The Ancient Mediterranean MOD

[primordial stew]

When are the Romans supposed to be able to become a Republic in TAM?

After getting basic techs, I've found that near 100% focus is necesary in order to get the legion near the historical time. This however results in not being able to adopt the Republic govt till well after the Roman's had transitioned to a dictator/empire type of government.

The Romans could start with a Republic govt (but not the tech?), however the Republic govt would have 3X support cost, can draft/mobilize, and only +2 happy in the largest cities. Similarly the Greeks should start with City-State.

As for 1.8 overall, it is certainly the best to date! I'm not quite to AD yet, but again it is the Illyrian's who spread all over, much like the Greeks did historically. Maybe Agememnon should start with 2 settlers and a transport?

 

[thamis]

Yea, I'm thinking of renaming the religions (once again), which would then also give different temple names.

Oh, and it's harder to maneuvre in desert, so that could explain why spearmen get less of a bonus. Also, the Egyptian War Chariot gets a desert bonus.

 

[thamis]

When are the Romans supposed to be able to become a Republic in TAM?

After getting basic techs, I've found that near 100% focus is necesary in order to get the legion near the historical time. This however results in not being able to adopt the Republic govt till well after the Roman's had transitioned to a dictator/empire type of government.

The Romans could start with a Republic govt (but not the tech?), however the Republic govt would have 3X support cost, can draft/mobilize, and only +2 happy in the largest cities. Similarly the Greeks should start with City-State.

As for 1.8 overall, it is certainly the best to date! I'm not quite to AD yet, but again it is the Illyrian's who spread all over, much like the Greeks did historically. Maybe Agememnon should start with 2 settlers and a transport?

Why is it so hard to get Republic and Legionary at the same time?

Which tech do you get first?

In my recent games, Illyria is not that good. I think there's a lot of randomness in who gets good and who doesn't when the AI is playing.

 

[Greenlocke]

Are the extra civs just in there for random map games? ie: Persia, Nubia, Goth, Britons, Medians? Or can we expect an epic map in the future?

Keep up the great work.

 

[thamis]

Are the extra civs just in there for random map games? ie: Persia, Nubia, Goth, Britons, Medians? Or can we expect an epic map in the future?

Keep up the great work.

The civs you listed only work on random maps now, but there is an epic map intended. It's in the works actually, but we still have to place resources (which we have to do by hand in the text file, as we have custom resources).

 

[armchairknight]

I've just downloaded and played through a half a game and, wow, this mod is fun. Thank you.

 

[Ick of the East]

but there is an epic map intended. It's in the works actually, but we still have to place resources (which we have to do by hand in the text file, as we have custom resources).

Great! Can't wait for the map. But please, please, put at least one pass in the Alps!

And I hope you can extend the map a bit further south, because so much of the Nile is cut off for Egypt. And the Nile is all they really have.
I know this will give a lot of wasted space to the West, however.
Maybe you could enlarge the Fayum area so that Egypt could build another viable city there.

http://www.kendall-bioresearch.co.uk/egyptmap.htm

 

[thamis]

Fayum is a good idea.

 

[primordial stew]

Why is it so hard to get Republic and Legionary at the same time?

Which tech do you get first?

In my recent games, Illyria is not that good. I think there's a lot of randomness in who gets good and who doesn't when the AI is playing.

The AI doesn't go after govts till later, so there's no way to even trade for them in a timely fashion, at least in the few times I've played. Even on epic the clock moves pretty fast up till.. 100BC or so. If the early game moved slower, and the later faster (not much going on late in the game anyway) it would match up better. Something like:
-> 650BC -> 250AD -> end
5yrs/turn 2yrs/turn 5yrs/turn

I got the legion ~330BC, and the Republic around 50BC, but there was other essential techs to get before Republic. What year are other people getting to these?

 

[Ick of the East]

Fayum is a good idea.

Good job. The way it is now, the Egyptians are forced to spread out onto the Libyan coast, which they never did.

And on the subject of Egypt, could you move Alexandria from the Egyptian city list into the Greek? It was, after all, a Greek colony ruled by Greeks.

