Faerun Map (Forgotten Realms) 102x80

[TiMothra]

This is my first map, Faerun, the main continent from the Forgotten Realms D&D settings. (Thanks WotC, and please don't send IP agents after me)



There are all 18 playable civs included on the map, with locations that roughly correspond to their FR equivalent cultures. Some of them fit quite well (Egypt to Mullhorand, Spain to Amn) but others are a bit more unwieldy. Specifically, since Kara-Tur is not included, no good cultural equivalent is available for the eastern civs (china, japan, etc.). Also, no Maztica or Zakhara (South America and Arabia, respectively)

Terrain and resource placement are fairly accurate, thanks to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. Each region listed useful information, such as industry, population, political make up, exports and imports and the like. It's not like the work was already done for me, just the necessary information to reverse engineer a fantasy setting into a civ map.

So, I hope you enjoy my map. If there is any interest, I don't think it would be difficult to modify this map to work with existing mods, specifically FFH (Fall from Heaven). Whatever different resources used in that mod would need to be placed in the wbs file via text editor, because I don't think mapview can graphically work with unsupported resources (reagents, lemons, whatever they use in there). I'd be glad to make the modifications, and maybe move around/change civs as needed, but I'd need to dig into the FFH files to understand what needs doing.

View attachment Faerun_80x102_1.0.zip

 

[Saulot]

looks good, but why don't you convert the map to "fall from heaven". I think with that mod it would be easy to find the cultural equivalent for the civs.

 

[Vietnamese Guy]

i think faerun at this time works best with FFH, so i guess i agree with saulot

 

[TiMothra]

I'll put it here once I do it. I kind of thought I should, but I haven't actually played FFH yet.

Anyone know off the top of their heads what resources/terrains I need to put into the XML?

Also, is there a handy list of the playable civs from FFH, including their characteristics, traits, etc.?

EDIT:
Well, that is just about what I needed, Haarbal and karmina. I looked into the bonusinfo xml sheets to look at how resource placement has changed, and it agrees with what has been posted. As far as the FFH civs, is there any source material available on them? Or are they just homebrews and archetypes? If I start placing them on the map to approximate FR cultures, someone will surely not agree.

Another thought, pertaining to spontaneous barbarian city generation. There is a built in narrative explanation for them in FR. Simply, a new passage from the Underdark (the continent spanning underworld) has opened, spewing forth dark elves, dwarves, etc. Perhaps some addition to the FFH mod would allow these barbarian cities to rapidly produce powerful units, approximating the surge of ready armed combatants from an underground staging point?

 

[Haarbal]

here is a list of the civs that are in FFH and here are the traits i used. i don't know for sure if kael kept them this way, but this is how i made them

 

[karmina]

Custom -and important- FFH resources are:

- Reagents (required for most mage units, happy & health bonus, replaces spices)
- Mithril (very rare, required to build the most powerful units, hammer bonus)
- Gunpowder (similar to Mithril)
- Sentry Tower (+3 sight if a unit is on the tile)
- Ancient Temple (bonus resource in jungles, -2 food +2(9) gold)

All others are normal resources, with iron much less abundant.
No oil, no uranium...I think that's it.

No terrain changes afaik.

 

[karmina]

The FFH resource commands in the *.civ4worldbuildersave are

BonusType=BONUS_ANCIENTTEMPLE
BonusType=BONUS_TOWER
BonusType=BONUS_REAGENTS
BonusType=BONUS_GUNPOWDER
BonusType=BONUS_MITHRIL

 

[Los Tirano]

i wondered if anyone would do a forgotten realms map. Will test this immediately.

Are you thinking of doing a forgotten realms mod? No shortage of religions, or civs. Would be a big project but it has 'potential'.

Then, first things first, convert the world to Sune.

 

[TiMothra]

There sure were plans in the make, but I don't have the python pythons to handle a mod. Looking through the FFH has shown me that. The mod I had in mind could almost serve as a FR eco-political simulator, just becuase I like that kind of detail and flavor in my pen and paper games.

Until the SDK gets here, I was just going to try and make new civilizations for FR with matching city names, traits, maybe UU's. Something such that I don't have Chairman Mao ruling over the halfling kingdom of Lurien.

