Spiral's Huge Europe Map

[RidetheSpiral23]

Huge Europe Map

Download and place in:
.../fireaxis/civ4/beyond the sword/mods/caveman2cosmos/private maps

This map includes 20 civs currently. It is still a work in progress but should have most of the resources placed. Hopefully I will get some feedback from everyone. Hope you enjoy!

 

[damienreave]

Huge thanks for this! I've been playing on the world map but I prefer Europe. I'll give more detailed feedback after a game or two.

I rolled a random number and got 18, so it looks like I'm playing Isabella. Should be interesting.

 

[damienreave]

One small issue I've found already. I prefer to play with Minor Civs turned off, but that doesn't appear to work in your map. Even with it checked off, I start at war with everyone, and unable to talk with them diplomatically.

I used the map editor to turn everyone to peace with everyone else, but diplomatic contact is still impossible.

On a possibly related note, why does Isabella start the game with contact with Justinian and Catherine?

 

[GiuseppeIII]

Good job getting this done I actually love to play on Europe maps so I will definitely try this out

 

[Acularius]

One small issue I've found already. I prefer to play with Minor Civs turned off, but that doesn't appear to work in your map. Even with it checked off, I start at war with everyone, and unable to talk with them diplomatically.

I used the map editor to turn everyone to peace with everyone else, but diplomatic contact is still impossible.

On a possibly related note, why does Isabella start the game with contact with Justinian and Catherine?

Probably just some text editing of the file and it should work.
I haven't looked just yet, but it probably has something to do with minorciv = 1 (for on), so even with the option in the custom settings off, it will still load with the civs working under that assumption.

As for the civs knowing one another, same thing, text editing at work. (The pain in the proverbial behind part of map editing. )

 

[RidetheSpiral23]

Yeah I forgot to fix that stuff after I edited some resources. My bad! I'll take a look at that tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for the feedback and I hope you enjoy the map!

 

[artyom]

on turn 2 I get a crash on both versions of this map. at first I was using version 25, but then I got the svn latest version but nothing changed.
not sure if this may be the issue, but like all the civs rotate around when I click "end turn" on turn 1. also, there is a question mark on the map icon in my private maps folder.
i was really looking forward to play this map, or some other european map else this mod is useless to me

 

[RidetheSpiral23]

on turn 2 I get a crash on both versions of this map. at first I was using version 25, but then I got the svn latest version but nothing changed.
not sure if this may be the issue, but like all the civs rotate around when I click "end turn" on turn 1. also, there is a question mark on the map icon in my private maps folder.
i was really looking forward to play this map, or some other european map else this mod is useless to me

I'm sorry you are having problems with the map. This map is currently only in it's beta phase and put it up so people could start playing it and give me some feedback while I was working on it. If you are getting a crash on the end of turn one/turn 2 you should be able to continue to play. It's probably just a text error in my file. When the game crashes just reload civ and load the auto-save from turn one and it the map should play fine from there.

 

[artyom]

thanks, the game on autosave did indeed fix the problem and i had a great time playing through prehistoric age and Iam now in ancient age researching mining.
settings were snail speed emperor difficulty (later changed to deity in the bug options), playing as russia.
now, this was my first C2C game, so I a prolly gonna sound stupid, but is it normal to be in ancient age and sitting on 20000 gold? the game seems incredibly easy not just due to easy economy but also easy conquests one can do. like I had 7 generals pop out just from killing barbarian animals and nothing could stop a player killing every mainland civilization while still in prehistoric age if he just made a force of say 3 troops led by warlords and a great commandor he would have a 100% chance attacking any city.
also, I dont see any espionage points, is that intended?
one thing I'd like to propose is somehow please make the AI more prone to expand. I hated ROM because I always found myself adding cities to civs that dont expand. in my game I had to add cities to germany, goths, romans and france because they had 1-2 cities when I had 8. one possible fix to this could be making barbarians make cities like 200 turns later than they do now so that the AI civs dont give up on expanding just because barbs make cities around them.
also, not sure if intended, but Byzantines and Israel were wiped out quiete early in prehistoric age by huns and egyptians.
and last thing, seeing as this game is all about expanding, I think Russia's starting city of moscow could be nerfed by removing stone (it seems to be best resource in game)

 

