The World at 1000 A.D.

[allan2]

Anyone ever done a Worldwide scenario starting at, say, 1000 A.D.? One that starts with the seven most dominant civs representing all corners of the world, at their historic tech and power levels at 1000 A.D., but then proceeds into a "regular" Civ game, ending at 2020 A.D.?

Say you have:

the Vikings
the Holy Roman Empire
Islamic Caliphates
Mongols
Indians
Anasazi
Incas

It's hard to find a map of the entire world at 1000 A.D., anyone know a source? Also I'm not entirely sure who held most sway in the Americas at that time, although the great cities of the Mayas had fallen by then, and the Aztecs weren't yet ascendant (but the Olmecs were at their height then, I believe). The Anasazi were in full bloom then too.

Other scattered cities or settlements that weren't part of these seven civs could be owned by "barbarians" (i.e. red).

Thoughts?

 

[EmuGod]

I'd have to check but I believe that the Cahokia were the dominant power in America north of the Rio Grande river at the time.

 

[Ludovit]

Great! This was just what I was planning to make. I just couldn't decide about the starting year.

In America, Incas were starting and in Mexico there were Toltecs I think (Olmecs were B.C.) Their empire fell for unkown reasons, but most probably for large tribe motion to the south. Aztecs came to scene in 13?? probably with these tribes. They settled in central Mexico. How about making a half-living civ with no cities, no settlers, just a group of units that would have to move to Mexico and conquer some city there to start? Is it possible at all?

I would replace Mongols with Chinese, because Mongol empire in Asia scattered soon after Genghis Khan's death. I'd make them just a very strong Barb nation.

In Europe, perhaps you could take whole christian Europe as one civilization.

 

[willemvanoranje]

it's a very big job, and too bad you can't have like 30 civs or something....would be far more suitable.

 

[allan2]

Actually I've evolved the idea into something else: a scenario that starts at 1500 A.D., covers the era from the first European explorations up into the early industrial era (around 1900 in our time, "Flight" and "Hydropower" being the last two techs needed for future technology). It was inspired a little by the old Koei Nintendo game, "Uncharted Waters" (and its later version, "New Horizons"), which was a game involving a protagonist finding trade ports in the age of exploration, trading with them, gaining money, and using some of that money to "buy" the port into your country's sphere of influence, all the while avoiding (or fighting, if you prefer) both pirates, and the fleets of whatever country(ies) you've pissed off by buying up their ports.

Anyway, while UC/NH centered around a private subject building up his fleets and doing stuff for his ruler, and not the ruler himself, the Civ2 scenario obviously will have the scope of a ruler. But the initial strategy in the game will be to seek out trade ports (controlled by the barbs) and buy them up, as the game starts with few ground attack units (most of the defense units put in cities can't move). As you build up your empire and gain some techs, you start getting more effective units for conquest, but it starts out mainly with economic conquest (hopefully at playtesting time, the AI "catches on" to this as well--any tips for this?)--so get those trade routes started, make money, and have your "Missionaries" (dips) "convert" barb cities (or other civs' cities, of course) with some of that money!

The civs: Italians, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, Turks, English, and Chinese, with barbs holding most of the cities. Play any one of the 5 European powers and colonize the world, or play the Turks and try to make inroads into Europe or to the east, or try playing the Chinese, who are about even in some techs with Europe, but start out completely lacking naval techs--can you prepare for the arrival of the Europeans, while fighting barb Mongols on your frontiers?

One device I'm trying (we'll see if it works): as you all probably know, the only way to "create" barb cities is to start with an undefended city under control of a civ, and put a barb unit next to it to take it. So, I've made many of the cities that historically ended up in Spain's hands, for instance, "Spanish" cities for the barbs to take, the East Indies cities mainly "Dutch" ones, etc. I'm curious as to whether the "city formally under civ x's control" flag will thus go on, and the AI will gravitate to their respective "former cities" and try to conquer them first. Anyone know if I'm on to something here? But, the consequence of this is that each civ knows a little more of the map than they really did historically at 1500 AD--but I figured, the human player knows the geography of our world anyway, so it won't be that big a deal really. Look at it as: your traders have received rumors that certain cities beyond where you've explored exist. Anyway, SOME barb cities won't be known by anyone (at least I hope this technique will work), as I've set up a dummy civ with all but one of its cities threatened by barbs, and once I run turn two and the barbs take all those cities, I'll eliminate that civ and set up the Chinese in the same slot (the "Sioux" slot, with leader attributes altered to the typical Chinese pattern, but I wanted China in the purple slot).