I can't wait to get the Persians into this game. They're the only big, important player that is really missing.

 

[onedreamer]

What about Zoroaster?

yeah I forgot about Zoroastrism. It is actually supposed to have influenced Judaism and Christianism themselves, and if you look at their concepts they are quite similar. But I must say the concept of God for Persians was not as absolute as in the other 2 religions. There were also other divinities like Mithra and Zurvan.

 

[EugenB]

I'm ashamed to say that i didnt played yet the last version, i have a game that is not finished yet (i play on marathon and dont have much free time currently). So, i have a question that may be answered in the last version, but i believe its not: do you have any plans to allow "alliances" in the game? Because i see you can research them (together with defending pacts) but you cant realy make any alliance.
I see a very good use to alliances in the last part of the game, were everybody has signed some defending pacts with somebody, so i could only attack a player if i were allied with someone that would back me up against 2-3-4 players that attack me in response to my war declaration to their buddy .


Eugen

 

[onedreamer]

Eugene, you have to activate permanent alliances in the options for that. If you have a defensive pact and you attack anyone, the pact is immediatly void.

 

[EugenB]

Thanks onedreamer, but i was talking about the scenario, where i dont have that option. Also, i know how a defensive pact is working, and i was reffering to the following situation: i, as caesar, i want to attack arminius. The german is weaker than me, however, he signed defensive pact with vercingetorix, viriato and dido. In this situation, i can never attack arminius unless i want to be killed quickly and very painfully . BUT, i was to sign a permanent allinance with, say, vercingetorix, it would be fun to start a world war in ancient times

Eugen

 

[Pvblivs]

[ot] Yeah, since some patch, I don't know which, AIs defense-pact themselves often enough with the whole world except me. Funny that even someone like Alexander the Great seems now like the lovely guy just wanting peace with anyone.[/ot]

Some feedback on TAM 1.8: Great! I just played it and got with 3 hours sleep to work because it was so addictive

Just a question: We don't depend on resources for units. So why don't you make resources like tin more expensive in reducing the amount of tin one can have? Or is it just that I have a lot of tin playing in Africa (as Egypt or Carthage) and the others don't?
Furthermore the AI doesn't seem to understand the importance of those metals (make all units stronger that go through the smithy). I can almost never sell tin (or other smithy resources not useful for other stuff) to any AI. Do you intend to fix this through the SDK someday?

To balance and AI behavior: Germania has been by far the greatest civ after me (Carthage) without going into any war with Rome so far (I have War Elephants and just discoverd Infanterists etc. at 2 AD epic, prince). Germania just put some city near Narbo Martius/Narbonne and cut off Rome from the rest of the world (except Illyria). I for myself found my colonies in Sicily and on Sardinia as usual and Illyria found another Colony at Brundisiums site. Thus Caesar didn't have any room to expand left and sat down into his wheel chair rolling around, counting his resources - simply doing nothing.

Interesting or rather boring aspect: There has been just one real war in those 6.000 years and this was from Kroisos of Lydia whose fleet has now gone after I discovered Seafaring. With money and techs I drew him (as the declarer) into war with Rome and Germania what didn't turn out very well for him. Neither Arminius nor Agamemnon nor Caesar are trying to build up some hegemony. They're all rather satisfied and smile upon each other (including me).
Shouldn't those AIs be generally more aggressive? Especially Germania and Rome never sat around peacefully harvesting ther fruits and chopping their timber. Maybe the AI should be generally more hostile especially according border tension (our close borders spark tension). This is what was fact in ancient times: If you were sitting near each other this most likeley resulted into a conflict (initiated by the stronger one).

I didn't initiate a war because I was too lazy and wanted to run through the game rather fast (don't as me why I choosed Epic then ).

What do you think?

