The Ancient Mediterranean MOD

[Pvblivs]

This map fails for its focus. With it there will be no strong egypt, babylon or phoenicians etc. A lot of the regions in the northern parts (even italy) are generally much too fertile.

You should think about adding a third kind of woods/jungles reducing the food by one and not being thus easy to be chopped. In fact there were vast and strong woods in todays Gaul, Germany, Poland etc. for a long time preventing an early "German empire". Much stronger than those around the Mediterranean. Of course a cedar is much easier to be chopped compared to an oak.

What do you think?

 

[Pvblivs]

I thought a little bit about this "we've got a huge map, what makes one people stay wild and the other grow a huge empire"? What makes the northern tribes stagnate while the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Byzantines one succeeding the other dominate the World for ages?

Is it the influence of a great nation that makes another great nation grow? Is it, on the other hand, the lack of contact, trade, isn't it simply the vastness of its space that could make a couple of tribes stay tribal? Even the huns always had a lot of room. The turks taking Constantiople even had cannons and thus advanced up to vienna but then failed. Why?

A lot of questions to be anwered.

Just think about how we can keep Germans staying small until 300 AD.

Pvblivs

 

[Drogear]

This map fails for its focus. With it there will be no strong egypt, babylon or phoenicians etc. A lot of the regions in the northern parts (even italy) are generally much too fertile.

You should think about adding a third kind of woods/jungles reducing the food by one and not being thus easy to be chopped. In fact there were vast and strong woods in todays Gaul, Germany, Poland etc. for a long time preventing an early "German empire". Much stronger than those around the Mediterranean. Of course a cedar is much easier to be chopped compared to an oak.

What do you think?

I like the thought of having diffrent kinds of woods and making the forrest in the "north" unchoppable =prevents big powerfull cities by the northen tribes.

 

[Pvblivs]

Maybe choppable later on (not before iron working like jungles)

 

[crunch]

I, for a change, sort of liked the high-exp units. Also the defense is not a real problem if you hurry to siege warfare. Catapults are rather strong. AI however will not get cats soon and they are almost unable to conquer cities. Pillaging is not too pleasant however.

Beeline for alphabet is very strong also. The tech tree is broad, meaning that there are many paths, therefore, trading is easy and rewarding.

A question: what's the point of christianity world project? I am close to completing it, I wonder what will happen.

I am running out of techs to research, in year 1800 or so. Also, there are some big techs at the end of the tech tree that do not provide any bonuses (crop rotation, etc.). Also, I am reluctant to research theology to lose the holy site happiness.

I played as Phoenicia because I like the traits (industrious, financial). Alas there are not many wonders to build. Mithridates, the Spanish guy and Carthage were the strongest AI around.

Because of the large deserts nearby (SE corner), there was a constant flow of barbs from there (until the poor Hammurabi settled it after I took his fertile cities).

 

[onedreamer]

Hmm... I think Patronage is highly useful, considering it's such an early civic. If you never use Caste System in vanilla civ, then there's a playstyle you haven't understood yet. You can win the game by swamping out great people... Caste System is a highly powerful civic!.

To swamp out great people in a city you need:

1- good production
2- good food yeld

1: since Patronage / Caste System does not apply to Engeneers and Priests, it's hard to have good prod. if you put citizens away from working tiles.
2: this is simply not an option in TAM if you play it as scenario. There is too much unhealth, unhappiness and too poor land to really let you use consistent number of workers as specialists.

----------------------------------------------

Anyways... after playing the whole weekend with TAM v 1.x, I'd like to share some considerations / suggestions with you. Consider I only comment the Scenario and not the random maps, which I think would be quite different:

Balance

- I'd reconsider the civics Path of the Mystics. Given the shortage of luxuries and the late discovery of temples, all the AIs will go for this civic in order to use the extra happyness point. This will result in almost all AIs being with no state religion for a huge part of the game... which takes away all the fun connected to religion&diplomacy.

