The Ancient Mediterranean MOD

[Ankenaton]

I just played again as Mycenae with 1.93 and I can say it is hell a lot of fun now.

Spoiler :

Being creative, philosophical and some-sort-of-aggressive is a very powerful combination. I founded Mycenae itself on the copper which is by far the best Mycenae-location I think (2 fish, wheat, olives, copper and clay in radius and fresh water). I don't like to settle in place here at all. My next 3 cities I had to found at the east coast as Illyria very early nearly blocked Mycenae to the north (2 early fishing boats is a powerful opener but slow as well).
I then rushed Illyria with Achilles and some Hoplites which was really a war from the book. I took a strong force and it was just strong enough. With luck Illyria could have wiped out my assault on Skodra as well.

From this moment on I dominated the Mediteranean without a single war building many a wonder. Now at 50 AD (epic) I prepare for an assault on Kroisos who has wiped out the Hettithes himself.

Now with the Tartessians the western Mediterranean seems very balanced and not too powerful. Dido suffers a little bit from the new civ as she could not settle whole west Africa. Arminius was only in the middle of the list with Vercingetroix being even stronger, Caesar was fourth after Hatshepsut and Hammurapi (who both swapped there 2nd and 3rd place now and then). But as those eastern strong civs are never contested by the AI they remain strongest.
Caesar does not seem to know anything about his imperialistic attitudes. But everyone loves him. Sort of strange. He built his 5 cities early on and now seems to wait for his diplo victory

As commerce buildings and courts give not very much money early expansion often can be very expensive. For a long time after my conquests in Illyria (see the spoiler) I had to drop research rate to 30%. I could only research quicker selling some techs what really saved my good results so far. Now that I have a lot of villages etc. research is at 60%, supporting a great fleet and army that is almost ready to attack. With TAM it is even more important to early on some commerce factory cities if you want conquests.

But the way it is I think it's very balanced (on Prince) and playable.

On heros: Achilles is an Hoplite in his base values but after Bronze Working or now Iron Working he is completely useless as he cannot be upgraded. What should I do with my hero unit now?

Anyway a great job. With every little step TAM becomes more mature. It's simply fun to play and the atmosphere pulls you out of any vanilla version of civ.

Iberia is always a weak sister in my games; Viriato never rises above third lowest and is easily conquered. Whereas Egypt (me), I usually have to watch to the east (Babylon) from the very beginning of the game as Hammurabi is quite treacherous and declares war on me once every 20-30 turns (good). I also cannot become overly fixated on Babylon, because if I do then Dido takes her shot in the dark and I am awash in a sea of elephants. I have only experienced one sea based invasion (Mycenae) in the 7 or so full games that I have played (have not experienced any since the upgrade in current game), but the AI does appear to be a little more aggressive. However the only time Caesar goes a conquering in my games is when I request assistance to initiate an attack on someone. Then he will rapidly proceed to conquer as many provinces that he can hold onto and razing the rest (good). I just wish he could do more on "his own initiative", without prompting from me. To keep Dido off of my back I usually enter into a pact with her to take out Viriato (and now Tartessos) and then while she is still fighting I declare war on Cush and over run Taharqa or inflict lasting damage on him. Just now I see Babylon moving some significant forces close to my eastern border so I will have to end my "Cush -push" soon. Because it looks like Hammurabi and Taharqa are getting ready to open a second front (excellent)!

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

I looked into Portugal's start. Does this look acceptable? The link is a screen shot of moving the horse and fruit to be within the capital's work area and also adding a forest on the plains north of start and moving forest from gr at start to one square west.

This shouldn't be over-powering but will give Viriato more of a fighting chance, no?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/new_portugal_start.jpg

A humble suggestion.

 

[Pvblivs]

I looked into Portugal's start. Does this look acceptable? The link is a screen shot of moving the horse and fruit to be within the capital's work area and also adding a forest on the plains north of start and moving forest from gr at start to one square west.

This shouldn't be over-powering but will give Viriato more of a fighting chance, no?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/new_portugal_start.jpg

A humble suggestion.

