Pangea Ultima 2016-10-05

[Kirejara]

I agree with Timerover. I am playing the map now with 24 civs and an optimum city number of 60 and have once again about a quarter of Antarctica settled. Corruption is there, but it is only the usual nuisance. In my former game even Forbidden Palace did not change corruption even one bit in its next neighbor city.

The AI is also now developing normal, most of them are as large as my empire. In the former game most empires stopped growing with 5 - 8 cities.

I just wonder why I have started again in Antarctia on the same spot (but since I created the starting locations, this has nothing to do with your map).

Thanks for this beautiful map. I am waiting for the full coming mod.

And also thanks to Yodapower for his hint!

 

[Kirejara]

We have been playing the map to third (Warlord, 24 Civs) with Byzantium as our civilization.

No cities were allowed in Tundra, Desert and Jungle.

But we have just hit the city limit while settling on the islands next to Antarctica. :wink:

I would suggest, that you made the jungle in your mod unsettable again.

Oh... while we started with 24 civs, there are now only 21 in the game as, the Ottoman Empire, the Inca Empire and Spain volunteered to join Byzantium.

 

[timerover51]

Hmm, the problem with upping the optimum city limit to 60 when you are playing with that number of civilizations is that the maximum number of cities before hitting corruption problems that would slow things down is 1260, well over the 512 city limit.

Given that, there might be two ways to attack the problem. The first is with that many civilizations, reduce the optimum city limit to a point where it, multiplied by the number of civilizations is under the 512 city limit. So if you are playing with 24 civilizations, you might need a limit of 15 or so, giving you 360 total before major corruption kicks in. That probably will prove very frustrating to the average player, unless they alter their style of play from packing as many cities as possible close together to spreading them out and using only very choice sites.

In the screen shot, you are showing what looks to be a total of 6 cities on what looks to be 4 small islands, all with very slow production rates. I would normally put one city on the each island with mountains, with room for full expansion and a bit more, and maybe pass on the island that is basically desert. I then have 3 more productive cities, rather than 6, have control of as much area, and have more time before hitting the city limit. With my boosted resources set-up, I am building just about all improvements in one or two turns, along with most units in one or two turns, and that is with town size set to 9 and city size set to 21 or 22, and nothing larger than that allowed. I do use accelerated production.

The other way to slow things down for the AI is to have settlers cost 4 population. As the AI focuses on cranking out settlers, with each costing 4, it means that the AI cities are always of low population to start with, and the AI expands very slowly. I also set Barbarians to raging, and have the Chieftain level start with bonuses against Barbarians at 200 rather than 800, with a steady reduction from there. As a result, a lot of AI settlers and their escorts get offed by the Barbarians before even building a city. This does slow the AI down as well.

The last thing to do would be to play with less that 24 civilizations, a higher optimum city number, and go with a more spread out city placement.

Would if be worth while for me to import the map into my standard modification .biq and post it here? I have worked up a standard set of changes to the units, buildings, resources, and terraforming in the game, and then can simply import maps into my standard format. That saves me a lot of time. I just use the standard buildings and units with no other changes than their data.

 

[Gojira54]

Interesting talk guys. In the mod I currently have optimum city limit set at 10, but I haven't really focused on that aspect too much yet. It is intended for 31 civs.

I tend to go for optimal city placement first, then pack cities in tightly, starting close to the capitol anyway - not sure how others play. Settlers cost 3, but food cost per citizen is also 3.

Kirejara - I was out most of this past long weekend, but I had already noticed I was hitting the 512 limit myself.

As a result, version 3 is under way and will be out in a few days. I further extended the mountain ranges and added a lot more Jungle. to help offset the 512 issue. I also added a bit more forest just cuz.

If you have any other suggestions, speak now.

 

[timerover51]

Interesting talk guys. In the mod I currently have optimum city limit set at 10, but I haven't really focused on that aspect too much yet. It is intended for 31 civs.

I tend to go for optimal city placement first, then pack cities in tightly, starting close to the capitol anyway - not sure how others play. Settlers cost 3, but food cost per citizen is also 3.

