Zomgmeister
Emerged Lurker
It's been a while.
Anyway, this is Large (not Huge) map of Earth for FFH. It isn't Huge, because we all played Huge Earth map more than once, and, well, it gets old if your name is not Neal. Smaller map = more action, less units and cities, more stable game in general, with just about all general epic Earth-conquering feeling.
All Civilizations are included. Yeah, this world is crowded. Wars are inevitable.
All Unique World features are included. Duh.
Morphed world. Asia is shrunk, Chinese territory suffered most of all, but this sacrifice had to be taken. Europe is obscenely large, about the size of Africa. Both Americas are enlarged. All oceans are way smaller than they are in reality. Some islands are very pronounced.
Basically, this map is more true to history than to geography. Europe have to be a major battlefield. And Americas don't have to be plagued by green menace of Aztecs, doomed to primitivism. They have Doviello now, though. They are Canadian.
Another example, which can help you to understand choices made during map design is Bangladesh territory. In real world, population in this place is extremely dense. In this map, Bangladesh have several Grassland + Flood Plain tiles.
Of course, I can't pretend to build perfect simulacrum of everything, converted to FFH game terms. This is probably impossible. But still, I kinda tried. And constructive feedback is more than welcome, because some people are bound to have more knowledge about various world parts than I do.
More workable tiles. This feature is essential for gameplay on this map. Basically you will see way less mountains than realistical Earth map should have. Reason for this is obvious: we have 19 Civilizations on Large map, dammit! We can't allow extra large mountain ranges and completely useless deserts. Basically only highest mountains are mountains in this map, while majority of respectable mountain ranges are presented by hills.
Heightmap. Okay, this sounds way better than it is. On this map Hills means elevation, and it does not matter if the ground up there, in fact, hilly, or there is some kind of plateau. Lowlands = Flatlands. Highlands and majority of mountains = Hills. I am sorry, but Civilization IV engine just don't allow me to do more than that, as you undoubtely know.
Koppen Climate Map. Can't say that this is precise or something, map is pretty deformed anyway and some places are really skewed. Still, I wanted to reach somewhat more realistic presentation of world climate zones. And again, focusing more on history than on geography.
For example, it is obvious that tropical and equatorial climate zones are potentially extremely fertile: it's wet and it's hot. But in our world majority of powerful civilizations came from temperate climate. Thus, just about all tropical and equatorial zones are not Grasslands, but Swamps. Sure, there are some Grassland tiles here and there, but in general you probably should aspire to colonize some temperate place if you want to have best land.
Lots of fresh water. I can't say I like that fresh water, which can be used for farm irrigation, is kinda rare in Civilization IV. Because, if you think about that, Grassland means water by default. If there isn't any water, we are in a desert. So, I tried to put lots of relatively minor lakes and rivers. Some of shorter rivers don't present anything geographical, they are there just as sources of fresh water.
Oil is Mana. Basically there are insane quantities of Mana resource on Arabian peninsula. There are notable Mana deposits in Venezuela, Libya, Canada, some in Texas, some in Russia I basically checked out oil deposits map and tried to distribute Mana according to it. Of course, it is not precise, but probably could be interesting.
Semi-realistic resourse distribution. Again, I checked mineral deposits map and, well, not everyone got everything. It is just as it is. Uranium is Gunpowder, by the way.
More than that! For example, Chinese and only Chinese (well, there are no Chinese on this map, but still) have Silk. Corn grows only in Americas. There are helluva lot bananas in Brazil. I don't want to list everything, just play and see for yourselves. Foreign trade is really good idea. And there is just not enough of everything for everyone, so go on and kill competitors or something.
Various start locations. You can start isolated, semi-isolated or head-to-head with neighbors of different alignment.
Remember, this map has never been playtested much yet. Go on, play it and tell us a story. I want to try to keep it somewhat balanced. If, for example, in several games Illians would be beaten by Hippus, I will try to fix something. Of course, Earth map is classicaly prone to some patterns, like superpower China, Persia colonizing straight to the north up to Arctica, and Montezuma vassalizing/killing Roosevelt. I would like this map to be less predictable.
I keep testing and polishing map. Changes may seem minor, but they come in packs, and they are vital in complex. If you had downloaded previous version, consider to re-download it now and to keep updating it in near future. Of course, soon this constant patching and updating fever will end, and it's you who can make it faster: just playtest the map and post results. Need more data to attain perfection.