The screen is not working but what you're suggesting sounds very good. Can you tell us how this starting position would be compared to that of Tartessia?

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

For Mycenae, I went into the world builder...noticed just about every other power civ in their sweet spot, so to speak, and removed the Mycenaean settler and warrior, and moved the copper to the plains hill one square east of current location, and put the settler where the copper used to be and the warrior on the hill where the copper is now.

If Rome and Illyria start in their regional sweet spot, why not Mycenae? Should make for a much better game when controlled by AI.

 

[Pvblivs]

I agree that Mycenae would be much stronger in terms of AI if it settled where the copper used to be with the copper in a different place.

Later on it is difficult enough for Agamaemnon as he has a strong neighbour to the north (Greece should be stronger), his main expansion direction would be rather over the ocean than to the north if blocked by Illyria and if Rome is capable of deciding for war alone someday, it will be very hard enough to keep Greece alive

 

[thamis]

Posted this one before, but got no answer, was probably overlooked

In version 1.92 and in earlier versions I just can't use the poppy fields in the east of the standard map. I can only build windmills and mines, but I think I need a grove? Or do I need to research some special tech?

Thanks,

Waterloo

Not sure, I'll look into it.

 

[Ick of the East]

I have a suggestion you might want to try on; how about making a water lane all across the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula so that you can sail from the Red Sea into the Persian Gulf.

In the real world there has always been a whole lot of commerce between the two areas, and it is really frustrating playing as the Nubians that I couldn't sail to Persia or Babylon.

It's not like there is anybody settling down in that desert, so it won't affect gameplay except in a good way. Of course, you wouldn't want to go and put any fish in the water or any resources on the adjacent land.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Wow...I played, using what I wrote, concerning adjustments to Mycenaean start position! It's awesome! Much better, and I'm sure Agememnon would at the very least push Illyria around if needed.

Using the new start mechanics I set up as per my above post, I was able to rush some warriors and Javilineers and wiped Illyria out in 3130BC (I got really lucky!)

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

The screen is not working but what you're suggesting sounds very good. Can you tell us how this starting position would be compared to that of Tartessia?

I followed the upload instructions to the letter...not sure why it isn't working.

As to the comparison with Tartissan (spelling?) I believe the Tartars do still have an edge production wise, albeit not as much as before. If I were to have my choice between playing Viriato or the Tartars, I would still choose the latter, due to the fresh water hills and coastline. Additionally, neither civ starts with the tech required to harness the resources, except the Tartars due to fishing. I will run a test, but I can tell you that Viriato still wont be fun to play...he'll still be slow, but not completely crippled.

Let me summarize what I suggested more visually, in terms of Viriato's start:
1) left units where they were.
2) removed forest on start fwg (fresh water grasslands)
3) put new forest on fwg one square west of start.
4) put new forest on plains one square north of start.
5) moved fruit to grasslands hill one square south of where fruit currently is.
6) moved horse to plains river square one square east of current location.

The above was done on Normal TAM map.

Result: Viriato now has two forest plains squares on one forested grassland squares. Additionally, Viriato now has Fruit, Sheep, and eventually Horse in the city work space, a good long term city.

I will now play as Viriato a bit, conservatively like the AI and see what happens.

After going back into the world builder screen, I did the following to restore some of the Tartars production advantage:
1) moved fruit from current location to hills one square west.
2) added a forest to the gl square NNW of settler start.

This should restore some of the edge that I may have stripped from the Tartars, while still giving Viriato a fighting chance.

 

[TEJ]

Playing version 1.9 with the Getae.
In 2450 BC, upon trying to move my peltast from Barbosi (the westernmost town) one tile to the north-west, I get the following message:



After clicking OK, the game exits to the desktop.

I get the same problem. I also play getae and when i use the "go to" button to a city with my peltast i get the problem. Not else.... very strange....
I have an ATI radeon 9600 128 Mb graphics card and 1 gb memory. And i've just defragmentated my computer.
Does anyone know the solution?

