akots
Poet
Been playing a few times the TAM mod. Mostly on low difficulty and still it was very tough. I'm not motivated enough to play a single player game on high difficulty since it is really insane. But I like the mod so much, with all these beautiful units and many various civs! Especially, it plays like a completely different game, very little similarity with actual Conquests. No settler factories, no worker factories, not even barracks until a certain stage of the game! Multiple possiblities to trigger Golden Age, very peculiar civ-specific small wonders, great map, powerful AIs, multitude of resources! And slave and prisoner sacrifice to end up the gorefest with a 20K or even 100K victories! Indeed a fascinating mod!
About TAM:
- TAM's thread at CFC: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=23420
- TAM's forum at CDG : http://cdgroup.org/forums/tbs/civ3/index.php?h=1&pf=21
- Watorrey's site about TAM : http://civ3.watorrey.net/pages/tam.html
- Justus II's reference site about TAM : http://joe-s.home.insightbb.com/ancient_med.htm
The mod is rather large (80Mb download plus 2.5j patch). But it is well worth it!
Difficulty level is open for discussion but I'm thinking of Deity played by the RBC rules (no exploits). Not sure if anybody tried it and if it is winnable. Certainly Emperor is winnable.
Choice of civilization is also rather large (over 26).
Apparently it might be better to limit the game to players who are comfortable with Deity difficulty at the very least.
Specifics of the TAM mod
It might be I'm missing some important points here, please correct me if I'm wrong.
1. Cities not on the river can grow to size 4 without aqueduct. Cities on the river can grow to size 8 only without sewer. Cities over size 8 generate considerable pollution which is decreased by building public baths. All these improvements are very expensive to build.
2. Settlers cost 50 shields and are worth 3 citizens (30 shields and 2 citizens normally). This speaks for itself. No worker or settler factories ever!
3. Pottery is not a first level tech and is rather difficult to research. So, no early granaries. Hence, growth strategies are completely different and there is no REXing neither for a human playr nor for AI. Initial game flow is extremely slow.
4. Workers speed in very slow even with industrious trait.
5. There are no barracks essentially till almost the end of the game. The only place to produce veteran units and upgrade is the capital since Palace acts as barracks.
6. However, some regular units have 4 or even 5 hit points whereas heroic units (analog of elites) can have up to 7 hit points. Attack and defense strength of most units is doubled. Hence, combat system is rather different.
7. Settlers, wheeled units and most of the foot units cannot enter mountains and swamp unless workers build a road there. Cities cannot be founded on desert, forest, and mountains but OK in swamp once there is road there. Archers and some other units can enter mountains and are at the same time amphibious.
8. Ships are really slow until late in the game and even then and even with seafaring trait.
10. Barbarians are huge. They have attack of 4 and defence of 2 fortunately always conscript (3 hit points). Barbarian (pirate) ships are also very powerful. This limits initial contacts and early exploration substantially. There are also wild wolves which have 2 mp but attack-defence only 1-1.
11. There is a great choice of various governments and some wonders depend on governement. Once you revolt to another government, the wonder disappears.
12. There are civ-specific small wonders for each civ and their benefit is not to be underestimated.
13. There is very few possibilities of building local culture since temples bring only 1 culture per turn and building them in corrupt cities is virtually impossible since they require a cult site improvement to be built first.
14. Some units have enslave ability and slaves (traded or captured or obtained by razing cities) and enslaved units can be sacrificed to increase local culture or culture in the cultural center (capital usually). Capital accounts for about 80-90% of total culture.
15. AIs are very difficult to manipulate. They always ask you out of their territory. RoP are possible only later in the game. Military alliances are not possible completely IIRC.
Overall this stands for a very different kind of game.
About TAM:
- TAM's thread at CFC: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=23420
- TAM's forum at CDG : http://cdgroup.org/forums/tbs/civ3/index.php?h=1&pf=21
- Watorrey's site about TAM : http://civ3.watorrey.net/pages/tam.html
- Justus II's reference site about TAM : http://joe-s.home.insightbb.com/ancient_med.htm
The mod is rather large (80Mb download plus 2.5j patch). But it is well worth it!
Difficulty level is open for discussion but I'm thinking of Deity played by the RBC rules (no exploits). Not sure if anybody tried it and if it is winnable. Certainly Emperor is winnable.
Choice of civilization is also rather large (over 26).
Apparently it might be better to limit the game to players who are comfortable with Deity difficulty at the very least.
Specifics of the TAM mod
It might be I'm missing some important points here, please correct me if I'm wrong.
1. Cities not on the river can grow to size 4 without aqueduct. Cities on the river can grow to size 8 only without sewer. Cities over size 8 generate considerable pollution which is decreased by building public baths. All these improvements are very expensive to build.
2. Settlers cost 50 shields and are worth 3 citizens (30 shields and 2 citizens normally). This speaks for itself. No worker or settler factories ever!
3. Pottery is not a first level tech and is rather difficult to research. So, no early granaries. Hence, growth strategies are completely different and there is no REXing neither for a human playr nor for AI. Initial game flow is extremely slow.
4. Workers speed in very slow even with industrious trait.
5. There are no barracks essentially till almost the end of the game. The only place to produce veteran units and upgrade is the capital since Palace acts as barracks.
6. However, some regular units have 4 or even 5 hit points whereas heroic units (analog of elites) can have up to 7 hit points. Attack and defense strength of most units is doubled. Hence, combat system is rather different.
7. Settlers, wheeled units and most of the foot units cannot enter mountains and swamp unless workers build a road there. Cities cannot be founded on desert, forest, and mountains but OK in swamp once there is road there. Archers and some other units can enter mountains and are at the same time amphibious.
8. Ships are really slow until late in the game and even then and even with seafaring trait.
10. Barbarians are huge. They have attack of 4 and defence of 2 fortunately always conscript (3 hit points). Barbarian (pirate) ships are also very powerful. This limits initial contacts and early exploration substantially. There are also wild wolves which have 2 mp but attack-defence only 1-1.
11. There is a great choice of various governments and some wonders depend on governement. Once you revolt to another government, the wonder disappears.
12. There are civ-specific small wonders for each civ and their benefit is not to be underestimated.
13. There is very few possibilities of building local culture since temples bring only 1 culture per turn and building them in corrupt cities is virtually impossible since they require a cult site improvement to be built first.
14. Some units have enslave ability and slaves (traded or captured or obtained by razing cities) and enslaved units can be sacrificed to increase local culture or culture in the cultural center (capital usually). Capital accounts for about 80-90% of total culture.
15. AIs are very difficult to manipulate. They always ask you out of their territory. RoP are possible only later in the game. Military alliances are not possible completely IIRC.
Overall this stands for a very different kind of game.
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