The Ancient Mediterranean MOD

[Seven05]

Regarding shrines, I wouldn't be against removing them altogether. But, perhaps we could change it such that shrines only give a culture bonus (and maybe very slight commerce bonus), but no espionage or religious spread. As far as I know, religion wasn't that important in those days to warrant shrines being as powerful as their vanilla implementation.

Will religion still spread without it? I know if you remove the "spreads religion" benefit in vanilla Civ4 the religion will only spread by missionary.

For archers, perhaps giving them 50% city defense bonus, or maybe as high as 100% ?

Now that I think about it, the Javelins have a substantial bonus against heavy units, most of the time I found myself dealing with heavy units (spearmen/hoplite). A heavy unit with the cover promotion will simply walk over archers with no challenge while the Javelins can still at least put up a fight. Something like +50% against skirmishers or +25% against medium & skirmishers might give them some value offensively and defensively without making the javelins worthless at the same time. A city defense bonus would be helpful but it wouldn't encourage using them for anything other than city defense although if the city defense bonus was combined with an even higher withdrawl chance (anther 10% or so) that may work just as well.

For a good example of their weakness play as the Greek Empire, once you've established two or three of your own cities you should be able to crank out hoplites every couple of turns. You can eliminate the Illyrians by 1000BC using an army of about 6 hoplites and a single sapper because they rely so heavily on archers to defend their cities. You can then turn your army either east (if you have some boats) or west and conquer Turkey or Italy by 1AD, again they will both rely heavily on archers as well making them easy targets. You can continue with the same army composition until armored javeliners start showing up at which time you should have axemen to negate their primary bonus.

This may be isolated to the Greeks, I know the early war strategy is very different as the Romans. I'll try doing the same thing with a different empire tonight to see if it works out differently. Maybe I'll play as the Illyrians since they're usually the first empire I destroy

 

[Shqype]

Yea, play a game as the Illyrians and tell me what happens

 

[Seven05]

Ok, played up to 1AD as the Illyrians. I can confirm the formation bug with their Kambsor now

Startup was a bit slow compared to the Greeks, or so I thought. I eliminated the Greeks in 1150BC followed by the Romans in 280BC and I was just starting to work on Decebal to the north having conquered one city and in the process of stacking up on the second and third at 1AD. I completely dominated the sea, there was a futile attempt to engage my transports by several Roman Biremes when I began my assault on Italy. The land war played out very much like it does with Greece, a potent early unit and easy uncontested access to copper make a good combination for war. The difference in starting techs forced me to improvise a bit and I expected a slower start than I ended up with.

Greece was defended by the "typical" combination of 1 or 2 javelins and 1 or 2 archers per city. The Romans had a better mix of javelins & spearmen with, at most 1 archer in a city. Rome itself was pitiful, I landed my main concentration outside Rome only to find it garrisoned by two javelins, their border cities were much more defende with Ravena having 8 assorted spearmen & javelins. Oddly enough I ran into almost 1 tribal warrior per city with the Romans and they inflicted more damage than the defending archers.

At Monarch level the AI is producing enough units, they just don't seem to produce the best combinations. They do make good use of archers & jevelins if I sit outside their city they'll attack me every few turns and inflict a bit of collateral damage. Unfortunately with the cultural defense bonus being so low in most cities and the siege weapons being so effective they don't have enough time to react. In fact, my normal stack of 2 javelins, 2 sappers and 4-6 heavy units can take almost any city the turn after they arrive (bombard first, then attack with javelins to soften them up, then attack with heavy units for the capture).

I tend to play very aggressively, I'll spend most of the game running at -20 to -30 gold per turn with 50-70% research. I can fund my empire on the spoils of war as long as I don't stop with some occasional trades for good measure. The balance from that aspect feels perfect, it's not easy but it's not impossible or even frustrating, just good old fashioned fun. The balance between the different empires also feels really, really good. There are some important strategic differences for my play style but so far they all feel like they have the same potential. A good example is the difference between Rome and Greece, with the Greeks you can go to war very early since you have good strong initial production and close neighbors. With the Romans it takes a little longer, the nearest opposing empire is just a bit too far for an early war but once you get your legions together you're unstoppable... until armored infantry starts showing up anyway. Honestly, I was supprised at how well things worked while playing as the Illyrians but it proved to be just as balanced as the Romans & Greeks. I'll have to give them a shot in a MP game this weekend

I think if the archers can be tweaked as we've already discussed the military balance will be pretty close to perfect for the early wars. I'll try to let some of my opponents live longer so I can test out mid/late game wars now too.

