I have always wanted to play unmodded Earth map crowded of civilizations starting in historical locations. The original 18 or 24 civs aren't crowded enough, GEM is just too big and others I found are not completely satisfactory either. I'm not a Civ modder nor a scenario maker, but I have a little general idea of World Builder and text editing WBS files, as I've edited some scenarios for my taste before. So I started to make my own scenario using
marx&engles' Earth 34 Civs as a base (thanks, your scenario was closest to my idea), but I soon realized that I simply lack the experience. I just don't know all the basic principles to make a scenario, and I don't want to risk wasting many hours trial&erroring and ending up with a bugged product, unfixable with my skills. So I want to make a little request to the community. This shouldn't be too rough a job, as even I could have done it. Some existing map might be used as a base.
Here's the "blueprints":
- Base map is empty Rhye's RFC Earth (enlarged Europe and Japan, etc?) or a similar sized empty Earth map with plenty of resources. Obviously swamps have to be replaced with something (marx&engles' map does). I don't want it too big, since 1) it would be too troublesome to get relatively huge empires, 2)colonizing would become too important (and would favor periphery civilizations), and 3) Everything exciting is already there, expanding would just water it down.
- I want to play it with RevDCM, so the scenario must be playable without mods
- The map itself plays like a normal civ-game: every option, civ, leader (if it's possible?), starting era, difficulty, speed, victory, etc. can be selected. Every civ starts with one settler+warrior/scout. Thus pre-made map, not scenario. Emphasis of course on 4000bc start, if it matters.
- Every civ starts on their historical starting plot (ah, always so debatable...) or capital.
- Barbarian cities and/or units can be preplaced for early wars, to encourage clever/historical settling for AI, to buffer expansion, to give "free" cities to underdog civs and to rival overpowered civs. And simply for enhanced realism and fun.
- I have made a rough choice of all the civs. I didn't give them too much thought, but the basic principles for choosing them are:
1) All are Old World Civs. Someone could want a version with new world civs already placed. I simply don't like when space for colonizing is filled with punchbag civs.
2) Majority of Old World will be inhabited after initial land grab.
3) Every civ should have almost equal-sized land reserved for their intial land-grab. Some could get it easily for themselves (eg England, Vikings, Mali, Japan, Mongolia) and some have to settle aggressively for it (Germany, Babylonia, Persia), but no civ should have too big an advantage/disadvantage.
4) Obviously every civ don't need to have balanced starting location, this is earth map after all. Balance is of course ideal, but not mandatory. As long as no civ has completely horrible/overpowered starting position.
5) The Civ placement should be tight everywhere, and equally so, not only in Europe as usually. No longer whole Africa for Egypt and Asia for China.
6) Compensation can be applied to get 3) and/or 4)
My plan gives 26 civs. It leaves central Africa, big parts of Siberia and Indonesia (and the new continents, of course) empty, but nothing too valuable there to give too much edge. Emphasis is of course on strategical placement rather than on "historical importance" (Netherlands etc omitted). But yeah - I know it's a bit off balance. Give me feedback or make your own plan if you prefer.
Europe:
-Spain
-France
-England
-Germany/Holy Rome
-Rome
-Vikings (they might have too much land, maybe need a Barbarian Helsinki to buffer them)
-Greece (maybe too little land
-Ottoman/Byzantium
-Russia (maybe too much land, again could be buffered with barbarians, perhaps in Crimea and Ural)
-Poland/Austria/Hungary/Barbarian zone (Some country to inhabit the area between Germany, Greece and Russia)
Africa:
-Carthage
-Mali
-Egypt
-Ethiopia
-Zulu (Wow, only 5 civs in Africa! I guess it doesn't matter as there isn't virtually any rich land left. Barbarian Congo would be in place though.)
Asia:
-Babylonia
-Arabia
-Persia (Has much room to settle north-> Barbarian Merv)
-Two Indias (Mughal and India as in GEM, don't know if Southern India has too few land though)
-Khmer
-Two Chinas (Qin and Yue, again as in GEM. Barbarian Lhasa)
-Korea
-Mongolia
-Japan
So in a nutshell: Rhye's RFC Map with 26 preplaced Old World civilizations starting in historical places, the game itself can be started and played like a normal civ game, with any mods desired. If one exists, please give me a link!
Moderator Action: Merged with the main request thread.