Anyway--that should tell you where I'm at now. There will be about 200 cities, so only room for 50 or so more (unless some are destroyed, of course), so while this is an empire-building game, it will involve taking a lot of cities that already exist (as they did, at that time), and conquering various indigenous peoples represented by the barbs--who I understand DO gain techs, slowly, if they hold cities in Civ--and of course, developing the lands you end up controlling (Europe is already about as fully developed as possible (minus farmland), with "urbanization" terrain (I took out glaciers) in place (4 food/2 shield/4 trade)--China also has some of this, as does some parts of India (controlled by barbs), and no more of this terrain can be made until you get Civil Engineers and transformation. This terrain was primarily used to comensate for the crowding of cities on the European continent, India, and China).

The tech tree is pretty much done (there are a few things I may tweak yet with it), and involves more lateral progression than the usual tech tree (all but one or two techs, besides the bedrock techs, have two prerequisites), so I think there will be more possible routes up it than usual. All civs start as "Feudal Monarchies" (the Monarchy government), the barbs are in "Tribalism" (despotism), and the government progression is "Empire" (communism, modified for distance 10 from palace (Empires DID have corruption) and 4 units supported rather than the 3 in monarchy), "Modern Republic" (republic), and "Constitutional Government" (democracy)--there is no Fundamentalism, and no Statue equivalent allowing it either (I contemplated putting "Communism" in that slot, as communism itself did appear in the VERY latter stages of the time frame depicted, but realized that all the money fundyism makes doesn't "fit" with communism).

The map I made from scratch, I think is fairly good (if I may complement myself on the first time I made a map of the Earth on the map editor) for game purposes. One thing the player will notice is that the isthmus of Panama appears a little wider than it should on scale--I purposely made it at least two squares wide the whole length of Central America, to make a "Panama canal" city impossible (because, well, it WAS historically, in that era). However, when you get Civil Engineers, swampland can be transformed to ocean, and I left a patch of that swampland in Panama, so the human player can "build" a Panama canal EVENTUALLY if he gains control of that area (I doubt the AI will ever figure it out), but I think an engineer will be lost in the process (which, if so, is just as well, as many died historically in the canal's construction). Same with the Suez canal, too (and there really IS swamp along the Red Sea there). Historically, the lack of these canals existing or being possible was a huge constraint for fleets, and I've always felt a big flaw in many scenarios of these past eras was that it was possible to build cities in such locations that you get a Panama or Suez canal equivalent. In this scenario, you have to WORK for it!

Also, on my map the Pacific is as wide as it should be (this is a 70 by 140 map, if I recall correctly), so even when China eventually gets naval abilities, they won't be appearing in the Americas all that soon. Also, the "Northwest passage" is impossible (west of the Hudson Bay, it's tundra all the way to the top), as is the voyage over the top of Eurasia--realistically, these areas were impassible due to ice--so the northern limit is pretty much at the latitude a quarter of the way up Greenland, or halfway up Alaska.

Wonders:
(existing)
the Kaaba of Mecca (Turks) (Shake's) -- no expiration
the Pyramids of Cairo (Turks) (Pyramids) -- exp. Modern Republic
the Great Wall of Changan (Chinese) (Great Wall) -- exp. Opium Trade
the Gate of Heavenly Peace of Peking (Chinese) (Oracle) -- exp. Opium Trade
(note: "Opium Trade"--prereq. Opiates and Empire--is more a conceptual type of advance, representing the British Opium Wars historically--actual trade in opium of course had been around forever. The Opium Trade advance is needed for Secret Service (makes spies possible), along with Rifling)
Michaelangelo's Chapel of Rome (Italians) (same) -- exp. Religious Reformation
The Book of Kells of Cork (Portuguese, vulnerable to English at beginning) (Great Library) -- exp. Religious Reformation
(note: this represents that order of monks in Ireland that preserved a lot of knowledge during the Dark Ages)
City of Tenochtitlan in Tenochtitlan (barbs) (Hanging Gardens)-- exp. Conquest of Mexico (event-driven advance)
Taj Mahal of Agra (barbs) (Cure for Cancer) -- no expiration

