Play Europe Again

[Gedemon]

• A conversion of NiRv4n4's Europe (Hormigas version)
• Size : 108x98 (Huge)
• MapName="PlayEuropeAgain"
  
• TSL : Arabia, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Macedon, Norway, Rome, Russia, Scythia, Spain, Sumeria, Persia, Poland, Nubia
• Auto City Naming : yes
• Resources placement: random, fixed

TO DO:

• Russia
• Pyrenees
• Levan

 

[Lehnardtsson]

Don't you plan to create a map with less extreme area?
I mean less desert and less tundra/ural/Laponia

 

[Giffica]

So I'm working on some personal changes to TSL locations for an Ancient oriented game, since this is realistically the best map there is to set it up. Basically the entire Levant is a major mess, and I'm not exactly sure what happened there.


First up, the Euphrates at no point has a South ward branch. No idea how such a gross error was added, but map after map after map of the Euphrates and I've never come across anything remotely close to that. Should just completely be removed, and the curvature of the Western Euphrates needs to be reworked a tad.

Next are the Levantine rivers. I assume both are just rough estimates of where cities located there would "have access to fresh water"? Both are basically inconsequential, but the northern one should, in my view, wrap around the hexigon which I have marked "alalakh", then south ward cutting 2 tiles in from the coast. If that weird south euphrates branch is removed, this change would also make a lot more sense, and add a much more accurate but interesting set up to the area, allowing for 1 tile more interior cities than present. Which would set up cities like Aleppo and Hama much better. Same should be dome to the South river, which would give Damascus, which I placed in a fairly accurate location, fresh water.


Both of those are simple river changes, not tile changes. However, there are a few weird tiles in Canaan. You can see where the hypothetical "ancient" canaanite cities would be located. Gaza/Ashdod/Ashkelon/Jaffa would all be grassland, and that MASSIVE bay of Jaffa is no where near accurate. Should be a land tile, rather than a coast tile. Having it serves no purpose, and looking at any map of israel will show you a smooth coast, with a SLIGHT outward part near Acre. But realistically, even where I placed Acre should be 1 tile north-west from where it is, located below Byblos/Sidon/Tyre. Where Hebron, Lachish/Jericho and Jerusalem are should be grassland, as well as the mercury tile, and Beersheba should be plains. The rest would be the dessert wilderness, so that's accurate.

Placement of the cities was done using the Dead Sea, and the Coast as a good landmark. Dead Sea and the Sea above it are conveniently really accurate as well, so the city of Beersheba would historically be directly midway between the southern tip of the Dead Sea and Gaga/Coast over there. Google any map of canaan/israel and you'll find Beersheba located exactly there, between the dead sea and gaza.

Moving the dead sea 1 tile west would seem silly, as it doesn't make sense to ruin a better map in exchange for more accurate dessert tiles. At least, that's how I personally feel after years and years of playing TSL maps.

Mesopotamia and it's rivers are actually brutally accurate, which is why it's so weird that the Levant is so wonky. It's prolly cause it's an area that lacks any major civ starts, and is situated between Greece and Egypt, which many times have the maps balanced around them.

Ideally, my game would use a more custom map with boundaries closer to this:

And I would like to extend the Arabian peninsula and the nile a bit, give some more persia room (there is currently no map that would allow for a historical playthrough of the Ancient Mid East dynamics between Babylon/Persia/Assyria/Greece/Egypt. There isn't enough land on any world map, and Persia doesn't have enough room to get an empire equal to babylon at any point. And it has a horrible start location.) Cut out some of the useless dessert in africa, or, alternatively, extend it down/rework it to the Mali/Songhai area, which might make interesting gameplay. Yemen and the Persian Gulf would be nice to have, but not NECESSARY. The other huge change I would like to make would be to fill up the marshes in mesopotamia to coast tiles, and change the river system to more accurately reflect what it was in Sumer's era. Since I'm totally new to this, is there any easy way to make a custom map? Just being able to pick which tiles I wanted where, or would I need to understand some level of code? Otherwise I'll have to stick to making a custom city name map, and altering the TSL's for the European map.

 

[Gedemon]

@Lehnardtsson : if I convert a smaller version of Europe, would you be willing to work on the XML files for the TSL ?

