The Classic Maya

@Ram and Trai: Caracol is the civ that's the least tested, so you might want to try out that one. Starting next to mighty Tikal, it should provide a challenge.

I've not played Palenque since a couple versions, so that could probably also use testing. The AI tends to do either very well or very poorly with them - even when I play Copán, and thus do not interact much with them, they're sometimes wiped our by the Mexicans, and sometimes rise to a superpower.

 

I'll be happy to try it out with Caracol, although losing easily doesn't sit well with my sportmanship instincts.

 

In that case I'll try Palenque. I was blown away by the place when I was lucky enough to visit it so for me it's a good choice.

 

I'm looking forward to hear your comments.

 

I wouldn't hold your breath for mine, I don't give myself that much civ gaming time these days. Sorry that's just the way it is atm.

 

Okay! Firstly... IT ROCK'S!!
Really, really well done, TLC! I very much enjoyed what I played last night. I think I went up to about 650AD. I love the work you've done on making trade an important part of things. For me, the early game wasn't slow at all. I sent scouts out to meet people and started trading with the Mexicans straight away.
I think maybe it was a little too easy though. on at least four occasions nations made demands on me and I acceded simply because I could easily afford too. By the time I finished I had over 300 gold with my science at 100% the whole way. Then at last Tikal made a demand and I told them where to go. So my first war is upon me. My military is not bad(lots of sajals and mex allies and javellineers).
Two little things;
1. The text of the civ entry for the palenque race runs off page at the bottom, maybe because I use the metallic interface. But others do also...
2. You need to change the buildings large and small icons for temple to the american one. At the moment they're mediterranean(probably just something you haven't bothered with yet with all the work you've put in!).

Again, total respect! I like it.

 

Glad to hear you like it, Trai.

That's odd - I've checked all the long 'pedia entries so they shouldn't do that.

What resolution do you use? Does the same happened to the entries on the civs in the regular game (which are of similar length)?

(Yeah, and you did note the text continues on a second page you reach by pressing the "more" button to the right of the text?)

That's on the list.

Edit: The difficulty level can be modified by using a higher difficulty setting, or chosing a more challenging civ to play. I'd put the difficulty at Toniná > Copán > Caracol > Palenque > Piedras Negras > Calakmul > Tikal. If money is too easy to come by, one could tweak unit support (currently fairly generous), or mess with citizen happiness.

 

I think it's beacuse of the meatllic interface I use. The res. is normal 1024x whatever. I did look at the second page also.

I played on Regent which is my normal level and I think it seemed easier than normal. For example, the equivalent on RFRE is Consul and it's wicked hard! But wait until I do some more. For all I know, Tikal is about to come down on me like a ton of bricks!

 

I generally playtest on Monarch. If I play one of the middling civs, like Piedras Negras, the difficulty seems about equal to the Epic game.

I look forward to hearing how your war with Tikal goes. They're the civ the AI generally does best with, so you may be in for a tough time.

 

Oh well. Fortune favours... I'd gotten to the stage where I had 10 cities or so and good infrastructure and was tired of being pushed around! Guess I could have picked someone other than Tikal to get stroppy with!
I meant to say that I noticed loads of things you need graphix for and a lot of them I can help you with. I've taken the opposite appraoch with Aztec and done all the building art first. Maybe ur planning on doing it all yourself but i'll make all my work available to you if you need it.

 

I had a good long run on this last night. With some success too!

I'll get round to editing a write up into this post when I've dealt with some work. Mostly good stuff to report though. I like it!

EDIT: Here it is >

King Yajaw Te' K'inich, awoke to find the mist lying finely across his fledgling mountain kingdom. Since 250AD (according to someone else's calendar) rumours had been heard of flying Mexican warriors in the far west and of enchanted plants and shining stones. All of these had eluded Yajaw's ancestors.

This morning was different. A macaw had appeared to him in a dream the night before and whispered that he would rise to greatness, casting the golden net of Caracol influence across the Maya world. And so it was that Yajaw Te' K'inich sent his men down the mountains and out across the jungles (there wasn't much else to build but warriors and his scouts kept getting killed, so the Macaw had a point).

Early expansion was enjoyable, with warriors being sent to all four points of the sun dial. In the north, Calakmul Snake men were found. They professed of their greatness which filled the northern lands right to the heavens themselves. The Power Graph and further wandering proved otherwise. Indeed it was Tikal's might, unfolding like a scarlet serpent beneath the mountains, which was the true greatness to be feared. Light border banter with the Tikal ladies ensured peace for many turns. But their blood feud with Calakmul catapulted them yet further to the starry heights of the Power and VP graphs. Do not shake an already shaking serpent, said the Macaw to Yajaw.

It was in fact to the South that he first directed his warriors. In concert, the Caracol warriors wailed and fell upon the young Copan in the south. Further beating ensured they gave up two more cities the piddling Copan had designed to build. After a quick war - Caracol was on the map!

click for big pics.

The Caracol World (50 turns)


power


VPs


However, the growth of Tikal would not allow the initial sacrifical parties to go on till the next full moon. After sacking the Copan cities again and demanding cash tributes and cities again, Yajaw had another dream....

.

 

@Trai: I'm not too good with gfx, so any help is appreciated.

 

Spoiler Victory Status Summary :

...that dream saw 'a green fire' arrive on the horizon in the form of an axe. It struck Yajaw's heart with awe and fear but he somehow knew that it was not malevolent. In fact he remembered reading in the 'Pedia how 'the Mexican green fire' would bring about Caracol greatness if friendship was maintained.

