Virote_Considon
The Great Dictator
It's been many years since I've posted anything substantial, but earlier this year something was really bugging me.
How many times have you thought to yourself "dang, that Mesoamerican scenario which came with Conquests was kinda cool, but could really do with an overhaul"? Furthermore, just how many times have you thought to yourself "you know, the biggest limitation to the Mesoamerican scenario (and indeed, pretty much any Mesoamerican scenario) is the map and scope. I would like it to be a full 4-era mod with 31 civs to be used on a random map, just like the Epic Game".
I know, I know; too many times to count. Well, the good news is that I gotchu, fam.
Presenting: the Mesoamerican Random Map scenario.
And here's a link to the project as a teaser, and here is its first patch. For a word of warning: this mod is woefully unfinished. There's missing and partially-implemented features, placeholder graphics all round, and it's heinously unbalanced. Furthermore, there is currently no Fourth Era.
So why am I posting it now? Because a) despite that it's unfinished and unbalanced, it is nonetheless both playable and fun, b) because I recently got a new computer, and wanted to transfer it across ASAP because I fear the old harddrive is close to being fried, and c), in light of the previous two points and knowing how short an attention span I have, I felt that if I ended up neglecting it then at least someone else will be able to pick up the mod to work on their own version; enough of the core base is there after all.
Features:
-31 civilizations from the region of Central/South America, split into 4 culture groups: Mesoamericans, Andeans, Oasisamericans, and Caribbeans/Amazonians, all with unique units.
-A 3 era tech tree (mostly done in the physical sense, needs a lot of rebalancing and polishing, and a few more civ-specific techs) focusing on the pre-Columbian Era. Unimplemented: The Fourth era focusing on Post-Columbian contact which plans to feature some tough choices with in allowing Spanish influence to dominate your affairs or not.
-Major terrain changes: Jungles are now rainforests. Forests are now jungles. Tundra is now Prairies. Cities can only be built on Grasslands, Plains, Flood Plains, Hills and Mountains. No cities on Prairies, Deserts, Jungles, Marshes, Volcanos, or Rainforests.
-I really liked the impassable rainforests in the original Conquests scenario, but felt it could be spruced up a little. The terrain is now impassable by wheeled units. No more barbarians getting stuck there - their units are not wheeled. For the civs, only workers by default will not be wheeled (the terrain is too dense even for scouts!). Rainforests won't be able to be cut down and will also have no bonus/luxury resources and only one strategic resource: Amazonian Tribes.
-Minor Tribes resources. There will be two of these: one for the Amazonians (found only in rainforests) and one for the Plains tribes (found only in prairies). The former will be required to get combat units who can traverse rainforest tiles. The latter will also have some auxiliary unit builds. Much of this is currently not implemented but there is a small wonder available in Era 2 if you have Amazonians which produces a non-wheeled unit.
-The martial importance of Eagles, Jaguars, and Coyotes: These are rare resources found on the map which can build (for some civs long) lines of elite units as well as providing other martial utilities.
-A resource system which encourages controlling resource trade routes, rather than where the resources themselves come from. This will be achieved as follows:
A) Cities with the resources Stone, Timber, Copper, Quality Ceramics in their radius will be able to build special improvements (Masonry/Craftsman's Workshop/Forge/Storehouse) required for further improvements. These stack.
B) These cities will then be able to build these further improvements if they have access to the requisite resource. E.g. if they have access to Obsidian and Jade then all of their masonries will be able to build an Artisan's Studio which has various effects including producing a flag unit to return to the capitol every x turns.
(up until this point, it is partly implemented. Past this point it is not)
C) There will be a further set of improvements requring the Palace giving various kinds of benefits should your resource pool have various combinations of resources, kind of like a mini-space race.
-A huge and varied list of bonus resources to really bring the map alive. I am very proud of how the map looks, if I say so myself.
-Priests and shamans who utilise magic combat! This is a repurposing of air units to fit a thematic niche. Available from the first era.
Known Issues
Obviously as an unfinished mod there're plenty of issues to iron out.
There are many graphics which are missing - no new leaderheads have yet been implemented, many techs and improvements are using placeholder graphics. Unit graphics may need to be tweaked and swapped around as well.
