OK Jedi, I have a small list of post-1.0.1.135 notes that may be of interest to you while developing future versions of your map. Forgive me if any of the things I deem unusual are actually common pre-patch occurrences, I haven't played through enough times to have seen everything yet. So far things have been
very balanced, relative to v.5 pre-patch with no balance mods.
Notable Recent Events;
- 441/1851 - Germany Conquered: the 1st European (2nd overall, after China) Civ to be eradicated. Usually there would have been many more down by now.
- 458/1878 - WWI: Every city state and most Civs declared war on at least one opponent. Unbelievable amount of notification bubbles at side of screen, I'd say 50-60 at least. Total war explosion.
- 477/1887 - Askum Occupied: they are the 1st City State to be conquered (Songhai). Usually there would have been many more down by now.
Weird Occurrences;
After losing Germany's only other city to Russia rather early on, Bismark retired to Berlin, sulky and despondent. Being surrounded by neighboring Civs, he subsequently refused to improve the sizable city's land in any way whatsoever (not a single tile), for like 1000 years. All through that time he behaved like a total douche, denouncing everyone and taunting me flippantly, considering his shaky position on the world stage. They remained, stagnant, in their only city until finally being put out of their misery by a sizable alliance. I assume he had a certain goal (flavor) but was shafted early and just gave up... (?) Funny, because I have certainly done that a few times myself. Someone should make a "
Screw you guys, I'm going home!" mod, where the AI Civs can just cash-out and go to the Bahamas...
Notification: Ramesses II has sold Thebes to Askia of Songhai and is hitting the Mediterranean in his luxury caravel for some r&r.
A (very) few terrain & resource notes for Canada;
- Need prairies (ie: wheat, grassland) for most of central Canada, in the south (E of Rockies for a long way).
- Need livestock (ie: cows) to represent the massive herds of buffalo in the past.
- Need fish in the Great Lakes, fresh water port cities are viable.
- Too many furs overall, no Civs will even take any more, I have 4 extra from my large NA colony.
- More oil in Alberta (they have tons), not just the one in the Rocky Mountains.
- More game (deer, moose) up north for central Canada, and more tundra/ marsh (edit: oh nm, lots of tundra already, sorry).
- More small (1-tile) lakes in central northern Canada (it's not all trees above the prairies).
- More fish on both coasts & Hudson Bay, there used to be so many it was unbelievable.
- City-States to interact with in NA, after Civs are added (many tribes to draw names from).
- 1 or 2 small City-States way up north in Greenland and Nunavut could represent native Inuit settlements (whales, culture). Actually, something similar could work for Russia/NE Asia also (Nanai/Goldi people).
I know you are looking to balance realistic geography with playability so I understand if any of my suggestions are not feasible. I do believe that a more diverse terrain will allow for greater play in future versions, after you populate NA with Civs and City-States. As a final (for now) thought along those lines; I'm not sure how well Washington will fit in on NA. I realize trying to put
Civilization into any kind of historical context is spotty at best, but that one might break the immersion too much. Imagine playing Isabella of Spain... developing your Civ to the point where you can embark the world's oceans. After subsequent exploration you discover South America... only to find it already has a Spanish-language colony of no small size. That's about how I'd feel in an Elizabeth/Washington/North America scenario. I suppose one could play as
The Homeland, trying to wrest back control of their
Upstart Colonies, but that doesn't seem like my cup of tea. Unfortunately, aside from hostile/militaristic City-States, I can think of no alternative to Washington that would act as an opponent to total Iroquois domination of the continent... but maybe that could be part of the fun. You'd need to embark
an army from your homeland, not just settlers, and really carve yourself out a piece, so-to-speak. Playing as Hiawatha would suck though...
You know what might be OK? Aztec could (and should) be situated in southern Mexico, they could easily spread south to challenge Inca, and/or north to harass Iroquois. Any Euro/Asia/Afri/MidE colonists would likely encounter even Native dispersion across the Americas to challenge their settlements, or to ally with. Think that would work?
Cheers
"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within." W. Durant
Hopefully the next civilization is an African one and its also free. 
Mongolia coming later
).
It took a hundred or so turns more than I did, but I had the advantage of knowing where I was going. The AI needed to explore, then build and send a settler. Since I just built the colonists and sent 'em bee-line west over the Atlantic, this would obviously provide a large head-start. Oh, on second thought I suppose the AI may have sent the settler, blind, across the briney blue... not sure how they handle settler behavior (do they explore, or only travel to revealed tiles?).
If it´s Iceland it should be much closer to Greenland (with some ocean between the British Isles and Iceland). As it is now it´s closer to Britain than Brittany or Norway...
