ANCIENT "Terra Fantasia" Mod Thread, Now For Reference Only

[Ozymandias]

(Note: I began this thread before R/L forced me away from Civ. I will be "mining" it for entries in the new "Terra Fantasia" Mod Development Thread.)

We are currently living in an Ice Age - more precisely, the past million years or so have had about nine 100,000 year periods (which consisted of climactic conditions akin to what probably comes to mind with the words, “Ice Age&#8221 with ca. 10,000 year long “inter-glacial” eras between them. The one we are living in now is called the Holocene, and the prior is generally called the Eemian, which should give you some clue as to why the mod is called, “Terra Fantasia.”

Homo sapiens has been around for about 200,000 years. For whatever reason, I like “real world” maps, so I am “simply” pushing the movement of humans out of Africa back to the Eemian, which reached its maximum temperature some 125,000 years ago. Elephas of many types exist across the globe except for South America and Australia, and - for whatever unspecified reason - I have Equus equally distributed.

It was a warmer world, approximately 3◦ C warmer than today (hippopotami swam in the Themes!) with sea levels approximately 5 meters higher than the present (which, as an aside, might lead to some contemplation of current global warming, whatever the cause.)

I give you the world of Terra Fantasia:

 

[Ozymandias]

Some “close-ups” -

1. The island of Scandinavia.
2. The lakes of the present-day Sahara (the largest is most commonly referred to as, “Lake Mega-Chad.”)
3. Lastly, a glimpse of North America.

 

[Ozymandias]

Game Concepts:

1. Each Civ begins with an inexpensive Improvement simply called an Obelisk, a stone pillar essentially declaring, “We Are Here.” Each Culture Group has - and begins with one of - its own type of Obelisk. I'll use these to define which Improvements and Wonders each Civ can build, along with "Era 0" Techs for Traits.

2. Each Obelisk will be inexpensive, and provide 1 Culture and 1 Happy Face. It should be the first Improvement which the AI will build in any City.

3. Some time ago, I mused about how environmental conditions might effect military development.
Accordingly, I utilize the 5 available “Culture Groups” to reflect the primary geography they developed in (Sea, Plains, Hills, Rivers, Forest.) These groups are evenly distributed across the globe, as opposed to any sort of geographical proximity, with each Group possessing Civs with different flavors.

Accordingly, many of the units will be UUs of one sort or another: Culture specific, Flavor specific, Civ specific.

The same is true for how Improvements & Wonders work and fit together. An easy example: in Era 1, having 5 Granaries will enable the construction of a Governor's Palace (think: agrarian Persia satraps.) Further on, it will require 4 Banks to build a Stock Exchange, and then 3 Stock Exchanges to build the GW "Global Financial Capital."

 

[Ozymandias]

Fire away!

-z

 

[nick0515]

Sounds very interesting Oz! I can see you have put a great deal of thought into this project!

 

[Ozymandias]

Sounds very interesting Oz! I can see you have put a great deal of thought into this project!

TY, and I'm actually planning to finish this one!

BTW, a few more thoughts & requests for thoughts:

1. The game is 3 Eras long, ending with Tech ending ~1950 CE our timeline.
2. Technology has progressed slightly differently than in our history, yielding metallurgy just enough of an edge to keep boilers from bursting in "steam tanks." (Similar quirks have led to "armor" - and bomb sights - sufficient to keep airships dominant over airplanes for decades.)
3. The internal combustion engine is first seized upon by the navies of the world, utilizing airships for long range reconnaissance; accordingly, navies first user them in ground combat vehicles in the form of armored car for security for both "aerobases" and thence traditional naval bases.
4. The internal combustion engine is first used by armies in lower-flying airplanes for ground support. As hydrogen-lift airships can achieve an altitude of 35,000 feet (helium allows 30,000 feet; is obviously not combustible, but there is - and would have been - only one source for it on the planet, in North America.) Airplanes don't become a serious threat to airships until they can achieve that altitude.
5. Furthermore, the internal combustion engine is only utilized by armies hesitantly, given the generally conservative nature of military leaders.
6. I've probably added some gray hairs to my head over the years trying (as so many of us have) to mold C3C to emulate history. I want this mod to play to the AI "strengths" (such as they are.) I've accumulated countless notes over the years, but any "best practice" suggestions given the mod's parameters would be most appreciated!

Cheers,
Oz

 

[Blue Monkey]

I want to play it. Now! I've been working on a unified background for several steampunk scenarios involving an extended Holocene Wet Phase. You've stolen a march on me.

I really, really like your culture group concept. It could even be a sort of limiting factor in a useful way - if "river" UUs are autoproduced & the buildings require resources only found in "river" zones ...