Wonders to be built:
J.S. Bach's Cathedral (same) -- req. Opera, no exp.
Masonic Order (Marco Polo's) -- req. Secret Societies, at beginning the English, Dutch, and Spanish are each working on it, no exp.
Magellan's Expedition (same) -- req. Navigation, Spanish working on it, no exp.
Drake's Expedition (Lighthouse) -- req. Naval Doctrine
Cortez' Conquests (Sun Tzu's) -- req. Navy, Spanish working on it, exp. Rifled Artillery
East India Company (Adam Smith's) -- req. Trading Companies, no exp. (I though of making it expire at the Corporation, but that may be too short a span for it)
Galileo's Observatory (Copernicus) -- req. Optics, no exp.
Isaac Newton's College (same) -- req. Theory of Gravity, ne exp.
Nobel Institute (SETI) -- req. Dynamite, one Laboratory in every city (Laboratories available with Optics), no exp.
Dr. Livingston's Expedition (Apollo, reveals whole map) -- req. Frontiersmanship, no exp.
Abolition of Slavery (Eiffel) -- req. Egalitarianism, no exp.
Federalist Papers (Suffrage) -- req. Constitutional Gov't, no exp.
Bell Laboratories (Darwin's) -- req. The Telegraph, no exp.
Geneva Convention (UN) -- req. International Law, no exp.
Grand Central Station (King Richard's) -- req. Subways, no exp.
Transcontinental Railroad (Hoover Dam) -- req. Trade Unions, one Subway in every city, no exp. (I've thought of bumping the requirement back to Railroad, but that predates Subways.)

There is no equivalent for Manhattan Project, Leo's, or the Statue of Liberty.

Improvements:
Monastery (temple) -- Monasticism
Market (marketplace) -- Trade
Library (same) -- Literacy
Barracks (same) -- Chivalry, upgrade at Adv. Gunsmithing and Federal Army
Harbor (same) -- Seafaring
Cathedral/Mosque (Cathedral) -- Religious Leadership (effects increased by Theology, decreased by Empire)
Palace (same) -- Feudal Monarchy
Castle Walls (City Walls) -- Feudal Monarchy
Aqueduct (same) -- Engineering
Sewer System (same) -- Sanitation
University (same) -- University
Shipyard (Port Facility) -- Guild Shipwrights
Theatre (Colloseum) -- Drama (effects increased by Opera)
Lookout Post (SAM Battery against Hurricane (barb only) units) -- Meteorology
Customs House (Courthouse) -- Customs Service
Merchant Marine (Bank) -- Naval Shipyards
Laboratory (Research Lab) -- Optics
Foundry (Factory) -- Adv. Metallurgy
Shore Battery (Coastal Fortress) -- Adv. Ship Artillery
Hull Foundry (Power Plant) -- Iron Hulls
(note: there IS pollution in this scenario!)
Factory (Manufacturing Plant) -- Industrialization
Cannery (Supermarket) -- Canning (note: the "Refrigeration" slot is held by Flood Control, which comes quite a bit before Canning (which requires Industrialization + Pasteurization))
Stock Exchange (same) -- The Corporation (note: I know exchange houses were around since the 1500s, but I'm thinking modern stock exchanges)
Subway (Hydro Plant) -- Subways
Commuter Trains (Superhighways) -- Subways
Union Hall (Nuclear Plant) -- Trade Unions (note: this advance holds the "Fusion Power" slot (Magnetism holds the "Nuclear Power" slot), so there is no "meltdown" risk--although I originally thought of having it otherwise, and may still do that)
Polling Place (Police Station) -- Constitutional Gov't
Commercial Fisheries (Offshore Platform) -- International Law
Hospital (Mass Transit) -- Hospitals
Hydro Plant (Solar Plant) -- Hydropower
Airport (same) -- Flight

Some key units:
Missionary (Diplomat) -- Religious Leadership
Spy (Spy) -- Secret Service
Merchant (Caravan) -- Trade
Trade Delegation (Freight) -- Empire
Builder (Settler) -- Engineering
Civil Engineer (Engineer) -- Civil Engineering
Balloons occupy helicopter slot (but aren't for combat, just scouting) -- Ballooning
Explorer (same, with same abilities more or less) -- Exploration
Scout (a 2-viz, stronger-defense explorer) -- Frontiersmanship
Royal Legation (the first Marine-type unit, okay against barb cities with Archers but not as well against stronger defenders) -- Piracy
Customs Guard (one of an array of zero-movement defensive units, this one sees two spaces) -- Customs Service
Conquistador -- Naval Doctrine (amphib. capability)
Marines -- Conscription
Advanced Marines -- International Law
Triremes are available with Sailing Ships, and the progression in ship technology starts from here (note: Chinese are the only ones that don't start with this, but "Chinese Tech" allows Junks, which are triremelike with a movement of only 2 but a hull capacity of 2)
Caravel -- Guild Shipwrights
Privateer -- Piracy
Carrack -- Navigation
Galleon -- Navy
Galeass -- Navy
Frigate -- Magnetism
Full-Rigged Ship -- Naval Shipyards
Advanced Frigate -- Adv. Ship Artillery
Privateer Gunship -- Opium Trade
Clipper Ship -- Postal Service
Steamer -- Steamships
Ironclad -- Iron Hulls
Steamliner -- Industrialization
Constitution-Class Battleship (Const. Class BB) -- International Law
Destroyer -- Torpedoes
Cruiser -- Steel Mills
Battleship -- Automobile

