History Rewritten (Original Thread)

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Progress on El Cid AI:

Now that 0.3 is working, I have tested El Cid twice. 2 conquest victories: Within 410 BC and 205 AD. He builds a decent army, founds 1-3 religions, builds a couple wonders, trains a fair army, and is willing to capitulate halfway through his destruction - consistent with his Knightly heart.

I have discovered that his Bio is unwritten, and that his starting phrase is blank.

As well, he is too Alexandery. His music is a bit too un-spanish, the Isabella music would work well.

 

[Xyth]

Progress on El Cid AI:

Now that 0.3 is working, I have tested El Cid twice. 2 conquest victories: Within 410 BC and 205 AD. He builds a decent army, founds 1-3 religions, builds a couple wonders, trains a fair army, and is willing to capitulate halfway through his destruction - consistent with his Knightly heart.

I have discovered that his Bio is unwritten, and that his starting phrase is blank.

As well, he is too Alexandery. His music is a bit too un-spanish, the Isabella music would work well.

Glad to hear 0.3 is working for you now. El Cid's AI is sounding very promising!

I believe he's got Hannibal's music atm, feel free to change it. He's one of several leaders I haven't got pedia or diplomacy text for yet, feel free to write those too if you want

Once I've got 0.4 out I'm going to take a break from adding new civs. With the exception of Poland I will have added all of the ones on my 'definites' list anyway. I'd like 0.5 to be the final beta, so that version will be all about adding polish and tidying up the myriad of loose ends.

 

[Lachlan]

Sweet. Hopefully I don't introduce any new ones with the 0.4 stuff! I have a much better idea of how to prevent them now though, many many thanks.

As for 0.4, I was originally planning to revise, reorganize and add wonders but that's going to take me ages so I'll leave it for a later version. 0.4 will add Assyria, Hatti, Phoenicia and the Swahili, an update to Cultural Citystyles, the giant earth map that Lachlan requested, and lots of fixes/polish. Going to try have it finished by the end of the month.

No "Giant Earth" but "Carter's Earth"

"Giant Earth Mod" of Genghis Kai is not the same map than "Carter's Earth" of Carter

If you say "Carter's Earth" anybody know it...



But, the fact would be interesting is we could now have all the civilizations of Mesopotamia at once...

Example, to do a 3000-2000 BC start...

 

[Xyth]

No "Giant Earth" but "Carter's Earth"

"Giant Earth Mod" of Genghis Kai is not the same map than "Carter's Earth" of Carter

If you say "Carter's Earth" anybody know it...

Carter's Earth is what I'm adding. I just described it as giant cos it's so huge

 

[Lachlan]

Carter's Earth is what I'm adding. I just described it as giant cos it's so huge

1) Et surtout, on pourra jouer n'importe quel sélection de civilisations à leur vraies places...

And overall, we will can play any set of civilizations at their right places...

2) When will you be in 1.0 i will begin to create scenarii based on the earth map...

3) My dream : a 50 civs possiblity to play at once one day...
Your mod is planned to have 50 Civs, right ?

4) What about Ferdinand of Aragon or General Francisco Franco for Spain ?

5) Benito Mussolini for Rome, he dreamed to recreate Roman Empire
He has recuperated antic symbols of Ancient Rome...

All these three leaders are died...

 

[Xyth]

3) My dream : a 50 civs possiblity to play at once one day...
Your mod is planned to have 50 Civs, right ?

Yes, I've set 50 civs as my maximum for the mod. 0.4 has 46, and Poland will come in at some point too, making 47. One of the last 3 slots I will use for a Central Asian/Afghanistan/Pakistan area civilization of some sort. The last 2 slots I will leave open in case any good new unit art and leaders are made. I think someone is working on art for Srivijaya which interests me immensely; shall see how that turns out if it is ever finished.

4) What about Ferdinand of Aragon or General Francisco Franco for Spain ?

I'd like to add another leader to Spain, maybe even two if I have enough space. There are quite a few good Spanish leaderheads out there that I haven't used yet (Filipe II, Carlos V, Franco, and another that would make an excellent ancient Iberian/Tartessian leader).

I need to work out what I'm doing with the 1 leader civs (Aztec, Netherlands, Phoenicia, Portugal) first though as I'd like every civ to have at least 2 leaders. I plan to address these in 0.5.

5) Benito Mussolini for Rome, he dreamed to recreate Roman Empire
He has recuperated antic symbols of Ancient Rome...