@Giffica : thanks for the detailed report, added to the to do. Same proposal, there are some Mediterranean maps available from civ5, I could convert 1 or 2, if you'd like to work on the XML for the TSL.

I use scripts to convert the maps in a lua table format, either from civ5 or civ6 WB, as I don't think I could propose the same options in YnAMP with a saved map in civ6 format. The code is available in the AssignStartingPlots.lua file in the mod, but yes, it's a bit complex...

For a few specific plots, you could use one of YnAMP option, allowing changes to terrains, features, resources from the xml file linked to the map, with (optional) conditional settings.

For example in one of the XML file (from the 60+ civs mod), this replace some tiles if specific Civilizations are in the game (changing one coastal sea plot to a land plot for Denmark):

    <ExtraPlacement>
        <!-- Around Riyadh TSL -->
        <Replace MapName="GiantEarth" X="39" Y="43" Civilization="CIVILIZATION_ARABIA"     TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS_HILLS" />
        <Replace MapName="GiantEarth" X="40" Y="45" Civilization="CIVILIZATION_ARABIA"     FeatureType="FEATURE_OASIS" />
        <Replace MapName="GiantEarth" X="39" Y="44" Civilization="CIVILIZATION_ARABIA"     FeatureType="FEATURE_OASIS" />
        <Replace MapName="GiantEarth" X="40" Y="43" Civilization="CIVILIZATION_ARABIA"     FeatureType="FEATURE_OASIS" />
        <Replace MapName="GiantEarth" X="39" Y="45" Civilization="CIVILIZATION_ARABIA"     ResourceType="RESOURCE_STONE" />
        <!-- Copenhaguen TSL -->
        <Replace MapName="GiantEarth" X="21" Y="75" Civilization="CIVILIZATION_DENMARK"    TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
    </ExtraPlacement>

You could use that without the Civilization="CIVILIZATION_DENMARK" to have the change every time you load the map

 

[Giffica]

@Giffica : thanks for the detailed report, added to the to do. Same proposal, there are some Mediterranean maps available from civ5, I could convert 1 or 2, if you'd like to work on the XML for the TSL.

In regards to a mid east map, what options would there be? You think it makes more sense to potentially center my work around the europe map, or just have a map specifically for that game? Would make more sense.
I literally considered going back to Civ5 and using the IGE to make the mapm then convert it haha. It actually doesn't seem that complex to change specific tiles, if that's all the code you need. If I copied that code, and removed the "variables" (such as denmark, arabia, etc) and changed them with the ones I wanted for the map, I would be correct to assume it would make those tiles what I wanted? I assume the code for the features/terrain/resource are all just "X_Y", with Y being the name like "stone", and X being the resource/feature/terrain. It actually wouldn't be that hard. What file would I edit for those changes to appear for the europe map?

BTW, what's the deal with European TSL's for Arabia still? The entire Levant and Mesopotamia don't have TSL currently, and if they do a bit north it's heavily biased towards Greco-Roman naming, or Turkish naming. Neither which fit any of the 3 civs would play in that area (Persia, Sumer, Egypt). Pretty sure even the Nile area has Greco-Roman names mostly, which is pretty strange for an Egypt game. never figured out why for like 4 months, the ONLY AREAS left was the Mid East. Not sure why the project was 1 area from completion and no one bothered to do it. (Probably because the dessert makes TSL insufferable, and, like I said, the rivers are a complete mess to figure out.).

Aside from my "ideal" change, which would be a completely new map cutting out the mostly uninhabited forests of europe, and possibly extending down to Yemen to reflect some of the trade lands that egypt would have had contact with. REAL ideally would be to expand Mesopotamia/Nile/Levant, since the area leaves 1tile between most major cities, rather than the ideal 2.

I ran a game last night and I have a couple issues. I've figured out how to get TSL city names, but it has the "LOC_" BS before it, how do I remove that? Also, what exactly is up with the City states not fully spawning? I assume that's not related to what I'm doing, as it's been an issue for me countless games over the past few months. It Spawned 6 of my 14 City States with TSL (and I put the cap of city states at 20+). I also only had 13 civs. And it definitely wasn't just the ones that you/others put TSL's for because Kumasi, which I used for Mari, spawned right next to Aztec Akkad, and Japanese Assyria.