All ships after Meteorology (Meteorology + Navy --> Naval Shipyards) "see" Storm units (note: "Storms" are barb submarine units, "Hurricanes" are barb air units spawned periodically in the sea by event). Also, after Steamships, speeds of available ships increase dramatically.

Well, this is a rather thorough rundown, I haven't told you TOO much (nothing you couldn't find in my scenario's Civilopedia, really), and there will be quite a few surprises. I am actually almost done with the detailed work, but there will probably be a lot of fine-tuning left to do.

A preliminary title I'm thinking of is "Empire" -- this is the key concept of the game, and the "Empire" tech is a big tech hub in the tech tree. What do you think?

 

[.:KNAS:.]

It sounds terrific. I would definetly play it.

BTW, ever played the scenario "Imperialism"? (i don't know by whom) But that scenario starts a few hundred years later though.

 

[allan2]

Check out this tech tree (this is sort of the working version--I may have forgotten to reroute some of the arrows whenever I made a change, and lately I've been tweaking it some when in the scenario editor, but this gives an idea).

Note: you may notice that "Optics" (which allows the Laboratory/Research Lab equivalent) appears a bit early on. Well not to worry, I've countered this by making the Laboratory VERY expensive to build. Indeed, by the time Nobel (the SETI equivalent, prerequisite Dynamite) rolls around, that wonder could still save a civ a LOT of money.

(btw, I hope this attachment works, it's from a QuattroPro spreadsheet, and I also hope it's not too big!)

Edit: well, HTML eliminated the arrows (which were a confusing tangle anyway, really), but here it is.... Also, I see I forgot to edit a few things in the boxes--there is no longer a "Slavery" tech, so Sailing Ships and GUNPOWDER lead to Piracy. A few other oddball techs are still in there--Religion and Masonry are now givens, i.e. not in the tree.

 

[allan2]

Alright, I corrected some things:

Oh, and another thing... forgot to mention the "Colossus" equivalent (how could I forget THAT), Malacca Spice Market in Malacca (barb.) -- no exp.

 

[duke o' york]

If you want to give this a new angle on history then I'd have one of the Portuguese cities begin by building Magellan's voyage as well as one of the Spanish ones. Magellan (as the poster here, Portuguese, would be only too happy to point out) was Portuguese but made his voyage for Spain after being snubbed by the Portuguese monarchy. I'd hope that the Portuguese player in this game would never do something so stupid and so you should let both civs begin to build the expedition as if the two kings were approaching Magellan to fund his voyage and gain prestige for their kingdoms. Whoever finishes the wonder first is assumed to have persuaded Magellan that they would be able to give him a better-equipped expedition and be able to reward him more gold on its completion. Not supposed to make Magellan some kind of auction whore, but it would be an interesting twist to history if the Portuguese had stronger naval power than the Spanish.
Just a thought.

 

[allan2]

Good idea! I think I'll do it. Of course, the "loser" would switch to Drake's Voyage probably, as Naval Doctrine is researchable relatively soon for both Spanish and Portuguese (the English start the game researching it, while the Spanish and Portuguese are researching other things but will be done with those soon enough). One flaw of CivII I always hated was that a civ could "switch" to another wonder, without any shield loss no less.... As if you could start building the Cure for Cancer and, when somebody discovers it first, WHAM! Your Hoover Dam's most of the way done from nothing! Maybe I can counter this by slowing the tech paradigm, although I can't do this too much else the tech progression would seem too slow in real time (my proposed last-turn year is 1900).

***

Well, I found out that you can't have any barb cities unknown by EVERYBODY--I tried setting up the dummy civ for the barbs to take out, but found you can't restart an eliminated civ after they take the old one out (and I left the "don't restart" box unchecked for this very purpose--hmmm...). SO, either the Chinese start by knowing all of Polynesia, Australia, and Western North America, or there's another way to do this. I SINCERELY hope the latter (China was just TOO isolationist at that time for such geographical knowledge), any suggestions here?