@Civics:
I'm not changing any civic unless someone comes up with something better. Path of the Mystic (which I originally called Magocracy), is meant to say that magi, astrologers, and oracles at some time played a highly important role in terms of government decision making. Remember Croesus / Krisos.

Ok then, instead of the +1 happy face to holy site, I'd give it +1 gold. At least one of the religious civics should give some gold bonus ! Oh and remove the no-sate religion condition... that is the main point.


- Promotions: probably been discussed already, though I didn't have time to read about it. Honestly I don't like creating units with 4-5 promotions. From a personal point of view, it takes away the fun of promoting units on the field, to have really heroic units. Also from a strategic point of view, you are forced to make the various smithies in a city if you want it to produce units with a small chance to survive the first battle. If there is no choice to be made, why not add the smithy automatically... ?
I'd rather change the bonus of smithies and leave Barracks (maybe improved to +6 xp) and the two +xp Civics for promotions. That should be already enough. To smithies I'd give a bonus to military production. For example, +5% mil. production to copper and bronze smithy, and +10% to steel smithy, for a total of +20% military production which could be much more of a choice than a forced option.

More on promotions: remove the vs gunpowder promotion: the AI is too stupid to avoid it. Maybe change it with vs archery ?

Map

As someone already pointed out, the terrain around mediterranean is too poor... full of plains and hills but actually there aren't so many plains around the Med. I played Romans and Egyptians and they both need some lovin'... especially Romans. Italy has too many hills in the south and they are almost all plain hills. Also the island suck a bit concerning their shape... I'd redraw them in a better way. I also think that Sicily needs a fish, just west of the island.

Miscellaneous changes

- I'd move Egyptian Polytheism to Burial Ground. I don't really have a lot of good explanations for this... but I did it and I think it works better and it makes a bit more sense to me
- I'd rename spices to olives (which would behave exactly in the same way, but again it just makes more sense in TAM) and make the workable from currency. The game really needs some more lux before calendar I think.
- I'd move workshop to Bronze Working because they are desperately needed earlier with the current map (see Egypt). Maybe with Furnace you can add the building Forge, which I don't think I have seen at all.
- Siege weapons are a bit too late if you compare them too walls. If walls come in so early, catapults should arrive together or shortly after. I'd move walls to Siege Weapons and remove Castle (not really TAM-like improvement). Or I would add a new siege weapon with Masonry: for example the aries. It could have like strenght 2 and the city bombardment and city attack promotions only.
- Lighthouse is probably too late. Why not make it available in the same age of the Great Lighthouse ?
- Market is probably too late too. Both gameplay wise and if you look at history.
- Add a couple more luxuries here and there ?


that's all for now, hope it helps.

 

[BenGee171]

If you unpack Assets0.fpk, Assets1.fpk, Assets2.fpk, Assets3.fpk

You will find 2 more Unit wich can be used in an ancient scenario:
Assets\Art\Units\Scenario\greek_hyapist & companion_cavalry

The Mod would be better if you use more different unit graphics.

You can also use some from the:
Assets\Art\Units\unique\
Folder.

Just think about how we can keep Germans staying small until 300 AD.

Pvblivs

You could use Python, but don't ask me how to make those events. The German Tribes could appear in the Time of 500 BC. Same with the Hunns they could appear in 300 AD with many Horse Archers.

Just an Idea.

 

[Pvblivs]

You could use Python, but don't ask me how to make those events. The German Tribes could appear in the Time of 500 BC. Same with the Hunns they could appear in 300 AD with many Horse Archers.

Just an Idea.

You could also trigger this with UUs available at a certain technology. At some point Rome begins to dominate because of military superiority, for example.

In my games Rome like Greece was always weak and strangely the Iberians where the strongest by far. Unique Units could enable that for a period the Macedonian Phalanx and Cavalry are superior while at some point the Roman Legion comes into play and, unless they make too much foes, will hardly be defeated.

I would like a TAM where things are likely to develop as in real history. Thus you have difficulty settings through the nation you play.