The AI really only needs a few minor tweaks. In my recent Illyrian campaign there was only one brief perior where two of the AI were at war with each other. None of them declared war on me (granted my "power" was through the roof) or joined me in my wars when I asked them to or on their own.

Arminus did better from what I could see of him this time around. He had one large stack of spearmen on the Roman borders when I attacked and he moved them to his border with Decebal's nearest city as I conquered Italy. Arminus & I were on good terms from years of trading resources so his response seemed appropriate.

 

[Shqype]

I love your feedback!

I agree that we should strengthen archers, and I'll see what I can do about making the AI produce better unit combinations.

Your suggestions will definitely help with tweaking. Thanks a lot

 

[Ankenaton]

There was nothing much wrong with the names that you had before. Why change them?
The Great Library. There was only one, so there is no confusion.
The Pyramids. There is no Central American civ in this game, so again no confusion.
The Oracle. Hmmm, since we have several, how about The Oracle for the most famous one (Delphi). And for the other, I forget how it is named. But I think the name is not on any city list so it may not matter to leave it as is.

(And speaking of city lists - Alexandria should be in the Greek list and not the Egyptian. The Greeks can build one in Egypt (and many other places) if they want to, just as they did in the real world.)

I have heard all of the arguments pro Alexandria going back to Civ III TAM; one of the more common is that the Macedonian/Greek cultures assimilated into the larger Egyptian (really Khemetian - Egypt(ian) are Greek words) culture. That is not true. The Greek/Macedonian interlopers were deeply resented as foreign interlopers up to and including Cleopatra's reign. I agree a name like Alexandria sticks out like a sore thumb. A true Egyptian name could be substituted. Everyone here seems to have their favorite civ(s) and mine happen to be Egypt, Nubia and Carthage in that order. And since we finally have a real Egyptian Pharoah (Hatshepsut) as opposed to a foreign implant the emphasis has returned to the Egypt of the ancients. Not the degraded post New Kingdom Egypt during the Persian, Greek, Macedonian and Roman conquests/incursions.

 

[Ankenaton]

Egypt was conquered by the Greek/Macedonians who then founded a city (Actually, renamed an existing port town). They gave it a Greek name.
That's exactly what should happen in Civ when you conquer a city and rename it.
What would not happen would be for the unconquered Egyptians to found a city and give it a Greek name, which is what we have now.

Come to think of it, Heliopolis (City of the Sun) is also a Greek name. The Egyptian name was Iunu.

If we ever include the Judeans or Israelites we wouldn't want them founding Caesaria would we? It's the same thing.

I agree 100%!...As I wrote before everyone has their favorite Civ and I want my favorite Civ to have Egyptian names only. As the game stands now, I doubt very much if we would run out of Egyptian names if Alexandria and Heliopolis were removed. If it is a problem I could provide additional city names to replace these two.

 

[darkedone02]

do what the Civ 4 official mod, Greek World do. Replace the names of citys when they are conquered.

 

[Ick of the East]

Have you considered that New York has been an important center for the US for less time and that it wasn't founded by the US or even by english ?

I certainly have considered it. And it is one of the main reasons that I never play CIV with the Americans starting out in 4000BC founding Washington and New York. It's just too anachronistic for words

I want to play with ancient peoples founding cities with authentic names.

 

[Ick of the East]

Hey Seven05, thanks for the great posts! I wouldn't want to play against you in multi-player, you warmongering b%$#*^d.

I grew up just up river from you in Dundee (born in Elgin).
St. Charles is a really nice town.

 

[darkedone02]

Umm, i don't know if it's this mod or not, but somehow i just crash after researching currency, I was doing nothing but researching and spreading my religion, after i research currency, the screen goes black and a pop up appeared that Civ 4 just crashed. I don't think if it's this mod or civ 4 itself, but i want you to take a look of anything that might caused this.

Hey Seven05, thanks for the great posts! I wouldn't want to play against you in multi-player, you warmongering b%$#*^d.

No flaming!!! I did that before and you will get flamed back!

 

[Seven05]

Heh, I won't flame back... well, I might pick a bit about the Elgin part but his warmonger comment was in jest, at least that's how I took it.

 

[Ick of the East]

No flaming!!! I did that before and you will get flamed back!

Sheez, you're kidding me, right?
Hint: When someone gives a compliment for great posts, they're probably not flaming.

 

[darkedone02]

since your not flaming, nevermind.

