Map of Arda Middle Earth based on ICE map

[eric_ives]

Iron Crown Enterprises had a Middle Earth Role-Playing game back in the 1980s and early 1990s. I have a poster of their conception of Middle Earth (with the lands familiar to most readers from Tolkien's books and Jackson's movies in the northwest corner of a vast Pangea landmass). So, I have attempted to turn this map into a huge Civilization III map.

I did this on a Macintosh, and the Mac screen-capture function seems disabled when I see the small screen inside the Civ game when I retire, so hopefully someone with a Windows machine will be able to play this scenario and get a screen-shot of the mini map.

I am uploading jpgs showing the starting positions if you want to play in the area that is Gondor, Numenor, or the Gulf of Lune.

This map I've made has features of Middle Earth at the start of the Second Age and the beginning of the Third Age.

It's a huge map 160x160 and I've changed names of civilizations and city builds in the scenario, but made no other modifications. The scenario is for 13 civilizations.

In keeping with the spirit of Tolkien's preferences, you'll find saltpeter, Uranium, and Aluminum very scarce in this map.

 

[Olorin0222]

Here's a screenshot

 

[Snorken]

It looks pretty good! I'll download it...

 

[oilfan]

Thanks! Its always fun to see peoples interpretations of Tolkien's Arda. Thanks again, will download when I the chance.

 

[tjedge1]

I've always hoped someone would do ICE's version. I used to play that RPG and in a way I still do with Rolemaster. No one else seemed to like that map here as it is not "cannon" material. I always prefered it myself. Nice work.

 

[eric_ives]

If you start near the Gulf of Lune or the River Anduin it's a pretty easy map, as you have more room to expand. Starting on the star-shaped Numenor you'll find the smaller land-mass and isolation from other cultures early on will put you behind other civilizations early in the game, but you should be able to catch up since your isolation reduces your need for land-based military units.

 

[tjedge1]

Took a closer look at the map and I think once the LoTM mod is done, I'll adapt it in and post it again, giving you the credit for making the map of course. I like it, and may even use to make an alternate world map for my own mod. And War Hammer's. Need to get the MoM when the new one caomes out. Can you tell I really like this map?

 

[eric_ives]

I'm so glad you enjoy the map.

I suppose we ought to give credit to Iron Crown Enterprises for designing it, as I mainly copied their map as faithfully as I could given the limitations I imposed.

My computers get slow on maps of this size, so I haven't completed a game (I can forsee my likely eventual victory by the time the civilizations have industrialized, and haven't played beyond then). I wonder how the sparcity of Aluminum and Uranium work in the later stages of the game. Perhaps it would be better to have none rather than the few sources I scattered.

If the city build names are working you may wonder where I got them. Most are from the languages Tolkien invented. Either actual names used by Tolkien or words based upon his languages. Some names are from Iron Crown Enterprise MERP modules set in non-Tolkien-corpus areas of their conception of Middle Earth. I think there are a couple civilizations where city and hero names come from Dungeons and Dragons books or else the strategy game Divine Right.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Awesome. Simply awesome.

 

[WildWeazel]

Oooohh, so THAT's where that map came from lol. Looks great, I was about to try one myself from a picture I found on Google.