Scenario : Alternate world, from 450 ad

[Daftpanzer]

Im slowly making a low-budget conquests scenario for myself. The idea is an 'alternate timeline'...

Its 450 A.D, but the roman empire never exapnded as much as in history, due to 'conservative policy'. In the east, the remainder of Alexander the Great's empire lives on, in the greek selecuid empire in persia. However, rome did conquer the rest of the greek areas and asia minor, and has a very strong position. The Huns never invaded europe. Europe is a crowded area of different states, which are slowly becoming 'civilised' due to the mediterranean influence.

Carthage remains strong, but it has lost much of spain to the new kindgoms of aragon and portugal. The celtic tribes have formed an alliance against common enemies. Scandinavia and arabia have began expanding, much earlier than in history. There are also several powerful slavic kindgoms in the east.

Working Map : Europe (colours need fixing+sorry for poor quality)

Im using the cool world map from the 'Ryhes of civilization'

European civs:
Rome
Carthage
Arabs, expanding into egypt
Greek Selucids in persia and babylon area
Scandinavia (also Vinland, a lost viking colony in north america, which has now gone independant....)
Celtic group : Celtic alliance, Scotia
Germanic group : Franks, Angles, Goths, Burgundians
Slavic group : Dacia, Kiev, Poland, Novgorod
Iberian group : Portugal, Aragon

Elsewhere in the world:
Ottoman turks, lurking in the caucasus for now
Mongols, pushed into deep central asia (but will get many cheap keshiks)

An advanced north american tribe (havent decided),Incas, Aztec, Maya

Bantu, central africa, Zimbabwe in south africa
Mauryan empire in india, Khmer south east asia
Mighty China, isolated Japan, and a combined korea/manchuria

General ideas:
Settling is very limited, settlers cannot be built to start with. Some civs get a 'frontier nation' small wonder, which produces settlers for them at a very slow rate, about one every 25 turns. By the discovery of magnetism, a 'colonial expansion' wonder will be available, which produces settlers about 1 every 15 turns for any civ.

The far east, america and africa will be more innovative, with more advanced technology. Although there will be much free land there, Ill try to make it so the europeans have a hard time colonising, maybe the far east and america will invade europe?

Gonna stick in tons of UU's and flavour units - as many asian, african and native american ones as i can find. Each civ 'group' is going to have its own set of units pretty much.

I have this idea where feudalism will allow a 'feudal estate' buidling, which produces support-free 'feudal infantry' units at a regular rate, upgradeable to more advanced feudal units later (kidnof to represent a 'call to arms'). But fuedalism will be made even more corrupt. I also want to have similar small wonders like 'royal estate', shipyard', 'cannon foundry' etc..


Generally, i like the idea of an epic scenario, which changes drastically depending on what civ and what area of the world you play in, and different 'ages' with very different things going on. The main challenge will be to play as one of the small european civs, and try to build a world power in the face of overwhelming odds. I also like the what if? factor using non-histroical timeline (which also lets me be totally innacurate with things )... But i have 31 civs on a big map, and performance on my 2ghz is kindof poor

I just thought id share my scenario idea Anyone got any suggestions for alternative civs, or things i could add? or any ideas?

thanks

 

[Tathlum]

Very cool, go for it. I for one don't mind big scenarios with waiting times.

Edit;
wait perhaps you should combine anglia and frankonia into Normandy and free up a space to put a non european civ into?

Normans are pretty cool....

 

[Daftpanzer]

Hmm normans would be cool ... but I like the idea of the angles with huskarls, and later longbowmen as UU's. Plus i want to play as them, to see if i can make an england or unite all of britain, fighting the vikings, celts and scots...

thanks tho, thats got me thinkig now....

 

[Lachlan]

GOOD IDEA : use Rhye Mod for create this scenario !

 

[Daftpanzer]

Well, i wont start from another mod. Ive started from a 'clean sheet', i prefer it that way. Tho i might steal a few units

I thought id post some screenies from a test game i spent a few hours on tonight:

Vinland establishes itself, having killed all native americans in sight

the Khmer got smashed up by china, and now it looks like the mauryans want some too. Im goning to try to beef up the khmer a bit, but i dont want all of SE asia covered in cities...

