Information on the Hellas modmod has moved to the mod section of the forum. This thread is now returning to the Italy map of the older modmod for PAE II, which will be adapted for PAE III, soon.
Modmod for PAE III:
Suspense
There are two types of diplo victory and a philosophy space victory. The game will end in the year 2 AD after 1000 rounds completed. That means, a domination victory with the brave Spartans or invincible Macedonians won't be a sure thing, for the other Civs will go for the other victory types.
Persians
All victory types could be in vain, for the Persians are on the map. They start on the other side of the Bosporus from the very beginning, but get reenforcements from the map boarder, much like on a paperboard tabletop wargame. These enforcements are Python staged. They will make the ground shake, as the coder, who did the Persians, has already brought us plague, revolt and meteorite. Therefore, the Persians aren't likely to come singing and dancing. Complain about the Persians to Pie!
Thrifty ressources
Few civs get copper and tin close by. Some get nothing. Stategic ressources are on islands or in the middle of nowhere. You will have to sail for them. Or one civ got double copper and the other one double lead. Maybe they're coming to an agreement? There is hardly any gold. You find it at places, where it was actually mined in atiquity. The Egyptians traded wine to Crete. So find the Minoans on their island. That's where you have to look for the first of vines.
More new ressources
Flax, fruits, clay, timber. Terracotta of PAE becomes redfigured ware.
Stone age techs (inspired by The_Triturador and avain)
Ressources will be invisible at start. Gives you something to do at an early stage. About 15 new techs to research! The first of them reveal what ressources you got and in what direction you might want to research. If you're overeager to get a religion first and neglect your worker techs, you're gambling; if you are growing fast and forget about getting a religion, you might be set back in bronze age. Leave out the military techs – and get sacked by your friend Greek neighbours.
New peoples
From PAE on the map: the Athenians, Spartans, Thebans. In the northwest the small tribe of the illyrians. New Civs are Thrace, Troy, Lydians, Minoans, Arcadians, Achaeans, Aetolians, Epirotes, Thessalians, Corinthians and Argives.
Map
The Greece map from the Warlords scenario was touched by El Hidalgo and antiquified and redesigned by myself.
Maritime villages
They give a few more bucks than ordinary villages and must be built on terrain type Shore.
Early maritime colonization
An early pre-bronze-era boat, the Keftion, helps the expansive peoples explore the map, so that they know in the age of colonization where to go with their emigrants. Only the civs, who were blessed with timber or pine tree, can build the keftion.
Movement
Ships' movement is speeded up to cope with the huge map size.
Units
Enough isn't enough. There had to be some more skins, to avoid that all Greek armies fight in a generic way with same looks. Look forward to especially poor looking chariots of the especially poor civs, Dorian, Ionian, Macedonian and Scythian mercenaries, three kinds of Sarissa-phalangites and just about every Civ soldier being present who can hold a spear and looks Greek.
Formation
All hoplite units now stand in more dense formation in melee groups of six, except the crème de la crème like the Spartiats or Thebes' Sacred Band (who were the first to defeat the Spartans).
Bonus special units
In PAE III, there are several villages spread about the map that you have to conquer or settle nearby, in order to train local special bonus troops. Modded, the Assyrians change into Agrianians, the Teuton footmen into Molossians and the Balearian Slingers into Ionians. The Molossians excell in wearing an extra long gown, the Ionians are particularly good at attacking from the sea, and the Agrianians were a light elite unit of Alexander's army.
Dangerous new animals
Three quadrupeds, two of which can gallop and one being rather stolid. An eagle is yet in the making. His task will be circling and creating atmo. If I had an owl skin, I would make it Minerva's owl attached to the Athenians, as early ancient air recon.
Hunting
A unit Hunter, strong against animals, weak against military. Combined with PAE's hunting feature, the hunters will let civs with crappy starting positions in the woods keep track. In PAE, animals are very strong. They enter cultural boarders. If a civ starts in the woods, it will take a long time, until workers can improve the land safely, unless you protect them with hunters. Use them in pairs to counter multiple attacks from PAE's beasts.
