Hegemon! Of the Classical Greek World! Jul '22

[Takhisis]

Rambuchan, the splash pic reminds me a lot of the Age of Empires intro…

However, using Serbian pop-music in the soundtrack is a bit far-fetched.

Zajebi! It's only natural! The Serbs did receive some cultural influences from Greece.

Remember, this version now brings you the Colony Wonders feature. So there are now more reasons to play other civs too, which now have their own unique dynamics, boosts and challenges.

Those colony building civs are: Phocis, Euboea, Corinth, Ionia and Cyclades.

Although the terrain specific nature of these colonies (need the requisite resources in the city radius) make them a challenge, once they are built they can seriously boost your ability to compete with the big guns.

Yyyyyup. It's jsut that Corinth gets sandwiched between the scummy Athenians and the warmongering barbarians Spartans.

 

[TomYo689]

Turn 156 playing as Krete on Emperor. I am finally able to research a technology in under the 50 turn maximum. Demographic rankings are mostly 22nd, ranging from 19th on population to 26th in literacy. Maybe I shoulda done accelerated production and a lower difficulty but this is kinda what you'd expect for the most isolated spot right? But yeah everything is cool in the mod


screenshot

Spoiler :

 

[Takhisis]

TomYo, I'd squeeze a city onto the tile north-east of Knossos, highly defensible and great for intercepting incoming ships.

 

[PiotrG]

Hi PiotrG.

Make sure you have one folder called "Hegemon" in the right place:

If you have Conquests: Civilization III/Conquests/Scenarios
If you have Civ 3 Complete: Civilization III Complete/Conquests/Conquests

Directly inside that "Hegemon" folder should be three other folders: Art, Text & Sounds.

With that file structure you should be able to play with no problem.

ok it works

Life is beautiful

 

[Rambuchan]

From the preview pics, this new version looks very well polished indeed I'm downloading it right away and hope I can find some time to play it. If not, then I will borrow a lot of stuff for my own game

Great to hear from you! Hope you enjoy it! You must play at least a bit to hear the soundtrack you so kindly helped with in action.

The Wonder Splashes look very nice and the big terrain icons look great too (are they ressources ?), making this mod look like no other. Some very nice work from you guys

Yes, there are some wonderful works that I found for the wonder splashes. The two sampled in the preview posts don't even come close to showing what's in the game. I wanted to take more screenies of them, but there are LOADS of wonders in the game and I thought I'd leave some surprises.

As Vuldacon has said, we went for big resource icons. Those round shields are the Episema of the various city states. These (and the ancient coins) are the all important Strategic Resources.

Initial thoughts:

<snip>

Meet those three goals - expand, harass/help & survive to the end - & consider it a victory.
<snip>

Those ideas seem entirely sensible, and fun. If anything, that this is from the same creator and, moreso, that the map deals with the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, you've got even more islands and scope to make those plans happen.

Rambuchan, the splash pic reminds me a lot of the Age of Empires intro&#8230;

Well, that's news to me. It took a long time trying to find an image that properly evoked the Hegemonic struggle to be had within the game.

Zajebi! It's only natural! The Serbs did receive some cultural influences from Greece.

True. But, afaik, the Slavs only properly pitched up in the area a few hundred years after this scenario's time period. As mentioned, we just don't know what music the other resident barbaroi were making at the time. If anyone knows otherwise I'd be fascinated to find out more.

 

[Rambuchan]

Too good to describe

You're too kind.

Many thanks for the feedback, screenie and report so far. It's always good to know which civs players went for (Crete is a surprisingly popular one!) and how players are getting on. As and when you need some advice just ask. Some for you below.

Turn 156 playing as Krete on Emperor. I am finally able to research a technology in under the 50 turn maximum. Demographic rankings are mostly 22nd, ranging from 19th on population to 26th in literacy. Maybe I shoulda done accelerated production and a lower difficulty but this is kinda what you'd expect for the most isolated spot right? But yeah everything is cool in the mod

screenshot

Oh yes, Crete are really quite isolated. The map is large and detailed, so the distance over sea is somewhat magnified. But the mainland Greeks and others will pitch up at some point. Of that you can be sure. The question is whether you're ready to head them off when they do (or whether you take it to them first).

If you have a look at the Tribe entry for Crete in the Civilopedia, you'll see why the research has been running the way it has for you. In short, once the Minoans were crushed by the Mycenaeans, and once they in turn collapsed - round about the scenario's start date - Crete didn't play that much of an important role in Greek affairs, other then being a stopping off point to somewhere else. But they still had some prime land and goods for trade, which you can exploit to your advantage.