The problem following that strategy on a larger than Huge map with 31 civilizations is that you are going to hit the 512 City limit very quickly. At that point, the only way to expand is take other cities, and then probably raze them to put yours where you want. The AI is not that good at locating cities. Also, with an optimum city limit of 10, corruption is going to dominate the game very quickly as well. I will have to check on the 3 food cost for citizen as to its effects.

Kirejara - I was out most of this past long weekend, but I had already noticed I was hitting the 512 limit myself.

As a result, version 3 is under way and will be out in a few days. I further extended the mountain ranges and added a lot more Jungle. to help offset the 512 issue. I also added a bit more forest just cuz.

If you have any other suggestions, speak now.

Rather than adding more mountains and jungle, why not simply restrict City location to Grasslands, Plains, and Hills?

Added Comment: On maps this size, I might play with about 8 civilizations, and a 36 optimum city limit, using my standard mod data. With that, and placing cities carefully, with a small number of cities, I can be ahead of the AI in both population and area controlled quite readily. I normally do pre-place all starting locations, as some the AI comes up with are more than a bit weird. I am thinking about allowing the Palace to reach a Level 2 City regardless of location simply because a lot of times the AI puts starting locations not near any water.

 

[Gojira54]

Also, with an optimum city limit of 10, corruption is going to dominate the game very quickly as well. I will have to check on the 3 food cost for citizen as to its effects.

I've played with these settings before and gotten it to work quite well on Modzilla, but that map is smaller in scale with fewer Civs. I'm not married to these settings, they are just my starting point - they will change once I get to a point I can do some serious testing on them here. I should mention that each trait will have it's own "Second Palace" type of small wonder, resulting in 2 each per civ. My intention is to have corruption be a problem the further you are from your capitol or these Small Wonders. Also late game their will be some significant corruption reducers. But I like the early, intense corruption....

Rather than adding more mountains and jungle, why not simply restrict City location to Grasslands, Plains, and Hills?

For the mod this is intended, I have a distinct need for some to settle in the forest. Of course others can do as they wish here...

Added Comment: On maps this size, I might play with about 8 civilizations, and a 36 optimum city limit, using my standard mod data. With that, and placing cities carefully, with a small number of cities, I can be ahead of the AI in both population and area controlled quite readily. I normally do pre-place all starting locations, as some the AI comes up with are more than a bit weird. I am thinking about allowing the Palace to reach a Level 2 City regardless of location simply because a lot of times the AI puts starting locations not near any water.

Agreed. Destiny Reborn will have preplaced starting locations, each assigned to a specific civ. This is needed with this map, otherwise you will have jungle, desert, mountain starts. If you want, and can wait about another week, I can put the DR starting locs on this map, so you can simulate when that will be like - but my gut on released maps is usually to just provide the clean map, so you folks can then tweak it to your liking.

 

[timerover51]

I put together two different maps. One with my standard changes, and one with those along with changes to bring it in line with what you are thinking, although I was not allowing for Forest Cities. Otherwise, all mounted and mechanized units are wheeled, mountain terrain movement is now 5, Coast costs 3 movement, as do Ocean. The Palace now will allow City Level 2 like an Aqueduct. Oil is available but will deplete quickly as it is dependent upon oil-yielding trees in the jungle (thinking of improved coconut and oil palm for this), and coal is only available in Marshes, not sure if I could get away with renaming it peat, and will not deplete. I am allowing for city building on Flood Plain, and colonies in the Desert. Would you like me to email them to you? I will type up a full list of what I did tomorrow.

As for the second palace Small Wonder, that is already in the game as the Secret Police HQ. Just change required government type to None, and you have it.

I did have the game generate starting locations for me, and I need to see what it did given the parameters for cities. What I saw on a glimpse were some pretty bad ones.

 

[Yoda Power]

I am thinking about allowing the Palace to reach a Level 2 City regardless of location simply because a lot of times the AI puts starting locations not near any water.

If you do that, make sure to make a building that requires the Palace that works like an Aquaduct, available from the beginning. If you just give the Palace the size 2 flag they can no longer be build near rivers or lakes.