Gathering
A female forager builds camps on river tiles. They yield a sparse +1 gold, but even that can make up a bit for a bad starting location and help research. There's a vast amount of ethnographic and archaeological evidence for a sexual division of labor in which men hunt and women gathered wild fruits and edible plants, so that's why it's a stone age girl skin. She also cuts trees and builts vineyards. As the process of civilization proceeds, she will wear more textile later in the game.
Cultural techs
Epics and Theogony are on the tech path to former Monotheism, now Mysteries of Eleusis. The Mysteries, themselves, are the former "Jewisch Monastery". They can be built only once and will produce Initiates of the Mysteries, formerly "Jewish Missionaries". The "Jewish Temple" becomes the Panathenaean games, since every other Greek city could have worshiped Athena as her main godess and dedicate her a festival. Salomo's Temple is, now, the Erechtheum of the Acropolis.
Wonders
The Erechtheum, a Heraion (Hera-temple), a Poseidon temple, the Panathanaean games.
Key tech
Judaism is replaced by Pallas Athena, but remained in terms of gameplay the same religion as in PAE III, which grants a great science boost. This represents a scientific dominance of one Greek city states (doesn't neccessarily have to be Athens), that at a certain point (founding of the "religion" Pallas Athena) even more explodes. The Jewish freedom fighters of PAE fit in this scheme very well, as representing the internal quarrels of city states that were often accompanied by exile, civil war and violence.
Religions
Rather for gameplay, than to make religion historians happy, several new religions were added. They are only meant to create religious anger between the civs, to avoid a boring eternal peace between the all Greek civs. Don't take the division of "Olympianism" into different "religions" too literally. It's there because of the interlinked way religion and diplo are working in BTS. They relate to the Greek's attaching site-specific surnames to the Olympians, such as Zeus Olympicus or Zeus Dictaios. Some worshiped a Zeus Pelasgicus, and the Arcadians knew a Zeus Lycaeus. On a side note, by adding the Zeus Lycaeus, the "wolf-Zeus", I learned some strange new things on how werewolves were part of Greek mytholgy…
Another cult
While Pie's latest add, the cult of Dionysos, was like practically made for this modmod, the Mithras cult changed into Asclepius'.
Civics
A little Grecized (Ephores, Tyrannis, Oligarchy…
und revaluated.
Two types of diplo victory
Found the Delian League and achieve a diplomatic victory according the Apostolic-Palace victory in BTS. Or found the Peloponnesian League, provided your civ possesses the "Peloponnese" bonus ressource that's located singularly on one tile on the peninsula.
Victory of Reason
Analogously to space victory, this victory type requires the works of ancient Greek thinkers, which will be assembled just like the spaceship parts in BTS. If you complete all the great writings of Pythagoras, Aristotle, et cetera, you got it made. The new Academy buildings in PAE III will add production to the sages's "projects", just like the Spacelift did. The las project of this kind will be a work of Epicure. You will need th tech Hellenism to start working on it. So, there will be time, to prevent science victory by force or treason…
Leadertraits
Kroesus, king of Lydia, is according to his legendary wealth, FINANCIAL, while Periander, tyrant of Corinth, is for the Corinthian colonialism and trade based economy MARITIME. MARITIME gives a free lighthouse in each new built city, more income from water tiles, faster builds of maritime buildings and promoted ships from the assembly line.
Sound
A little variety to the Civ oldies.
Troyan Horse
The poor Achaeans get the horse to make up for their miserable starting position. The horse is but a ram, that reduces city defences rapidly. When lost or the Achaens being conquered, it changes back into a regular ram. The Achaeans are at permanent war with Troy. Maybe they will ask you to join them. Because they got the horse but not quite the soldiers to lay siege on well defended Troy…
Peculiarities of PAE III
You should either know PAE III first or read through its feature list, before you immerse into ancient Greece. Because there are some bold rule changes, that at first made me post on the forum, because I didn' know what to make of that. Some of these peculiarities are:
Improvements cost money.
You can't build any settler before Colonization.
You can build streets no sooner than Spoke Wheels.