Difficulty level guidance:

In the scenario's very first opening screen I have linked to an Introduction page. On this page is all kinds of info, and there's a link to Difficulty Guidance there. Not all the civs are equal, so it's recommended to set the difficult level accordingly. To save people having to jump into the game to find this out, I have posted that info and guidance in a spoiler in the Content post of this thread here.

ok it works

Life is beautiful

Who did you decide to play with and how is it going?

 

[johnnyjal]

Downloading now. Can't wait to try it.

Thank all of you who have worked on it.

 

[Blue Monkey]

The post on difficulty reminded me -

If you want to play as a really small spoiler faction give yourself a more reasonable chance of survival by setting difficulty one level lower than you would normally use. Think of it as similar to golf handicapping. Still challenging but you've got a better chance vs. the major players.

Oops - reread the linked post & see that Rambuchan gives more or less the same advice. Oh well, at least it's a suggestion for other scenarios.

 

[soul_warrior]

woot woot!
back from retirement!

thanks for teh creds too!
mucho kudos to el presidente funkisto!

 

[Rambuchan]

Another note on playing as the smaller island civs, like Crete and Cyclades:

With the difficulty level dropped a bit, you actually have a pretty good chance of winning the game by the scenario's defined Victory Conditions. There isn't necessarily any need to create your own conditions to win, like Blue Monkey does, though that's fun of course. The prime opportunity you have at victory with the likes of Crete and Cyclades is a Tribute Victory. There are plenty of sources of Prophets and Grapes on the central islands. Getting those early, exploiting the Tribute from them and hanging on to them till ultimate victory is entirely possible.

johnnyjal - Hi! Glad to have you on board. This is much bigger and more epic and complex than the Mughals scenario, which I recall you enjoyed. Hope you enjoy this one as much and get time to post feedback.

soul_warrior -

 

[johnnyjal]

I've just started a game as Thrace. On monarch level which is my normal level. So I may have to restart according to the guide and up the level. I will try to post as I get further along.

I cannot build the potter's wheel improvement. The pedia says all I need is the tech.
I must be missing something.

Thanks..

 

[Rambuchan]

I reckon you'll still have fun with Thrace on your usual level. Depends on how well you play, how much of a challenge you like to take on and how strictly you follow the advice in their Tribe pedia entry.

Potter's Wheel can only be built near a river. Excuse me for that. I put in a some stuff like that to enhance the specialised city side of things, just ahem forgot to update the pedia.

[EDIT: I see I similarly didn't update the pedia about the Mint improvement, which requires Silver to be in the city radius.]

 

[TomYo689]

I think I can build potters wheel anywhere. Still working on that Crete game

 

[Takhisis]

Well, that's news to me. It took a long time trying to find an image that properly evoked the Hegemonic struggle to be had within the game.

The game has better graphics than Age of Empires of course… Ah, I'll have to proceed towards the download button.

True. But, afaik, the Slavs only properly pitched up in the area a few hundred years after this scenario's time period. As mentioned, we just don't know what music the other resident barbaroi were making at the time. If anyone knows otherwise I'd be fascinated to find out more.

[Force Persuasion] The Serbian music stays.

I reckon you'll still have fun with Thrace on your usual level. Depends on how well you play, how much of a challenge you like to take on and how strictly you follow the advice in their Tribe pedia entry.

Potter's Wheel can only be built near a river. Excuse me for that. I put in a some stuff like that to enhance the specialised city side of things, just ahem forgot to update the pedia.

[EDIT: I see I similarly didn't update the pedia about the Mint improvement, which requires Silver to be in the city radius.]

Need 'pedia entries? Exams finished today.

 

[Rambuchan]

The game has better graphics than Age of Empires of course… Ah, I'll have to proceed towards the download button.

You mean you didn't already?!?!

[Force Persuasion] The Serbian music stays.

To be clear, there isn't actually any purely Serbian music in the soundtrack. Definitely no pop music, or turbo-folk, and none of their more traditional styles, such as stari gradski. The Balkan music that is in there is:

- Ljiljana Petrovi&#263; Buttler - She's from Bosnia. Her music is classed as Sevdalinka; melancholic, bitter sweet music, usually dealing with love stories, derived from Ottoman / Turkish styles. It's 'Balkan blues' if you like.

- Lajkó Félix - An extraordinary violin and zither player. He's a Hungarian from northern Serbia (Vojvodina). His music is a blend of Gypsy, Hungarian, Austrian and Serbian folk music, plus a bit of jazz and blues, though that stuff isn't included.