SOME of the city states didn't spawn because they were 1 tile away. For example the entire Levant is a huge mess for proper history. Ebla/Poland is way to close to Ugarit for Ugarit to even spawn. The Phonecians are right below, Damascus is near, and then Jerusalem right under. Is there any limitation from reducing the minimum distance to basically zero? Essentially just 1 tile away?

While playing through a rough game that I set up, I also found that settlers sort of destroy some of the "history" of the game. History wise, it was independent cities that would rise to dominate the others. So what I would like is a Civ in all the Major cities, then a city state for the ones that "didn't conquer" other cities, or at least not major enough. So cities like Akkad, Ur, Uruk, Kish/Babylon, Assur, Nineveh, Susa would have civs that would attempt to conquer the others. If other civs were to conquer the land, theoretically they could release the old cities back to the civs or city states, effectively replicating the history there. The problem is that none of those other civs are going to found cities REMOTELY NEAR where they should. Their first settler goes totally in a different direction.

I guess if I'm going to do this, I'll need to create a more balanced resource start somehow. My goals and aspirations for a project like this go far beyond my skills as a coder. I can re-verse engineer a large portion of your code and replicate it, but certain things I just wouldn't know how to solve. Iron acting as a Bronze catalyst, where it would only be found in very specific locations. The Cyprus city state having TONS of bronze/iron, and maybe adding another city state on the danube also with bronze/iron. Would then be feasible for other states to trade with them to get that bronze, which would enable military domination. I'd also like to use the era limiting mods to keep it Classical, but can't seem to get them to work properly. I could see a map working with settlers where all the resources are customized so that the "non-settled" areas of the map, traditionally, wouldn't be very good city places. If there are zero luxuries outside the "fertile" lands, the AI wouldn't weight it too heavy to settle, i assume.

I also personally don't have any intention for this to be "balanced". Egypt and Sumer starts will dominate. As they should. Since the "fertile" parts of mesopotamia are around Sumer/Uruk/Ur, Assyria and Akkad tend to get slightely behind starts, which again makes a lot of sense. Elam as well. The problem then becomes Persia, who i've put at Ecbatana, who have the entire region to settle. Ideally, if that region was basically worthless with no luxuries, settling before being able to handle the new population would cripple the state, as historically it did.

Then there is greece.....which is a complete mess even in my game. It's just so goddamn small....you can either fit a Mycenean Pericles on Mycenae and a "Dorian" Gorgo further north west. But there really is no where to properly represent the Doric invasion, or the shift that occured in greece. Pericles has some significant trouble puting cities any more north than Greece, so that generally works out. But if you add another civ, like gorgo, who will mostly conquer pericles (especially if I give it a significantly better start), Gorgo starts colonizing Serbia and Hungary and crap.....like Alexander probably does on everyone's Europe Map games.

The only way to solve that problem is a complete map overhaul, so for the time being, greece is just gonna be some far off, kind of civilized area. Also the fact their more heavily weight settling north, rather than going across the agean at all. If I were to cut the map off above those mountains in North Greece then Sparta and Athens would be forced to start settling around the agean.

Final note in this annoying long post. Here is my actual work on some of the TSL names. This is the first time I did anything like this, so I'd like to know what/if i did anything wrong, and what I should do better. Many of the city names maybe be a tile or two off, but GENERALLY i picked rough estimates of where these cities are. Even our history of the subject we aren't totally sure where cities like Akkad were located.