 

[onedreamer]

Thanks onedreamer, but i was talking about the scenario, where i dont have that option. Also, i know how a defensive pact is working, and i was reffering to the following situation: i, as caesar, i want to attack arminius. The german is weaker than me, however, he signed defensive pact with vercingetorix, viriato and dido. In this situation, i can never attack arminius unless i want to be killed quickly and very painfully . BUT, i was to sign a permanent allinance with, say, vercingetorix, it would be fun to start a world war in ancient times

Eugen

yes I understood what you meant. Like I said you need to activate the permanent alliance option. To activate it you have to start the game as Custom Scenario instead of Scenario.

 

[onedreamer]

Just a question: We don't depend on resources for units. So why do you make resources like tin more expensive in reducing the amount of tin one can have?
Furthermore the AI doesn't seem to understand the importance of those metals (make all units stronger that go through the smithy). I can almost never sell tin (or other smithy resources not useful for other stuff) to any AI. Do you intend to fix this through the SDK someday?

yes we are aware of this problem and currently studying a solution.

To balance and AI behavior: Germania has been by far the greatest civ after me (Carthage) without going into any war with Rome so far (I have War Elephants and just discoverd Infanterists etc. at 2 AD epic, prince). Germania just put some city near Narbo Martius/Narbonne and cut off Rome from the rest of the world (except Illyria). I for myself found my colonies in Sicily and on Sardinia as usual and Illyria found another Colony at Brundisiums site. Thus Caesar didn't have any room to expand left and sat down into his wheel chair rolling around, counting his resources - simply doing nothing.

Well, in my experience the AI won't go to colonize overseas if it can colonize on its continent. So Carthage very rarely will colonize Sicily and Tarentum area before Rome. Of course a human player can do it... I don't think there is a valid solution to that, other than... not do it

Interesting or rather boring aspect: There has been just one real war in those 6.000 years and this was from Kroisos of Lydia whose fleet has now gone after I discovered Seafaring. With money and techs I drew him (as the declarer) into war with Rome and Germania what didn't turn out very well for him. Neither Arminius nor Agamemnon nor Caesar are trying to build up some hegemony. They're all rather satisfied and smile upon each other (including me).
Shouldn't those AIs be generally more aggressive? Especially Germania and Rome never sat around peacefully harvesting ther fruits and chopping their timber. Maybe the AI should be generally more hostile especially according border tension (our close borders spark tension). This is what was fact in ancient times: If you were sitting near each other this most likeley resulted into a conflict (initiated by the stronger one).

I didn't initiate a war because I was too lazy and wanted to run through the game rather fast (don't as me why I choosed Epic then ).

What do you think?

yes we should probably look more into personalities of leaders. Thanks for the feedback. One question, what was the religious situation ? Generally in Civ4 it's hard that 2 civs with the same religion will declare war.

 

[Pvblivs]

Thank you for your helpful response, onedreamer!

Well, in my experience the AI won't go to colonize overseas if it can colonize on its continent. So Carthage very rarely will colonize Sicily and Tarentum area before Rome. Of course a human player can do it... I don't think there is a valid solution to that, other than... not do it

Strangely Illyria and in a game before (with Egypt) Agamemnon did exactly that: settled southern Italy.

yes we should probably look more into personalities of leaders. Thanks for the feedback. One question, what was the religious situation ? Generally in Civ4 it's hard that 2 civs with the same religion will declare war.

It was that we (the big ones, what is Carthage (me), Germania, Rome and Lydia) were all of the Greek pantheon. The smaller ones had different religions but the one big war was with Kroisos and he had our religion too.
Religions shouldn't have this vast effect on diplomacy. AIs should be generally (a little bit) more aggressive in TAM and generally be less influenced by religions (not more than -1/+1). I would only make greater differences introducing monotheistic religions (sun god, judaism, christianity) as those "one true god" missionaries disunited people.

All in all I would rather tend to make religions not important at all, just as some little "I like your culture" modifier. Instead, as I already said, I would stress the border tension modifier more at least for those civs who are known to be restless with their neighbours.

To come to Arminius again: He is much too strong in the beginning of the game. Maybe some of his food resources should be hidden under a jungle like the wheat west of Carthage so that it can only be accessed in the late game.
Generally Iberia's and Gallia's behaviour seemed ok as they never became a super power (like in TAM 1.4 where I as Carthage had to face the Iberian kelts as the greates power in the world) but always were of medium power. Hammurabi always became the strongest of the medium (which is kind of ok I think).