Some questions about barb "civs":

How fast can a barb "civ" discover tech? As quickly as any Despotism civ of comparable size? Or slower?

And I know certain unit slots are used by barbs to "upgrade" units from those previously generated (i.e. at some point in a regular game, you go from barb horsemen, to elephants, to crusaders, to dragoons, etc.), does this mean that a barb city won't ALWAYS produce those units "seeded" by the original unit that conquered them? What other implications do these slots have? Do I need to be careful what I put into those slots? (Actually, I wouldn't mind at all having barb units advance in strength over time--i.e. the later you wait to conquer, the tougher it will be.)

When barbs gain techs, can they USE them the same way a normal civ would? I.e. can they start building better defensive units, or do I need to event-add them (something which could take up all my event space too quickly)?

Can barb cities build improvements? Will they always maintain those improvements I've started the cities with?

I've put palaces in a few barb cities (some cities, like St. Petersburg or Osaka, I want unbribeable). Will these be maintained?

I have the European Russian cities as part of the barbs, yet I want this area to be as formidable a barrier as it really was to Eastward expansion--i.e. I DEFININTELY want this particular area to "keep up" with the ground-military tech of Europe. I even thought of sacrificing the Italians (but who would get the Italian cities?) for the Russians as a civ--but that would destroy the character of the game, I think (boy, I wish you could have more than 7 civs!), being as it is about a contest for maritime supremacy. Must I use events, or is there an effective way to automate the process?

***

Other notes:

You may have noticed there is no French civ. I started with the 6 powers represented in "Uncharted Waters" (one of my favorite "other" games)--Spain, Portugal, Italy, Holland, England, and Turkey--and added China (I DEFINITELY want them as a playable civ). When mapping Europe then, I was thinking not so much in terms of DIRECT political control, as in terms of "spheres of influence" (a UW concept). So when it came to drawing up that territory which was historically France, I put Bordeaux with the Portuguese, Marseilles with Italy and Paris with the Dutch. I didn't really know how else to do it, and I believe Paris was more "northern European" than the other French cities represented. Actually, if I can recall from memory (I'm at work now), here is the working breakdown of European cities by civ:

English--London, Plymouth, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Dublin, and Belfast (and maybe Cork, with the Book of Kells, although I've so far had it with Portugal to "balance" their relative lack of cities in Europe--also being a possible Catholic strongpoint when that distinction becomes significant, which it will). Debating whether to give them some Scandinavian cities, rather than the Dutch having them all.

Dutch--Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Bergen, Oslo, Stockholm, Lubeck, Danzig

Portuguese--Lisbon, Bordeaux, Cork (possibly), Madeira

Spanish--Seville (capital), Madrid, Barcelona, Cartagena, La Coruna, Tenerife, Tangier (in Morocco) (note: when DID the Spanish really start penetrating Morocco? I have Fez for the Turks.) (second note: I'm thinking of eliminating La Coruna and replacing it with Bilbao, so I can create Oporto for the Portuguese, but I'd still have to expand Iberia, which is already slightly bigger than scale.)

Italians--Rome, Genoa, Venice, Naples, Catania, Marseilles, Vienna, Munich, Ragussa (Dubrovnik), Athens

Turks--Istanbul, Budapest, Belgrade, Odessa, Sevastopol, Trebizond, Smyrna, Antioch, Beirut, Jerusalem, Mecca, Aden, Muscat, Hormuz, Doha, Baghdad, Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz, Meshed, Suez, Cairo, Alexandria, Tunis, Algiers, Fez (note: Turks have a lot of cities, but are significantly behind in key tech areas (particularly in naval techs), so hopefully this balances.)

In Europe, barbs get: Moscow (palace), St. Petersburg (palace), Kiev, Tiflis, Samara, Volgograd, Riga, Helsingfors, Keflavik (Iceland). They also get Tripoli (pirates galore!) in North Africa, and most of the rest of the world.

Any suggestions for improving this breakdown? I'm wondering about making the Dutch smaller (they WERE a bit of an underdog in Europe then, at war with Spain), like I said maybe giving some of their cities to the English.

Oh, and as for colonies elsewhere, only Spain and Portugal start out with any, representing what they historically had at 1500. The Turks have Zanzibar also.

