The Ancient Mediterranean MOD

[samari_tycoon]

yeah and the amount of improvements that you devote and build, could effect the waiting time and the overall chances of sucess of estabilishing the silk road

 

[Karhgath]

BTW, my list was just the problems I see right now with the game, I started testing 1.9 and I already see some good changes. As I said, I'll probably post my suggestions next week, giving me a bit of time to further test the game.


As for the silk road, something like Civ2 might be really good. You must build each piece of the silk road *in order* tho. We'd have to balance the tech that enables the silk road carefully tho, especially since it's not a linear tech tree anymore. Maybe keeping them all in ONE branch would be good. If not, you'd discover lots of silk road-enabling techs without having the first one discovered and that would suck. You could even start the silk road early on, since it wouldn't be a Tech victory anymore but a Trade victory instead.

Each part of the road would require different resources or buildings maybe. For example, if part of the trip is over desert, maybe requiring camels or something might be good.

Since it's a trade route, maybe requiring a regional/rare resource for each part would add depth. You'll have to trade or conquer to get hold of specific resources to build your route. For example, one destination would require Ivory, another Fur, etc. It would be a Trade victory afterall.

Then have a final building or even unit to be built and check again that all prereqs are available. This couldn't be hurried with great people/cash. Alternatively, it would be like civ2 and give X turns for your ennemies to capture your capital to stop you from winning.


Alternatively, Thamis has a good idea. Each tech would enable a specific component to be built, and they could be built out of order. For example, it requires 8 camels, 7 maps, etc. It would completely be in line with the current spaceship building. It also means that it would still be a Tech victory. This would require much less effort, but might not be as cool and historically revelent.

 

[Guest01]

Suggestion: slavery

Distinctive feature of ancient period of human history (and first of all ancient mediterranean) is specific mode of production, - the slave mode of production. Rise and fall of antiquity, commodity economy, trade, ancient states and culture closely connected to rise and fall of slave system.

Present game (vanilla or TAM) don't reflect importance of continuous inflow of labour force into system to keep ancient civ running.

Can you make enslavement and following "wasting" of population as constant need for player? (Possibly as main source of cash in game?)

 

[Broken Hawk]

How do I subscribe to this thread? TAM looks great.

 

[Kael]

How do I subscribe to this thread? TAM looks great.

TAM is great. Up at the top of the threads page there is a "Thread tools" button that will give you a few options. One of them is to subscribe to the thread.

 

[Broken Hawk]

Thanks Kael. Shouldn't you be working on FfH 2?

Seriously though, you and the team have greatly enhanced my enjoyment of Civ IV. Thank you.

 

[adamant]

Civ really is better without the modern age - thanks for a great job.

Apologies if this is a rehash of an old issue - the forums are just too huge for someone new to assimilate completely. Played TAM, loved the balance and overall experience, but found myself tech'ed out and basically in a long military or cultural engame. Is this by design - it's certainly a valid style of play? Obviously the current discussion seeks to provide one alternative but just wondered if there was also an intent to deepen or slow the tech tree ?

 

[strategyonly]

I wanted to be the first one on here today (my Birthday), and say this is a great Mod, keep up the good work.

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

I wanted to be the first one on here today (my Birthday), and say this is a great Mod, keep up the good work.

Happy Birthday!!!

 

[Karhgath]

I wanted to be the first one on here today (my Birthday), and say this is a great Mod, keep up the good work.

Happy birthday =)

Apologies if this is a rehash of an old issue - the forums are just too huge for someone new to assimilate completely. Played TAM, loved the balance and overall experience, but found myself tech'ed out and basically in a long military or cultural engame. Is this by design - it's certainly a valid style of play? Obviously the current discussion seeks to provide one alternative but just wondered if there was also an intent to deepen or slow the tech tree ?

What civ/difficulty are you playing on?

I'm usually not a conquerer type of player, so I can say that it's possible to play a peaceful/cultural game and keep up with the tech. As in Civ4, one of the trick is usually the philosophical trait + religion. Even without the missonaries, if you can deny others their religions by getting them first, so you'll have plenty of cash and a better chance to spread. Then with lots of great prophets, you can get ahead easily. You must, howver, keep a very strong trade network(for your religion to spread) and try to get as much cash as possible.