Try to get a religion, get your cultural boarder expanded.
Build a palace right after you send out your first settler.
Modmod for PAE II:
Modmod for PAE III:
Spoiler :
Suspense
There are two types of diplo victory and a philosophy space victory. The game will end in the year 2 AD after 1000 rounds completed. That means, a domination victory with the brave Spartans or invincible Macedonians won't be a sure thing, for the other Civs will go for the other victory types.
Persians
All victory types could be in vain, for the Persians are on the map. They start on the other side of the Bosporus from the very beginning, but get reenforcements from the map boarder, much like on a paperboard tabletop wargame. These enforcements are Python staged. They will make the ground shake, as the coder, who did the Persians, has already brought us plague, revolt and meteorite. Therefore, the Persians aren't likely to come singing and dancing. Complain about the Persians to Pie!
Thrifty ressources
Few civs get copper and tin close by. Some get nothing. Stategic ressources are on islands or in the middle of nowhere. You will have to sail for them. Or one civ got double copper and the other one double lead. Maybe they're coming to an agreement? There is hardly any gold. You find it at places, where it was actually mined in atiquity. The Egyptians traded wine to Crete. So find the Minoans on their island. That's where you have to look for the first of vines.
More new ressources
Flax, fruits, clay, timber. Terracotta of PAE becomes redfigured ware.
Stone age techs (inspired by The_Triturador and avain)
Ressources will be invisible at start. Gives you something to do at an early stage. About 15 new techs to research! The first of them reveal what ressources you got and in what direction you might want to research. If you're overeager to get a religion first and neglect your worker techs, you're gambling; if you are growing fast and forget about getting a religion, you might be set back in bronze age. Leave out the military techs – and get sacked by your friend Greek neighbours.
New peoples
From PAE on the map: the Athenians, Spartans, Thebans. In the northwest the small tribe of the illyrians. New Civs are Thrace, Troy, Lydians, Minoans, Arcadians, Achaeans, Aetolians, Epirotes, Thessalians, Corinthians and Argives.
Map
The Greece map from the Warlords scenario was touched by El Hidalgo and antiquified and redesigned by myself.
Maritime villages
They give a few more bucks than ordinary villages and must be built on terrain type Shore.
Early maritime colonization
An early pre-bronze-era boat, the Keftion, helps the expansive peoples explore the map, so that they know in the age of colonization where to go with their emigrants. Only the civs, who were blessed with timber or pine tree, can build the keftion.
Movement
Ships' movement is speeded up to cope with the huge map size.
Units
Enough isn't enough. There had to be some more skins, to avoid that all Greek armies fight in a generic way with same looks. Look forward to especially poor looking chariots of the especially poor civs, Dorian, Ionian, Macedonian and Scythian mercenaries, three kinds of Sarissa-phalangites and just about every Civ soldier being present who can hold a spear and looks Greek.
Formation
All hoplite units now stand in more dense formation in melee groups of six, except the crème de la crème like the Spartiats or Thebes' Sacred Band (who were the first to defeat the Spartans).
Bonus special units
In PAE III, there are several villages spread about the map that you have to conquer or settle nearby, in order to train local special bonus troops. Modded, the Assyrians change into Agrianians, the Teuton footmen into Molossians and the Balearian Slingers into Ionians. The Molossians excell in wearing an extra long gown, the Ionians are particularly good at attacking from the sea, and the Agrianians were a light elite unit of Alexander's army.
Dangerous new animals
Three quadrupeds, two of which can gallop and one being rather stolid. An eagle is yet in the making. His task will be circling and creating atmo. If I had an owl skin, I would make it Minerva's owl attached to the Athenians, as early ancient air recon.
Hunting
A unit Hunter, strong against animals, weak against military. Combined with PAE's hunting feature, the hunters will let civs with crappy starting positions in the woods keep track. In PAE, animals are very strong. They enter cultural boarders. If a civ starts in the woods, it will take a long time, until workers can improve the land safely, unless you protect them with hunters. Use them in pairs to counter multiple attacks from PAE's beasts.
