Greatest Earth Map in the History of Civilization

[djvandyke]

Brave New World Version Released 31/08/13

Concept.

Although there are a plethora of beautifully rendered Earth maps already available I have yet to find one that fully meets my needs.
Huge or Giant earth maps are simply too big. They slow to a crawl even on decent machines so unless you have the patience of a saint are virtually unplayable.

TSL Giant Earth Maps for example is 180 x 94, that’s a staggering 16920 tiles! Even Huge 128*80 maps are 10240 tiles and are seriously resource hungry.
The trouble is anything smaller and key regions like Europe become far too compact, even when upscaled.

I set myself the challenge of creating a fully playable 22 civ Earth map with a giant Europe on a normal sized 104*64 earth map, that’s just 6654 tiles!

Disclaimer: This is a GAMEPLAY focused Earth map. It is not intended to be geographically accurate.
Scandinavians please exit the thread immediately as further reading may make you cry.

Fitting a giant Earth into 40% of the tiles is quite a challenge but like Plato, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein before me I had a moment of genius.

Spoiler :

Chop off over half the planet!

Do the vast, virtually uninhabited expanses of Siberia, Northern Scandanavia and Canada or massive oceans enhance gameplay?
This is a map has created from scratch tile by tile and taken quite some time.
It features a massively upscaled Western Europe and other crowded areas such as Central America, the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Conversely areas with less Civilisations have been shrunk, as have the oceans to allow for more land.

Spoiler :

Gods & Kings Version

22 Playable Civs +16 City States

England
France
Germany
Spain
Ottoman
Rome
Russia

Arabia
Persia
India
Mongolia
China
Korea
Japan

Egypt
Carthage
Songhai
Ethiopia

Iroquois
Aztec
Maya
Inca

The Brave New World Version does not include New World Civs
They have been replaced with Portugal, Venice, Indonesia and Zulu.

 

[PawelS]

I like it (Sorry for non-constructive feedback )

Does it have pre-placed resources?

 

[djvandyke]

Zipped file now attached to opening post.
Thanks Gedemon!
Somebody please download and confirm it works

 

[Gedemon]

try to zip it first, I will ask if this extension can be added for the file attachment.

and good idea

 

[djvandyke]

I was thinking of adding only the resources required for unique units for the full version and leave the rest random.
This is meant to be a clean version but looks like I left Arabia some horses by mistake!
Would like to canvas opinions on the matter.

Horses: Accessible to Arabia, Mongolia, Russia, Songhai, Spain, Austria*, Ottomans, Byzantium*, Greece*
Iron: Japan, Rome and Denmark*

*Not default Civs but people may add them.

 

[djvandyke]

Reserved for Screenshots

 

[InsanelyApple]

Very nice. Looks nicer than most of the huge maps here.

 

[djvandyke]

Thanks and even with 22 Civs & 16 City States it runs like a dream

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Disclaimer: This is a GAMEPLAY focused Earth map. It is not intended to be geographically accurate.
Scandinavians please exit the thread immediately as further reading may make you cry.

That's the right way to go Gameplay MUST be the first concern when creating a game/game content. Your idea was so simple, it's (maybe not) really a surprise it took so long for someone to figure it
Maybe it would be possible to create a slighly bigger map to fit Scandinavia. I havn't played with WB so far but maybe i should give it a try.
Will try it. I always use low oceans when playing random maps

 

[PawelS]

Yes, perhaps there should be a bit more of Scandinavia included, but only a bit, to include the place where Oslo is located and a land connection between Sweden and Norway, but not between Sweden and Finland.

Also, I noticed that if you capture Lisbon, and buy a few Ocean tiles near it, you can discover the New World before Astronomy (or you can do it vice versa as one of the New World civs when you found a city in the Caribbean). A similar situation can happen between Ireland and Newfoundland. So I think the Atlantic Ocean should be one hex wider - this can be achieved by removing one land hex from the Caribbean and one from Newfoundland, and setting appropriate hexes to ocean.

Btw, I'm not sure how the random resources work when you place some of the resources on the map. It's possible that extra instances of the resources already placed (Horses, Iron etc.) are placed at random. Generally I prefer maps with all resources placed at right locations, but I understand if it's too much work for you, or you prefer random resources.

