The Ancient Mediterranean MOD

[Ick of the East]

I have a strange bug.
None of my units can remove the "black fog", which means I'm unable to explore the map. Only the cities by expanding reveal the map.
My units can steal go in the black but I'm unable to see them.

I get the same thing. It can be fixed by Alt+Tab to minimize the game and then Alt+Tab once more to bring the game back up. The bug is then gone until the next time you load the game.

 

[Rhye]

The AI reluctance to colonize

you can help it through

CvUnitAI::AI_found_map()

changing

iValue /= (iPathTurns + 1); to +2 or +3 to make AI prefer longer distances

 

[baptiste]

The AI reluctance to colonize may have something to do with the increased distance maintenance cost. Maybe we should reduce it slightly again.

On the Fertile Crescent map the AI is doing the contrary, expanding quickly and far, killing their economy in the process. Intermediate behavior (on both maps) should be more appropriate imo.

 

[Shqype]

One thing I noticed through, the pyramids, that IIRC in reality were build 3000 years BC, come pretty late in the mod IMO or did I forgot something?

Yea, I understand, but that's just how the time of the game goes. We could alter the year progression though to try to make it more accurate ...

 

[Alekhine]

I would like to thank all the people involved in the creation of this wonderful mod, superb battle tactics, wonderful attention to detail, so many decisions to be made as to research, build queues etc & the awe-inspiring huge mediterrean map, it's simply the best Civ 4 mod there is. I do have a couple of issues to raise though. I initally loaded up the Huge Med map and selected Persia (Prince level), before 1000BC both the Mede and Babylonian had been wiped out. Strange I thought I didn't see any AI war announcements then a few turns later the Barbs turned up at my borders! At first just a few then some more and finally stacks of 20 tribal warriors spawning just outside my borders nearly every turn. The Persians were destined to join their neighbours as mere footnotes in history so I quit.
On reflection I wondered if raging barbs had been the setting in the WB file so I started a custom scenario as Persia (Prince) with "normal" barbs & no city razing enabled with the huge Med map. This game seemed to be more balanced. All civs survived the early game except Egypt who were destroyed by the Nubians & although I did see one stack of 20 Barbs nearly all of the others were 1,2 or 3 strong, perfect training for my Immortals!
Indeed this game, which I'm still playing has to be the best Civ game I've ever played and I've been a Civ fan since the original.
Someone mentioned earlier about the Iberians always being weak, I havn't seen this myself, they have been in the top 5 all game & conquered Spain and part of the NW African coast but the top civ is Phonecia with Greece a close 2nd.
I will close by thanking the TAM people one more time for their hard work, dedication and tremendous skill in the making of this illustrious mod

 

[thamis]

Thanks for your kind words Alekhine. The default setting for the Huge map is NOT raging barbarians. The reason there are so many barbs there is that they have a few cities (metropoles, actually) in the NE of the map, which I think we should certainly remove. Then it will be more balanced, as the barbarians will only spread by spawning irregularly.

 

[Alekhine]

Thanks for your kind words Alekhine. The default setting for the Huge map is NOT raging barbarians. The reason there are so many barbs there is that they have a few cities (metropoles, actually) in the NE of the map, which I think we should certainly remove. Then it will be more balanced, as the barbarians will only spread by spawning irregularly.

Thanks for your quick reply Thamis. I did notice that the Barb activity quitened down once a few Barb cities started springing up on the edges of my empire. Certainly no more 20+ stacks! Which I thought quite ironic, the barbarians bringing a touch of civilzation to the land

 

[Jet]

Apart from the cities in the NE of the huge med map, after a couple games it does seem to me that on the huge maps, the civs that are protected from barbs by terrain get a solid advantage from that, for better or worse.

A funny thing about deserts - on the normal map barbs spawning out of the desert felt fine, but on Fertile Crescent after killing the 400th barb raider and building a solid line of forts from Faiyum to the Mediterranean, I started to wonder just how all those barbs survived in the desert. Secret oases? (They were spawning on desert tiles, of course.)

Britain can't get the resource for its UU at all easily. Could add it, or maybe remove the resource requirement, like with metals. Might also consider replacing a wheat with sheep (flavor) and adding tin (Cornwall tin trade).

You can remove dense forest by building waterwheels even if you don't have Ironworking. I don't think it's bad, but it looked like a bug.