Britian and northern europe were calm. The celts are stockpiling units in Ireland, a waste... is there a way to prevent that? Looks like anglians like their huskarls

The middle east is where the fighting was. Rome, having destroyed most of dacia, attacked the celucids in green, taking babylon etc. then the arabs and turks joined in agaisnt the romans. Celts and carthage declared war on rome too, it was quite fun to watch. Meanwhile i was safe in north america playing as the commanche, giving the expanding aztecs a run for their money (because i forgot to set the 'defensive' ai tag for their mexican warriors he he)

UU's so far :
germanics : germanic warrior, northern spearmen, frankish warrior (for franks)

Celts : Celtic warrior, gallic warrior, celtic chariot

Rome : Auxilia, mounted auxilia, legion, imperial legion, Scutario

Celucid : Celucid hoplite, Toxotis

Vikings / Vinland : viking warrior and beserker, with longboat only for vikings (dont want vinland exploring all america)

The native south americans get their usual UU's, but made stronger. The iroquai replacement (im going iwth commanche for now, cos it sounds coool) get a tomahawk-warrior kind of guy.

Ive got some other flavour units im playing with, war elephants now available to 3 civs etc. There isnt much for the far east yet...

For the tech tree, im going to have both archers and firearm troops as strong attackers, with weak defence and low hit points. There will be medium infantry (general good all-rounders), some heavy infantry (with powerful attack an hit point bonus), and some light infantry (medium defence, poor attack) for most civs.

So pikemen are now still needed later on, to defend the musketeers (who actually have little defence now). I think that idea could work quite well, the conquests a.i seems to escort strong attackers with other defensive units.

Im slowly building up more 'fuedal' troops aswell, i hope to expand that age of the game with more techs too.

Thanks for the replies, any more ideas, suggestions or feedback would be welcome

 

[civilleader]

AT 450 CE the dominant empire in India would be the Gupta, not Mauraya.

Hate to say it but Ottomans were almost nothing back then. They came from alot of mongol blood, I think.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Thanks for the info

Im going to expand the 'alternate' to include the whole world

Yeah from what i read, the mauryan empire dissolved around 300ad... but i thought it would be cool to have them survivng into 450 ad. From what i know, nobody came as close to uniting india after that, until the british. In this alternate world, they had better leaders or something Just an idea for now. Ill look up the Gupta....

Ive renamed the ottomans as 'turkics' now, with several cities in the cacasus area. From what i know, the turkic peoples were upset by the mongol hordes, and slowly drifted through the caucasus from asia into aisa minor and the byzantium area. Maybe they will do that in the game eventually especially if i give them enough powerful UUs later on....

 

[mrtn]

How did the vikings end up in North America? In our timeline it was discovered by Greenland Norse about 1000 AD...

 

[Tathlum]

Stuff the nitty grity details, this looks fun!
Will DEFINITLY play this when you're done.
Gonna make one more pitch for the Normans though. You say you want to conquer the British isles as Anglia, well it was the Norman english who invaded Ireland, Wales and Scotland. Considering the two UU's you said you want to use came from diferent groups anyway (Huscarl-Saxon and Longbowmen originally Welsh) I dont really see a problem with you having these and Norman knights aswell in an Anglo-Norman kingdom.

Anyway the choice is yours, but a free slot could be used to put Lizardmen in the Amazon.....

 

[Daftpanzer]

My only problem with the normans is that they were related to viking settlers in northern france, ive already got vikings and northern france belongs to the celts still, in my working version. I could say both vikings and germanic peoples have influenced and created an 'anglia'.

PS is there any graphics for lizardmen?

I know vikings didnt reach america till much later, and there was never very many vikings there at all. But i put them in case anyone wants to play as an 'america' right form the start. I think ill scale them back tho, and give them only one starting city....

i spent a few hours adding units and my brain hurts. Thinking out loud : (or would that be typing out loud, or thinking in text )

I want to have a much more expanded period between the earliest arquebusiers and riflemen. Ive got three versions of pre-rifle fiream troops now, and also 3 pikemen altogether (Plus a halberdier too). Im either going to have to condense the ancient age into a 'post ancient' age (most civs should start with a lot of that tech anyway, and there isnt really a 'dark age') and make gunpowder the start of an expanded 'reneissance', or i can scrap several units...

from gunpowder to military tradition, where i want my 'napoleonic' style musketeers, there just isnt room for another set of attackes and defender units to be useful....