 

[Notarzt]

Ok, after having played some time as romans, here are my first impressions (unsorted)

- i got praetorians pretty quick and with copper+bronze+iron smithy i had them all with 5 upgrades... the game got pretty easy. especially as vercingetorix protected his citys with no more than 1-2 archers (standard)

- it would be nice if the smithys wouldn't give xp-bonus, but rather unique upgrades for units produced in that city.
copper weapons upgrade: +xy on strength, + ???
bronze weapons upgrade: ...
iron ...
steel ...
if this should be to your liking, it would make sense to make copper smithies oblsolete with bronze, bronze with iron ...

- there are'nt many world wonders, i think that was mentioned bevore.

- i found diplomacy quite unnerving as half the civs appear as sid and the other half as dshingis khan. --> see my proposal at the end of the posting

- some units that are different look the same (archer, recurve archer, ...) and have even the same pic, but i assume this is due to the early status of development

- some technologies have the same pic (fishing for alchemy)

- the holy site appears two times in my production menu

- i also like the idea of civilization-spezific religion-founding (see ee3-mod)

- there arent many buildings that have prerequisits. e.g. does it make sense to accumulate the defense bonus of pallisades and walls? is it possible that pallisades loose their bonus when walls are built?
(could also be a solution to the smithy-thing... 4 smithys --> exorbitant defense)

that's it (for the moment)

now, here my preposition for 2d-leaderheads to make dipolomacy a bit more distinguishable

i have worked on 4 sample leaderhads as seen below. i can make .dds-files for the other 10 leaders as well. if you like them.






and thanks for the great mod so far

 

[crunch]

Now that I ran out of technologies to research, I lack some peaceful way of winning. I am not sure if culture victory is available, if so, I could shoot for that, but I miss something like space ship.

 

[edu2003mdq]

I downloaded ver 1.2 and when I try to load it I get tons of XML errors. Anyone knows why?

 

[crunch]

dunno.. installed in wrong directories?

a thing I noticed: there are no starting technologies, but some techs are still mentioned when choosing the civ. low prio but easily fixed

 

[The Oatman]

I played the mod for a while as the Romans and much to my dismay, once you build the tech for swordsmen (6 str) you can no longer build praetorians (8 str)...

 

[onedreamer]

I played the mod for a while as the Romans and much to my dismay, once you build the tech for swordsmen (6 str) you can no longer build praetorians (8 str)...

well... it is a feature that wants to represent the fall of Rome...

 

[crunch]

Well, considering that other civs don't have a unique unit at the moment (except of Mycenae), I'd say you should be happy about having the unit, even if only for a while...

 

[Notarzt]

Okay. And as I haven't much to do at the moment, I went into skinning today and designed two archer-models to distinguish simple archer from recurve archer.
May not be the best, but they are my fist skins ever.



The dark archer with less armor and brown hair may be the simple archer whereas the archer in light-coloured leather and with a helmet may be the recurve archer.

Excuse the bad resolution of my posted pictures.

 

[onedreamer]

Well, considering that other civs don't have a unique unit at the moment (except of Mycenae), I'd say you should be happy about having the unit, even if only for a while...

Egypt got the very nice war chariots.

 

[thamis]

Right... huge list of replies. I'm happy about the replies, I'm unhappy about writing an essay. I'll keep it as short as possible and reply to all questions (don't beat me if I miss one). Here we go:

@Map:
Yes, we can work on the map. There are some great suggestions here, especially concerning two types of forest. What I think we could and should do is to re-use the jungle, give it the pine forest ARTDEFINE, and make it harder to cut down and give less food. Good idea.

Regarding the map: Is anyone volunteering to rework it a bit? I'll send the BMPs and the PY files out to whoever is willing to do it. I'm caught up in RL right now and Laurino is already doing all the rest of the work. Help appreciated!

@Python:
Things like having the Germanic Tribes appear at some point is out of the question because I want them to be a playable civ. Some people want to play the barbarians who bring down the empire. I think the way to go would be to have another forest, which requires maybe construction to cut it down?

