the game to keep lag down. The downside is they are much weaker and less mobile, to represent the huge amount of logistics a nation has to pour into their upkeep and mobility.
The Star Wars LAAT will be one of several dropships in the mod. Dropships are more expensive versions of helicopters, however they have infinite range. In the lore, as mankind becomes more and more active in space, the ability to field military shuttles in orbit becomes more readily available. The doctrine for these units is to take mounts into orbit and then wait for the planet's rotation and the dropship's momentum to take them to their target. This is one of those "somehow more complicated yet more feasible"-things of the future. With advances in armor due to the requirements of speed and protection in space, dropships are sturdier than helicopters yet use less fuel. They also don't require refueling over long ranges like jets and helicopters due, since the majority of their flight time is spent in orbit where their engines are almost completely inactive. However dropping off anything more than infantry is not a good idea. ...well unless you're the nation that decided giant troop transport walkers were a good idea, so of course your mad scientists and generals think "how can I take this into space and back?" Thus the LAAT/c built for dropping of AT-TE's is also in the mod. Figured that's a balance to the nation that decides to make counter-intuitive walkers.
The ODST droppod is one of several that isn't really a unit. It's just a custom animation for paradrop ability. In the lore, orbital drop troopers also exist. Just like we have HALO/HAHO operatives now, as soon as we go into space the military figures "how can I throw people back at the Earth without killing them?" Thus, the droptrooper is born. As with most units, they'll have unique names based on their version and civilization. Droptroopers are just paratroopers with infinite range. Like paratroopers, they have great offensive, but lack in defense. You take a huge risk dropping them into areas that have heavy enemy activity, since they can be wiped out. But maybe this is like H-Hour 1944, and you kind of intend them to be wiped out just to divert as much enemy attention away from the beaches as possible.
The unit library is huge. This is only a taste of some of the mechanics and flavors offered. As always, the player will probably be able to cheese the AI to death even playing the weakest civs. But if you really want to annihilate your forces, you'll make heavy use of the array of specialty units (spy planes, short and long range artillery, CAS, cruise missiles, special forces, etc etc...). But like I said, you can just cruise along fine building a short selection. Most of the units will be nothing more than flavor units. The AI almost definitely won't have a wide selection. Though I will release save games where I've taken control of several AI civs to sort of drive human history along for players who don't want to play 750 turns to get to the 22nd century. These civs will have a wide selection available at least at the start.
Scrapped all of Africa and all of Asia, then started over. Also added most-if not all-of the islands to be in the mod. Progress so far;
Results are not final, but I am happy with the overall form of the continents now. Finishing Asia is next. Then will do a few passes to clean up the coastlines to make them look closer to reality. The Americas will need some cleaning up, too. Then will playtest how the AI handles new terrain restrictions. After that, I will release a first-era beta so folks can test out the map and civs, while I make a few first-era units (mostly army units). Then we can move on to a beta that has the first two eras, and so on until the mod is finished.
Results are not final, but I am happy with the overall form of the continents now. Finishing Asia is next. Then will do a few passes to clean up the coastlines to make them look closer to reality. The Americas will need some cleaning up, too. Then will playtest how the AI handles new terrain restrictions. After that, I will release a first-era beta so folks can test out the map and civs, while I make a few first-era units (mostly army units). Then we can move on to a beta that has the first two eras, and so on until the mod is finished.
256x256. Europe is about 50x90 tiles not including Russia up to the Urals. In comparison, US and Canada combined is roughly 75x95.
Making Europe larger just warps the map beyond what I find to be appealing to the eyes. I've tried for years to make a huge Europe and keep Asia and Africa from being too squished either by width or height, and it just didn't look right. Even in this version, certain regions are either smaller or larger, but enough of a proportional difference that it still fits aesthetically. I tried a 362x362 build some time ago, and I ran into similar problems of Asia or Africa looking too warped in comparison to Europe, as well as dealing with various other issues that gigantic maps brought on. When I first began this project, I wanted to keep it 180x180, but once again, I could not get the map to look right with the scheme I needed to keep to (larger Europe).