Rome has 4 leaders already which is my maximum per civ. I haven't represented medieval to modern Italy at all though which I'm not happy about. Maybe I could partially do that via Byzantium? Or maybe via some sort of Hapsburg/HRE style civ. I'm not familiar enough with Italy's post-Roman history, need to learn more before I make any decisions here. A lot I need to do before then though.

 

[Xyth]

I would like people's feedback on 2 potential changes to civilizations in HR:

PHOENICIA & CARTHAGE

I am strongly considering merging Phoenicia and Carthage together as a single civ. It would be called Phoenicia, have a new purple flag I've made, and have 3 leaders: Hiram, Dido and Hannibal. The UU I could either leave as the Sacred Band, or change to a Merchant ship. I would possibly change the UB to a seaport and turn the Cothon into a wonder instead. Starting positions on the maps would be moved to the Levant and the citylist would be rewritten accordingly

My reasoning behind this is that it feels indulgent having 2 separate ancient/classical-only civilizations representing what really is just one. I don't feel that the existing Carthaginian civilization represents the Phoenicians well enough and as they are one of my favourite ancient peoples I want to address this. It would result in a much stronger citylist, especially given many on the standard Carthaginian citylist were actually Berber settlements.

From an art perspective, I do not have good art for a second Phoenician leader; merging them would solve this issue and free one leader slot for another civ. Also, I'm struggling to get enough unit art for Phoenicia; if I merged the two civs I would keep most of the Carthaginian unit set, subbing in a few the best Phoenician units in the ancient/classical era. And of course, this would free up one of the 50 'civ slots' for something more unique further along.


BABYLON

Babylon has bothered me for a while and now that I've added Assyria, even more so. The problem is that 'Babylonia' is really a modern construction used before the Sumerians, Akkadians and the Amurru were discovered by archaeology.

Although Babylon was originally an Akkadian town it was not at all significant (or even big enough to be called a city) until it was taken over by the Amurru (aka Amorites). The Amurru have some of the oldest and most important cities in the Middle East (Ebla, Ugarit, Mari, Halab/Aleppo, etc) yet they are continually forgotten by games like Civ. I've yet to even see a mod with them in and in general most people aren't even aware of their existence. They really were a powerful political and economic force in the region despite not forming a united empire (they had competing city states) until the empire of Hammurabi (who was an Amurru).

The Firaxis citylists for the Mesopotamian civs are pretty dreadful so I've been rewriting them. It quickly became apparent that between Sumer/Akkad and Assyria there were extremely few cities left over that can be said to actually be 'Babylonian'. Merging Babylon into Sumer or Assyria just doesn't feel right historically, (and would waste a lot of great art). I'm considering taking a different approach and remaking Babylon as Amurru.

This would be a fairly minor change overall, I'd be keeping the same flag, same leaders (though I might another), same unit art, UB and UU. The name and citylist would really be the only things that would change. The only thing that might be off-putting is that Babylon would not be the first city on the list, it would be behind Ebla, Ugarit, Halab, Mari and maybe a few others. These important cities were far older than Babylon so I feel it's important they are founded first.

Anyway, any comments on any of this?

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Phoenicia and Carthage are just too similar. Definitely merge them. Babylon, other than creating laws, did little. Maybe keep Hammurabi, but remove Babylon from the game.

 

[Xyth]

Phoenicia and Carthage are just too similar. Definitely merge them. Babylon, other than creating laws, did little. Maybe keep Hammurabi, but remove Babylon from the game.

Babylon was a massively important city, culturally and religiously. It was also one of the largest cities of the ancient world. So I don't want to remove it.

The problem is that though the city was one of the most important of all time, it's empires were all shortlived and had completely different peoples in charge: an Amorite empire under Hammurabi, a Kassite empire, and a Chaldean Empire (Nebuchadnezzar and kin). At other times it was part of Assyria and ultimately Persia. In many ways Babylon was the Jerusalem of it's time - a holy city constantly changing hands.

By remaking the civilization as Amurru I'd be putting Babylon and it's leaders in with the people that first made it a political and cultural power - but as one of many important cities rather than the capital of a rather uninspiring list of minor towns.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

I mean the civ, not the city.

