Coming Soon: Alexander the Great Scenario

[Smoking mirror]

I'm loath to add new buildings to the standard game cos I'm one of the few people who realy enjoys the city view and I'm not sure if theres any spare space to add new buildings to it (there is a custom unit sheet, but I have not tested it yet, for one thing where would these new improvements be positioned? next to the river, next to the palace?). Perhaps I could add the "early library" or "Scroll library/ Scriptorium" to the game, with extra Culture points and requiring payrus, but how would I stop people from building it after paper was invented, I don't think buildings can become obsolete, or can they?

If You can add custom buildings to the city view, are there any custom Buildings needed for the Alexander scenario? You could add them in place of buildings not used (Factory etc..).

Another potential resource would be Luxury building stone, Certain types of special stone noted not only for its hard wearing aspect but also for its extreme beauty could be a requirement for building the palace, forbiden palace and certain wonders of the world. Although If you make a resource a requirement for building a palace does it cause trouble when your capital is relocated during war?

Exangination: have you thought of using a modified greek/roman palace as the forbiden palace in your scenario? having the firaxis standard asian FP may look strange.

 

[Exsanguination]

Originally posted by Smoking mirror
Exangination: have you thought of using a modified greek/roman palace as the forbiden palace in your scenario? having the firaxis standard asian FP may look strange.

You bring up a good point SM - Should we even HAVE an FP? It would be particularly useful to Persia (being so large at the start) - not to mention Persia had several 'capitals' (Babylon, Susa, Persepolis for example). But I doubt anyone would waste the time to build an FP as Macedon because the scenario would essentially end before it would even complete! Perhaps we could give it to Perisa (in Susa, make the real capital Persepolis), but make it unbuildable to anyone thereafter.

And if we do add the FP as normal, of cours we'll change it .

Also, SM, I'm going to be completely revamping the improvements/wonders sector. Nothing in this scenario will bethe same as a normal game . In fact, each civ (or culture-group) will have its own set of buildings to construct. But that's for a later date .

However, while I am on the topic, I'll post the culture-groups and their respective civs in the Civs and Leaders thread.

--Ex

 

[Grey Fox]

You don't have to have buildable FP's Ex, but you could have some placed in some cities so that their corruption get's realistic/Game-wise good. You can make those to special Wonders, called Palace2(etc... you will think of better names), so that they can only appear once, and not be buildable for any other civ then those you place them in. i.e. one in Babylon for Persia etc...

 

[Exsanguination]

I think it should be necessary to announce realn's secret plan: www.geocities.com/civalexander

My god, the new site is beautiful! Thank you realn!

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Hey, Im a history buff

Anyway, haven't been here for a while, straight to the point. Stone is everywhere, construction-grade or decorative stone was rare. A lot came from Sinai and the Egyptian desert, but there were other places. Turquoise was a favourite gem in ancient Egypt, again from Sinai. There were also gems from Arabia, but it was famous for frankincense (sp?) and myrrh.

I don't think sheep was the prefered meat of the ancient world. Sure in the middle ages it was, but in ancient times it was cattle. Cattle was far more useful, as the hides could be made into armour, sandals and stuff, it can be eaten and if times were tough, like a horse you could poke a stick in its neck and drink its blood (still a common practice in many places around the world) I think that sheep may have been common in Persia and Scythia, but i'm not too sure.

Papyrus was used predominantly in egypt, and once the library was built, they didn't need much more. So it could be a requirement. As for great libraries, there were only 3 in the ancient mid-east/medit. that of Nineveh in the 8th century BC (destroyed by Medes), Alexandria (the one in the game built much later during the reign of Ptolemy II) and that of Antioch (to rival Alexandria) They were all constantly in need of papyrus.

Trade was established with China a bit after Alexanders time, mainly during the Parthian empire, so don't include silk.

Wine was loved by the ancient greeks, most of it came from there.

Murex dye, extracted from Phoenician sea urchins, was one of the two most expensive luxuries in the ancient world (with saffron). to demonstrate the kings wealth, the immortals clothes were murex purple and saffron gold.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Is anyone sure of how the disapearance reapearance ratio works.
I'm fairly sure that one is the chance of the item disapearing and the the other is the chance of it reapearing somewhere else (I wouldn't be suprised to find out I was wrong).

I guess sheep were not the food of choice for all ancient peoples but Cattle needs large, flat expanses of grazing land (thus they were a favourite choice for the eurasian stepe nomads as they raided the civilized world they were assimilated, along with thier horses and cattle ) but in the middle east and asia minor much of the land is of medium to poor grazing quality and is also hills and valleys; ideal for sheep farming (The sheep can be grazed on the hills during the warm months and then moved down to the valleys in the winter, like a animal version of crop rotation). Its no coincidence that there are so many shepards in the bible.