One of the biggest problems I ran into with warping Asia or Africa to be small, was the mingling of European, Sino-Japanese, and African civilizations was too high in the first two eras. So this eliminated 180 maps right away, as well as enlarging Europe so large that it results in cutting down Asia or Africa too much. There was more room for error on the 362 map, but then I ran into many other issues such as trying to balance movement, expansion, etc... Russia gets pretty big on a 180 map, it becomes impossibly big on a 362 map if not squished. And then squishing it too much brings me back to my main problem above - too much mingling early on. The main theme of my mod is that humanity has had several civilizations (according to mythologies, legends, and religious lore) rise and fall before a lasting one finally came to be (our current "run"). And Europe becomes very important in this lasting civilization. To keep Europe from being dominated by China, Russia, Iran, etc..., it was important to balance the size of Europe with the distance of Europe from these other nations and regions.
In this map, Spain, France, Germany, and Britain can comfortably build 10-15 cities within their current borders. Rome around 5-8 on the boot and Sicily. This makes them strong in the first two eras, but they begin to fall behind Russia, China, and the US in the third era. And then the fourth era is dominated by Russia, China, and the US. The flipside is that as civilizations expand beyond 10-20 cities, they have to spend much more time fighting corruption and civil disorder. There are also other caveats. For example, Africa is plentiful with rivers and open land for lots of cities and high population, however has only a few strategic locations - the Suez, the Nile delta, etc... Whereas almost all coastal cities in Europe will be strategic trade hubs bringing in lots of money and influence (pre-placed resources allowing certain buildings in conjunction with certain terrain requirements). So while Ethiopia and Morocco will have many cities with huge populations, they will not be able to compete with Europe economically and culturally.
Here is a rough draft of the timeline of this mod, the eras and the sub-eras within that will dictate the flow of technology unlocks (this was copy-pasted from my design dock, so the formatting won't appear the same);
Making Europe larger just warps the map beyond what I find to be appealing to the eyes. I've tried for years to make a huge Europe and keep Asia and Africa from being too squished either by width or height, and it just didn't look right. Even in this version, certain regions are either smaller or larger, but enough of a proportional difference that it still fits aesthetically. I tried a 362x362 build some time ago, and I ran into similar problems of Asia or Africa looking too warped in comparison to Europe, as well as dealing with various other issues that gigantic maps brought on. When I first began this project, I wanted to keep it 180x180, but once again, I could not get the map to look right with the scheme I needed to keep to (larger Europe).
One of the biggest problems I ran into with warping Asia or Africa to be small, was the mingling of European, Sino-Japanese, and African civilizations was too high in the first two eras. So this eliminated 180 maps right away, as well as enlarging Europe so large that it results in cutting down Asia or Africa too much. There was more room for error on the 362 map, but then I ran into many other issues such as trying to balance movement, expansion, etc... Russia gets pretty big on a 180 map, it becomes impossibly big on a 362 map if not squished. And then squishing it too much brings me back to my main problem above - too much mingling early on. The main theme of my mod is that humanity has had several civilizations (according to mythologies, legends, and religious lore) rise and fall before a lasting one finally came to be (our current "run"). And Europe becomes very important in this lasting civilization. To keep Europe from being dominated by China, Russia, Iran, etc..., it was important to balance the size of Europe with the distance of Europe from these other nations and regions.
In this map, Spain, France, Germany, and Britain can comfortably build 10-15 cities within their current borders. Rome around 5-8 on the boot and Sicily. This makes them strong in the first two eras, but they begin to fall behind Russia, China, and the US in the third era. And then the fourth era is dominated by Russia, China, and the US. The flipside is that as civilizations expand beyond 10-20 cities, they have to spend much more time fighting corruption and civil disorder. There are also other caveats. For example, Africa is plentiful with rivers and open land for lots of cities and high population, however has only a few strategic locations - the Suez, the Nile delta, etc... Whereas almost all coastal cities in Europe will be strategic trade hubs bringing in lots of money and influence (pre-placed resources allowing certain buildings in conjunction with certain terrain requirements). So while Ethiopia and Morocco will have many cities with huge populations, they will not be able to compete with Europe economically and culturally.
Here is a rough draft of the timeline of this mod, the eras and the sub-eras within that will dictate the flow of technology unlocks (this was copy-pasted from my design dock, so the formatting won't appear the same);
Spoiler :
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Ivghenii
Chieftain
Hi. Mod is not abandoned? Some news?
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