The Ancient Mediteranean - Civ IV

[Karhgath]

Hey everyone,

As with Civ3 I'll probably start working on The Ancient Mediteranean for Civ4. Lots of new possibilities and potentials. Even without the SDK, a lot can be done already. Here's what I've got:

Civilizations (18, a big setback from Civ3):
Babylon
Assyria
Persia
Phoenicia
Egypt
Carthage
Hittite
Lydia
Rome
Mycenea
Germanic Tribes
Huns
Dacia
Scythia
Macedonia
Iberia
Britons
Gallia

I'd like to have the Ku****e(Nubia) but I don't know who to bump out. We always had trouble finding good units and stuff for them anyway, so it's better that way I think.

In terms of unit types, instead of the current melee, gunpowder, mounted, archery, etc. this is what I see:

Foot - Light = First Strike, City Defense Bonus, Amphibious, Weak
Foot - Medium = City Attack Bonus, Bonus vs Foot - Heavy
Foot - Heavy = Bonus vs Mounted - Heavy, Strong
Mounted - Light = First Strike, Bonus vs Foot - Medium, Can Retreat, Weak
Mounted - Heavy = Immune to First Strike, Bonus vs Siege
Siege
Naval
Recon

This is generic, but there will probably be some different units, like the Skirmisher who is a light unit but is very good vs other light units instead of city defense, but it gives a good general idea. Then Unique Units will add even more flavor to those above.

Here is the planned roadmap:

Phase 1:
Civilizations (traits, etc.)
Generic units (promotions, types, etc., no new arts)
Unique units (no new arts)
Ajusted ancient tech cost and timeframe (slow down and restrict to ancient era, early medieval)

Phase 2:
Map
Tech Tree
Religions
Buildings (no new arts)

Phase 3:
Victory Conditions
Advanced rules
SDK Dev
New arts

The map will have to be made from scratch, probably based on the one already in TAM, unless someone can find a way to convert a civ3 map to civ4.

I want to finish Phase 1 and make it playable as soon as possible.

Let's brainstorm now (traits, units, promotions, techs, etc.) =)

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Woohoo! It's being made for Civ 4 (What happened to ... ... uh... - I forgot his name, the guy who made it for Civ 3)

I too see the problem with the 18 civ limit. I'd be inclined to cut out a good chunk of Europe and Asia, but that would probably mean that if tin was a resource, it would be hard to find. I am kind of worried about "gaps" in starting locations, such as the Caucasus, the Balkans, Africa, and Western Europe. With the fact that it might be impossible to build as many cities as you could in Civ 3 with the new maintanance system and that barbarians build empires in unclaimed territory, those regions might be impregnable barbarian powerhouses.

 

[Xineoph]

Weren't the Huns Turkish in origin?

And you said Mediterranean...not Europe, Middle East and North Africa.

I'd suggest you cut the Brits, Germans, Huns and Scythians, and add

Nubians, Israelis, Axumites, and Lybians i suppose.

Those are the first 4 that popped in my head to replace with.

 

[Isak]

(What happened to ... ... uh... - I forgot his name, the guy who made it for Civ 3)

Thamis? He's been too busy testing Civ4 lately , but I'm sure he'll be getting into modding again sometime in the near future.

@Kargath: Nice to see you're also back.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Thamis is testing Civ4?

That's pretty cool.

I'm glad to see this is being worked on again!

Not that I'll be able to play it for awhile, though

 

[ShroudedMist]

There is no point in having 100 civs on the map if you destroy the gameplay. Personally, I don't find the idea of being penned in due to nearby borders the second I build my first city all that fun. Having that many civs on the map from the beginning is going to wreck the gameplay that occurs early on while everyone is trying to explore and stake out their initial claim.

 

[Polietileno]

Is 18 Civs a hardcore limit? If that´s true, so is BIG Trouble. Otherwise, I would suggest having the 31 Civs that Thamis put on his game; Anding the Celts in Irealnd of course.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

Thamis? He's been too busy testing Civ4 lately

That's him. I kept thinking his name was Thames, Thebes, something along those lines.

Weren't the Huns Turkish in origin?

And you said Mediterranean...not Europe, Middle East and North Africa.

I'd suggest you cut the Brits, Germans, Huns and Scythians, and add

Nubians, Israelis, Axumites, and Lybians i suppose.

Those are the first 4 that popped in my head to replace with.

- For the Huns being Turks, it depends on how you define "Turk".
- The Germans, Scythians and Huns all had their profound impact on the Mediterranean world in their day. It would not seem right to leave them out. But if a good balance can't be found with the extra northern land given the new Civ 4 rules, I agree that they should be cut.
- Axum is far too south for the mod IMO.

 

[Karhgath]

Ok, I was pretty quiet lately, too much work + film school and all.

Hey Isak, long time =) Yeah, I'm kinda back, mostly because I've got a new tool to play with, so I'll play with it until bored =)

I actually find that I enjoy modding the game more than playing it, that's been since the old Civ2 days, but especially with Civ3 and TAM.

Anyway, I'll probably organize something more 'formal' later on, but for now I'm trying to work on the basics and brainstorm.

For the civs... after playing Civ4 a lot and with my experience with the previous TAM, I can tell you it's a good thing that the game is limited to 18 civs.

One of the reason we were so eager to add 31 civs in the previous TAM was mostly to prevent huge empires sprawling, since the AI is trying to build on every single unworked tile. We changed the rules to make it less likely, by the Ai was still the same. I remember spending endless night editing the map tile by tile and putting hills/forests in specific locations to FORCE the AI to build cities on specific tiles... oh the humanity! I spent so much time on the TAM map...