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

I followed the upload instructions to the letter...not sure why it isn't working.

As to the comparison with Tartissan (spelling?) I believe the Tartars do still have an edge production wise, albeit not as much as before. If I were to have my choice between playing Viriato or the Tartars, I would still choose the latter, due to the fresh water hills and coastline. Additionally, neither civ starts with the tech required to harness the resources, except the Tartars due to fishing. I will run a test, but I can tell you that Viriato still wont be fun to play...he'll still be slow, but not completely crippled.

Instead of the "quick reply", go to the advanced options. There you can add an attachement (.jpg, .gif. etc) Just make sure the file isn't heavier than 500kb.

The Tartars? Better make that the Tartessians.

 

[Pvblivs]

Instead of the "quick reply", go to the advanced options. There you can add an attachement (.jpg, .gif. etc) Just make sure the file isn't heavier than 500kb.

The Tartars? Better make that the Tartessians.

I checked the upload folder. The upload option is working. But you messed up something, I'm sure. The correct link is: http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/new_portugal_start.JPG

This looks like a good start for Iberia, though not that good as Rome or Greece etc. Maybe we could move the sheep outside again (anymal husbandry is later than agriculture anyway). The horses should better the productive situation of them a little bit.

Good suggestion, at least I believe that

 

[Pvblivs]

I followed the upload instructions to the letter...not sure why it isn't working.

The correct url has to end with .JPG not with .jpg. That's a big difference on some operating systems.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

I played as Viriato, using my changes, and played conservatively (well you really have to with the Iberians, not enough production to rush anything) and between myself and the Tartessians, we split the Iberian penninsula, and held pretty much the same score up until about 2000BC, when the Tartessians started pulling ahead. I built up to 4 cities, the Tartars had 3, but they were bigger cities.

Seems to be a much better balance to hold off the Gauls and Germanic and Tartessian civs. (Now if only we could coach the AI...)

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Instead of the "quick reply", go to the advanced options. There you can add an attachement (.jpg, .gif. etc) Just make sure the file isn't heavier than 500kb.

The Tartars? Better make that the Tartessians.

I thought you'd get a laugh out of that

 

[thamis]

Wow...I played, using what I wrote, concerning adjustments to Mycenaean start position! It's awesome! Much better, and I'm sure Agememnon would at the very least push Illyria around if needed.

Using the new start mechanics I set up as per my above post, I was able to rush some warriors and Javilineers and wiped Illyria out in 3130BC (I got really lucky!)

Can you post your changes with map coordinates? Huge or Normal map?

 

[Jet]

Not sure, I'll look into it.

While you're at it, maybe the charcoal resource should be removed from the mod since timber has replaced it for steel?

Heros -
- if your hero dies, can you rebuild it?
- can anyone ever build the default strength 10 hero?
- how about heroic epic requires level X hero instead of level 4 unit?
- no love for Gilgamesh? tribal warrior!

 

[generalshake]

Thanks for the fix, but what did you change in the Techs XML?

LoL. I had one of my 'not enough sleep' moments. I didn't change anything in it, it was the trait text file I meant to upload with the Huge Med map. Here's the actual one I meant to upload.

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

Can you post your changes with map coordinates? Huge or Normal map?

My changes were to the Normal Map.

May I please ask a noobish question?

How do I get coordinates? I tried being visually discriptive, because I haven't gotten into some of the ancelary tools available via other modders. Do I need to install a kit?

 

[Shqype]

While you're at it, maybe the charcoal resource should be removed from the mod since timber has replaced it for steel?

Heros -
- if your hero dies, can you rebuild it?
- can anyone ever build the default strength 10 hero?
- how about heroic epic requires level X hero instead of level 4 unit?
- no love for Gilgamesh? tribal warrior!

-Currently, yes. Why don't you try it out?
-Barbarians can. Good luck against Barbarian heroes
-Some civs don't get their heroes until way later in the game, so it might not be fair to do this to them.
-Nope, no love for Gilgamesh.