Gathering
A female forager builds camps on river tiles. They yield a sparse +1 gold, but even that can make up a bit for a bad starting location and help research. There's a vast amount of ethnographic and archaeological evidence for a sexual division of labor in which men hunt and women gathered wild fruits and edible plants, so that's why it's a stone age girl skin. She also cuts trees and builts vineyards. As the process of civilization proceeds, she will wear more textile later in the game.
Cultural techs
Epics and Theogony are on the tech path to former Monotheism, now Mysteries of Eleusis. The Mysteries, themselves, are the former "Jewisch Monastery". They can be built only once and will produce Initiates of the Mysteries, formerly "Jewish Missionaries". The "Jewish Temple" becomes the Panathenaean games, since every other Greek city could have worshiped Athena as her main godess and dedicate her a festival. Salomo's Temple is, now, the Erechtheum of the Acropolis.
Wonders
The Erechtheum, a Heraion (Hera-temple), a Poseidon temple, the Panathanaean games.
Key tech
Judaism is replaced by Pallas Athena, but remained in terms of gameplay the same religion as in PAE III, which grants a great science boost. This represents a scientific dominance of one Greek city states (doesn't neccessarily have to be Athens), that at a certain point (founding of the "religion" Pallas Athena) even more explodes. The Jewish freedom fighters of PAE fit in this scheme very well, as representing the internal quarrels of city states that were often accompanied by exile, civil war and violence.
Religions
Rather for gameplay, than to make religion historians happy, several new religions were added. They are only meant to create religious anger between the civs, to avoid a boring eternal peace between the all Greek civs. Don't take the division of "Olympianism" into different "religions" too literally. It's there because of the interlinked way religion and diplo are working in BTS. They relate to the Greek's attaching site-specific surnames to the Olympians, such as Zeus Olympicus or Zeus Dictaios. Some worshiped a Zeus Pelasgicus, and the Arcadians knew a Zeus Lycaeus. On a side note, by adding the Zeus Lycaeus, the "wolf-Zeus", I learned some strange new things on how werewolves were part of Greek mytholgy…
Another cult
While Pie's latest add, the cult of Dionysos, was like practically made for this modmod, the Mithras cult changed into Asclepius'.
Civics
A little Grecized (Ephores, Tyrannis, Oligarchy…
und revaluated.Two types of diplo victory
Found the Delian League and achieve a diplomatic victory according the Apostolic-Palace victory in BTS. Or found the Peloponnesian League, provided your civ possesses the "Peloponnese" bonus ressource that's located singularly on one tile on the peninsula.
Victory of Reason
Analogously to space victory, this victory type requires the works of ancient Greek thinkers, which will be assembled just like the spaceship parts in BTS. If you complete all the great writings of Pythagoras, Aristotle, et cetera, you got it made. The new Academy buildings in PAE III will add production to the sages's "projects", just like the Spacelift did. The las project of this kind will be a work of Epicure. You will need th tech Hellenism to start working on it. So, there will be time, to prevent science victory by force or treason…
Leadertraits
Kroesus, king of Lydia, is according to his legendary wealth, FINANCIAL, while Periander, tyrant of Corinth, is for the Corinthian colonialism and trade based economy MARITIME. MARITIME gives a free lighthouse in each new built city, more income from water tiles, faster builds of maritime buildings and promoted ships from the assembly line.
Sound
A little variety to the Civ oldies.
Troyan Horse
The poor Achaeans get the horse to make up for their miserable starting position. The horse is but a ram, that reduces city defences rapidly. When lost or the Achaens being conquered, it changes back into a regular ram. The Achaeans are at permanent war with Troy. Maybe they will ask you to join them. Because they got the horse but not quite the soldiers to lay siege on well defended Troy…
Peculiarities of PAE III
You should either know PAE III first or read through its feature list, before you immerse into ancient Greece. Because there are some bold rule changes, that at first made me post on the forum, because I didn' know what to make of that. Some of these peculiarities are:
Improvements cost money.
You can't build any settler before Colonization.
You can build streets no sooner than Spoke Wheels.
Try to get a religion, get your cultural boarder expanded.