Civ4 is a different beast completely, and I don't want a HUGE map like in TAM... the one we made was way too big, even on my system, the time between turns were getting way too long mid-game.

The Fertile Crescent map Thamis made was a little better on that, and for me, much more fun to play on, and it didn't have all 31 civs anyway.

18 civs will be enough. We just have to fill some 'empty' areas with barbarians, since they can build cities and all now. Hell, even replace some 'barbarian' civs(like huns) with, err, barbarians, hehe.

I've done the basics of my Mediterranean map. It is similar to the one Thamis made, but tilted a little and more focused on interesting areas. Much smaller too(128x60) I've included the Height map as a kind of preview, it gives you a great idea on the area it covers. Huns would be hard to place on that one tho. I only need to understand how the World Builder works and then add resources and starting locations.

I've been messing around with units, promotions and types. Changing the unit type is pretty easy in Civ 4, so here are the unit types and the generic units(I haven't thought about naval yet). Subtypes are just there as an indication, but see below for more:

Light Melee Units
(Skirmishers)
- Slinger
- Javeliner
- Axe Thrower
(Archers)
- Archer
- Composite Archer
- Siege Archer

Medium Melee Units
(Full Offense)
- Clubman
- Axeman
- Maceman
(Off/Def)
- Shortswordsman
- Broadswordsman
- Longswordsman

Heavy Melee Units
- Spearman
- Heavy Spearman
- Pikeman

Light Mounted Units
(Chariots)
- Light Chariot
- War Chariot
- Heavy Chariot
(Skirmisher)
- Light Horse Archer
- Heavy Horse Archer
- Mounted Javeliner

Heavy Mounted Units
- Horseman
- Light Cavalry
- Heavy Cavalry

Siege Units
- Ballista
- Catapult
- Trebuchet

Then, you have tons of choices for promotions. I think I'll go for promotions in 5 categories, with 3-4 levels in each. Then each levels unlock specific 'manoeuvers' or tactics that gives specific bonus(like cover, pinch, etc. in the original game):

Offensive Tactics
- Gives +% power, kinda like combat right now
- Charge(+vs siege), Shock(+vs Heavy), Encircle(reduce retreat chance), etc.

Defensive Tactics
- Gives heal bonus?
- Formation(+vs heavy mounted), Cover(+vs light and light mounted), Shuffle(+vs medium), etc.

Support Tactics
- Gives First Strike
- Barrage(collateral), Harrass(+retreat chance), Ambush(+vs light mounted), etc.

Mobility Tactics
- Gives Retreat Bonus
- Flank(immune fs), Hit and Run(++retreat), Breakthrough(something), etc.

Siege Tactics
- Dunno yet exactly

Then each units will have access to 2 of these paths. For example, Light Skirmishers have access to Support, Offense. Light Archers have access to Support, Defense. Mounted Skirmisher have access to Mobility and Support, and so on. Hence the 'subtypes' above.

Combat would be a lot deeper that way, we'll have to use the promotion system and unit types to the maximum possible extend.

Here are some more random thoughts:

Forge: forge would add + production. Each 'ore' ressource you have could add +% to forge. I dunno if python will be enough for that or if the SDK will be needed. For example:

Forge: +25% production
Each ore(copper, tin, iron) resource in the city: +25%

So, if you have access to copper, tin and iron, your Forge gives +100% production. However, if you don't have a forge, you get no bonus from ore.

Then, instead of having units that 'require' ressources, lets seperate units and resources. No unit requires a resource in TAM as a general rule. (maybe Naval unit and Timber tho). However, Iron units are more powerful... how can we do that?

Simple, let specific resource gives +XP when creating units. Again, I dunno how hard it is to do that yet.

For example, if you have only access to Copper or Tin you get +2XP to each unit built. If you have Copper+Tin, you have +4XP and if you have iron you get +6XP! That's just an example of the possibilities.

This means that Rome could build an army of legionary, even without iron, or copper/tin. No more lameness of not having a specific unit and not being able to build your UU.

However, they would be a bit less powerful because they'd have less XP, and thus less promotions. Furthermore, Rome wouldn't build them very fast without ore (see Forge above)

Also, let's make units, even later ones, not THAT much more powerful. For example, Shortswordmans could still be as useful as Longswordsman and not obsolete by them, just used differently. Afterall, Legionaries are hybrid shortswordsman/javeliner. Let's have a progression, that's for sure, but even Javeliner could have a chance against a Knight, with the right promotions

In previous versions of TAM, I think early units were around 2-4 and later ones(Knights and all) were around 24 of strenght. That's a big gap. Maybe keeping them between 4-12 or something this time. Maybe even reducing the number of units in the above list and focus on promotions and all, having 2 units instead of 3 per types/subtypes.

Technology would make a big difference on naval and siege warfare tho, but for normal land units, promotions, experience and unit type would be much more important than unit strenght.

With the original TAM, I took all the little editing possibilities and made some really cool 'rules' and effects. Now, with CIV4, the possibilities are starting to be endless, heh. I'm pretty sure I'll have tons of fun creating new rules and concepts =)

Wow, that's what you call a long post!

 

[Karhgath]

Oh, BTW, about the Huns/Turk thing.

Huns originally came from what is now northen china and present day mongolia. Although they evolved into something more than an ethnic group, the exact origins and such is still discussed.

However, they aren't Turk or Turkish(denizen of Turkey), but they are probably Turkic(speaking a turkic language). Turkic people are spread in what is now Turkey, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, etc. Their origins are in central asia and Huns are believe to be Turkic, maybe they even help to spread it to eastern europe.