For example, right now I'm Babylon, with Mesopotamien Gods spread out to every civs except 3. I'm way ahead in tech and score. I was able to keep 100% research very early on and never scaled it back.

Other strats are valid too, but this one works well(a bit too well tho, although much less than in vanilla Civ4). One thing to note tho is that starting position is VERY important for a peaceful game. Egypt/Babylon/Phoenicia usually have great starting position with rivers and trade, which is realistic. Some have awful starts so they have to work hard to get in the game but can become powerful because they can expand a lot(carthage and iberia comes to mind). Some starting positions are a bit strong, especially Gaul. Lots of grass, space to expand, rivers and resources. Trading partners are weaker tho, so you have to explore a lot and get in touch with mesopotamia and you can then keep up with them.

I haven't played enough games to try out lots of different strats tho.

As for being aggressive early on, I'm not the best one to talk about it, hehe. I'm usually a pansy. =)

Finally, the tech tree. It's not just a matter of changing the tree itself, but everything surrounding it. I don't think they plan on changing the tech tree and I'd say they are right in that approach. It's not easy to balance, but like in vanilla Civ4, it's hard to do everything at once and usually tech is the part to take a big hit. I think that in every new version that comes out, it will be more and more balanced tho.

 

[Ankenaton]

Happy birthday =)



What civ/difficulty are you playing on?

I'm usually not a conquerer type of player, so I can say that it's possible to play a peaceful/cultural game and keep up with the tech. As in Civ4, one of the trick is usually the philosophical trait + religion. Even without the missonaries, if you can deny others their religions by getting them first, so you'll have plenty of cash and a better chance to spread. Then with lots of great prophets, you can get ahead easily. You must, howver, keep a very strong trade network(for your religion to spread) and try to get as much cash as possible.

For example, right now I'm Babylon, with Mesopotamien Gods spread out to every civs except 3. I'm way ahead in tech and score. I was able to keep 100% research very early on and never scaled it back.

Other strats are valid too, but this one works well(a bit too well tho, although much less than in vanilla Civ4). One thing to note tho is that starting position is VERY important for a peaceful game. Egypt/Babylon/Phoenicia usually have great starting position with rivers and trade, which is realistic. Some have awful starts so they have to work hard to get in the game but can become powerful because they can expand a lot(carthage and iberia comes to mind). Some starting positions are a bit strong, especially Gaul. Lots of grass, space to expand, rivers and resources. Trading partners are weaker tho, so you have to explore a lot and get in touch with mesopotamia and you can then keep up with them.

I haven't played enough games to try out lots of different strats tho.

As for being aggressive early on, I'm not the best one to talk about it, hehe. I'm usually a pansy. =)

Finally, the tech tree. It's not just a matter of changing the tree itself, but everything surrounding it. I don't think they plan on changing the tech tree and I'd say they are right in that approach. It's not easy to balance, but like in vanilla Civ4, it's hard to do everything at once and usually tech is the part to take a big hit. I think that in every new version that comes out, it will be more and more balanced tho.

I definitely agree that in vanilla CIV 4 that the pace of technological innovation is far too fast. However with TAM, what generally happens (even on the higher difficulties) is that the last 150-250 turns/years is riven with the bigger powers gobbling up the smaller ones. And you are left with 4-6 super states as a result. Also even on the higher settings the tech tree has been maxed out generally with about 200 turn/years left. This is not necessarily a bad thing in that I believe it simulates a genuine consideration of the true impact of technology on ancient world cultures. I do not think there were very many great leaps forward; rather for the most part technology advanced incrementally. If the tech is slowed down it should be done in a way that is very subtle so that most of the techonological innovations are not left unresearched during the endgame.