Build a palace right after you send out your first settler.
Modmod for PAE II:
Spoiler :
Download Version preAlpha2b
[/COLOR][/B]In the end you always have some screws left. The cleaner, 'as-intended' version is having a bug, so I had to remove it. The safe version, that's up now, should be working. I played 500 rounds with about 5 ctds all in all.
Description
This minimodmod includes three new Mediterranean maps, a couple of new civs, units, buildings and a few new sound snippets. Screenshots are further below in the second posting (more to come).
Mediterranean Map
This map is based on one of veBear's excellent maps and will accomodate players who get bored during late game easily, when they know that they're winning, but because of many, many desert and tundra tiles, it will take forever to reach the 50% (or what it's set to) landmass ownership domination victory conditon. Because of a turned angle this map section of Europe dispenses with desert and tundra tiles as much as possible and lets those players see the victory screen, again. Players that always play the Romans in ancient mods, will get a real challenge here: Rome is sandwiched between Etruscans and Samnites, and even if they have their first settler built (which is in PAE a bit delayed to a tech colonization) they will have almost no space to put him. Map size is 90x33. Tested.
Heroes Map
This map is an extended version of the first one, adding tiles up north to host Britain, Germans, Vandals and Skyths, that were all cut off the base Mediterranean map. And of course, the Huns, that are to spawn as a Python army, not a civ of its own, will appear in a more proper place. I wasn't actually missing the northern civs on that first map, but maybe some players do. This map takes in account the experiences made when testplaying the first one. The main conclusion was, that some of my laboriously modded in peoples died like flies very early in the game and that something had to be done about this. Now, there are initial heroes for the civs, that are cramped together and therefore likely to kill each other or get extinct by one of PAE's most deadliest features. Not tested thoroughly, yet.
Central Mediterranean Map
The size of 146x100 tiles of a map combined with a map section as you can see in the minimap in the right lower corner of the screenshot tells you something about the vastness of this map. I had to give galleys travel speed 9, in order to avoid that the entire Forum Romanum, Colosseum plus the Circus Maximus finish faster than a merchant vessel arrives in Carthage. This map of veBear is a beauty but a bore, unless you adjust the mod to the map peculiarities. At first, the map was too empty; the civs were able to develop peacefully with no fighting at all for settlement space. Now they start with two cities and a palace (which isn't default in PAE). Most land units are speeded up to two movement points except heavy infantry and siege weapons. That's actually making a big difference in tactical warfare. …it's an experiment.
Mythical heroes
On the heroes map, I decided to have all three competing city states of Athens and Sparta and Thebes on the board. Cramped together in small Greece, they'll be sooner or later at war with each other. Due to PAE's combat features, defeated units sometimes become slave units that behave similar to workers. The AI very often settles these combat emergent slaves in their cities to add production, all forgetting about the slave revolt feature in PAE. Revolting slaves turn into city raider promoted militia units, that are much to strong for pre-bronze age city defenders. And that's exactly what happened in my test game, even if none of the three Greek cities managed to kill each other by themselves, revolting slaves did the job for them. And if one of the Greek civ gets two or three ressource loaded capital cities early on, it's clear what that means for game balance. To counter that, each Greek city state starts with a mythical hero. Kadmos, Theseus and Ulysses have greatly increased city defense boni, without being strong enough to early rush. Later in the game, a fourth mythical hero will Python spawn, Xanthos, probably one of the least known hero figures ever featured in a Civ mod and probably the most unknown hero at all, too. He was supposed to be the mythical last king of Thebes, a city with a democratic tradition apparently starting in prehistory.
Historical heroes
Ever since I play Civ I found that on realistic Europe maps the Balcans were usually inhabited by peoples that didn't belong there. Russia, Greece, Germany… For a change, I put the Illyrians in. They, too, start with an initial hero, Agron, the runner-up to Xanthos for the most unknown hero in all Civ mods ever and in history, too. At least, Agron ist historical. The other historical heroes are Scipio, Leonidas and Alexander, up to this point of time. They python spawn (copy&paste, I have no idea about Python) with certain National wonders, Alexander with a certain Aristotelian Macedonian stable.