<CityMap>
    <!-- Mid East -->
                <!-- Mesopotamia -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="101" Y="21" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Der" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="100" Y="23" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Hamazi" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="93" Y="23" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Nuzi" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="99" Y="20" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Akkad" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="95" Y="21" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Assur" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="92" Y="20" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Mari" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="93" Y="25" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Nineveh" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="91" Y="23" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Nagar" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="88" Y="21" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Tuttul" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="89" Y="24" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Harran" Area="0" />
                
                
                <!-- The Levant -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="21" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Alalakh" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="19" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Ebla" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Qadesh" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="18" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Ugarit" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="16" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Byblos" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="85" Y="16" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Qatna" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="84" Y="15" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Damascus" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="78" Y="18" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Kition" Area="0" />
                <!-- Canaan -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="79" Y="11" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Gaza" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="10" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Beersheba" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="11" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Hebron" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="80" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Ashkelon" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Lachish" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Jerusalem" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Jericho" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="13" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Jaffa" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="13" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Samaria" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="14" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Acre" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="14" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Hazor" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="8" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Petra" Area="0" />
                    
                <!-- Sumeria -->
                
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="104" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Lagash" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="102" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Girsu" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="102" Y="18" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Bad Tabira" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="101" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Umma" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="103" Y="14" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Ur" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="103" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Eridu" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="101" Y="15" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Larsa" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="100" Y="15" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_URUK" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="100" Y="16" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Nippur" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="99" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Kish" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="98" Y="19" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Sippar" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="96" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Rapiqum" Area="0" />
                
                <!-- Persia -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="101" Y="27" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Ecbatana" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="106" Y="19" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_Susa" Area="0" />
    </CityMap>

Think I'm gonna go work on some individual tile changes for the Europe map, as it's virtually the only map I play since it is one of the only ones with TSL (or was for a long time), and properly represents most areas. The Giant Map simplifies major geographic areas too much for my liking, and the GIANT GIANT map just doesn't play fast enough to make it bearable. Also it doesn't have TSL. I'll rework the tiles according to two principles: A. Historical accuracy first B. Avoiding gross gameplay problems/areas having enough room to make a city somewhere. And since my personal game is a different geographic change, that being the fact Mesopotamia and it's river system was totally different, I'll keep those changes separate from it, in case you want to update the main map with some of the more sensible changes (such as fixing Israel and the Euphrates). In the future I can see some kind of check box called "Ancient Mesopotamia River Geography", which would change the river flow, and edits the marshes to be coast tiles.

 

[tomaltachpaulson]

@Giffica Sounds like a cool project you're working on. I agree that the geography of the Levant area is pretty messed up. In fact, that is one of the main reasons why I haven't done the true location names for that section yet—no point if the map in that part is going to need re-working. As a result, nothing has been done south of Y=33 and east of Sinai (barring a few tiles at Damascus for Arabia's start). In terms of editing the map, that isn't really my area (better to talk to @Gedemon or @Hormigas about that), but I have done a lot of work on the true city names. I don't know how up to date you are on that, but basically it works through two files, the map file CityMap.xml, and the name file, GamePlayText.xml. If you look down at the end of the CityMap.xml file you will see the unfinished MIDDLE EAST (SOUTH) section with only Damascus in it. Add the code you've written in there (with all the city names themselves in uppercase, please, and with underscores instead of spaces for names with 2+ words). Then go the the GamePlayText.xml file and scroll down to the corresponding MIDDLE EAST (SOUTH) section there about half way down (You will see more names there than you would expect; however, these are just the translations for the Giant Earth Map—all the maps use the same translation file). Then, add a new line in that section for each name you added, along this format:

<Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_THE_CITY" Text="The City" Language="en_US" />

That will get rid of the "LOC_CITY_NAME_" stuff showing up in-game. A final note: if you do want to merge your changes with the main mod further down the track, the convention is that the default city names should be the English names of the modern cities, and to have the ancient names tied to the specific civs which used them (there are two ways of doing this: 1, the simple way, by using the default modern map as a base and in the GamePlayText.xml file having a secondary translation with the target civ's name added on as a suffix. The mod will understand this and only use the secondary translation for that specific civ. You will see examples of this all through the GamePlayText.xml file. 2, the more in-depth way, uses a second, separate CityMap_CivName.xml file as the base map rather than the plain CityMap.xml file. You can see examples of how this is formatted in the CityMap_Rome.xml, CityMap_Greece.xml, etc. files. Mostly we use the first method because it is easier, but we have used the second method occasionally for when the location of the ancient cities differs substantially from the modern ones.) That being said, if you do just want to mess around and have no intention of merging back into YnAMP at a later date, then you can just simply use my initial instructions without regard for any of our conventions!

