The Great Race 2 for Conquests
This is an extensive remake of Drake Rlugia's original "The Great Race". I had so much fun playing Drake's original version, yet there were several features that didn't quite work out in the game, that for my own continued enjoyment I edited, tweaked, and adjusted it until I was satisfied, while not changing (I hope) the huge fun factor of the original. Drake Rlugia has, I fear, departed from the Civ scene.
Here is a partial list of changes in this version:
1. The scenario time period was shifted to 1620-1770. This had a number of beneficial effects. Primarily, it was impossible in the original to get the AI to do much colonizing, at least not anywhere that made sense. I never did figure out why, but the English, Dutch, and French insisted on colonizing Greenland and Baffin Island, while ignoring Africa and the rich Atlantic Coast. So in this version I can put the historical colonies in Boston, Jamestown, Quebec, New Amsterdam, Cape Colony (that's fudging a little but not much), Siberia, etc. There is still a ton of room for creativity for the Human player, you are not locked into any specific path of growth.
2. Many, many map adjustments were made to city locations, rivers, resources, coastlines, and terrain to improve the Geography.
3. Corrected many errors in the City properties. For example the "Copernicus Observatory" wonder was found in about 50% of the world's cities. Other similar problems were found and corrected.
4. New nations added: Islamic Kingdoms and Korea. In the original TGR, the Ottoman Empire and China rapidly built an insurmountable lead because they started with such a strong position geographically. Islamic Kingdoms now controls several cities that were Islamic but not part of the Ottoman Empire in 1620. Likewise Korea was (accurately) split from China and is an independent nation. These changes are more historical and result in a better game.
5. Mali, which had long disintigrated in 1620, has morphed into a "North African Kingdoms" civilization, with several disconnected cities. Likewise Zimbabwe morphed into an "African Kingdoms" civilization that presents just the right degree of challenge to a colonizing power.
6. Golden Horde renamed to Mongolian Empires and now has cities strung across Central Asia (the Silk Road). They look like easy pickings but the Mongols still have the Keshik, a match for the Russian Knights. Cannon and Musketeers are recommended! Historically, the Russians tried, but didn't conquer the Crimea and Central Asia, until the late 1700s.
7. Also, the the Holy Roman Empire is split into it's Catholic and Protestant Factions and they are in opposing alliances (the 30 Year's War was just beginning in 1620).
8. Adjusted many Civilization agression levels to get somewhat historical results in most cases (e.g. in the original, the Mountain Indians were continually
conquering the Plains Indians, and China was overrunning Asia).
9. Adjusted many land combat values to get results more to my liking. For example, Musketmen are now A5-D5 instead of A6-D5 to make defending those objectives a bit easier. On the other hand, Mercenary Infantry are now A6-D4 so they will actually be used in battle and not garrison duty. Cannon have been split into 4 types based on technology level: Bombard and Light Cannon (early) and Heavy Cannon and Field Cannon (late). I got rid of the Hussar which was only used by the Holy Roman Empire anyway, and instead created the Dragoon, with stats A4-D6-M3 and which appears with the Musketman. These are extremely useful for defending widespread areas like Central Asia, and also escorting Treasures back to your capital. All these changes work together well in evoking the time period.
10. Adjusted naval combat values as well. Now there is a nice progression. In the 1600s, Caravels, Carrocks and Galleons must travel in groups to survive the predatory Privateers. Lone ships will be picked off. When the Frigate and Man-o-War make their appearance, they effectively hunt down and prey on the Pirates. However the Galleons are still needed for transport, and the Frigates end up escorting them. When in the late 1700s the Ship-of-the-Line is produced, it is a quantum leap in firepower and they are great for bombarding coastal cities, but are slower than Frigates. Every ship has it's niche and it has a good feel to it.
11. Adjusted ship movement values and coast/sea/ocean movement cost to remove wierd behavior of some ship types.
12. Renamed "barbarians" to "natives" (ok, just for fun) and made warriors and archers move 2, ignore forest and jungle move cost, and have a bit higher combat values. In TRG2 the natives are a real threat to lone musketeers or knights blundering through the primeval forests of America.