Well i guess that it's your mod, cause i did the samn damn thing that i did, I start up the Ancient Meditarrean Map in a custom senario, enabled no barbarians, no trading tech, permanect alliance, and no city culture fighting too. After i research currency, the samn damn thing happen again, a black screen comes up and i get this crash error... So it's your mod and you need to fix this or i can't play it again.

 

[thamis]

since your not flaming, nevermind.

Well i guess that it's your mod, cause i did the samn damn thing that i did, I start up the Ancient Meditarrean Map in a custom senario, enabled no barbarians, no trading tech, permanect alliance, and no city culture fighting too. After i research currency, the samn damn thing happen again, a black screen comes up and i get this crash error... So it's your mod and you need to fix this or i can't play it again.

Try cleaning up your CIV. This would mean first of all deleting and re-installing TAM, and also clearing your CustomAssets folder. Maybe that helps. Otherwise, if you could explain more or find out what the crash error is, that would help us.

 

[thamis]

Here's my latest though on SHRINES:

Shrines can no longer be built. They still exist, though. Whenever a religion is founded, its shrine will be founded in the capital of the civilization who historically founded it. So for Heliopolitan Gods, the Shrine will automatically appear in Thebes, even if another civ founds that religion. For Animism, there is a random % chance that it will appear in the capital of one of the animist civs.

Shrines then only spread their religion, and quite significantly. That way, we can create a bit more realistic religion spread and also and a nice factor of uncertainty into the religious game.

What do you guys think?

 

[onedreamer]

I have heard all of the arguments pro Alexandria going back to Civ III TAM; one of the more common is that the Macedonian/Greek cultures assimilated into the larger Egyptian (really Khemetian - Egypt(ian) are Greek words) culture. That is not true. The Greek/Macedonian interlopers were deeply resented as foreign interlopers up to and including Cleopatra's reign. I agree a name like Alexandria sticks out like a sore thumb. A true Egyptian name could be substituted. Everyone here seems to have their favorite civ(s) and mine happen to be Egypt, Nubia and Carthage in that order. And since we finally have a real Egyptian Pharoah (Hatshepsut) as opposed to a foreign implant the emphasis has returned to the Egypt of the ancients. Not the degraded post New Kingdom Egypt during the Persian, Greek, Macedonian and Roman conquests/incursions.

I'm one of those guys that defend Cleopatra & C.
I find the points of the egyptian ultranationalists to be quite futile. This is a game after all and it should be opened to more than just a minority of fanatical historians. Truth is that most people know better Cleopatra and Alexandria as egyptians than Hatshepsut and Khmun, let alone the pronounciation problems.
Btw, I would like you to define "real egyptian", because I have problems in understanding what you mean with this. I doubt that even the egyptian Gods know the truth about egyptian origins. You surely know very well that this historical period is caracterized by huge cultural changes and migrations. And anyways the history of Egypt is so long that you simply can't make such generalizations. In the end though, what I really have difficulty to accept is that people uses different "meters" of judgement on matters like this because of their personal love for a dinasty rather than another. If it's true that Cleopatra, the last of a dinasty that ruled Egypt for 400 years, is to be considered greek and in no way egyptian, I would like you, in the same way, to prove your point by convincing millions of americans that they cannot consider themselves "real americans", because 400 years of colonization are not enough to be considered as part of a culture. And good luck with that, because americans are quite nationalists
I consider myself a very objective person (objectively ):
- Yes it's true: Alexandria kept a status of "city state" during the Ptolemaic dinasty.
- Yes it's true: it's not been built by egyptians. It doesn't have an egyptian name. Memphis is also not the egyptian name though. But we certainly can agree that it's better to keep greco-roman names. Names are part of the protocol of communication, and this is aimed to facilitate understanding and order. By giving all cities their original names in their original language we go in the opposite direction. Btw we don't even know all of those names. And does it really matter, as long as we know that Memphis is the city we know it is, how we call it in the game ?
- No, it's false: Alexandria is not solely greek just because it's been built by greeks.
- No, it's false: Cleopatra is not solely greek just because her roots were. I mean, 400 years. Come on people. Do you understand what that means ? Nowadays that with global communication and fast transports many people move, they are mostly assimilated in 10 years max. Not completely, sure, but from the next generations on... yeah.

 

[onedreamer]

Here's my latest though on SHRINES:

Shrines can no longer be built. They still exist, though. Whenever a religion is founded, its shrine will be founded in the capital of the civilization who historically founded it. So for Heliopolitan Gods, the Shrine will automatically appear in Thebes, even if another civ founds that religion. For Animism, there is a random % chance that it will appear in the capital of one of the animist civs.