 

[timerover51]

If you do that, make sure to make a building that requires the Palace that works like an Aquaduct, available from the beginning. If you just give the Palace the size 2 flag they can no longer be build near rivers or lakes.

Hmm, interesting. I did not know that.

 

[Kirejara]

Hi Gojira,

the only large unsettled areas in my games are in future India, Northwest Afrika, Cental Island and most of the northern islands (Screenshots from modified Savegame using Civ3Multitool).

Looks like the Roman got a very harsh start. They are the smallest continental state in the game.

The KI has also evolved not very good. Most got only one strategic resources (either iron or horses) and the most advanced units are some hittites Musketmen. The best units of the other nations are swordmen and very few horsemen. Usually there should be at least riflemen around at this stage of the game.

My explorers did not find a single resource colony on the Pangea continent (which is very odd).

Also despite having Astronomy only the Dutch have build a single seagoing ship (in the Inlandsea ). More surprising is the total absence of War on the Pangea Continent (Even the Zulus are peaceful, and they are relativ powerful).

You should take better care than me while placing starting locations and resources.

Hi Timerover,

our continental cities are placed more generously than the island cities. Most have no interference in their working space by their neighbor city. The only exceptions are caused by jungle, desert or otherwise unused bonuns resources.

A smaller optimium number of cities could be worth a try. 60 is definitely to high. My state currently have got 113 cities and corruption is nearly nonexistend with Forbidden Palace and Scotland Yard (gives a Police Station in every city) in Republik. Please note that I have taken the area of four countries.

But I can not rush another game, since I have now not the time and my coplayers are also unavailable (we rushed the game in a long hotseat session).

I hope this information is helpful.

 

[timerover51]

Kirejara, all of your comments are very useful. After doing the math, I figured that the city limit was too high if you have a lot of civilization, so if you are playing with 24, it needs to be drastically cut.

I generated a couple of maps with resources and need to see how they were distributed. I suspect that some manual placement might be needed, along with carefully looking at all starting positions. I know on one map, there is a starting position right on top of an Aluminum resource, which is in the middle of a hill complex without any significant food resource nearby.

Gojira and Kirejara, are you both using the standard game resources or have either of you added any?

 

[Gojira54]

DR will have a completely redone tech tree, civilizations, improvements, units, and resources - hence the clean map that can be used for whatever you wish.

The civs will be conglomerates of current countries, grouped together by forming 31 roughly equally sized civs based on the projected population in 2100. I don't want to go too far into details here (you can go here to learn more about it), but suffice it to say they will be placed in the region from which the people originally came, only starting from scratch with no knowledge of the past, and being a quarter of a billion years later, the continents look a bit different too. There is a mythology behind the mod I won't go into here, but suffice it to say that while this will play as a historical mod, there will be elements of fantasy and science fiction, but these will be minor, background elements. There will be no magic, you will not be able to control dragons or fly into space or use a lightsaber or anything like that. Most of these elements will be in late game anyway, and are mostly relegated to the backstory.

All this to say:

1. Starting locs are fixed, and those that are otherwise ill-placed will have something, likely a very nice resource, to offset that bad luck, while others that seem to be very well placed will have things, likely a negative resource or a lack of resources or a very strong barbarian presence hamper them.

2. Resources will mostly not be standard, though there will be some overlap with the base game. There will also be some very rare and important resources, which should trigger some nice wars.

3. In the standard game, you can get 2 second palaces only if you go with Communism, which I never do. In DR, each trait will have a unique Small Wonder that acts as one, so all civs have 2, regardless of Government. Each one of these will also be required for a unique trait-based Wonder too, but that is unrelated to corruption.

Those of you who knew me by my older handle know I do love my resources - expect 8 Lux, 24 Strat, and a large number of Bonus resources. Resources will all be hand placed. Not all resources will be available to all civs. Resources are going to be much more vital in this mod than in standard game, and not all are going to be available within any possible city limits.