The Prairies terrain file just uses the Plains graphics. However, someone with a keen eye should be able to tell where they are based on the types of resources found there (prairies have many unique resources), and also by looking at the jungle graphics (prairies actually use plains tree graphics rather than jungle graphics!)
The fourth era is unimplemented in its entirety
Much of the flavouring (culture-specific techs, improvements, wonders, government-specific improvements and wonders) are as yet unimplemented. The four different base unit lines, however, are in place.
Sacbe (railroads): As you'll see as you play, these are available with a tech in era 2 which requires another tech which has a 0% relation to all flavours. The idea was that you the player can decide if you want sacbe in the game or not and could then trade the requisite techs to the AI in good faith. What actually happens is the 0% flavour relation physically stops you from giving them the tech in the first place. Back to the drawing board!
The tech tree is a huge cluttered overlapping mess without arrows, I know, I know. There are tech tree maps for your reference here: Era 1 - Preclassical. Era 2 - Classical. Era 3 - Postclassical.
Though I've gone to some effort to make sure the Civilopedia entries are functional accurate (i.e. they tell you what everything does), the pedia is nontheless incomplete: there are very few Description pages. There are many broken links. The pages for some of the concepts (i.e. Sacrifice, Trade Control) are not yet included. The tech effects pages are particularly screwed up and in many cases is shows the default vanilla options. It should however be playable as-is - I hate shooting round in the dark and I'm sure you do too.
Optional Files
By default, the game uses Ares Terrain 2. Also included are files to play using Sn00py's Terrain, Rick's Terrain, Rhye's Terrain, and Balthasar's excellent Old West Terrain, right out of the box. .biq files can be found in \MesoAmerica Random\Extra BIQs\ all ready to play, just move them out. I don't tend to update them as much but they are all updated as of 29/11/2020.
There are also two map files: One for the original Firaxis Conquest but with this mod's rules (still the same 6 civs though), and the other using the map Blue Monkey made for various past Mesoamerican projects (featuring all 31 civilizations). Neither are balanced but hey, someone may want them.
And now for a bunch of screenshots from various stages of development:
How many times have you thought to yourself "dang, that Mesoamerican scenario which came with Conquests was kinda cool, but could really do with an overhaul"? Furthermore, just how many times have you thought to yourself "you know, the biggest limitation to the Mesoamerican scenario (and indeed, pretty much any Mesoamerican scenario) is the map and scope. I would like it to be a full 4-era mod with 31 civs to be used on a random map, just like the Epic Game".
I know, I know; too many times to count. Well, the good news is that I gotchu, fam.
Presenting: the Mesoamerican Random Map scenario.
And here's a link to the project as a teaser, and here is its first patch. For a word of warning: this mod is woefully unfinished. There's missing and partially-implemented features, placeholder graphics all round, and it's heinously unbalanced. Furthermore, there is currently no Fourth Era.
So why am I posting it now? Because a) despite that it's unfinished and unbalanced, it is nonetheless both playable and fun, b) because I recently got a new computer, and wanted to transfer it across ASAP because I fear the old harddrive is close to being fried, and c), in light of the previous two points and knowing how short an attention span I have, I felt that if I ended up neglecting it then at least someone else will be able to pick up the mod to work on their own version; enough of the core base is there after all.
Features:
-31 civilizations from the region of Central/South America, split into 4 culture groups: Mesoamericans, Andeans, Oasisamericans, and Caribbeans/Amazonians, all with unique units.
-A 3 era tech tree (mostly done in the physical sense, needs a lot of rebalancing and polishing, and a few more civ-specific techs) focusing on the pre-Columbian Era. Unimplemented: The Fourth era focusing on Post-Columbian contact which plans to feature some tough choices with in allowing Spanish influence to dominate your affairs or not.
-Major terrain changes: Jungles are now rainforests. Forests are now jungles. Tundra is now Prairies. Cities can only be built on Grasslands, Plains, Flood Plains, Hills and Mountains. No cities on Prairies, Deserts, Jungles, Marshes, Volcanos, or Rainforests.