I would have sheep as a Hill only resource and Cattle as a grassland/plains only resource.

 

[Exsanguination]

Alright, I began attempting to outline the cities on the map, but I found it very hard. The Greek/Aegean/Mediterranean area is so cramped its just insane. So I've decided that we're going to work in tandem with each other to get this done. I've posted a picture of the map (with the grid on) of the Greece/Macedon/Aegean region. I want any of you who have the time to open up your favorite paint program and outline how you would envision the map looking. Here is a basic legend to use:

Lacedaemonia (Sparta) - Bright Red
League of Corinth (Athens) - Sky Blue
Macedonia - Dark, dark red or Black

You can number each city and post what city each number is or you can just post a simple dot-map (but remember, we're not going for OCP or ICS, but where those bloody cities were in 336 BC! ). The following cities MUST be included:

Lacedaemonia: Sparta, Knossos (Boiai)
League of Corinth: Athens, Delphi, Corinth, Mytilene (Olympia, Messene, Chaeronea, Eretria, Argos, Tegea)
Macedonia: Aegai, Pella, Stageira, Abydos, Apollonia

Those in brackets are suggested cities.

PLEASE help me (us!) out here. I want this to be perfect. When you download the file, trust me, you'll see why I am asking for your counsel.

http://civfanatics.net/uploads2/greece_macedon-cities.zip <-- Download this file

Smoking Mirror - the disappearance probability is the chance ( i believe its 1 in x each turn; where x is the number you input) of a resource disappearing. The appearance ratio is the ratio used to determine how many resources should be placed on a random map. The number is quite confusing, it has something to do with a ratio between the number (y) and the number of civs. I'd find out for you, but Firaxis screwed up the help file - the 'natural resources' help screen shows the 'improvements' screen .

--Ex

 

[Kryten]

Hmmm....this is a hard one, and needs careful thought.

I'll have to come back to you on this one, but here are some quick observations:
You may have to reduce the number of cities a bit, especially for Lacedaemonia. And if this leaves them a bit weak, how about giving them a few more smallish offshore cities? I notice for example that there are several mountains on the islands in the Aegean and Crete, making them useless. If these were grassland instead then one-tile-island-cities could be placed on them, which would be under the control of the League and/or Sparta and gives the Persian fleet something to do (if we could set the diplomacy, then Sparta would be neutral or even allied to Persia at the start of the scenario).

 

[Exsanguination]

Originally posted by Kryten
You may have to reduce the number of cities a bit, especially for Lacedaemonia. And if this leaves them a bit weak, how about giving them a few more smallish offshore cities? I notice for example that there are several mountains on the islands in the Aegean and Crete, making them useless. If these were grassland instead then one-tile-island-cities could be placed on them, which would be under the control of the League and/or Sparta and gives the Persian fleet something to do (if we could set the diplomacy, then Sparta would be neutral or even allied to Persia at the start of the scenario).

I know Lacedaemonia can have at least three cities - Sparta, Knossos, Kydonia. The latter two are on Crete. There is a one-tile island in between Crete and mainland Creece that could be made into a fishing town. Boiai is a city shown on several (I believe of the 7 or 8 maps I referenced at least half show it) to the southeast of Sparta on one of the peninsulas. That one is of course optional, we'll see how it pans out.

This is the one place I'm willing to slide a little on history - Macedon needs a plump number of cities in order to be able to hold off any Persian aggression and to support itself, so I'll allow some eating up of the League of Corinth if necessity demands it.

Most of the other one-tile islands belong to the League of Corinth. But remember we can build cities on mountains (in this scenario), so they don't have to be changed. All cities produce the same - 2 food, 1 shield (unless commercial/industrious) - so being mountain/grassland won't affect that.

 

[Kryten]

Originally posted by Exsanguination
This is the one place I'm willing to slide a little on history - Macedon needs a plump number of cities in order to be able to hold off any Persian aggression and to support itself, so I'll allow some eating up of the League of Corinth if necessity demands it.

Giving the Macedonians the 'Industrious' civ trait would compensate for their lack of cities, and would represent the fact that they were a relatively young and dynamic thrusting culture compared with the decaying decadent traditional conservative nations around them (and giving them the 'Iron Works' small wonder at the start of the scenario would help to emphasize the fact that they were a small nation that conquered the then known world).
Just a thought.

 

[Exsanguination]

Here is my version of Lacedaemonia and the League of Corinth. Once resources are put in, those one-tile cities will truly be awesome "fishing-towns" .