@Unit XP, Smities, etc:
The point with the high XP and the smithies is: We want to allow everybody to build all types of units, with or without resources. Just those people who have the resource build significantly stronger units. As I've given control to Laurino right now, I'm not quite sure about how things are. The idea is: no unit requires any resource, only techs. The smithies require the appropriate resources and techs. Thus, if you got no iron, you can build swordsmen, but they're weaker. If you got iron, you can build a smithy, which then makes ALL your units use better weapons (ie iron weapons). That's represented by the unit XP. If it is possible to make a certain building automatically give certain promotions... now THAT would be cool. Has anyone looked into that?

@Christianity project:
Nothing happens yet. The idea is that it's like the UN. It allows a diplomatic (now religious) victory. I want to represent the early medieval ideal of unifying Europe under one religion (which never worked, except in the battle against the Huns, led by an alliance of Franks, Goths, and Romans.

@Great People:
I've played civ4 since mid-2004, and, let me tell you, I've gained a significant advantage in many MP games by simply churning out GPs. GPs actually have the advantage of improving your situation if your land is bad. You need no production or commerce to make GP. You just need food. Try it. It works in normal civ and also in TAM.

@Path of the Mystics:
+1 gold is an excellent idea, and to make it state religion using as well. Go for it!

@Promotion:
Yes, well... we need to completely rework the promotions. Karhgath was working on that actually. Where'd he go?!?!

@Egyptian Poly:
Burial Grounds is a good idea.

@Resources:
I want different resources in, definitely. The only problem is that we don't have any new resource graphics, so olives won't look like olives. As soon as we get them, expect many more. I had loads of very mediterranean resources in the civ3 mod.

@Siege:
We're going to reduce city defenses dramatically. The way it is now was not intended!

@Lighthouse:
Good idea.

@Market:
Well now... some people complain you make too much money in this mod, others that you make too little. What is it now? I put market back because my goal is to reduce the money floating around in the mod.

@Leaderheads:
YAY! Make them into DDS and make more! It would be even greater if you could edit the leaderhead artdefines in the xml, too!

@Praetorians:
Yes, yes, yes... our fault.

@Archer skin:
Good stuff. Send it to Laurino (send him a PM for his email address).

...

Whew.

 

[onedreamer]

@Unit XP, Smities, etc:
The point with the high XP and the smithies is: We want to allow everybody to build all types of units, with or without resources. Just those people who have the resource build significantly stronger units. As I've given control to Laurino right now, I'm not quite sure about how things are. The idea is: no unit requires any resource, only techs. The smithies require the appropriate resources and techs. Thus, if you got no iron, you can build swordsmen, but they're weaker. If you got iron, you can build a smithy, which then makes ALL your units use better weapons (ie iron weapons). That's represented by the unit XP. If it is possible to make a certain building automatically give certain promotions... now THAT would be cool. Has anyone looked into that?

Well sounds quite elaborated as idea... anyways it's not how it works right now in TAM. The unit still need the resource to be built, the smithies only give xp bonuses. I was actually wondering why you could build spearmen with copper working if they require copper which is discovered with bronze working...

anyway, I'm not a great fan of your idea because it's a forced option. Units are significantly weaker without the smithies, to the point that not having the smithy is not an option... or it is an option that will lead you to distruction. I'd rather give them production bonuses than xp or free promotions ones... but if you do, then I think that they should at least not stack.

 

[woodelf]

@Resources:
I want different resources in, definitely. The only problem is that we don't have any new resource graphics, so olives won't look like olives. As soon as we get them, expect many more. I had loads of very mediterranean resources in the civ3 mod.
Whew.

I'm wondering if someone could skin a grape resource and make it look close enough to an olive one. I've never seen an olive tree, but with some imagination wouldn't it be close?

edit - maybe a real short, squatty one anyways. I'm not sure if it is close enough after scrolling through some pics...