13. The Colonial Capitals are now much cheaper so they can actually be built in a reasonable time. However you need to have specific improvements to build them: Spice Factory for Colonial Capital #1, Sugar Mill for #2, and Fur Trading Post for #3. This will give a big benefit to the nation that disperses it's Colonial Empire rather than concentrating on a single region.
14. Victory conditions underwent a lot of trial-and-error adjustment to get the proportions just right. Players can now earn VPs not only by occupying the Objectives and returning Treasures, but also by achieving advances, building great wonders, conquering cities, and capturing enemy units. The monetary value of Treasures was reduced but their Victory Point value was increased (I was noticing AIs with 20,000+ unused gold by mid-game). A conquest victory is also possible.
15. Put back Oasis and Tropical Fruit resources. Not sure why they were taken out.
16. Added back several Great Wonders that had been removed. I think they were taken out to make room for the Colonial Capitals but really, there was no reason not to keep them in. Some like Magellan's Voyage are a little anachronistic but it's nice to have a good chance to build at least one if not two wonders during the scenario.
17. The original download had many errors in it such as misnamed files, missing folders, etc. I THINK all those are corrected.
18. Oh yea, I kept the download to under 10 MB so I could avoid using a 3rd party website. There is no fluff, this is a bare-bones as I could make it. Basically I removed graphics that were in the download, but not even used in the original game. I don't think anything was lost in the translation.
That's it! Enjoy and let me know if you run into any problems.
To Install the download: Unpack the zip a TGR2 folder under C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Conquests\Scenarios\TGR2, and save the biq in the Scenarios folder.
Primary sources for my changes:
1. The Great Race by Drake Rlugia
2. The Times Complete History of the World by Richard Overy (awesome book for any CIV fan).
3. Wikipedia (of course!)
This is an extensive remake of Drake Rlugia's original "The Great Race". I had so much fun playing Drake's original version, yet there were several features that didn't quite work out in the game, that for my own continued enjoyment I edited, tweaked, and adjusted it until I was satisfied, while not changing (I hope) the huge fun factor of the original. Drake Rlugia has, I fear, departed from the Civ scene.
Here is a partial list of changes in this version:
1. The scenario time period was shifted to 1620-1770. This had a number of beneficial effects. Primarily, it was impossible in the original to get the AI to do much colonizing, at least not anywhere that made sense. I never did figure out why, but the English, Dutch, and French insisted on colonizing Greenland and Baffin Island, while ignoring Africa and the rich Atlantic Coast. So in this version I can put the historical colonies in Boston, Jamestown, Quebec, New Amsterdam, Cape Colony (that's fudging a little but not much), Siberia, etc. There is still a ton of room for creativity for the Human player, you are not locked into any specific path of growth.
2. Many, many map adjustments were made to city locations, rivers, resources, coastlines, and terrain to improve the Geography.
3. Corrected many errors in the City properties. For example the "Copernicus Observatory" wonder was found in about 50% of the world's cities. Other similar problems were found and corrected.
4. New nations added: Islamic Kingdoms and Korea. In the original TGR, the Ottoman Empire and China rapidly built an insurmountable lead because they started with such a strong position geographically. Islamic Kingdoms now controls several cities that were Islamic but not part of the Ottoman Empire in 1620. Likewise Korea was (accurately) split from China and is an independent nation. These changes are more historical and result in a better game.
5. Mali, which had long disintigrated in 1620, has morphed into a "North African Kingdoms" civilization, with several disconnected cities. Likewise Zimbabwe morphed into an "African Kingdoms" civilization that presents just the right degree of challenge to a colonizing power.
6. Golden Horde renamed to Mongolian Empires and now has cities strung across Central Asia (the Silk Road). They look like easy pickings but the Mongols still have the Keshik, a match for the Russian Knights. Cannon and Musketeers are recommended! Historically, the Russians tried, but didn't conquer the Crimea and Central Asia, until the late 1700s.
7. Also, the the Holy Roman Empire is split into it's Catholic and Protestant Factions and they are in opposing alliances (the 30 Year's War was just beginning in 1620).