And a larger version for download: Large Map of Greece

 

[The Strategos]

certainly...interesting....(in a good way) Just wondering though...how can 1 tile island cities be captured?

 

[Smoking mirror]

More acurately; historicaly, what persian units would have been alocated to capturing those cities----> Regular heavy infantry or special elites (give those units amphibious assault and let the player/A.I. decide whether to devote important resources to something as small as capturing a fishing town.
You want to emphasize the use of these "fishing towns" away from production towards trade (part of greek power was its sea trade). Increase the trade bonus for coast/sea tiles and reduce the trade for land tiles (coast/sea--->trade4, land---> trade 0 (roads 1, roads+river 2) if you have money production rushing then greece and persia would have @equal rushing power (persias low land based trade would be multiplied by its huge expanse of territory)- alternately you could have the two nations with different rushing types, with persia using its greater population to feed a pop rush system.
Part of the game play of a Scenario depends on good use of Rushing (pop or cash) because in a scenario you are not thinking so much about long term goals, acient era scenarios especialy because of the lack of railroads/factories. Also happyness management needs to be a big part of your tactics; If greece has republic style war weariness, and has the universal sufferage (combined with luxuries and extra police stations/garrisons) to combat it, the unhappyness need never reach a point that will force you to sign peace (unless the player is very militarily incompetent) but will force you to increase luxury production nearer and nearer to 100%, thus depleting its coffers and reducing the effectivness of its highly developed cash rushing machine. Pesia on the other hand would face the same unhappyness problem, but not through war weariness, but by poprush fever (the A.I. will pop rush its self to death if given the chance) eventualy becoming depopulated, riotous and easy picings for the macedonians.

Remember that by having era none (before ancient) government techs, macedon and persia can be given custom governemnts that can not be shared in tech trades (era zero techs can only be atained in civ edit before the scenario is finished).
One thing you might do is allow the persians to draft militias and then upgrade them with cash (gives them something to do with their money) by having an obsolete "militia" unit only available to persia as the only available draftable unit (unless you want the other civs to have drafted peasant militis, it was not a very wide spread practice during this time, but it was one way of raising the needed troops with out building/rushing them) it would also make seiges more prolonged, and require more men to capture large persian strongholds.

In my opinion, game play is going to be the most important aspect of the scenario, it needs to be chalenging at any difficult level for people of differing skill levels, though the chalenge needs to be the adoption of unorthodox military and social strategies, and not alowing the player to fall back on the old tried and tested Civ III strategies.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Also EXangination; Have you downloaded Snoopys new terrain grapics yet? (as I see you have his old ones on your map preview) he has fianly got around to posting them here at civfanatics (Not sure where).
They look great, it would be nice to see the map as most people are going to see it (I for one am not going back to the old style).

 

[Exsanguination]

Originally posted by Smoking mirror
More acurately; historicaly, what persian units would have been alocated to capturing those cities----> Regular heavy infantry or special elites (give those units amphibious assault and let the player/A.I. decide whether to devote important resources to something as small as capturing a fishing town.
You want to emphasize the use of these "fishing towns" away from production towards trade (part of greek power was its sea trade). Increase the trade bonus for coast/sea tiles and reduce the trade for land tiles (coast/sea--->trade4, land---> trade 0 (roads 1, roads+river 2)

Yes, this idea will be implemented. I planned on actually making an improvement that gave all tiles a +1 commerce bonus, but the only way to implement that is to offer a colossus-like wonder, and that can only be given to one city. Each fishing-town will also have an "offshore-platform" (need an ancient name for it) that gives +1 shields to each water tile.

Remember that by having era none (before ancient) government techs, macedon and persia can be given custom governemnts that can not be shared in tech trades (era zero techs can only be atained in civ edit before the scenario is finished).

Really? I was in quite a quandary trying to figure out how to KEEP the damn AI in its current govt. I planned on offering them as era-none techs, but I thought they could still be traded around. Wow, that changes a lot of things!

One thing you might do is allow the persians to draft militias and then upgrade them with cash (gives them something to do with their money) by having an obsolete "militia" unit only available to persia as the only available draftable unit (unless you want the other civs to have drafted peasant militis, it was not a very wide spread practice during this time, but it was one way of raising the needed troops with out building/rushing them) it would also make seiges more prolonged, and require more men to capture large persian strongholds.

Yep, will also be doing. Which units will be allowed for the draft will be determined once we get a few playtest sessions in to find out how the AI uses the units.

In my opinion, game play is going to be the most important aspect of the scenario, it needs to be chalenging at any difficult level for people of differing skill levels, though the chalenge needs to be the adoption of unorthodox military and social strategies, and not alowing the player to fall back on the old tried and tested Civ III strategies.