-I really liked the impassable rainforests in the original Conquests scenario, but felt it could be spruced up a little. The terrain is now impassable by wheeled units. No more barbarians getting stuck there - their units are not wheeled. For the civs, only workers by default will not be wheeled (the terrain is too dense even for scouts!). Rainforests won't be able to be cut down and will also have no bonus/luxury resources and only one strategic resource: Amazonian Tribes.
-Minor Tribes resources. There will be two of these: one for the Amazonians (found only in rainforests) and one for the Plains tribes (found only in prairies). The former will be required to get combat units who can traverse rainforest tiles. The latter will also have some auxiliary unit builds. Much of this is currently not implemented but there is a small wonder available in Era 2 if you have Amazonians which produces a non-wheeled unit.
-The martial importance of Eagles, Jaguars, and Coyotes: These are rare resources found on the map which can build (for some civs long) lines of elite units as well as providing other martial utilities.
-A resource system which encourages controlling resource trade routes, rather than where the resources themselves come from. This will be achieved as follows:
A) Cities with the resources Stone, Timber, Copper, Quality Ceramics in their radius will be able to build special improvements (Masonry/Craftsman's Workshop/Forge/Storehouse) required for further improvements. These stack.
B) These cities will then be able to build these further improvements if they have access to the requisite resource. E.g. if they have access to Obsidian and Jade then all of their masonries will be able to build an Artisan's Studio which has various effects including producing a flag unit to return to the capitol every x turns.
(up until this point, it is partly implemented. Past this point it is not)
C) There will be a further set of improvements requring the Palace giving various kinds of benefits should your resource pool have various combinations of resources, kind of like a mini-space race.
-A huge and varied list of bonus resources to really bring the map alive. I am very proud of how the map looks, if I say so myself.
-Priests and shamans who utilise magic combat! This is a repurposing of air units to fit a thematic niche. Available from the first era.
Known Issues
Obviously as an unfinished mod there're plenty of issues to iron out.
There are many graphics which are missing - no new leaderheads have yet been implemented, many techs and improvements are using placeholder graphics. Unit graphics may need to be tweaked and swapped around as well.
The Prairies terrain file just uses the Plains graphics. However, someone with a keen eye should be able to tell where they are based on the types of resources found there (prairies have many unique resources), and also by looking at the jungle graphics (prairies actually use plains tree graphics rather than jungle graphics!)
The fourth era is unimplemented in its entirety
Much of the flavouring (culture-specific techs, improvements, wonders, government-specific improvements and wonders) are as yet unimplemented. The four different base unit lines, however, are in place.
Sacbe (railroads): As you'll see as you play, these are available with a tech in era 2 which requires another tech which has a 0% relation to all flavours. The idea was that you the player can decide if you want sacbe in the game or not and could then trade the requisite techs to the AI in good faith. What actually happens is the 0% flavour relation physically stops you from giving them the tech in the first place. Back to the drawing board!
The tech tree is a huge cluttered overlapping mess without arrows, I know, I know. There are tech tree maps for your reference here: Era 1 - Preclassical. Era 2 - Classical. Era 3 - Postclassical.
Though I've gone to some effort to make sure the Civilopedia entries are functional accurate (i.e. they tell you what everything does), the pedia is nontheless incomplete: there are very few Description pages. There are many broken links. The pages for some of the concepts (i.e. Sacrifice, Trade Control) are not yet included. The tech effects pages are particularly screwed up and in many cases is shows the default vanilla options. It should however be playable as-is - I hate shooting round in the dark and I'm sure you do too.
Optional Files
By default, the game uses Ares Terrain 2. Also included are files to play using Sn00py's Terrain, Rick's Terrain, Rhye's Terrain, and Balthasar's excellent Old West Terrain, right out of the box. .biq files can be found in \MesoAmerica Random\Extra BIQs\ all ready to play, just move them out. I don't tend to update them as much but they are all updated as of 29/11/2020.
There are also two map files: One for the original Firaxis Conquest but with this mod's rules (still the same 6 civs though), and the other using the map Blue Monkey made for various past Mesoamerican projects (featuring all 31 civilizations). Neither are balanced but hey, someone may want them.
And now for a bunch of screenshots from various stages of development:
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