[RidetheSpiral23]

thanks, the game on autosave did indeed fix the problem and i had a great time playing through prehistoric age and Iam now in ancient age researching mining.
settings were snail speed emperor difficulty (later changed to deity in the bug options), playing as russia.
now, this was my first C2C game, so I a prolly gonna sound stupid, but is it normal to be in ancient age and sitting on 20000 gold? the game seems incredibly easy not just due to easy economy but also easy conquests one can do. like I had 7 generals pop out just from killing barbarian animals and nothing could stop a player killing every mainland civilization while still in prehistoric age if he just made a force of say 3 troops led by warlords and a great commandor he would have a 100% chance attacking any city.
also, I dont see any espionage points, is that intended?
one thing I'd like to propose is somehow please make the AI more prone to expand. I hated ROM because I always found myself adding cities to civs that dont expand. in my game I had to add cities to germany, goths, romans and france because they had 1-2 cities when I had 8. one possible fix to this could be making barbarians make cities like 200 turns later than they do now so that the AI civs dont give up on expanding just because barbs make cities around them.
also, not sure if intended, but Byzantines and Israel were wiped out quiete early in prehistoric age by huns and egyptians.
and last thing, seeing as this game is all about expanding, I think Russia's starting city of moscow could be nerfed by removing stone (it seems to be best resource in game)

Well, lots of questions I see! I'm glad you are enjoying C2C and I will try to address some of your concerns but keep in mind I am currently just a map maker.

If the game is too easy for you I would suggest starting the game on immortal and immediately BUG switching to Deity. That's how I play and I generally have a challenging enough game. In the last couple play tests on this map I haven't had a problem with AI civs not expanding myself. I do think it would be nice if the AI civs more aggressively attempted to stamp out barbarian cities though. If you aren't building a lot of military units, the AI is less likely too also. See what happens if you start building up an army and hovering near enemy borders. Koshling is always improving the AI's ability to effectively play against the player.

Byzantines and the Israel getting conquered was pure chance. They just happened to get destroyed. That happens sometimes.

IMHO, the gold is quite excessive early on but wait til later. The combination of different civics, crime, and inflation will cause that money to disappear if you aren't careful!

 

[artyom]

If the game is too easy for you I would suggest starting the game on immortal and immediately BUG switching to Deity. That's how I play and I generally have a challenging enough game. In the last couple play tests on this map I haven't had a problem with AI civs not expanding myself.

IMHO, the gold is quite excessive early on but wait til later. The combination of different civics, crime, and inflation will cause that money to disappear if you aren't careful!

will do. i'll try like the greeks this time. and why not just start on deity?

 

[artyom]

ok i played more of this map.
- i think the byzzies need to have better production at start as they seem to get wiped out very early since theyre attacked from all sides and they have the crappiest starting city.
- the celts need to be removed to give its neighbours more room and potential to expand.
-maybe goths could be replaced with poland who would start further east to give room for germany
-if its possible, give each starting civ 3+ defenders instead of 1-2 who cannot move so that they arent wiped out as easily. on my immortal start: babylon, byzzies, egyptians, and russians all got wiped out half way through the prehistoric age (russians got wiped out by a stack of 2 units because they only had 1 defender in city and rest were all protecting their workers)
note that on immortal difficulty and switch to deity start, civs get wiped out easily when other civs tend to wander around with death stacks of 15 or so units.

 

[GiuseppeIII]

will do. i'll try like the greeks this time. and why not just start on deity?

If you start on deity the AI automatically gets 2 cities

 

[Sgtslick]

when i tried this map custom scenario or just scenario it just kept saying I was defeated when it started.

 

[Mouthwash]

when i tried this map custom scenario or just scenario it just kept saying I was defeated when it started.

Don't use the Advanced Civics one.

Also, why do I have contact with every Civ on the map?

 

[RidetheSpiral23]

Don't use the Advanced Civics one.

Also, why do I have contact with every Civ on the map?

Sorry I had gone on sort of a hiatus for a couple months and never got caught up. The contact thing would be solved if the map was run through the world builder save cleaner. Although the map still needs updated with newer civs and resources.

Still looking for one or two people to step up and form a consistent (at least for the time being) map team since I am working with thunderbrd and Acularius doesn't get much time. I would be more than happy to help whoever here and there and talk them through stuff if they need help. I just can't get distracted with maps currently.

 

[artyom]

well this is the only map I play, and I hope it gets updated. The GEM map is simply too big and I only like historical real world maps.
A few comments about this european map:
-some civs do well every one of my games, some perform terribly
-egypt, assyria, israel, portugal, spain, sumeria, babylon, france, goths, byzantines all perform terribly because they are cramped with little space to expand. I almost always delete portugal, babylon and celts at games start and then artificially add 3-6 cities to most civs when i myself get 3-6 cities
-Germany is the only one which performs exceptionally well every game, even without me giving them cities (it has to do with their traits which allow them to be scientific leader from games start)
-russia, huns, rome, carthage, vikings, england, hittites and sometimes greece all do reasonably well in most of my games