 

[Gojira54]

Looking forward to it! Map could potentially be used in some kind of post-global warming scenario...

 

[Ozymandias]

@Blue Monkey - That's what the Culture/Civ-specific "Stele" improvements are for. They'll be cheap and generate 1 Trade 1 Happiness & 1 Culture each (and Culture producing Improvements shall of course be destroyed) pretty much guaranteeing that a Stele will be the first thing the AI builds in a new city - And I consider "stealing a march" on you to be quite a compliment - Also, I do believe that I mentioned something along the lines of, "Any and all input being welcome."

@Gojira54 - The map is entirely done, with the caveat that areas of vegetation aren't precisely known for the Eemian, so I'm taking "artistic license" with an eye towards play balance - In short, if you'd like, I'm happy to post it.

Cheers,
Oz

 

[Blue Monkey]

@Gojira54 - The map is entirely done, with the caveat that areas of vegetation aren't precisely known for the Eemian, so I'm taking "artistic license" with an eye towards play balance - In short, if you'd like, I'm happy to post it.

I second that, please do.

 

[Ozymandias]

I second that, please do.

Done! Download link.

-z

 

[Blue Monkey]

Elephas of many types exist across the globe except for South America and Australia, and - for whatever unspecified reason - I have Equus equally distributed.

I'm excited to see what this means for South Asia (India, etc.).

 

[Blue Monkey]

... Culture/Civ-specific "Stele" improvements ...

for South Asia ...

Shivalingam * are pretty much common knowledge *. For a different take (especially since this is a quite divergent world) you might consider the hero stones (memorials to local & legendary heros) & snake stones (villages, roadsides, & near sacred forests). Although the surviving examples are more recent, both forms pre-date the Vedic era - likely even an evolution from Neolithic customs - so would fit your timeframe.

Hero Stones

Spoiler :

Snake Stones

Spoiler :

& the village shrine linked above (a very large image)

* Shivalingam

Spoiler :

* common knowledge

Spoiler :

 

[timerover51]

Greetings, Oz. I downloaded the map and will be looking at it. I have been reading the diary of a whaling ship's captain's wife, who accompanied him on a couple of his voyages in the mid-1800s. They did a fair amount of whaling in the Sea of Japan, and also the Okhost Sea, mainly for right whales and bowheads. I am not sure if you would like to plug those in as bonus resources.

I will look the map over and get back to you.

Is the tech tree finished? One thing that I keep thinking about is that in order to build iron-hulled ships and good steam boilers, you have to have the ability to roll wrought iron plate. You can do that to a degree with water power, and remember that Watt had a functioning steam engine in the 1770s as well. The boilers were sometimes made of beaten copper welded together. Those would not be cheap boilers to make.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Four pretty much separate suggestions:

Familiar with Harry Turtledove's Atlantis series? Although the books start in the 15th c. what's of interest here is that he posits a tectonic event in the late Cretaceous during which the entire East Coast of North America separates to become an 8th continent - "Atlantis".

The Southeast coast of Australia & the Northwest of Tasmania have had subtropical rainforests from long before your period up to the present day. Australia currently has a collection of forest preserves collectively called the Gondwana Forests.*

Southern China & Southeast Asia were the stomping grounds of Gigantopithicus well into the era of anatomically modern humans. Maybe the ultimate source of various local cultures' legends about the "Forest Man" (Asian Bigfoot)? Anyway, Supa's made all those Kongs ...

If you revise your map to include the fringes of Antarctica, during extreme warm eras the ice sheets have retreated to the 80th parallel. The most likely coastal groundcover for this period (imho, based on a little research) would be cool-temperate rainforests - something like the Pacific Northwest forests with large conifers & ferns. In civ terms, pine forests.*

* Since both the Antarctic and the Australian rainforests include broadleaf species, maybe a custom LM terrain would make more sense. Could probably work up something appropriate with CnP from existing terrains.

Images

Spoiler :

 

[Kyriakos]

Good luck with the work, Oz!

 

[Ozymandias]

Gents!

@timerover - I only have the 1st & 2nd of 3 Tech Trees "sketched out" in Visio; see attached. Insofar as the later 2nd/early 3rd Eras go, expect to see a tech named along the lines of, "Roll Wrought Iron Plate"

In general:

1. I deliberately stop in the, "Industrial Era" as I don't wish to simply recapitulate "real world" tech development and don't feel terribly comfortable "re-inventing" post internal combustion turbine scientific development, with the exception of ...

2. ... Assuming that some relatively minor technical advances in metallurgy re: boilers in steam tanks not exploding!