Easier going conquered cities
In PAE, all cities farther than 10 tiles away from your capital city and larger than 4 pop were a pain in the asset, because they menaced you with all kinds of types of revolt and plague. On a huge map like the really vast one, that meant, even Roman cities in the southern part of Rome's core territory Latium were sometimes dispatching from your little empire. I changed that restraint to 20 tiles and a 6 cap for a start to ease that up a bit.
Some things aren't quite perfect
I was looking for a different map for PAE just because I knew every tree on the original map. When I adapted veBears huge map for PAE, I found out, that this map was unplayable with the original civs because they lived to a great deal off the map boarders. So I started adding civs like the Samnites, while at the same time learning how to add unit skins. What you get here, are therefore the bloody first results of what was only meant for my own use, basically, not for publicizing. This thread is less about publishing a modmod than rather reporting the experience of first steps into modding from the perspective of a Mac user. This is hopefully explaining a bit, why translations, Pedia entries and things like that are such a mess, if they are there, at all. When I get the time, I'll fix that.
Credits
Additional credits for their great unit art go to charle88, asioasioasio, Alazkan Assassin. Special credits: Modfreak, Aranor, Ambrox62, Bakuel. And vice versa.
Note on why it's posted in the Mac forum and not in Creation&Customization
Not being able to play some of the most interesting mods is the essential fact about the relation between Civ IV and the Mac world. That's why I'm posting this here and not in the C&C section, in a way to encourage other people to look into xml-files, which is a free medicine if you're suffering from weak nerves
. Maybe if there are more Mac based mods like History Rewritten, some of the policies of Fireaxis regarding their disrespect for the 10% Mac users market share will eventually change. It's much more than 10%, in fact. According to the University of Virginia's Information Technology and Communication, which services the IT needs for most of the campus, 43 percent of first-year students at its residence halls during 2009 were using a Mac.
[/COLOR][/B]In the end you always have some screws left. The cleaner, 'as-intended' version is having a bug, so I had to remove it. The safe version, that's up now, should be working. I played 500 rounds with about 5 ctds all in all.
Description
This minimodmod includes three new Mediterranean maps, a couple of new civs, units, buildings and a few new sound snippets. Screenshots are further below in the second posting (more to come).
Mediterranean Map
This map is based on one of veBear's excellent maps and will accomodate players who get bored during late game easily, when they know that they're winning, but because of many, many desert and tundra tiles, it will take forever to reach the 50% (or what it's set to) landmass ownership domination victory conditon. Because of a turned angle this map section of Europe dispenses with desert and tundra tiles as much as possible and lets those players see the victory screen, again. Players that always play the Romans in ancient mods, will get a real challenge here: Rome is sandwiched between Etruscans and Samnites, and even if they have their first settler built (which is in PAE a bit delayed to a tech colonization) they will have almost no space to put him. Map size is 90x33. Tested.
Heroes Map
This map is an extended version of the first one, adding tiles up north to host Britain, Germans, Vandals and Skyths, that were all cut off the base Mediterranean map. And of course, the Huns, that are to spawn as a Python army, not a civ of its own, will appear in a more proper place. I wasn't actually missing the northern civs on that first map, but maybe some players do. This map takes in account the experiences made when testplaying the first one. The main conclusion was, that some of my laboriously modded in peoples died like flies very early in the game and that something had to be done about this. Now, there are initial heroes for the civs, that are cramped together and therefore likely to kill each other or get extinct by one of PAE's most deadliest features. Not tested thoroughly, yet.
Central Mediterranean Map
The size of 146x100 tiles of a map combined with a map section as you can see in the minimap in the right lower corner of the screenshot tells you something about the vastness of this map. I had to give galleys travel speed 9, in order to avoid that the entire Forum Romanum, Colosseum plus the Circus Maximus finish faster than a merchant vessel arrives in Carthage. This map of veBear is a beauty but a bore, unless you adjust the mod to the map peculiarities. At first, the map was too empty; the civs were able to develop peacefully with no fighting at all for settlement space. Now they start with two cities and a palace (which isn't default in PAE). Most land units are speeded up to two movement points except heavy infantry and siege weapons. That's actually making a big difference in tactical warfare. …it's an experiment.