- Taraf de Haïdouks - This is a Romany band from Romania. Their name means Band of Brigands. Outrageously talented guys, who exemplify all that's amazing about Romany music. It's an acquired taste but very much emblematic of the region.

- Some other Romany stuff from Bulgaria, where the Thracians resided.

The rest of the soundtrack is genuine music of the Ancient Greeks (performed from fragments left to us), lots of this in the diplo music, so worth spending some time in diplomacy to fully taste it; Persian influenced music; and, at the end, three more modern pieces to bring in more diversity and drama. But you've got to have a play session of about one and a half hours to get to that stuff because the game engine always starts the soundtrack from the beginning each time you load up. I believe the soundtrack is 1hr 45mins long in total.

Need 'pedia entries? Exams finished today.

After the hundreds, literally hundreds, of entries I wrote, I think it's only those two that slipped through the net. I'll do something about those eventually, but at least the info is in the thread now.

 

[johnnyjal]

Thanks for the info about the potter's wheel. I did not want to open the editor and get a peek at the map. I will just keep playing. This will be the only time I do not know anything about the map. And it's a big map, lol.

The music - it's fine by me. Diverse. Sometimes I could not tell if I was supposed to be in a beer hall, at a bullfight, at a Gypsy campfire, or getting chased by some furies. Some of it reminded me of the theme song to Xena - which I just found out was in Bulgarian language.

 

[Takhisis]

You mean you didn't already?!?!

Exams and heavy bouts of influenza don't go well together. Vertigo, lots of snot, stiffnesses and soreness, randoms bouts of shivering, the works.

To be clear, there isn't actually any purely Serbian music in the soundtrack. Definitely no pop music, or turbo-folk, and none of their more traditional styles, such as stari gradski. The Balkan music that is in there is:

- Ljiljana Petrovi&#263; Buttler - She's from Bosnia. Her music is classed as Sevdalinka; melancholic, bitter sweet music, usually dealing with love stories, derived from Ottoman / Turkish styles. It's 'Balkan blues' if you like.

- Lajkó Félix - An extraordinary violin and zither player. He's a Hungarian from northern Serbia (Vojvodina). His music is a blend of Gypsy, Hungarian, Austrian and Serbian folk music, plus a bit of jazz and blues, though that stuff isn't included.

- Taraf de Haïdouks - This is a Romany band from Romania. Their name means Band of Brigands. Outrageously talented guys, who exemplify all that's amazing about Romany music. It's an acquired taste but very much emblematic of the region.

- Some other Romany stuff from Bulgaria, where the Thracians resided.

The rest of the soundtrack is genuine music of the Ancient Greeks (performed from fragments left to us), lots of this in the diplo music, so worth spending some time in diplomacy to fully taste it; Persian influenced music; and, at the end, three more modern pieces to bring in more diversity and drama. But you've got to have a play session of about one and a half hours to get to that stuff because the game engine always starts the soundtrack from the beginning each time you load up. I believe the soundtrack is 1hr 45mins long in total.

Sounds nice.

 

[TomYo689]

This is from my turn 267

Spoiler :

I've realised that grapes are a resource to be thoroughly milked with maximum city density around them. Made contact with the mainland soon after making my first boat. Sudden technology jump was followed with a lot of development, but the expansion wasn't fast enough to keep foreigners from setting on Crete. Sparta made a city and already has units with 10 attack and others with 8 defense, compared to my best unit of 1.1 at the time. Have been saving up archers and the ever so plentiful Gymnitos to try to break in. It's still 4 attack against 8 defense with full hp so I'm really looking forward to getting the aoe2 graphic siege rams.

Lydia has a 25% lead above the pack in victory points and 35% in power. I was suprised to see it have new-name cities it must have like 100 cities. The amount of different city names is amazing.

It's cool to see the names for the gulfs and bays too. I appreciate the quality of the map seems like nothing was left out at all.

 

[Takhisis]

OK, time to get the battering ram-buchans ready.

 

[Rambuchan]

johnnyjal - I know what you mean about the joy of an undiscovered map. And, yes, this one is big, with many different theatres of war, friendship and intrigue. You should be able to get involved in most of them as the Thracians. The domination victory is their best shot at glory, or even the Hegemonic Victory actually.

TomYo689 - Thanks for the update. The screenies are especially appreciated. Glad to hear you've cracked both the power of early tech trading and the importance of tribute resources. So what's your strategy going to be now? Do you want any tips?

Takhisis - Sorry to hear of your illness. Hope you're feeling better now. Who did you decide to go with for this game?