Doing some basic math, with 31 civs, you can get 16 on average before hitting the 512 limit, so perhaps I will start that number there. That way only civs who've grown bigger than their allotted size suffer...

 

[timerover51]

I have generated 4 maps so far, and looked at the starting locations of all of them. What I am seeing is that the locations are either shield-rich with very little food resources, or food-rich with very limited shield production. There were only a couple balanced ones. I am not sure if that is something to do with the map, or just the way my Mac Laptop under Parallels is producing the random numbers.

I moved a couple of the really bad starting locations, but I am going to run two different maps and see how things progress. I will be posting a couple of screen shots to starting locations in the Interesting Screen Shot Thread, and another one where the RNG produced what I call Whaler's Heaven.

 

[timerover51]

From another thread

In my game cities are too not allowed in tundra, desert, marsh, mountains, vulcanos (only a fool or a AI would build there ) and Mountains.

But that did not stop the editor under Windows XP to autoplace starting locations in desert or jungles. Maybe it is hardcoded?

By any chance are the cities showing up in the Desert located on Flood Plain, and the ones in the Jungle located on either Hills or Grassland clearings. I am seeing that some. And as I have an additional resource, Fish Ponds, producing additional food on Flood Plains and available with Engineering, the AI is quite good at placing Start Locations on them.

 

[Kirejara]

No, the starting place is definitely in the middle of the desert with no river nearby.

And each time I let the editor autoplace the starting locations, it sets at least one starting location in the middle of the desert. I have added a picture of a newly randomize start location.

I have got too some additional food sources, with date palmes available in the desert, but no one can settle there.

And since I am not a cruel person, I have placed all start locations by hand.

 

[timerover51]

No, the starting place is definitely in the middle of the desert with no river nearby.

And each time I let the editor autoplace the starting locations, it sets at least one starting location in the middle of the desert. I have added a picture of a newly randomize start location.

I have got too some additional food sources, with date palmes available in the desert, but no one can settle there.

And since I am not a cruel person, I have placed all start locations by hand.

I suspect that the 3 incense clustered together caused the AI to override the no cities on Desert and put the starting location there. I am surprised that it did not move it slightly to pick up the oasis as well. I am going to generate a few more maps with resources and starting locations and see if I get the same thing.

I have got too some additional food sources, with date palmes available in the desert, but no one can settle there.

I like the date palms idea. Very good. I have my oasis boosted the same as TETurkhan's Test of Time.

And since I am not a cruel person, I have placed all start locations by hand.

While generally I am not into giving the AI a break, I have been changing starting locations as well when they are really bad when it comes to adequate food. The food rich ones I have not been bothering, as I figure that the AI will simply crank out settlers like mad on them.

 

[timerover51]

To Gojira

I have been running a test of starting location placement, along with resource and goody hut placement. I am doing with the my Mac Laptop running Windows XP under Parallels to use the standard Civ3 Editor. My Windows Laptop running Windows 7 will not display some of the overlays, such as goody huts, in the editor, but I do not have problems with the display in the game. I have been doing this using the standard BIQ resources and civilization, and standard terrain graphics.

So far, what I am seeing is despite quite a number of runs, the starting location and resource placements are fairly consistent for 24 civilizations. I also ran a test of 8 civilizations and observed the same result. About 2/3 of the locations were in forest terrain next to a river, about half with adequate food and about half with very limited food. Locations not on a forest-river tile were either on flood plain or on plain with considerable food resources. There was a goody hut positioned extremely close, and sometimes adjacent to every starting position. There is an island at the top of the map that keeps having a starting position on it, just bouncing around on the island, primarily where there is a river tile.

I am not sure why the high consistency of starting location, but the resources are tending to be located in the same general area as well. I am not sure if you are encountering this or not, which is why I posted the system information.

As for varying the movement costs on Coast, Sea, and Ocean tiles, what seems to work best is a cost of 2 for Coast, 1 for Sea, and 5 for Ocean tiles. I do need to test the Ocean tiles movement more.

Also, how are you handling Oil in your mod? I am testing as having it available in the jungle as biodiesel or bio-oil, with a high depletion rate. Are you providing oil at all?