 

[djvandyke]

That's the right way to go Gameplay MUST be the first concern when creating a game/game content. Your idea was so simple, it's (maybe not) really a surprise it took so long for someone to figure it
Maybe it would be possible to create a slighly bigger map to fit Scandinavia. I havn't played with WB so far but maybe i should give it a try.
Will try it. I always use low oceans when playing random maps

In life the best ideas always seem obvious!
Let me know what you can come up with in regards to Scandinavia however I firmly believe the map size should remain the same.
I could comfortably sacrifice the bottom row of tiles and shift the old world down slightly.

 

[djvandyke]

Yes, perhaps there should be a bit more of Scandinavia included, but only a bit, to include the place where Oslo is located and a land connection between Sweden and Norway, but not between Sweden and Finland.

Also, I noticed that if you capture Lisbon, and buy a few Ocean tiles near it, you can discover the New World before Astronomy (or you can do it vice versa as one of the New World civs when you found a city in the Caribbean). A similar situation can happen between Ireland and Newfoundland. So I think the Atlantic Ocean should be one hex wider - this can be achieved by removing one land hex from the Caribbean and one from Newfoundland, and setting appropriate hexes to ocean.

Btw, I'm not sure how the random resources work when you place some of the resources on the map. It's possible that extra instances of the resources already placed (Horses, Iron etc.) are placed at random. Generally I prefer maps with all resources placed at right locations, but I understand if it's too much work for you, or you prefer random resources.

Excellent feedback PawelS. This is the kind just the kind of stuff I need.

I will rework Newfoundland but is the possibility of getting a head start in the New World by capturing Lisbon and spending valuable money purchasing tiles actually a bad thing?
With its proud history of exploration, Portugal played an integral part in the Age of Discovery. Christopher Columbus sailed under a Portuguese flag and it certainly makes for an interesting strategic option.

I have decided to make two versions of the Map.
One with pre-defined resource placement and one random for people who like to keep things fresh.

 

[PawelS]

How when I think of it, if the Portugal -> Caribbean route is possible, perhaps the Ireland -> Newfoundland route should be possible too - that's similar to what the Vikings did, so, especially is Scandinavia is expanded so a Scandinavian civ can be added, perhaps there should be a possibility to use the northern route too.

You're right that it's quite an interesting possibility - you need to invest a large (in early game terms) sum of gold, so it's not too easy to colonize the New World early.

 

[djvandyke]

Opinions on this reworking of Scandanvia please
Remember there is no Denmark or Sweden.

[/IMG]

 

[djvandyke]

07/01/13 New Beta Released v001
New download and preview picture attached to the first post.

Changes Include:
Map being shifted two tiles down to allow a little more room in the North.
Reworking of Scandinavia and the Baltic region.
Slight adjustments to Southern tips of Africa and South America to account for the reduction in tiles.
Fiji and Samoa now represented and a few atolls added to the Pacific.

 

[Lachlan]

My couple of suggests

Replacing France by Celtic Empire and Ottomans by Byzantium would be nice...

I suggest an antic Civs set... Circa 400 AD would be nice ;-)
Or 300-200 BC set...

Your map is nicely designed ;-)

Remember that is just free advices...

 

[djvandyke]

Thanks Lachlan
I will consider the possibility of an alternate version with different Civs in the future.

 

[dashwinner]

exactly what i was looking for! what a great idea. i'm stuck at playing regular sized maps due to playing on a laptop.

when you say DLC required, what happens if i dont have inca (i have all the other ones, but somehow my cheap ass doesn't want to pay for spain twice :s)

 

[djvandyke]

exactly what i was looking for! what a great idea. i'm stuck at playing regular sized maps due to playing on a laptop.

when you say DLC required, what happens if i dont have inca (i have all the other ones, but somehow my cheap ass doesn't want to pay for spain twice :s)

I'm not sure to be honest. Please dowload, test it and let me know.

 

[Zero164]

I sorry to bother you but is it possible for you to re-upload the mod already zipped? Because even when I zipped and open it with Ez7 it doesn't appear in the mod menu when I open the game.