current ideas

from fuedal age (for europe):
feudalism -> feudal pikemen / possibly feudal swordsmen / light cavalry or basic knights

max attack 6. max defence 4 at this level

chivlary -> chivalric units, might be unbuildable and come from small wonders only : chivalric knights, chivlaric foot knights

gunpowder ->ealry bombard / arquebusier / guard pikemen / halberdier / early dragoon? / chivalric units still used

max attack 8 max defence 5


metallurgy -> improved cannon / french original UU style musketeers / drilled pikemen (can still use halberdier too) / dragoon-cavalry / and chivlarics go obsolete by now

max attack 9 max defence 6

military tradition -> musket infantry, napoleonic style stand alone musket guys, no more pikes / cavalry

max attack 10 max defence 7

industrialisation or nationalism -> advanced cannon / riflemen / carbine cavalry

max attack 12 defence 8

 

[Xen]

I like this sceanrio quite a bit- one suggestion- ADD THE CATAPHRACT FOR ROME!

its was Rome., and Byzantiums most important type of troops after the legionaries had becoem to expensive for the empire to maintain

 

[Daftpanzer]

cataphract added. Im using the 'persian' cataphract grapic but it looks quite cool for romans too IMO. Maybe carthage could get catapracts too?

Most cavalry has 1 less hitpoint in my mod than the equivalent medium or heavy infantry. I think ill give cat's the same hitpoints as infantry, but with less attack value than the elite chivalric knights.

Ive been at my pc for several hours, mostly working on my mod and downloading / fiddling with units. I need help im addicted Im going to start calling the civs my 'children' soon

 

[Xen]

there are VERY good choices for the Roman cataphract unit here- http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=68572

(mind you it is the first to, the last one is more of a Persian type)

 

[Daftpanzer]

Hmm thanks for the link, ive seen that original unit graphic before, didnt quite appeal to me first time. Did they really attack by swining their lances around like that? thats what put me off...

The new variations look quite cool tho, maybe ill use one of them.

 

[Xen]

well, yes, it would have been an option- you see the weapon that cataphracts used is not a lance- it is a large spear, called a contos/kontos, with a (generally) large blade at the end- this mean that while not as useful in a charge, they could be manipulated, and used to fight in a fashion that would look more like fencing- giving the cataphract the advantage in close fighting- that said a lance is only a large wooden pole, big and heavy on one end, but then tapering to a point- but it has no balde on the end, which mean its useless after you charge your enimies, and they get to close to inplae on it- which mean if you didnt hit anyone, your out of luck)

 

[Elden]

Looks like an interesting scenario. But looking at the screenshots Scotia has only two cities. Wouldn't it be better to give their cities to the Celts and make room for another civilization?

 

[Tathlum]

My only problem with the normans is that they were related to viking settlers in northern france, ive already got vikings and northern france belongs to the celts still, in my working version. I could say both vikings and germanic peoples have influenced and created an 'anglia'.

PS is there any graphics for lizardmen?

Okay cool no Normans I still wanna play it. Any idea on when you'll be done (no rush, just excited..)

And Yes Kinboat made a Set of very cool Lizardmen. (seven units if I remember right).

Good work Daftpanzer

 

[Gladi]

Bright day
Well aside from hisoric incosistencies I hace few ideas.
Dacia- Is imho bit too large. I personally would rename it Great Moravia as from what I am able to see northern and central territories respond to real world Moravia, bit, and remove some cities from south, that or I would retain name and curb it in north.
Scotia- should be Pictish Caledonia
Gotland- AFAIK Goths lived at Black Sea where they were subdued by Huns and taken more into Europe. As I see Gotland includes Boiohaemum, place where strong Markoman state developed maybe renaming to Kingdom of Markmomanni?
Will be back!
May all your days be bright.

 

[Daftpanzer]

Thanks for the info, Gladi

I had a look for Markoman and Boiohaemum, it seems hard to find english information about these, maybe the names are something different in english? it seesm to refer to ancient tribes in the chzeck / slovak area (is that where you are from by any chance?)

My idea for 'gotland' was just a area of german tribes. As far as i know, it seems germanic peoples such as visigoths were already in the area before the huns came.

Anyway, i thought gotland sounded cool I think i might keep it, but maybe they can get a 'markoman' unit, to reflect the different cultures or something?

 

[Xen]

*jst as a note- it dosent make much sense for Rome, clearlly, even much reduced fro what it reral borders were, still a regional powerhouse,for it to leave the island oc corsica and sardinia out of its rule- empire all have a tendncy to conqoure the lands immdiatel around them in a sort of giant circle- and assuming the capital of Rome is still Rome, it makes no sense to leave two large islands, perfect of mounting large naval expiditons agaisnt the Itallic homland, and even Rome itself out side of its control