Definitelely agreed. For those who are wondering, though, I'm setting everything up to suit the Monarch level. That is the most balanced level, IMHO. I'm not those who are chieftain or regent players can't play this scenario, in fact it may be easier for them because I'm setting it up for a harder level. Things like time to build, production, number of units, things lie are what I speaking of.

Also Exsanguination; Have you downloaded Snoopys new terrain grapics yet? (as I see you have his old ones on your map preview) he has fianly got around to posting them here at civfanatics (Not sure where).
They look great, it would be nice to see the map as most people are going to see it (I for one am not going back to the old style).

Got it! D/Ling now... darn 56k modem. Can't wait...

------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: Oohh... I'm kinda iffy on the new graphics pack... It'll take while to get used to.

Anyways, I forgo to post this so I will now. I need someone to identify for me which civ the folowing cities should belong to:

Issus (Ionia/Phoenicia/Persia?)
Thapascus (Phoenicia/Persia?)
Damascus(Phoenicia/Persia?)
Gaza (Phoenicia/Egypt?)
Cyropolis (Scythia/Persia?)
Samacand (Scythia/Persia?)
The Sogdian Rock (Scythia/Persia?)

Also, I need maps/city names for Scythia, Arabia, and India. I believe it was calgalcus (or maybe Kryten) who made a good suggestion way back when to name the Scythian cities by their tribal names. If you can find any actual city names, then those can also be used. Scythia will be found over the largest exspanse territory, but will also be it the desert and mountains with very small cities. Accordingly, I'll need many city/tribe names.

Lastly, if any of you know of any important cities for ANY of the civs, let me know and I'll try to squeeze them in. Egypt and Persia have lots of room for more cities at this point, so throw me as many cities as possible.

--Ex

 

[Exsanguination]

Wow... I started planning out the Macedonian city layout today and noticed a huge leap of faith we'll have to take with history and geography to get it done right.

You'll notice in the picture I posted ealier that the Haemus Mountain Range is located only one tile above the coast of the Aegean Sea. This mountain was the northern extent of Macedonia's boundaries. Thus, in effect, there is actually room to put in the Frontier Tribes.

But if we follow these boundaries, Macedonia will acrtually endup with less cities than Greece, and at that they will be extremely cramped and overlapped (already I'm ignoring the 21-tile workable radius and basically looking at the 8-tile initial radius as boundaries). Another problem lies in the fact that the majority of Macedonia's core cities lay in the one region around Pella (located at the corner between Greece and former-Thrace). Obviously we can't squeeze in 5 cities in the tiny 9-tile radius that geography would permit.

So we have come to a wall. Either we abandon this facet of history and assume evrything north of Greece is Macedonian territory, or keep history and geography sane at the cost of Alexander (we can't do THAT, can we? ). For an example, I've placed Mieza near the western coast, instead of between Pella and Pelium where it belongs. these are the sacrficies we *may* have to make.

Another good example is that Thebes' direct neighbor is Pella . What will the verdict here be?

--Ex

 

[Kryten]

Is the number of Macedonian cities really a problem?
After all, when Alexander became king he inherited his dad's conquests, so he not only has the cities of Macedonia under his control but also those of Illyria, Thrace, Thessaly, Corinthian League, and so on.
A couple of these cities would be rebellious/independent at the start of the scenario, but they were all crushed in a single year.
336 BC --- Alexander becomes king and is made leader of the Corinthian League.
335 BC --- Quick campaigns in Illyria and Thrace, and the revolt of Thebes.
334 BC --- Alexander crosses to Asia Minor and the battle of Granicus, etc....

(BTW, all those Scythian tribes/cities you asked for are on page one of this thread, most of them posted by Mongoloid Cow)

(And I think it would be nice if the League of Corinth actually has a city called Corinth, even though the capital is Athens. )

 

[Exsanguination]

Originally posted by Kryten
Is the number of Macedonian cities really a problem?

YES! Take a look at the map, do you see enough room for all the cities? That's the problem we have. There is not enough room to put them all where they belong. And we can't just move the Haemus Range north, because then we'd have to enlarge to Euxine and then move around the Hellespont and then... you get it. We can easily put all the cities on the map, but not where they historically were located.

--Ex

 

[Grey Fox]

Can't some of the cities just be areas?

 

[Gorgoroth]

Exsanguination a serious question. We cant set the diplomatic relations between the civs. How can you simulate the Alexander era than? I think the starting point will be historical only. After that we will see as Sparta will declare war on Scythia etc. Firaxis pissed me off. We cant make decent scenarios now [check the thread about 'diplomatic options', if you dont know what I meant.