Though he is an adorable little Chairman. I just want to give him a big hug.

 

[felwar]

A couple of suggestions for making it a more balanced map as well.

1) While it may make the map less "perfect", I suggest removing some land tiles from the bottom edge of the map to allow for clear sailing all the way around Halruaa, as there should be.

2) In the interest of balance, please take a look at resources again. Every capital should have access to a food resource, and the ones that don't seem to have a much harder time than others. This is even supported by the commerce map in the campaign setting guide. For instance, Cormyr is shown as having grain, but there is none of any kind on this map. I would also suggest any exports be doubled up on in a particular region, since the country then has enough for itself and extra for trading.

3) And yes, a FFH mod to the map would work nicely, since it has things such as mithril, reagents, mages, and priests... even if the civs themselves don't fit, but even those are temporary at present.

 

[Leif]

I would certainly help with a Forgotten Relms mod as best I could, but right now that is limited to playtesting and ideas.

 

[Los Tirano]

The map could do with a few more resources, especially military resources. Cormyr for instance, had no horses. So that means no knights, and no knights for Cormyr makes the purple knights sad panda's.

It seems that map creators like to limit the amount of military resources in maps, but im all for more. More resources means faster growth, more realistic build times, larger wars, more to pillage, and generally more fun all round. Well... mostly.

But resources can always be added, and thats what i did.

 

[TiMothra]

Ahh, the resources. I'm fully aware of this being an unbalanced map, and that someone would notice. I kept rather careful track of how many resources were placed, and in which regions. I tried to keep to the limits set by the vanilla xml script for resources (bonusinfo.xml I think) as near as I could interpret them. That is, all strategic resources but oil have a 1:1 resource per player ratio. This left a few starters in the cold for important things, such as iron or horses, but I actually kind of wanted the flavor; the FR kingdoms are not, in fact, very balanced. I'll once again point out that the original intent of this map was more scenario-driven.

Doubling up resources for kingdoms that specifically export a commodity also crossed my mind. But one has to take into account that Faerun includes, 30 to 40 kingdoms. When one of 18 players controls 3-4 of these kingdoms, they can in fact end up exporting that resource. Plus I don't necessarily know that you need a surplus of a resource to trade it.

I actually undid my original Halruaan waterways because they would only be 1 tile between land and the completely artificial border. I thought it would be too much of a choke point for anyone but the southern kingdoms. That and those south seas are dangerous! Another possibility is to enlarge that edge of the map, for more coast/ocean. A viable possibility since water tiles won't greatly add to game-processing time.

Finally, food resources. Like I said, I kept count of where and how many I placed, total. It is actually pretter reasonable to fudge a few things and move things around (jungles of tethyr and calimsham, I'm looking at you). I believe that there are currently too many resources on the map (total ratio is 9 or 10 out of 11 total food resources per player). But I don't know what sort of ratio the vanilla script uses. I think it's a function of total available placements of each resource and the random variables used in an algorithm to determine whether it is placed or not.

According to the FRCS, nearly every kingdom has grain. Grain, grain, grain. Grain only grows on plains. Grain on the map got turned into corn and rice on occasion. Same story with cows becoming sheep and pigs on occasion.

But, as I just said, it's not a problem moving resources over a few spots. What originally caused the lack of resource near starters is the rivers. Nearly all resources have a no-river-side tag, all of the food resources but bananas, I believe. Nearly all the starters are on rivers, and the rivers themselves are more numerous than a vanilla script. These two taken together make for a commerce of resource capital, true. But the map is overwhelmingly grassland as opposed to plains, so all that's missed out is the intial, rapid city growth which is liked so well.

And Cormyr is not in fact a very large place. It will just have to trade for its horses. Purple dragons don't have feet?

 

[Los Tirano]

Mighty Cormyr forced to trade to get horses?

Ha! i like the humiliation you heap upon them.

 

[Yakk]

A naive quick look at the civ xml files seems to indicate that grain, fish and other food resources are just ridiculously common.

Like one for every 16 to 32 tiles that can fit the resource.

Look in the XML\Terrain\Civ4BonusInfos.xml file. I think "iTilesPer" is the number of tiles that can fit the resource per resource.