 

[adamant]

Yes, that's my end game experience as well. Playing a trial game on Emperor there was a long period of time where all the remaining powers had every tech. Just wondered if that was by design - do agree that there is a lot of virtue in taking a more temperate approach to technological change. When the technology aspect simply ends, however, it significantly impacts gameplay:
--> economic aspect is greatly reduced - with research gone the cash supply massively exceeds demand.
--> without the technology competition as well much of the builder aspect is simply gone. This is certainly not an invalid historical choice - cultures not only stagnate, they degenrate as well - but it is a signicant gameplay impact.
I'm definitiely a builder type - one of those people who scrimps the military until he gets whacked - so it may have more of a impact on my personal style of play.

 

[Nolofinwë]

You should include the Celts, and the Judians.

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

You should include the Guls, Celts, and the Judians.

The Gauls are in (if that's what you mean), and so are the Britons (both Celtic). The Iberians are also partly Celtic. There is no room on the current map for the Judeans, but I too, think it would be cool to have them in another scenario.

 

[Nolofinwë]

If this is the ancient mediterrainian mod, the irish are way up north. The Judians are in Israel and that is even closer to the ancient mediterrainian.

 

[Broken Hawk]

If this is the ancient mediterrainian mod, the irish are way up north. The Judians are in Israel and that is even closer to the ancient mediterrainian.

Iberians (Irish?) hailed from Spain.

 

[samari_tycoon]

Yeah thats why they call it the Iberian Peninsula.

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

If this is the ancient mediterrainian mod, the irish are way up north. The Judians are in Israel and that is even closer to the ancient mediterrainian.

The Iberians are on the Iberian peninsula (modern day Spain & Portugal).
As stated, the Judeans, as well as the Assyrians, the Thracians, the Elamites and many more, are people/civs that lived in the mediterranean area in the ancient era. They can't all be added. Except for the 18 civ limit, there is also gameplay issues to be considered. On the current map there is hardly any room for expansion in the eastern part of the Med. since there are already Phoenicians, Egyptians, Babylonians and Hittites in that area.

 

[Starship]

Hello,

I just wanted to say I have been anxiously been awaiting playing your mod for a long time. I am a huge fan of CivIII TAM. I've been holding off until it reached a more final state. I was just curious where you thought you were on that track as well? If I made a scenario for 1.9 do you think it would be good for awhile, or should I wait? I've always wanted to make/play an Assyrian invasion of Egypt scenario.

Also scenarios seem to be what's needed in general. I did actually play once, but that was months and versions ago. A lot of people didn't like the map...or so they said, my counterpoint is that the map is easy to make. You've already made a great engine, just apply new scenarios/maps as necessary. I would love to remake some of the great ancient battlefields. A huge battle only, no units produced map, very cool.

Anyway thanks for many wasted hours w/ CivIII, and many more when I unwrap this bad boy.

 

[Jet]

Why do workers not build cottages in this mod? The option is there, but if you automate a worker they will never build a cotage. The AI does not build them either.

TAM has all of vanilla's potential bonuses for farms and workshops, but for towns it lacks the +1C Printing Press, +2C Free Speech, and +1P Universal Suffrage.

If you look at CvCityAI::AI_bestPlotBuild() and CvPlot::calculateImprovementYieldChange() you'll see that the AI considers the most upgraded improvement (so, towns instead of cottages), adding in (on CvPlot.cpp line 5222) the potential changes under all techs and all civics.

I tried two Game.AIPlay 300 tests as Teuta on the standard map with default settings.

With Civil Laws => +1C, at 360 AD there were
272 farms, 184 workshops, 37 cottages

With Civil Laws => +3C +1P, at 360 AD there were
250 farms, 32 workshops, 256 cottages

To quickly patch this in, edit Terrain/CIV4ImprovementInfos.xml: under IMPROVEMENT_TOWN, after <ImprovementUpgrade/>, replace <TechYieldChanges/> with

			<TechYieldChanges>
				<TechYieldChange>
					<PrereqTech>TECH_CIVIL_LAWS</PrereqTech>
					<TechYields>
						<iYield>0</iYield>
						<iYield>1</iYield>
						<iYield>3</iYield>
					</TechYields>
				</TechYieldChange>
			</TechYieldChanges>

I'm sure the TAM authors can work out a solution that's better designed than this patch.