 

[Lachlan]

I would like people's feedback on 2 potential changes to civilizations in HR:

PHOENICIA & CARTHAGE

I am strongly considering merging Phoenicia and Carthage together as a single civ. It would be called Phoenicia, have a new purple flag I've made, and have 3 leaders: Hiram, Dido and Hannibal. The UU I could either leave as the Sacred Band, or change to a Merchant ship. I would possibly change the UB to a seaport and turn the Cothon into a wonder instead. Starting positions on the maps would be moved to the Levant and the citylist would be rewritten accordingly

My reasoning behind this is that it feels indulgent having 2 separate ancient/classical-only civilizations representing what really is just one. I don't feel that the existing Carthaginian civilization represents the Phoenicians well enough and as they are one of my favourite ancient peoples I want to address this. It would result in a much stronger citylist, especially given many on the standard Carthaginian citylist were actually Berber settlements.

From an art perspective, I do not have good art for a second Phoenician leader; merging them would solve this issue and free one leader slot for another civ. Also, I'm struggling to get enough unit art for Phoenicia; if I merged the two civs I would keep most of the Carthaginian unit set, subbing in a few the best Phoenician units in the ancient/classical era. And of course, this would free up one of the 50 'civ slots' for something more unique further along.

For Carthage merging with Phoenicia, why not ?

But it will be a problem : how to warrant ("garantir") the fact that Phoenicia colonizes the "Carthage Area" ?

What about one more Unique Unique to all civs, a "second unique unit" ?

 

[Xyth]

For Carthage merging with Phoenicia, why not ?

But it will be a problem : how to warrant ("garantir") the fact that Phoenicia colonizes the "Carthage Area" ?

Well that's an unavoidable disadvantage of playing on real world maps; other than the first city, the rest are rarely in the right location. Not an issue on random maps or scenarios, which is one reason why I tend to prefer those.

What about one more Unique Unique to all civs, a "second unique unit" ?

I've seen this in quite a few mods, it's a plausible idea though some for some civs it is hard enough finding just one UU. Would have to be careful keeping the UUs in either the same era or separate eras consistent across all civs to avoid unbalancing things. See how things are looking after wonders and the techtree and such are finished.

 

[Lachlan]

Well that's an unavoidable disadvantage of playing on real world maps; other than the first city, the rest are rarely in the right location. Not an issue on random maps or scenarios, which is one reason why I tend to prefer those.

What about adapting "perfect world py" from Cephalo ?

I already tried because it results on complete mess of the generated maps

If you could resolving that, i would be nice...

Good work so far...

Any news for 0.4 ?

Civs starts on giant earth are placed ?

Enough place for starting virtually all the mesopotamian civs at once ?

Thanks

 

[Andrewicus]

I agree too with the merging of Carthage & Phoenicia, if you dropped out the HRE and merged it with Germany than keeping those two separate is difficult to defend.

Interestingly the problem seems very similar in both cases. Despite the idea of the mod grouping basic sort of civilizations to cover broad expanses of time the problem is that in many many cases the center of power shifted from one great and powerful city to another. In the case of the Amurru, Babylon later held importance, in the case of Phoenicia, Carthage held immense power. This makes me wonder if perhaps there should be a way of highlighting a secondary power city, beyond just putting a forbidden palace in it, but giving it some kind of special power. I realize of course that that would take a whole ton of work so I'm mostly just putting the thought out there as an interesting similarity in terms of dilemma.

Overall though, I say reconstruct them as the Amurru, definitely don't ditch the Assyrians or the Sumerians though. The Amorites really deserve to be represented in some form.

What are you thinking for the Central Asian/Afghanistan civ? Persian or Turkic or both? If the former you could go with the Sogdians (and Sogdiana) though historically speaking scraping together stuff for them might be difficult. Or you could go with Turkestan perhaps, then you could move Timur out of that ahistorical Mongol civ he's in now, sure he claimed descent but so has everybody else who wanted to be anybody in that area of the world. Turkestan I understand is a rather modern name but it really encompassed the area that you're looking to target and given that region's tumultous history might be the best way to go unless you want to make 6,000 different civs...

Turkestan as a name is the best of both worlds too, Turk is turkic and -stan is Persian. You could go with the Transoxiana term too but that just seems even more exonymic.

Anyway just my two cents, if you want some help on concepts for the Central Asian empire I can help as I've done a lot of historical academic work in that area (though mostly in the Soviet Period).

 

[Xyth]

What about adapting "perfect world py" from Cephalo ?

I already tried because it results on complete mess of the generated maps

If you could resolving that, i would be nice...

