The Classic Maya 2016-10-05

[Traianus]

Aahhh! It all makes sense now... 'cept for the map thing!

 

[TopGun]

Just my two cents... since I finally got around to playing this scenario after it's been sitting on my computer for quite a while. My first impression was, "Wow!", when I saw the setup screen and got to check out the absolutely amazing leaderhead images. It set the tone and raised my expectations. I was not disappointed.
Overall, this scenario is very well designed and I can tell that alot of blood (no pun intended), sweat and tears went into it. My kudos!
Just a few minor things I noticed:
(1) Maybe it's me, but even with science funding at 100% for the most part, I slipped behind, relentlessly, in the technology race. Just wondering whether other beta testers also saw this or whether it was just me... after all I was building warriors upon warriors in the beginning in an attempt to overwhelm my nearest neighbor right from the get-go. (I failed, my warriors were too weak to crack the capital's defenses...)
(2) I think the city lists are a tad too short, most of the AI players soon began to build New This and New That...
(3) Some Civilopedia entries are still generic. I.e. "Altar" says it's a "Bank".
(4) The year/timeline is always displayed as "Nov." - I feel like I'm in "Groundhog Day"

Other than that: Great Work! You may just wanna add a nice intro text for the Conquests selection screen, tweak the tech costs here and there, add city names and you've got a surefire hit!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Thanks for the input.

(1) What kingdom did you play? If you're Toniná, falling behind in tech is kinda unavoidable. With the larger ones, I find it's little trouble keeping tolerably up in tech on Monarch. Maybe you didn't expand enough; just a guess.
(2) The problem is, it's hard to find more city names of tolerable accuracy.
(3) That particular one, as well as much else concerning the 'Pedia, will be fixed in the next version (ETA sometime next week).
(4) Which patch you you have? The date should display normally on 1.22.

 

[TopGun]

(1) I played twice, once as the Carakol, then as Copan. I did better as the Carakol, but I also went down the militaristic branch, instead of the trade branch of the tech tree...
(2) true.... maybe you could make settlers more expensive then?
(3) kewl.
(4) good question... how do I check that again?

 

[The Last Conformist]

The version should be on the main menu screen.

I'd rather try and find more city-names! I don't think avoiding "New Tikal" is a good reason to change gameplay.

Copán tends to be science-challenged; they're small, and kinda isolated. Their chief strength is their many resources, which can be traded for techs, but getting up a research base to compete with the likes of Tikal and Piedras Negras will take a while.

 

[Balam]

I'd rather try and find more city-names! I don't think avoiding "New Tikal" is a good reason to change gameplay.

Hey TLC,

Have you thought about making 2 other non-playable civs (Highland Maya and Puuk Maya for south and north, respectively) to cover the uninhabited areas? They could be much like Mexico and only partially habitable by players, but occupied with a few key cities in control of strategic resources like salt, black obsidian, and the like. Anyway, just a thought.

By the way, I've come up with some names for people who want more city names for each of the civs in this scenario.


Tikal: Laguna Perdida, Itzimte, Topoxte, Tayasal (Polol should switch from Calakmul, though who knows what its status was). For early sites in the build order you might put El Mirador, Nakbe and San Bartolo--or mix these three in with Calakmul, as they're all northern Peten.

Calakmul: La Corona, Punta de Chimino, Los Beremos, El Achiotal, Paso Caballos, Yala (also, El Peru should definitely go with Calakmul, not Tikal as they were major supporters of Calakmul during the Classic)

Palenque: Morales, Jonuta, Pipha', Panhale, Santa Elena, Poblicuo

Piedras Negras: La Joyanca, El Pajaral, Mactun, San Diego, Tamaris, Pie de Gallo

Tonina: Sak Ts'i', Plan de Ayutla, Agua Escondida, Chiapa de Corzo, Tonala, San Miguel, Bellote

Caracol: Cerros, Lamanai, San Jose, Barton Ramie, Naj Tunich, Tzimin Kax

Copan: Los Zapos, Los Higos, Acasaguastlan, Yarumela, Quelepa, Usulutan, Naco

Anyway, hope this helps you out.

Cheers,

Balam

 

[Balam]

One more thing--had a great time with this scenario as Piedras Negras.
Unbelievably true to history, the Mexicans actually did invade the central Peten several times; they even had a presence at Seibal! Kudos!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Thanks for the city names - some of those are going in.

Re: El Perú, they were aligned with Tikal early on, being part of the "New Order" of ca 400 AD. Only later did they switch allegiance to Calakmul (before being trounced by Tikal in the 8th century); if the Kaan guys want them to repeat its defection in-game, they better make it happen!

"Sak Ts'i", I'd assume, is the same as Sak Tz'i', which is already is in Palenque's list.


Nice to hear about you liking the gameplay. Mexicans at Seibal? I don't think I've seen any Mexican penetrations that far east in my games; nice to see they can still surprise me!