 

[Giffica]

@tomaltachpaulson Conveniently, I've followed your project since day one, actively waiting for map updates to city names. It was unplayable without your project for me, and still is, which is why I really want it for my games haha.

ideally, my project wouldn't be the actual TSLs because I'm using the major archaeological city in the corresponding area, rather than present city, or city since Roman times. Byblos/Tyre/Sidon would obviously be Beirut for 99% of people. And my choice of Kish over Baghdad would also be strange. And some citys only existed in that era, and were gone after the bronze age collapse, such as Ugarit, Mari, Akkad, and Mycenae. Pre-Bronze Age Collapse is almost all guess work in my research.

Since my project focuses on the ancient world, I'd never want those names to be the default, or even culturally specific (to a Sumeria, or Persia for example). I'd want any city able to use those names as default, since currently, I have placeholder civs representing other historical civs. (Poland=Ebla, Japan=Akkad, Aztec=Assyria, Macendon=Hittites). So while historically Alexander would default to Greek names for that region, I want the alexander in my personal project to keep the "native" semitic variants.

Also, realistically, I'm not going to give every tile a city name because it's virtually impossible. That region is a ton of dessert, and most of it would need really strange modern names, since it was devoid of humans for most of history.

When I actually do the naming, I'll make sure to follow your formats. I'll be using it as a base anyway lol. Potentially, it might be interesting to use my city name to override certain tiles for Sumeria, however, since the names are in their native variants (maybe there are some Western VS Eastern Semitic differences, but for now, eh).




EDIT: Got some work done. How does it look? First is the Localized Text.

    <LocalizedText>
    <!-- Mid East -->
        <!-- Mesopotamia -->
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_DER" Text="Der" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_HAMAZI" Text="Hamazi" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_NUZI" Text="Nuzi" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_AKKAD" Text="Akkad" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_ASSUR" Text="Assur" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_MARI" Text="Mari" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_NINEVEH" Text="Nineveh" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_NAGAR" Text="Nagar" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_TUTTUL" Text="Tuttul" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_HARRAN" Text="Harran" Language="en_US" />
     
        <!-- The Levant -->
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_ALALAKH" Text="Alalakh" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_EBLA" Text="Ebla" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_QADESH" Text="Qadesh" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_UGARIT" Text="Ugarit" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_BYBLOS" Text="Byblos" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_QATNA" Text="Qatna" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_DAMASCUS" Text="Damascus" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_KITION" Text="Kition" Language="en_US" />
     
        <!-- Canaan -->
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_GAZA" Text="Gaza" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_BEERSHEBA" Text="Beersheba" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_HEBRON" Text="Hebron" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_ASHKELON" Text="Ashkelon" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_LACHISH" Text="Lachish" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_JERUSALEM" Text="Jerusalem" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_JERICHO" Text="Jericho" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_JAFFA" Text="Jaffa" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_SAMARIA" Text="Samaria" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_ACRE" Text="Acre" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_HAZOR" Text="Hazor" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_PETRA" Text="Petra" Language="en_US" />
     
        <!-- Sumeria -->
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_LAGASH" Text="Lagash" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_GIRSU" Text="Girsu" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_BAD_TABIRA" Text="Bad Tabira" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_UMMA" Text="Umma" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_UR" Text="Ur" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_ERIDU" Text="Eridu" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_LARSA" Text="Larsa" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_URUK" Text="Uruk" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_NIPPUR" Text="Nippur" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_KISH" Text="Kish" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_SIPPAR" Text="Sippar" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_RAPIQUM" Text="Rapiqum" Language="en_US" />
     
        <!-- Persia -->
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_ECBATANA" Text="Ecbatana" Language="en_US" />
        <Replace Tag="LOC_CITY_NAME_SUSA" Text="Susa" Language="en_US" />
 
 
 
 
    </LocalizedText

Next is the corrected CityMap

<CityMap>
    <!-- Mid East -->
                <!-- Mesopotamia -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="101" Y="21" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_DER" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="100" Y="23" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_HAMAZI" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="93" Y="23" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_NUZI" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="99" Y="20" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_AKKAD" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="95" Y="21" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_ASSUR" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="92" Y="20" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_MARI" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="93" Y="25" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_NINEVEH" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="91" Y="23" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_NAGAR" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="88" Y="21" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_TUTTUL" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="89" Y="24" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_HARRAN" Area="0" />
             