And so Yajaw awoke to seek out the green fire, and it was not long in coming. Having cranked up the scientific research to make 'the Connection', a great altar building programme was commenced and the many virgins who lost their lives catapulted Caracol fame across the known world, not to mention some pretty sneaky tech dealing of stoneworking. When it came to it, The Mexicans were more than happy to share their knowledge of the green fire, in exchange for some Cacao and very few gold.

The new alliance allowed Yajaw to enhance his military and he began to stock pile the Mexican warriors on his western borders with Tikal. Numerous more measured flayings of Copan virgin slaves in the south was keeping new cities coming and Caracol was steadily growing to be the second biggest player in the eastern Maya world.

power (60 turns in)


VPs


Now that Carakmul had been reduced, it remained only for Caracol to challenge the rising Tikal serpent. Further knowledge of kingdoms in the west inspired Yajaw to 'up the ante'. It was his ancestor's name at stake!

As Caracol began to settle new lands, controlling yet more cacao and moving to spices in the south, precious feathers in the west, he mysteriously found the trade route to Mexico sabotaged. It was unknown whether it was Tikal or some other Palenque or Piedras Negras, but the Mexicans were not happy. Within a few turns trade was re-established and Yajaw ordered yet more Mexican allies to the Tikal border, alongside home grown militia. The Bloodcult was growing in the Caracol Mountains and they had heard Tikal blood satisfied the Gods like no other. Caracol had more war coming to rain on its neighbours. Moreover, Tikal had now built The Royal Trade Network, projecting their VPs through the heavens. (This was a shocking amount of VPs for them to get and has probably put the gamme out of reach for me)

It took one wandering Tikal warrior to give Yajaw the reason to confront King Jasaw Chan K'awiil. The stubborn animal declared war and now the stage was set. This was to be the contest for the eastern lands. Whoever won would reign in these parts for decades, perhaps hundreds of years to come...

The war (80-90 turns in) was close fought initially owing to a lack of green fire. But the superior military provided by the Mexican connection and of course Yajaw's shrewd command eventually saw the sacking of the nearest Tikal city and the Caracol troops advancing on Tikal itself!!! However, there was simply nothing Yajaw's troops could do to bring down the Tikal capital, so they settled for pillaging all his roads instead. By the time the war was over, Caracol had become a contender!!!


After 100 Turns:

Caracol Population: 23% - the highest.
Caracol World Area: 2% - equal highest.

Palenque is the challenger here with 21% and 2%.



Power - Caracol 2nd highest now to Mexico.


VPs - 2nd here too, hopelessly trailing Tikal.


Domination was the planned victory. I don't see how it's going to happen though, despite dropping it to Regent level, one beneath my usual Monarch.

 

, I love your style, Ram!

Domination is tough; I usually go for VPs.

Speaking of tough, so is Tikal, as I think you've noticed. But juding from your map, you've kept them from expanding too much, which is good.

What you need to do to catch up with them in VPs is to start capturing cities on a serious scale. The best way to achieve this is probably signing up Calakmul and Piedras Negras for a new war against Tikal. You may want to wait for the Ajaw unit (at Warrior Cult) before attacking, since I imagine Tikal either has or soon will get Sajalob' (the 2.3.1 defender) all over the place.

Edit: It would be nice if you posted the save.

 

Strangely the Tikal military consists of only Warriors and Militia. A bit lame. I'd love to go trounce them now but there happens to be a war on with Palenque, which didn't like me settling my local source of precious feather. They declared war a turn after I did, with armies they had been saving up. It's probably because I pillaged the hell out of their luxury connections whilst wandering around their lands with a scout. They are fools though! Fools who probably don't know that Yajaw had another dream.

 

Wow-I just downloaded this (after a long Hiatus, sorry for the bad Maya joke), I can't wait to try it out. Especially given my username...

 

Oh, and thank you Last Conformist for making Piedras Negras its own civ. I've actually excavated there, and its nice to see people care about that site

 

Cool!

Hope you like it.

 

My earlier fears were justified but not in the way I thought. Tikal did nothing to me and after 7 or 8 turns we declared peace with no conditions. I then signed mutual pro. with Mexico and Calakmul made a tribute demand. Mexico also had MPP with Piedras Negras so I told Calak GFY! However, Mexico never raised a hand against them even after they killed a warrior who had been scouting their territory. Three turns later the MPP expired. What gives?
Stranger was to follow... After several more turns I sued for peace with Calakmul who had not sent any more forces against me. They accepted peace in return for my world map but after the deal was done I GOT THEIR MAP!! Does anybody know what's going on here?
I think I should have built more settlers early on. I've still plenty of gold but it's in decline and my science is now down to 80%. I tried to attack Tonina but all my ajaws just bounced of their sajals. I didn't kill even one defender with ten ajaws and took a total of 6 or 7 hps. Now by virtue of their MPP i'm back at war with Tikal(who declared on me immediately when I declared on Tonina. ) Is this a clear case of AI cheating?
Still lovin the mod though. I think it has great pace and colour.

 

The conditions to trigger a MPP is that the enemy has to have unit end a turn in your territory, or attack one of your units in your territory. I'm guessing neither happened.

This sounds very odd. No idea.

It probably just means you attacked a Toniná unit on its home turf immediately.

If you're attacking Toniná itself, remember that palaces give a +100% defense bonus. With the city located on a hill, it's a tough nut too crack.