 

[Rambuchan]

@ TLC: Sorry I haven't got back to you with more write ups on the game I had going. The simple reason is that I haven't been playing that much. Haven't been tied to a comp much lately, let alone spend time playing civ on it. I played perhaps another 20-30 turns about a week back and found myself going war with all my direct neighbours simultaneously - a chain reaction of MPPs basically. So now it's Mexico, Piedras N and myself at war with the rest of the Mayan world. All hell has broken loose and I climbed the VP chart nicely. I think I am just one city sacking short of taking the VPs lead. I was only playing on regent but it seemed an appropriate challenge to go with a greatly inferior civ such as Caracol. I think victory would have been mine and the employment of Ajaws made that difference (still the most advanced thanks to relations and tech trades with Mexico.) In fact it was Palenque which was looking like the surprise run away leader. They soon came under the rod though

 

[The Last Conformist]

I may have mentioned it before, but AI Palenque has this odd tendency to do very well or very poorly.

Have you thought about making 2 other non-playable civs (Highland Maya and Puuk Maya for south and north, respectively) to cover the uninhabited areas? They could be much like Mexico and only partially habitable by players, but occupied with a few key cities in control of strategic resources like salt, black obsidian, and the like. Anyway, just a thought.

I originally decided against the inclusion of further civs because I wanted to keep processing power demands down.

No more civs are gonna make it into v1.0, but there's a chance I'll reconsider the decision if there's ever a v2.0.

 

[eric_A]

TLC:
I having been playing your scenario as Tikal and have completed 68
out of 200 turns. I have been concentrating on building cities
and have about a dozen some are as large as 5. The F8 screen says I have
29% of the worlds pop, but only 300 VPs while Mexico has 2340.

I have not encountered any serious problems so far. An army suddenly
appeared in my capital, auto produced I assume, by the palace???

 

[The Last Conformist]

Yup, the Palace autoproduces an Army every 41 turns (it even says as much in the 'pedia ). There should have been a little message saying "Our Palace has produced an Army!" or words to that effect.

VPs are chiefly given for martial exploits, so it's only natural that you should lag in it if you keep peaceful. Once you go on the warpath, your VP count should increase swiftly.

 

[Rambuchan]

I found that the little message saying "Our Palace has produced an Army!" or words to that effect, does not always show up. In your scen, my scen or any for that matter. Weird.

 

[Balam]

Yeah, I dunno TLC, I still prefer El Peru for Calakmul rather than Tikal; that's when they seem to have had their best time--and the only reason they could have been with Tikal in the first place is because they were forced to by Siyaj K'ahk', a Mexican!

Hmm. That's an idea. What if some parts of the map were VP locations, like the sites of Tikal and Copan? Actually, why isn't Teotihuacan represented in this scenario (or the capitol, for that matter)? Maybe Teotihuacan, Tikal, and Copan could be VPs, with Teo unassailable like the other Mexican sites; this might force incursions by the AI/Human Players into the central Peten and the east. Still, it happened anyway in my game.

Well, not to Copan, but PN teamed up with Calakmul and Caracol--and later Copan--to beat up Tikal with the Mexicans, who made a bee-line for Seibal instead of Tikal, which was taken by Calakmul. Copan, oddly enough, never fought with anyone except when bribed by me to attack Tikal during the whole game...

 

[The Last Conformist]

Well, Teotihuacan isn't in because it's way off the map. The Mexican's mid-game attacker is called "Teotihuacano", however.

I originally intended to have VPLs, but they didn't seem to make much difference, so I scrapped them in favour of simplicity.

Copán is perhaps the most peaceful civ, but playtesting has certainly seen them fighting, and far afield at that - I've seen their armies as far north as at Lake Petén Itzá, and as far west as Poco Uinic.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I said I would probably have a new version up this week, but it looks I'll end up postponing it at least till Trai is finished with the Maya Diplo Interface.

 

[Traianus]

I'll get it to you by week's end, TLC!

 

[The Last Conformist]

Sounds good!

Meanwhile, I apparently DL'd this alternate Jaguar Warrior last week:

I don't think it looks very Maya, but it could replace the AoK Jaguar Warrior for the Mexicans. Whaddya think?

Also, I've forgotten who's made it. Does anyone know?

 

[Balam]

I think its much better than the Jaguar Warrior (I've always thought of it as Maya anyway; I've never much liked the javelin thrower for Maya either, I'd much prefer a spearman or someone with a club of sorts). Just my 2 cents...

 

[The Last Conformist]

All input is appreciated.

The Javelin Thrower isn't too good, but, as it says in the 'pedia, I'm including it as a kind of nod to the developers.


Incidentally, you may get your wish re: El Perú fulfilled, as I'm "compactifying" the Calakmul and Tikal starts a bit.