@Blue Monkey - As I mention, temperatures in the Eemian were sufficiently higher to allow hippos to frolic in the Thames; "regular" and "tropical" forests are identical, with the exceptions of resources, so the "delineation" between the two are mostly for "look-and-feel" and some resource play-balancing; conifer forests, to the best of my knowledge, were far more limited than today.

Also, I was going to / would like to add areas of Antarctica which were indeed ice-free, but (and here goes The Village Gfx Idiot again) terrain tiles don't line up on the polar edges in the C3C Editor (and, yes, I shall be switching to Quintillus' vastly superior editor ASAP.)

... Now, insofar as Gigantopithecus et. al. are concerned, I was going to limit "Barbarians" to a generic, and further-than-actually-spread Neanderthals/Denisovians ... Well, I think I'm sold!

@Kyriakos -


Best To All,
z

PS - Tech Trees for the 2 Eras are in reverse order ... So it goes!
-O.

 

[timerover51]

Gents!

@timerover - I only have the 1st & 2nd of 3 Tech Trees "sketched out" in Visio; see attached. Insofar as the later 2nd/early 3rd Eras go, expect to see a tech named along the lines of, "Roll Wrought Iron Plate"

In general:

1. I deliberately stop in the, "Industrial Era" as I don't wish to simply recapitulate "real world" tech development and don't feel terribly comfortable "re-inventing" post internal combustion turbine scientific development, with the exception of ...

2. ... Assuming that some relatively minor technical advances in metallurgy re: boilers in steam tanks not exploding!

@Blue Monkey - As I mention, temperatures in the Eemian were sufficiently higher to allow hippos to frolic in the Thames; "regular" and "tropical" forests are identical, with the exceptions of resources, so the "delineation" between the two are mostly for "look-and-feel" and some resource play-balancing; conifer forests, to the best of my knowledge, were far more limited than today.

Also, I was going to / would like to add areas of Antarctica which were indeed ice-free, but (and here goes The Village Gfx Idiot again) terrain tiles don't line up on the polar edges in the C3C Editor (and, yes, I shall be switching to Quintillus' vastly superior editor ASAP.)

... Now, insofar as Gigantopithecus et. al. are concerned, I was going to limit "Barbarians" to a generic, and further-than-actually-spread Neanderthals/Denisovians ... Well, I think I'm sold!

@Kyriakos -


Best To All,
z

PS - Tech Trees for the 2 Eras are in reverse order ... So it goes!
-O.

Oz, could you email me the Tech Tress to make it easier to comment on them. As for the boilers, a well riveted wrought iron boiler could handle pressures up to 150 pounds per square inch, as long as it was cylindrical and you were careful that you bent the wrought iron along the same axis as it was rolled. The tensile strength of wrought iron drops about 25% at a 90 degree angle to that which it was rolled. Mild steel plate does not do that, which is why mild steel beat out wrought iron, ever though more expensive, for shipbuilding.

 

[Blue Monkey]

@Blue Monkey - As I mention, temperatures in the Eemian were sufficiently higher to allow hippos to frolic in the Thames; "regular" and "tropical" forests are identical, with the exceptions of resources, so the "delineation" between the two are mostly for "look-and-feel" and some resource play-balancing; conifer forests, to the best of my knowledge, were far more limited than today.

I may have misled you with my comparison to the redwood forests - the best example I could think of for a temperate rainforest as opposed to a "jungle". The "gondwanan" conifers in SE Australia & Antarctica would have been similar to podocarpus species rather than the kind of pines most people associate with "conifer". But my main point was that your map presently has forest in the rain shadow of the Great Dividing Range, but none on the coastal side, where the mixed podocarpus, beech, and fern temperate rainforests would have been.

Also, I was going to / would like to add areas of Antarctica which were indeed ice-free, but (and here goes The Village Gfx Idiot again) terrain tiles don't line up on the polar edges in the C3C Editor (and, yes, I shall be switching to Quintillus' vastly superior editor ASAP.)

"don't line up"? not sure if you mean you're having a problem with getting the eastern & western edges of your source map to match, or if it's something to do with the well-known "ice caps" bugs.

... Now, insofar as Gigantopithecus et. al. are concerned, I was going to limit "Barbarians" to a generic, and further-than-actually-spread Neanderthals/Denisovians ... Well, I think I'm sold!

I wasn't suggesting Gigantopithecus for barbarians. I thought maybe you were having a "wild animal" faction, using some of the various megafauna units.

All of which proves I should never post when I'm so tired I have to spend time remembering what I meant before responding to the replies. Keep up the good work, Ozy!

 

[Ozymandias]

... well-known "ice caps" bugs ....

... And it's addressed how?

Terrain comments noted (and again about the "ice caps bugs" ... ?)

@timerover - Full Tech Tree will done within the week.

Cheerio,
Oz