I used to use that script too. I had a brief attempt at adapting it a while back but it's insanely complex and well beyond my current skills with Python.

Good work so far...

Any news for 0.4 ?

Aiming for the end of the month. Doesn't mean I'll make it, but I'll try!

Civs starts on giant earth are placed ?

Enough place for starting virtually all the mesopotamian civs at once ?

Thanks

Map is in but 0.4 civs are not placed yet. Will be done soon.

I agree too with the merging of Carthage & Phoenicia, if you dropped out the HRE and merged it with Germany than keeping those two separate is difficult to defend.

Very good point and removes any doubt I had about the idea. Phoenicia and Carthage will be merged.

Interestingly the problem seems very similar in both cases. Despite the idea of the mod grouping basic sort of civilizations to cover broad expanses of time the problem is that in many many cases the center of power shifted from one great and powerful city to another. In the case of the Amurru, Babylon later held importance, in the case of Phoenicia, Carthage held immense power. This makes me wonder if perhaps there should be a way of highlighting a secondary power city, beyond just putting a forbidden palace in it, but giving it some kind of special power. I realize of course that that would take a whole ton of work so I'm mostly just putting the thought out there as an interesting similarity in terms of dilemma.

I've been thinking about that too. When I eventually get back to working on wonders I'll see if anything inspires. I think moving your capital and building second capitals should be a more desirable aspect of gameplay.

Overall though, I say reconstruct them as the Amurru, definitely don't ditch the Assyrians or the Sumerians though. The Amorites really deserve to be represented in some form.

Sumerians and Assyrians aren't going anywhere, don't worry. I think with Sumer, Amurru, Assyria, Hatti, Phoenicia, Israel. Arabia and Persia the Ancient Near East is very well covered, with every civ distinct and interesting. Of the semi-major civs in that region that I haven't covered, many are at least partially covered by the included civs:

• Akkadians - included in Sumer
• Hurrians/Mitanni - could possibly deserve their own civ but got to draw the line somewhere. Were extremely influential to Hatti and Assyria so a lot of their cities and such will appear in those civs.
• Aramaeans - inherited the western cities of Amurru so will be represented in that civ
• Medes - can really be considered the first Persian Empire, I'll eventually adjust the citylist to reflect this. Persepolis as first Persian city is pretty silly.
• Elamites - not as easy to tie into Persia as the Medes but given they only ever had 2 major cites, both of which became core cities of the Medes and Achaemenids, that will have to do

I'd also like to eventually expand the Arabs to include their pre-Islamic history, though I might consider giving Saba/Himyar/Yemen it's own separate civ. Won't be looking at that in the scope of 0.4 though.

What are you thinking for the Central Asian/Afghanistan civ? Persian or Turkic or both? If the former you could go with the Sogdians (and Sogdiana) though historically speaking scraping together stuff for them might be difficult. Or you could go with Turkestan perhaps, then you could move Timur out of that ahistorical Mongol civ he's in now, sure he claimed descent but so has everybody else who wanted to be anybody in that area of the world. Turkestan I understand is a rather modern name but it really encompassed the area that you're looking to target and given that region's tumultous history might be the best way to go unless you want to make 6,000 different civs...

Turkestan as a name is the best of both worlds too, Turk is turkic and -stan is Persian. You could go with the Transoxiana term too but that just seems even more exonymic.

Anyway just my two cents, if you want some help on concepts for the Central Asian empire I can help as I've done a lot of historical academic work in that area (though mostly in the Soviet Period).

I don't have a definite idea for the region yet, with such a tumultuous history it's going to be a challenge for sure. I am remaking the Turks to cover the earlier empires such as the Seljuks as well, so that will definitely have a big effect on choices to be made in the region. Would it be appropriate to use Turkestan as the name for an expanded Turkic Empire?

Sogdiana, Khwarezm and Khorasan are all possibilities, though I suspect they could just as easily be incorporated into Persia and the Turkic Empire. The eastern part of the region (modern Afghanistan and Pakistan) is the area that strikes as the least covered by those two civs. Maybe the Kushan?

The other big possibility (though one has to completely ignore the recent and completely erroneous use of the word) is some sort of Aryan Empire. This would create a nice distinction between the western Iranian (Persians) and the Eastern Indo-Iranian (Aryans). It might be a bit of a false construction but I think it could cover a lot of territory and history that isn't yet represented yet.

I need to learn a lot more about the region first though, your insights and suggestions are always welcome.