8. Adjusted many Civilization agression levels to get somewhat historical results in most cases (e.g. in the original, the Mountain Indians were continually
conquering the Plains Indians, and China was overrunning Asia).
9. Adjusted many land combat values to get results more to my liking. For example, Musketmen are now A5-D5 instead of A6-D5 to make defending those objectives a bit easier. On the other hand, Mercenary Infantry are now A6-D4 so they will actually be used in battle and not garrison duty. Cannon have been split into 4 types based on technology level: Bombard and Light Cannon (early) and Heavy Cannon and Field Cannon (late). I got rid of the Hussar which was only used by the Holy Roman Empire anyway, and instead created the Dragoon, with stats A4-D6-M3 and which appears with the Musketman. These are extremely useful for defending widespread areas like Central Asia, and also escorting Treasures back to your capital. All these changes work together well in evoking the time period.
10. Adjusted naval combat values as well. Now there is a nice progression. In the 1600s, Caravels, Carrocks and Galleons must travel in groups to survive the predatory Privateers. Lone ships will be picked off. When the Frigate and Man-o-War make their appearance, they effectively hunt down and prey on the Pirates. However the Galleons are still needed for transport, and the Frigates end up escorting them. When in the late 1700s the Ship-of-the-Line is produced, it is a quantum leap in firepower and they are great for bombarding coastal cities, but are slower than Frigates. Every ship has it's niche and it has a good feel to it.
11. Adjusted ship movement values and coast/sea/ocean movement cost to remove wierd behavior of some ship types.
12. Renamed "barbarians" to "natives" (ok, just for fun) and made warriors and archers move 2, ignore forest and jungle move cost, and have a bit higher combat values. In TRG2 the natives are a real threat to lone musketeers or knights blundering through the primeval forests of America.
13. The Colonial Capitals are now much cheaper so they can actually be built in a reasonable time. However you need to have specific improvements to build them: Spice Factory for Colonial Capital #1, Sugar Mill for #2, and Fur Trading Post for #3. This will give a big benefit to the nation that disperses it's Colonial Empire rather than concentrating on a single region.
14. Victory conditions underwent a lot of trial-and-error adjustment to get the proportions just right. Players can now earn VPs not only by occupying the Objectives and returning Treasures, but also by achieving advances, building great wonders, conquering cities, and capturing enemy units. The monetary value of Treasures was reduced but their Victory Point value was increased (I was noticing AIs with 20,000+ unused gold by mid-game). A conquest victory is also possible.
15. Put back Oasis and Tropical Fruit resources. Not sure why they were taken out.
16. Added back several Great Wonders that had been removed. I think they were taken out to make room for the Colonial Capitals but really, there was no reason not to keep them in. Some like Magellan's Voyage are a little anachronistic but it's nice to have a good chance to build at least one if not two wonders during the scenario.
17. The original download had many errors in it such as misnamed files, missing folders, etc. I THINK all those are corrected.
18. Oh yea, I kept the download to under 10 MB so I could avoid using a 3rd party website. There is no fluff, this is a bare-bones as I could make it. Basically I removed graphics that were in the download, but not even used in the original game. I don't think anything was lost in the translation.
That's it! Enjoy and let me know if you run into any problems.
To Install the download: Unpack the zip a TGR2 folder under C:\Program Files\Infogrames Interactive\Civilization III\Conquests\Scenarios\TGR2, and save the biq in the Scenarios folder.
Primary sources for my changes:
1. The Great Race by Drake Rlugia
2. The Times Complete History of the World by Richard Overy (awesome book for any CIV fan).
3. Wikipedia (of course!)
![England [50%].png](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/attachments/123/123396-1b6191937fa5ab08c531ac59c5a749d5.jpg?hash=G2GRk3-lqw)
![EastEurope [50%].png](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/attachments/123/123397-c072728f3576ce324b6c27e3ebd60977.jpg?hash=wHJyjzV2zj)
![NorthAmerica [50%].png](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/attachments/123/123398-01f5b375acfb7afb64e799db696f1382.jpg?hash=AfWzdaz7ev)
OK, Good enough.