                <!-- The Levant -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="21" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_ALALAKH" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="19" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_EBLA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_QADESH" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="18" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_UGARIT" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="16" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_BYBLOS" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="85" Y="16" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_QATNA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="84" Y="15" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_DAMASCUS" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="78" Y="18" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_KITION" Area="0" />
                <!-- Canaan -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="79" Y="11" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_GAZA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="10" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_BEERSHEBA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="11" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_HEBRON" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="80" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_ASHKELON" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_LACHISH" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_JERUSALEM" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_JERICHO" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="13" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_JAFFA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="13" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_SAMARIA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="14" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_ACRE" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="14" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_HAZOR" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="8" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_PETRA" Area="0" />
                 
                <!-- Sumeria -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="104" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_LAGASH" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="102" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_GIRSU" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="102" Y="18" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_BAD_TABIRA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="101" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_UMMA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="103" Y="14" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_UR" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="103" Y="12" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_ERIDU" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="101" Y="15" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_LARSA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="100" Y="15" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_URUK" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="100" Y="16" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_NIPPUR" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="99" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_KISH" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="98" Y="19" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_SIPPAR" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="96" Y="17" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_RAPIQUM" Area="0" />
             
                <!-- Persia -->
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="101" Y="27" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_ECBATANA" Area="0" />
                <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="106" Y="19" CityLocaleName="LOC_CITY_NAME_SUSA" Area="0" />
    </CityMap>

I'll probably refine this list and add a couple more cities, and make the list a bit better. Long term for this to work gotta count on someone making some civs for the map haha.


Edit 2 @Gedemon How could I edit rivers? Also, for replacing tiles, is there any way to bulk change a set of tiles? (specifically, all the dessert tiles now inside the Euphrates changed to floodplains for example).

 

[Giffica]

Should probably edit this into the other post but whatever.

So this is what I would propose for the Mid East region river change. I'll go through the 3 regions.

When reading the map, assume any "rivers" you see in the levant to not exist. Couldnt bother washing over them. So the "rivers" are just the lines I perosnally drew. Same goes for the euphrates. Any other lines aren't what I propose.

I probably blew Canaan up maybe 1 tile to large in the Judah/Southern region, but I don't think there is a single player who REALLY would prefer pushing the dead sea further left a tile, and adding an extra tile of dessert....just....boring? The large Samaria/Jezereel Valley region would be much nicer for gameplay and historical purposes. I did not include "features" yet however. As in, hills. Probably it will be 1 tile coast, 1 till hill covering 2-3 tiles, then another tile between that hill and the dead sea to simulate the valley there, and allow Jerusalem and other historical "hill cities" to be built in that region, overlooking the "valley cities". It also means Jerusalem will not administer dominion over the dead sea, which is a welcomed change to any Arabia player starting near Petra/Mecca, and maybe many egypt players. It also increases the historical important of Canaan, which would put the Egyptians and Hittites in combat. It gives Egypt a "second" expansion area after they fill up the nile.


In regards to Syria, I think the 2 tile coast in the Levant works really nicely. I've played enough civ to recognize a better balanced area, and that would really allow for historical cities like Antioch/Damascus/Homs/Aleppo/Beirut to flourish. Originally I also proposed an extra tile in the Tarsus region, where the river outlets below the wheat/forest plains. Might make that a nice little bay too, but would definitely require shifting a tile on cyprus to work. Cyrpus over all needs a move 1 tile south-west. So 1 south, then another 1 west. That would put it in a much nicer spot. Also, the little wheat tile sticking out really should come out from the tile east, rather than diagonal north. Looks less normal than real world. I chose making the river have a little extra nub north cause historically that region has a river, and water access. It's really hard to make that river line up nicely with the Dead Sea-Jordan-Galiee area, but it's good enough. In game will look more ok i think.