 

[Lachlan]

I used to use that script too. I had a brief attempt at adapting it a while back but it's insanely complex and well beyond my current skills with Python.



Aiming for the end of the month. Doesn't mean I'll make it, but I'll try!



Map is in but 0.4 civs are not placed yet. Will be done soon.



Very good point and removes any doubt I had about the idea. Phoenicia and Carthage will be merged.



I've been thinking about that too. When I eventually get back to working on wonders I'll see if anything inspires. I think moving your capital and building second capitals should be a more desirable aspect of gameplay.



Sumerians and Assyrians aren't going anywhere, don't worry. I think with Sumer, Amurru, Assyria, Hatti, Phoenicia, Israel. Arabia and Persia the Ancient Near East is very well covered, with every civ distinct and interesting. Of the semi-major civs in that region that I haven't covered, many are at least partially covered by the included civs:

• Akkadians - included in Sumer
• Hurrians/Mitanni - could possibly deserve their own civ but got to draw the line somewhere. Were extremely influential to Hatti and Assyria so a lot of their cities and such will appear in those civs.
• Aramaeans - inherited the western cities of Amurru so will be represented in that civ
• Medes - can really be considered the first Persian Empire, I'll eventually adjust the citylist to reflect this. Persepolis as first Persian city is pretty silly.
• Elamites - not as easy to tie into Persia as the Medes but given they only ever had 2 major cites, both of which became core cities of the Medes and Achaemenids, that will have to do

I'd also like to eventually expand the Arabs to include their pre-Islamic history, though I might consider giving Saba/Himyar/Yemen it's own separate civ. Won't be looking at that in the scope of 0.4 though.




I don't have a definite idea for the region yet, with such a tumultuous history it's going to be a challenge for sure. I am remaking the Turks to cover the earlier empires such as the Seljuks as well, so that will definitely have a big effect on choices to be made in the region. Would it be appropriate to use Turkestan as the name for an expanded Turkic Empire?

Sogdiana, Khwarezm and Khorasan are all possibilities, though I suspect they could just as easily be incorporated into Persia and the Turkic Empire. The eastern part of the region (modern Afghanistan and Pakistan) is the area that strikes as the least covered by those two civs. Maybe the Kushan?

The other big possibility (though one has to completely ignore the recent and completely erroneous use of the word) is some sort of Aryan Empire. This would create a nice distinction between the western Iranian (Persians) and the Eastern Indo-Iranian (Aryans). It might be a bit of a false construction but I think it could cover a lot of territory and history that isn't yet represented yet.

I need to learn a lot more about the region first though, your insights and suggestions are always welcome.

What about this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom

 

[Xyth]

What about this : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Bactrian_Kingdom

The Baktrian Greeks can really just be considered one dynasty of many in that area, I'd prefer a civilization that's more all-encompassing.

Btw I put all the starting locations on Carter's Earth this morning. I have to agree with The J I'm afraid; it's huge but it's not a very good earth map compared to the others already included. Most of the extra size is taken up by ocean and areas like Mesopotamia are still far too small and poorly terrained. I'll still include it though.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

I just realized something game-changing: The Epic Speed, which is different from standard BTS, is way too fast for the handicaps. I am in the 1300s right now, but my neighbour is just getting ALPHABET.

 

[Xyth]

I just realized something game-changing: The Epic Speed, which is different from standard BTS, is way too fast for the handicaps. I am in the 1300s right now, but my neighbour is just getting ALPHABET.

I've not made any changes at all to any Game Speeds or difficulty levels. Does one of the maps change these? If so that's not something I know how to fix, best to bring it up in the Starting Points thread.

How is El Cid coming along btw? I'm hoping to release 0.4 at the end of this month, would be great to include his new AI

 

[Anonilate]

How about these guys for the Aztec, Dutch, and Portuguese: Cuahtemoc (led a resistance after the death of Montezuma), William III of Orange (he married and co-reigned with Mary II in England and had a successful war against the English), Henry the Navigator (important Prince who helped spur on Portuguese Navigation, though he was never a monarch if I remember correctly) or if you want something more modern go with António de Oliveira Salazar (the dictator who established the Estado Novo).

As far as other Civs go: Tupi, Zapotec (though I think this may be too many Mexican Civs), Olmec, Mapuche, I'm not sure if you have a Scandinavian Civ... or something to represent the Kalmar Union, and of course there are various North American Indian tribes you could add. It'd be hard to choose just 2 of these.