Mythical heroes
On the heroes map, I decided to have all three competing city states of Athens and Sparta and Thebes on the board. Cramped together in small Greece, they'll be sooner or later at war with each other. Due to PAE's combat features, defeated units sometimes become slave units that behave similar to workers. The AI very often settles these combat emergent slaves in their cities to add production, all forgetting about the slave revolt feature in PAE. Revolting slaves turn into city raider promoted militia units, that are much to strong for pre-bronze age city defenders. And that's exactly what happened in my test game, even if none of the three Greek cities managed to kill each other by themselves, revolting slaves did the job for them. And if one of the Greek civ gets two or three ressource loaded capital cities early on, it's clear what that means for game balance. To counter that, each Greek city state starts with a mythical hero. Kadmos, Theseus and Ulysses have greatly increased city defense boni, without being strong enough to early rush. Later in the game, a fourth mythical hero will Python spawn, Xanthos, probably one of the least known hero figures ever featured in a Civ mod and probably the most unknown hero at all, too. He was supposed to be the mythical last king of Thebes, a city with a democratic tradition apparently starting in prehistory.
Historical heroes
Ever since I play Civ I found that on realistic Europe maps the Balcans were usually inhabited by peoples that didn't belong there. Russia, Greece, Germany… For a change, I put the Illyrians in. They, too, start with an initial hero, Agron, the runner-up to Xanthos for the most unknown hero in all Civ mods ever and in history, too. At least, Agron ist historical. The other historical heroes are Scipio, Leonidas and Alexander, up to this point of time. They python spawn (copy&paste, I have no idea about Python) with certain National wonders, Alexander with a certain Aristotelian Macedonian stable.
Easier going conquered cities
In PAE, all cities farther than 10 tiles away from your capital city and larger than 4 pop were a pain in the asset, because they menaced you with all kinds of types of revolt and plague. On a huge map like the really vast one, that meant, even Roman cities in the southern part of Rome's core territory Latium were sometimes dispatching from your little empire. I changed that restraint to 20 tiles and a 6 cap for a start to ease that up a bit.
Some things aren't quite perfect
I was looking for a different map for PAE just because I knew every tree on the original map. When I adapted veBears huge map for PAE, I found out, that this map was unplayable with the original civs because they lived to a great deal off the map boarders. So I started adding civs like the Samnites, while at the same time learning how to add unit skins. What you get here, are therefore the bloody first results of what was only meant for my own use, basically, not for publicizing. This thread is less about publishing a modmod than rather reporting the experience of first steps into modding from the perspective of a Mac user. This is hopefully explaining a bit, why translations, Pedia entries and things like that are such a mess, if they are there, at all. When I get the time, I'll fix that.
Credits
Additional credits for their great unit art go to charle88, asioasioasio, Alazkan Assassin. Special credits: Modfreak, Aranor, Ambrox62, Bakuel. And vice versa.
Note on why it's posted in the Mac forum and not in Creation&Customization
Not being able to play some of the most interesting mods is the essential fact about the relation between Civ IV and the Mac world. That's why I'm posting this here and not in the C&C section, in a way to encourage other people to look into xml-files, which is a free medicine if you're suffering from weak nerves
. Maybe if there are more Mac based mods like History Rewritten, some of the policies of Fireaxis regarding their disrespect for the 10% Mac users market share will eventually change. It's much more than 10%, in fact. According to the University of Virginia's Information Technology and Communication, which services the IT needs for most of the campus, 43 percent of first-year students at its residence halls during 2009 were using a Mac.
. The Phoenicians are on Sardinia on the huge map, because the oriental peoples in PAE contribute various things to the game, for example, certain mercenary units. No oriental civ is on the map due to veBears map section. That's why I represented the oriental civs with the Phoenicians in Sardinia, of course this has to be improved, yet. If I don't go claim it was called Sarginia way back.
. Modding is fun, even if you're not knowing, what you're doing.