Euphrates is the bigger change. Not just for my game, but for any game I honestly would just shift the entire euphrates down like you see there. I think the tile distances I drew out make more historical sense, and the small 3 tile gap is where Babylon/Kish/Baghdad will go. And it works symmetrically. 7-6-5-6-5-4-3-3-4. Each distance is only 1 away, so it maintains the really unique memorable shape of mesopotamia. Khabur is huge, as Nagar, a major city state, was along that river. And probably some Arab horsehocky there too that was important, I just don't know that period of history in the region well.

Definitely gonna fully flesh out the Southern Mesopotamian region, but I'm REALLY pleased with the broad changes to the euphrates. Everything after the 3 tile gap is going to be roughly the same for the main europe map, but my PERSONAL game will include the complex river water way systems, so EVERY tile will have a river between it inside sumeria, basically. (I personally enjoy using the "improved" series of mods for civs, and interestingly, Sumeria crosses rivers with no penalty. Potentially if the mod is active, this will lead to a fairly significantly military advantage for Sumeria VS Akkad/Assyria/Elam, and help them dominate early when such a bonus may matter.

Hopefully you guys think these changes are in the right directly. Ofc nothing is "perfect" and I don't intend for this to be final. If you can tell me how to actually MAKE these river changes in the game, i can get to work on that. I'll work on the river map for the rest of the region, and then code the actual changes for each individual tile.

Oh, and my personal game I'm also probably gonna fix the caucus mountain rivers as there are a few major water ways up there missing. Some of it dried up over the last 1000 years or so, so it's not something I think you guys would want. but personally will make the caucus valley area a nice settling spot.

 

[Giffica]

@Gedemon Is there a list of the names of the resources/features somewhere so I can edit the tiles? Rather than guessing what they are called in game haha. Also, how can I add/change a river? Or is there no way?

 

[Gedemon]

see Features.xml, Terrains.xml and Resources.xml in \Steam\steamapps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization VI\Base\Assets\Gameplay\Data

Rivers are not handled by this method.

 

[Giffica]

Opinions? Rivers obviously not done at all.

Also, what about adding a natural wonder to represent Mt.Sinai? I figured out how to edit natural wonders. In which case I would definitely need to expand the Peninsula by 2 tiles, which would be fine I think. Features I don't exactly....know how to find. As in, figure out what would be there in real life. That information would be kind of specific. I would have to really generalize and dig for info. Feels like I need an expert who would actually just know the area better.



The actual code work:

    <ExtraPlacement>
        <!-- Canaan/Israel Fix -->
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="19"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="18"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="17"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="16"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="15"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="13"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS_HILLS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="12"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_PLAINS_HILLS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="80" Y="15"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="80" Y="14"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="80" Y="13"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS_HILLS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="80" Y="12"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_PLAINS_HILLS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="79" Y="13"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="79" Y="12"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="11"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_PLAINS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="81" Y="10"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_PLAINS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="12"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS_HILLS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="12"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="82" Y="11"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="13"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_GRASS_HILLS" />
        <Replace MapName="PlayEuropeAgain" X="83" Y="14"      TerrainType="TERRAIN_COAST" />
        
     </ExtraPlacement>

 

[Giffica]

Playing around with it, and it's feeling really really nice actually. At least with the collection of mods I have on, but the AI seems to settle pretty decently. Ebla controls Qadesh, able to exert influence all the way to Mari, but not farther. Still challenged within it's own region though by Assyria. Hittites are Alex, who haven't quite arisen. Honestly, makes sense. Hittites relied so heavily on weapon advantage that I need to place resources there to jump start them militarily. Egypt as well. Akkad was conquered by me, and conveniently they are filling in some of the upper Mesopotamia region nicely. China founded cities right along the river. What a nice little Susa. Some names are off ofc, since there isn't a full ancient city map, but you can see it's actually quite satisfactory, aside from some of the AI's cities.


Missing city states is the only problem. Nineveh/Nagar/Ugarit are mega important. And if I want the Arabs in any form, Arabia's religious ability has to go....not gonna be possible.



Oh, and miltiary feels REALLY nice. Sumeria definitely gets a nice river bonus early with that od like I mentioned. But overall, the balance of power is in sumerias favor (even if AI, because they will have more room to found cities).

 

[jesperben]

Sorry for disturbing with a newbie-question:

I have played this map twice on King, but both times it was almost empty. Only five Civs and five Ciy states. I thought I asked for nine Civs in the advanced setup.

