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).