On the huge med map there's so much dense forest that it often grows over amber and pigs. "The good news is now we don't have to research animal husbandry for another 3000 years..." If you're the AI you get hosed, if you're the human you... um, restart and fortify tribal warriors over the resources. It's pretty evil. One way to be less evil (if desired) would be to place normal forests over more of those resource tiles.

Do heros behave just like great people for golden ages? So your first golden age can be hero + prophet, your next one can be hero + prophet + scientist, etc?

Keep 'em coming!

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

The AI reluctance to colonize may have something to do with the increased distance maintenance cost. Maybe we should reduce it slightly again.

Are you referring to my strange game?

I think that it is partly the distance issue (I think a slight reduction in maintenance costs may be in order) however, I think it's more to do with the almost finatical desire for the AI to build either adjacent to resources and to avoid (again almost finatically) overlap.

A human player accepts some overlapping.

A human player also builds cities where it is most advantageous in the long term (usually not adjacent to the desired resources, but within first cultural expansion.)

 

[Seidrik_The_Gray]

you can help it through

CvUnitAI::AI_found_map()

changing

iValue /= (iPathTurns + 1); to +2 or +3 to make AI prefer longer distances

I think it's more an issue of giving the AI permission to allow itself to colonize into an empire (ala Rome or Greece, etc...)

It just builds into a tight cluster and sits there for some strange reason. I do think it has allot to do with maintenance costs and hamstrung AI economies.

Not to mention, that in my opinion, the AI choses horrible sites.

 

[Shqype]

Jorgen_CAB was working on smarter AI city placement before he went missing in action... perhaps we can petition him to release it for us

 

[Ankenaton]

Finally had the chance to take 1.93 for a MP run and the combined changes work very well in MP. The commerce changes were very interesting, playing as the Greeks with my firend playing as the Romans I was able to gain and maintain a substantial tech lead over him and all of the AI players. His growth spurt almost collapsed his empire whereas my slower expansion by conquest (I didn't try to kill all my neighbors by 1000BC this time) allowed me to keep running a profit at 100% research. The recent changes have at least slowed down expansion by conquest, even if the AI doesn't do a better job overall the individual battles are a bit tougher when you're the attacker, especially early in the game. And you've finally managed to break my "one unit for everything" stretegy.

We had some interesting discussions about siege weapons during our game. The sappers could really use a new unit graphic, or at least something other than two workers since we both got them mixed up with works on a couple of occasions. I was also wondering if it would be possible to use some temporary promotions like other mods are (real fort for example). This would allow us to have siege towers that didn't do any damage to the cities but instead gave all of the units in the same tile some sort of added city attack bonus. That would help make them useful even when you have catapults and other later siege weapons. The sappers come so early that rams are typically never used.

It is always better to leave behind a couple of defanged vassal states rather than wiping them out completely.

 

[Ankenaton]

... umm yes, it was in TAM about 1.1

Viriato just sits there waiting to get waxed by either the Dido or Caesar. I usually aid in his early demise by gifting Caesar a couple of techs and asking him to take care of the problem.

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

About one page ago, I made a joke about Elvis being born in Memphis. Perhaps I shouldn't have...

 

[thamis]

About one page ago, I made a joke about Elvis being born in Memphis. Perhaps I shouldn't have...
View attachment 132261

Genius.

 

[ambrox62]

What must be done in order to play TAM 1.93 Huge Map in hotseat - two humans mode?

Doubleclicking map file starts single player games only.

Thanks

 

[thamis]

What must be done in order to play TAM 1.93 Huge Map in hotseat - two humans mode?

Doubleclicking map file starts single player games only.

Thanks

Once you dbl-clicked the file, go back to the main menu (go back button in lower left corner), choose multiplayer, hotseat. Then click "Load Scenario" and select the huge map.

 

[Ingvina Freyr]

Viriato just sits there waiting to get waxed by either the Dido or Caesar. I usually aid in his early demise by gifting Caesar a couple of techs and asking him to take care of the problem.

You're so cruel, Ankenaton. You shouldn't hit someone that's already down. Why don't you give those techs to Viriato instead, and help him against his antagonists.

 

[vicentiko]

is the 1.93 already available? people are talking already about 1.93 but on the main page i only see the 1.92 for download

 

[thamis]

The main page links to the 1.93 download, I just forgot to update it.