Am I doing something wrong?

 

[tomaltachpaulson]

Sorry for disturbing with a newbie-question:

I have played this map twice on King, but both times it was almost empty. Only five Civs and five Ciy states. I thought I asked for nine Civs in the advanced setup.

Am I doing something wrong?

The thing is that Play Europe Again will only spawn the specific civs which have start locations in Europe, namely: Macedon, Nubia, France, Egypt, Persia, Germany, Sumeria, Gorgo Greece, Pericles Greece, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Arabia, Scythia, Rome, and England. 17 all up (13 without DLC). So if you just line up 17 random civ slots the game is going to choose 17 civs from the wider pool of civs, including, inevitably, some which don't have a start loc on the map. In this case the YnAMP mod will simply delete those civs at turn zero, leading you to have less civs than you anticipated. So the best thing to to is to go to the advanced setup and select the specific 17 civs which are on the map. That will go a long way towards filling up the map. If you really want it full though you can add in a duplicate leader for every civ except Egypt, Greece, Nubia, and Sumeria. These other civs all have secondary start locations for duplicate leaders (Egypt, Greece, Nubia and Sumeria's zones were already full enough) giving you 30 civs all up.

City-state are a bit trickier to increase because you can't individually select them. To start out you can increase the percentage of city-states with a Play Europe Again start location by subscribing to Gedemon's More CS For Europe mod (alternate civfanatics link) which adds five additional city-states to the 15 (12 without DLC) which have start locations on PEA. After that your best bet is to increase the city-state slider so that the game has to roll all of them (there are 32 all up if you have both the Europe CS mod and the Viking DLC) in which case all that do have a start loc will be on the map and all that don't will be deleted at turn zero.

 

[jesperben]

Thank you for a great answer, I will try that.

And thank you for all your work, you have made some wonderful improwements to the game.

 

[Smity2k1]

The thing is that Play Europe Again will only spawn the specific civs which have start locations in Europe, namely: Macedon, Nubia, France, Egypt, Persia, Germany, Sumeria, Gorgo Greece, Pericles Greece, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain, Arabia, Scythia, Rome, and England. 17 all up (13 without DLC). So if you just line up 17 random civ slots the game is going to choose 17 civs from the wider pool of civs, including, inevitably, some which don't have a start loc on the map. In this case the YnAMP mod will simply delete those civs at turn zero, leading you to have less civs than you anticipated. So the best thing to to is to go to the advanced setup and select the specific 17 civs which are on the map. That will go a long way towards filling up the map. If you really want it full though you can add in a duplicate leader for every civ except Egypt, Greece, Nubia, and Sumeria. These other civs all have secondary start locations for duplicate leaders (Egypt, Greece, Nubia and Sumeria's zones were already full enough) giving you 30 civs all up.

City-state are a bit trickier to increase because you can't individually select them. To start out you can increase the percentage of city-states with a Play Europe Again start location by subscribing to Gedemon's More CS For Europe mod (alternate civfanatics link) which adds five additional city-states to the 15 (12 without DLC) which have start locations on PEA. After that your best bet is to increase the city-state slider so that the game has to roll all of them (there are 32 all up if you have both the Europe CS mod and the Viking DLC) in which case all that do have a start loc will be on the map and all that don't will be deleted at turn zero.

Does it only spawn the European ones even if you turn off the cultural start option?

 

[Gedemon]

The Culturally linked start doesn't use TSL, it just try to group Civilization by ethnicity, all civs will be placed on the map (if the game can find enough starting position)

When using TSL the mod will not allow a civilization that as no true starting location to be placed on the map, even if it has been selected on the setup screen (randomly or manually)

I may add a mixed option (TSL + random when no TSL available) at some point.

 

[Smity2k1]

Oh ok - I don't use TSL so that's good!

 

[Laze]

Is it possible to add TSL for JFDs italian civs?

 

[SgtCiv]

This is my favorite map to use and I was wondering if there was anyway to move Dido to the Carthage traditional starting spot instead of in the Middle-East?

If nothing else could you please let me know if there is a way for me to adjust the game files?

Thank you for your continued hard work on keeping all of your MOD's updated!!!!!