What I think is is the lack of Persia. I miss some empire who does the initial major cleanup in the east. Like in Civ3C where in Rise of Rome Persia already controls the whole eastern territory we need some rocks to be rolled on that lead to great conquests and to great empires.
That I in 2 AD still have to mess around with Lydia, Hiram and those folks in such an amount really bothers me. It just doesn't feel right. (I would not mind if one of them builds a big empire at cost of the others, but they don't do)

 

[onedreamer]

Strangely Illyria and in a game before (with Egypt) Agamemnon did exactly that: settled southern Italy.

well I don't think this is strange. I've seen it happen often too, but the reason is that Mycenae can get boxed out from Illyria very soon, or vice-versa. So they have to necessarily move overseas. Carthage on the other hand, has vast territory that none will take where to expand.

Anyways in my games Rome is generally too slow to colonize South Italy. Maybe we should place there a barbarian Sannite city with weak defenses ?

It was that we (the big ones, what is Carthage (me), Germania, Rome and Lydia) were all of the Greek pantheon. The smaller ones had different religions but the one big war was with Kroisos and he had our religion too.
Religions shouldn't have this vast effect on diplomacy. AIs should be generally (a little bit) more aggressive in TAM and generally be less influenced by religions (not more than -1/+1). I would only make greater differences introducing monotheistic religions (sun god, judaism, christianity) as those "one true god" missionaries disunited people.

All in all I would rather tend to make religions not important at all, just as some little "I like your culture" modifier. Instead, as I already said, I would stress the border tension modifier more at least for those civs who are known to be restless with their neighbours.

fully agree with you, I already had several discussions in this thread about it and I think as you that wars didn't happen because of religion in The Ancient Med. Although only +1/-1 would be maybe too few and kills the fun of converting civs.

What I think is is the lack of Persia. I miss some empire who does the initial major cleanup in the east. Like in Civ3C where in Rise of Rome Persia already controls the whole eastern territory we need some rocks to be rolled on that lead to great conquests and to great empires.
That I in 2 AD still have to mess around with Lydia, Hiram and those folks in such an amount really bothers me. It just doesn't feel right. (I would not mind if one of them builds a big empire at cost of the others, but they don't do)

well, on the current map there isn't much we can do. Unless we change Babylon with Persia and make Persia a strong power that will eventually conquer the middle east. Or we could give more power to Egypt or make so that it expands toward Syria (this can be achieved with improving the land in Sinai, which currently is desert).

 

[Pvblivs]

well, on the current map there isn't much we can do. Unless we change Babylon with Persia and make Persia a strong power that will eventually conquer the middle east. Or we could give more power to Egypt or make so that it expands toward Syria (this can be achieved with improving the land in Sinai, which currently is desert).

I don't think this will work out. Currently there are enough great powers but they don't do anything. Persia is just a symbol for this.

An example what I mean with this:

As you for sure know Babylon fought wars in the eastern mediterranean area as well as Egypt did.
In the game neither of those two empires ever (in my two games ) made any warfare efforts gainst their neighbors. They all just sit around for 6.000 years. The only one who declared war one day was Hiram. But this didn't change anything. No conquests, no razed cities.

When Kroisos started his campaign this changed at least a little bit. After I dialed up Caesar and Arminius against him, because he was so far away (why does he declare against me being far away and not his neighbours?) he himself declared shortly afterwards against Egypt. He then captured two Egyptian (!!!) cities for a short time.

When I think about it I believe that distance should be payed a little more respect in the considerations of the AI. Someone's gotta tell them: "This is too far away for you, buddy, go, mess with your neighbours."
Open borders is a too easy thing for the AI. When I am searching a victim of my conquest dreams I do search in my neighbourhood on don't go through 2 countries or overseas (at least as long as I am no superpower).

We actually want the AI to win a war and not have a balanced powers map until 500 AD