Shrines then only spread their religion, and quite significantly. That way, we can create a bit more realistic religion spread and also and a nice factor of uncertainty into the religious game.

What do you guys think?

don't like it
Concept first: this means that I, Egypt, go for Animism and then get for free the Heliopolitan religion later on. Plus the Shrine.
Technical second: I, Viriato, found the Olympian religion, but the holy city will be somewhere else. Hence I won't have that religion. Hence I didn't found it.
It ruins the fun to found religion... and can be messy for the AI.

 

[thamis]

Ah sorry, I forgot to mention that in my version Shrines will NOT give any gold or commerce boni. All they do is spread the religion. That way, you, as founder, will still get the religion (starting in the first city that founded it), and then it will spread from there, as well as from the Shrine (which does nothing but spread the religion from a 2nd center).

 

[onedreamer]

Ah sorry, I forgot to mention that in my version Shrines will NOT give any gold or commerce boni. All they do is spread the religion. That way, you, as founder, will still get the religion (starting in the first city that founded it), and then it will spread from there, as well as from the Shrine (which does nothing but spread the religion from a 2nd center).

hhmmm so the holy city will be somewhere else but you still get the religion in one of your city ? If this is possible it's better, but I don't like it very much, honestly. On this extent I would rather hardcode the founding of religions.
Heliopolitan Gods > Egypt
Mesopotamian Gods* > Babylon, Phoenicia, Carthage, Media, (Hittites ?)
Olympian Gods > Mycenae, (Rome ?)
Animism > all the others
Zoroastrianism > Persia
Judaism > once more... can we just remove this religion ?
Christianism > anyone

*I'm not sure what Mesopotamian Gods represents, but the civs I listed all have in common the cult of a trinity of main gods, which differentiates them from the others.

 

[Pvblivs]

On the discussion of how to call cities:

Common examples on problems in city naming:
- Rome: We do not speak of ROMA today but of Rome, even with TAM. I think that calling Rome by its ancient name "Roma" would be much better. I often tend replace modern Roman names by the ancient ones from my latin lessons for my fun. As this is a game it should be fun ;-)
- Carthage: I don't know what is used in TAM here. Most common is the latin form that is Carthago, I think. Would we understand and enjoy Qart Hadast more? I think so.
- Take Carthago Nova: That is the latin form. The original would be Qart Hadast which stands for the name of the capital as well. Would this be better then? I doubt it.

I'm a fan of accuracy as well. Were it is possible, atmosphere could be much more intense if you took "original" names. You're right if you ask: What is original? For Eqypt this decision is rather easy to be made. Just take the name that would have existed the longest time. Even in the Alexanders world there wasn't just the Greek tongue. It was a common tongue but it was in the late years of TAM not in the early.

But it could lead to much confusion. Take the greatest modern turkish town: Istanbul. Is its name Byzantion (origin) like for 450 years. or Byzantium (Roman) like for 550 years? Ok that's pretty much the same. But it could be called Constantinople as well covering 150 turns in TAM. Or would you rather like Constantinopolis which is rather Latin?

The issue is clear. We cover some 1000 years here. Cities have been founded and grown large in this period, destroyed several times, rebuilt. And those that survived the centuries could be renamed several times or just got different names from different dominating cultures. So what do we take? I say yes, historical accuracy as far as it is still fun for most of us players and as it stays consistent.
I know a very old PC game called Hannibal that covered the second war between Carthage and Rome. In this game you could only play Hannibal and it was my favorite game for a long time. There every city, consistently was called by its latin name. As Rome from our perspective is the last world power of the ancient era I would very much appreciate if many Englishly names (the common tongue of today) would be replaced by the same in Latin (the common tongue of the late ancient era).
A mixture of Latin and some Greek would be ok as well. But "Rome" or "Carthage" for examples are a crime "Saxones" and "Galli" is hot while "Saxons" and "Gauls" is not. And much more accurate not only in terms of naming. "Saxones" meant this ancient Germanic tribe as the Romans knew them while "Saxons" basically means a modern people as we know it. For Egypt city names this is not the problem. The name "Niwt" basically defined the same as "Thebae" or "Thaebai". So for accuracy this is not very important, the Latin or Greek name fits, I think.

This would add a lot of more atmosphere and fun to the game. All other, like the original city names of Phoenicia, Carthago and Egypt (which are Latin name or derived from them as well) are rather regional and thus not so important for the common player. If nothing changes, I will anyway continue to rename cities myself