Anyway, this is Large (not Huge) map of Earth for FFH. It isn't Huge, because we all played Huge Earth map more than once, and, well, it gets old if your name is not Neal. Smaller map = more action, less units and cities, more stable game in general, with just about all general epic Earth-conquering feeling.
Features and concepts of this map:
All Civilizations are included. Yeah, this world is crowded. Wars are inevitable.
All Unique World features are included. Duh.
Morphed world. Asia is shrunk, Chinese territory suffered most of all, but this sacrifice had to be taken. Europe is obscenely large, about the size of Africa. Both Americas are enlarged. All oceans are way smaller than they are in reality. Some islands are very pronounced.
Basically, this map is more true to history than to geography. Europe have to be a major battlefield. And Americas don't have to be plagued by green menace of Aztecs, doomed to primitivism. They have Doviello now, though. They are Canadian.
Another example, which can help you to understand choices made during map design is Bangladesh territory. In real world, population in this place is extremely dense. In this map, Bangladesh have several Grassland + Flood Plain tiles.
Of course, I can't pretend to build perfect simulacrum of everything, converted to FFH game terms. This is probably impossible. But still, I kinda tried. And constructive feedback is more than welcome, because some people are bound to have more knowledge about various world parts than I do.
More workable tiles. This feature is essential for gameplay on this map. Basically you will see way less mountains than realistical Earth map should have. Reason for this is obvious: we have 19 Civilizations on Large map, dammit! We can't allow extra large mountain ranges and completely useless deserts. Basically only highest mountains are mountains in this map, while majority of respectable mountain ranges are presented by hills.
Heightmap. Okay, this sounds way better than it is. On this map Hills means elevation, and it does not matter if the ground up there, in fact, hilly, or there is some kind of plateau. Lowlands = Flatlands. Highlands and majority of mountains = Hills. I am sorry, but Civilization IV engine just don't allow me to do more than that, as you undoubtely know.
Koppen Climate Map. Can't say that this is precise or something, map is pretty deformed anyway and some places are really skewed. Still, I wanted to reach somewhat more realistic presentation of world climate zones. And again, focusing more on history than on geography.
For example, it is obvious that tropical and equatorial climate zones are potentially extremely fertile: it's wet and it's hot. But in our world majority of powerful civilizations came from temperate climate. Thus, just about all tropical and equatorial zones are not Grasslands, but Swamps. Sure, there are some Grassland tiles here and there, but in general you probably should aspire to colonize some temperate place if you want to have best land.
Lots of fresh water. I can't say I like that fresh water, which can be used for farm irrigation, is kinda rare in Civilization IV. Because, if you think about that, Grassland means water by default. If there isn't any water, we are in a desert. So, I tried to put lots of relatively minor lakes and rivers. Some of shorter rivers don't present anything geographical, they are there just as sources of fresh water.
Oil is Mana. Basically there are insane quantities of Mana resource on Arabian peninsula. There are notable Mana deposits in Venezuela, Libya, Canada, some in Texas, some in Russia I basically checked out oil deposits map and tried to distribute Mana according to it. Of course, it is not precise, but probably could be interesting.
Semi-realistic resourse distribution. Again, I checked mineral deposits map and, well, not everyone got everything. It is just as it is. Uranium is Gunpowder, by the way.
More than that! For example, Chinese and only Chinese (well, there are no Chinese on this map, but still) have Silk. Corn grows only in Americas. There are helluva lot bananas in Brazil. I don't want to list everything, just play and see for yourselves. Foreign trade is really good idea. And there is just not enough of everything for everyone, so go on and kill competitors or something.
Various start locations. You can start isolated, semi-isolated or head-to-head with neighbors of different alignment.
Remember, this map has never been playtested much yet. Go on, play it and tell us a story. I want to try to keep it somewhat balanced. If, for example, in several games Illians would be beaten by Hippus, I will try to fix something. Of course, Earth map is classicaly prone to some patterns, like superpower China, Persia colonizing straight to the north up to Arctica, and Montezuma vassalizing/killing Roosevelt. I would like this map to be less predictable.
Current version: 1.4
I keep testing and polishing map. Changes may seem minor, but they come in packs, and they are vital in complex. If you had downloaded previous version, consider to re-download it now and to keep updating it in near future. Of course, soon this constant patching and updating fever will end, and it's you who can make it faster: just playtest the map and post results. Need more data to attain perfection.