 

[Gojira54]

I am not sure why the high consistency of starting location, but the resources are tending to be located in the same general area as well. I am not sure if you are encountering this or not, which is why I posted the system information.

Since starting locations and resources will be preplaced, so mit will not have an effect on the scenario, but in the playtests I've done with the map by itself, I noticed the same type of behavior. I've seen that on plenty of other premade maps, too.

As for varying the movement costs on Coast, Sea, and Ocean tiles, what seems to work best is a cost of 2 for Coast, 1 for Sea, and 5 for Ocean tiles. I do need to test the Ocean tiles movement more.

That might work, is along the same lines as what I was thinking, haven't gotten that deep into testing yet.

Also, how are you handling Oil in your mod? I am testing as having it available in the jungle as biodiesel or bio-oil, with a high depletion rate. Are you providing oil at all?

Not oil as traditionally imagined, no, as the mod ends before combustion or even steam engines are developed. There will be tar, however - with a -1 to Food and a +1 to both Production and Gold. I am hoping to make this a strategic resource which will allow things like Fire Archers, Flaming Catapults, and Boiling Oil on castle walls (perhaps mixed with Black Powder for some kind of mega-weapon), but having it as a Strat is a Nice To Have. I am still finalizing which resources will be Strat\Lux\Bonus.

 

[timerover51]

Hmm, I sort of figure that steam power would appear, as you do have wood available for fuel, both directly and in the form of Charcoal. I have Coal in Marshes, mainly thinking of Peat there, which would give you a renewable fuel source.

As, for Oil, there are some plants now that can produce 10 to 12 barrels a year of oil suitable for conversion to Bio-Diesel, and on its last sortie to Okinawa, the Japanese Battleship Yamato was fueled with 8,000 tons of soybean oil. Based on this, and allowing for some potential genetic engineering, I was allowing for plant-based oil supplies, but that might exhaust quickly, so as to limit production of oil-using equipment. You might want to consider something like that for what you are thinking.

 

[Gojira54]

As, for Oil, there are some plants now that can produce 10 to 12 barrels a year of oil suitable for conversion to Bio-Diesel, and on its last sortie to Okinawa, the Japanese Battleship Yamato was fueled with 8,000 tons of soybean oil. Based on this, and allowing for some potential genetic engineering, I was allowing for plant-based oil supplies, but that might exhaust quickly, so as to limit production of oil-using equipment. You might want to consider something like that for what you are thinking.

This is an interesting option I hadn't really thought of before. It allows me to use a specific plant resource such as corn or soybeans for multiple things (food and oil). That might actually make it in, though I will have to redo my plans for a superweapon (similar to Greek Fire) that mixes black powder and tar... I will think on it, thanks!

In case you are interested in where the starting points will be, they will be located where these cities currently reside.

Mumbai, India
Shanghai, China
Lagos, Nigeria
New York, USA
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Casablanca, Morrocco
Jakarta, Indonesia
Douala, Cameroon
Tokyo, Japan
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Cairo, Egypt
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Karachi, Pakistan
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Kampala, Uganda
Tehran, Iran
Istanbul, Turkey
Paris, France
Bangkok, Thailand
Maputo, Mozambique
Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
Luanda, Angola
Athens, Greece
Johannesburg, South Africa
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mexico City, Mexico
London, UK
Bogota, Colombia
Seoul, South Korea
Nairobi, Kenya
Dhaka, Bangladesh

Obviously, Africa will be a bit crowded, while the smaller southern continent of Austrarctica will be uninhabited (though a civ will start on the islands between the two continents). Lots of room for expansion and opportunity for war.

Starting locations that would otherwise appear in what is now desert/mountains/jungle/marsh would instead be placed in the nearest habitable tile.

The lack of food and water near some starting locs would be made up for by strong bonus resources, and those not near other civs will have a hard time expanding due to less food and more barbarians. This is designed to be tough and slow. I don't want the map to be full until near the end game, and I don't want any one civ to have an overwhelming advantage.