basic suggestions:
-improve starting city location for byzantines.
-Remove some of the civs which are cramped closely to other civs. I think every civ should get enough space for about 15 cities at least with the exception of a few such as england. Iberia and France need to have one civ each instead of two
-add some civs where there is space (like austria and poland, but move the huns east if you add poland)
-in mesopotamia and middle east, you should have like 4 civs: byzantines or ottomans, perhaps armenia(empty land there), fertile cresent civ, and a egypt/israel/arabia civ. This should allow for good expansion opportunity for all
-improve french and goth starting city location or smth (they both get wiped by germany/spain in ALL of my games quiete early). I think lack of production (hills) and bad traits is the reason. Adding a few hills or stone/marble for each could fix the problem
-Nubia. You could add a civ there, the place stays empty for a long time unless carthage manages to do well and it might settle it by like the middle ages
-you might also consider turning off "minor civs" because of the goth/france situation and them getting wiped out so easy. Although iam not sure, without minor civs thing it could be worse

note the settings I use are immortal/increasing difficulty on marathon speed with no tech trading. Ironically, playing on Deity makes it much more easy because the AI second starting city is usually unhappy thus leading to revolt and terrible economy

 

[RidetheSpiral23]

well this is the only map I play, and I hope it gets updated. The GEM map is simply too big and I only like historical real world maps.

Well I'm glad you like it. I do plan on updating, actually it's already on my to do list. Hopefully my new large europe that I requested be added to the SVN or v29 was, so you can try that out as well.

A few comments about this european map:
-some civs do well every one of my games, some perform terribly
-egypt, assyria, israel, portugal, spain, sumeria, babylon, france, goths, byzantines all perform terribly because they are cramped with little space to expand. I almost always delete portugal, babylon and celts at games start and then artificially add 3-6 cities to most civs when i myself get 3-6 cities

Thanks for all this feedback by the way. People hadn't said much about it. I'm for sure open to moving civs around and will probably release several versions of this map with various set ups. For the version that keeps most of the current civs in there I was thinking about playing around with civ handicaps and leaderhead selection to see if I can get it more balanced.

-Germany is the only one which performs exceptionally well every game, even without me giving them cities (it has to do with their traits which allow them to be scientific leader from games start)

If they are doing too well I can change the leaderhead...

basic suggestions:
-improve starting city location for byzantines.
-Remove some of the civs which are cramped closely to other civs. I think every civ should get enough space for about 15 cities at least with the exception of a few such as england. Iberia and France need to have one civ each instead of two
-add some civs where there is space (like austria and poland, but move the huns east if you add poland)
-in mesopotamia and middle east, you should have like 4 civs: byzantines or ottomans, perhaps armenia(empty land there), fertile cresent civ, and a egypt/israel/arabia civ. This should allow for good expansion opportunity for all
-improve french and goth starting city location or smth (they both get wiped by germany/spain in ALL of my games quiete early). I think lack of production (hills) and bad traits is the reason. Adding a few hills or stone/marble for each could fix the problem
-Nubia. You could add a civ there, the place stays empty for a long time unless carthage manages to do well and it might settle it by like the middle ages
-you might also consider turning off "minor civs" because of the goth/france situation and them getting wiped out so easy. Although iam not sure, without minor civs thing it could be worse

Some good suggestions. Nubia is a good idea. I noticed France and Portugal die a lot, maybe a different leaderhead for those civs would help out. Ill get another version out soon.

note the settings I use are immortal/increasing difficulty on marathon speed with no tech trading. Ironically, playing on Deity makes it much more easy because the AI second starting city is usually unhappy thus leading to revolt and terrible economy

Similar to the settings I play with. I believe the SVN was updated to help deity level civs not drowned in city costs and such.

My love of actual world maps led me to start making these maps and to the eventuality of basic modding. If you have any interest on working with maps I could help you get started. If not no big deal.

 

[artyom]

If you have any interest on working with maps I could help you get started. If not no big deal

well, I can give it a shot. But I warn you, iam quiete slow when it comes to computer related stuff

I think playing around with civ handicaps is a good approach to the balance problem. But I dont think you should remove leaders like Frederick of Germany because its the only civ that certainly can pose a challenge to the human player. So perhaps, instead, you could try to balance other civs around Germany instead of balancing Germany around the poor performing civs.

also wanted to mention, I think greece should have alot more hills, as the area is famous for its abundance of hills and lack of fertile grassland.

 

[RidetheSpiral23]

That's a good point. That might be a better approach.

Well the first step to start working with maps is learning how to bring up the cheat console and revealing the map so you can get coordinates for plots so that you can edit them in the world builder save. Do you know how to do that?