***

Unfortunately, I may have to redo the whole shebang again! I failed to notice from previous such doings that you CANNOT (at least as far as I've been able to figure out) add rivers with the "change terrain at cursor" command, and I forgot to put rivers in China before building the scenario on my worldmap! WHY can't you add rivers?!? Sure, I can put in "ocean" squares to represent navigable channels (which the Yangtze was), but the significance of river squares for trade is lost, and besides the map just doesn't "look right" anymore. (I also forgot the Volga, too.) Actually, if I DO redo the map, I can correct some minor discrepancies that have also bothered me some (like the necessary foreshortening of South America at the bottom, which came about since the Cape of Good Hope, about ten degrees further north than Cape Horn, was near the bottom of the map; and the distortion of Siberia/Alaska near the top). Besides, it will give me a chance to rebuild the tech tree from scratch, because I already have changed too many things with it anyway....

Well, I'll keep what I have now and do another map--if I like it better, I'll use it.

 

[Arthedain]

this is a great idea for a scenario indeed.

I think you should weaken the Dutch a bit. They shouldn't have that big influence in scandinavia. Well maybe in Denmark but not in Sweden.
And also, the Italians shouldn't be so strong since it was only city-states by 1500. Venedig and Genua had some great fleets though. You have to do something about this cause Italy wasn't a kingdom until the 19th century.

 

[Henrik]

The Dutch where pretty much the ones pulling the strings in Scandinavia from 1500 and onwards...
Both in Sweden and Denmark. For instance the one who founded the Swedish colony at Delawere was the same man who founded New Holland a few years earlier, Peter Minuit. While the two nations fought thier own wars the dutch where allways there when it came to the peace treaties, they are the ones to make sure that Denmark lose thier monopoly on the Öresund tolls for instance (which had made the Danish king the richest monarch in europe for a time making him the personal money lender of Elizabeth I and so on)...

Btw I am currently making a scenario (which is now in playtest stage) starting in 1520 and running to 1721, that one will only encompass europe and will have England, France, Spain, Austria (The german habsburgs, who will partially be in controll of the Holy Roman empire...), Sweden, the Ottoman Empire and Denmark.
In this scenario I had to exclude Holland for instance as it's power could not be well reflected on a map of europe...

ANYWAY I am definatly looking forward to playing this scenario, the period is one of my favourites and this is looking very interesting

One thing, I haven't read the entire thread yet so this might allready be adressed, but how are you going to handle the Dutch being part of Spain untill the later part of the 1500s?

Also I'd consider cutting the portuguese if you are going to start this at 1500 as thier time was largely over by then (they become part of Spain in the later part of the 16th century).
For an alternate civ I suggest the Japanese for an interesting civ choise or perhaps you could add the Russians?

I'd make the portuguese tough barbs for the Dutch and Spanish to conquer (as happened in history).

 

[allan2]

Henrik, maybe I can help playtest your scenario--it may give me some more ideas to use in mine . Particularly how to balance it well, something I'm scratching my head on at the moment (I've a feeling the Turks may be too powerful--although I've made them rational civilized perfectionists to maybe counter this some).

As for the Dutch being part of Spain, I knew that, and I guess (like the game "Uncharted Waters" did) I ignored it--they broke away soon enough, and were in the process of breaking away at that time, I think. Btw, William of Orange is my working civ leader for them! (Note that, for gameplay, I've made a few modifications of the actual history--for instance, I knew St. Petersburg was nothing but swamp in the 1500s, as Peter the Great built it in the early 1700s, yet I included it to help bolster the barrier Russia presented to overland conquest to the east. I wish I could "event-build" a city (if the space is still available at the given spot), but I can't so this will have to do.)

However, lately I've been thinking of substituting the Dutch for the French. Maybe I'll end up doing that after all. As for Italy, this IS a seapower scenario, and how does one incorporate the great shipbuilding and sea-trading cities of Genoa and Venice? If I use the "Holy Roman Empire" as the incorporation of Italy and Germany, it will be hard to represent the north-south schism that the Reformation precipitated (which will be part of the game).

Portugal was still too significant then, too--remember, the Pope gave them mandate over Brazil, they had just become the first Europeans to find a sea route to India and East Asia, and I believe they were the first European power to make significant penetration (influence-wise) into India, China and Japan. Excluding them from a seapower scenario of this era just wouldn't seem right, I don't think. As Duke was suggesting, this could very well be a "what if" scenario--could Portugal have become more powerful, given different decisions it could have made? It was at its peak then, and it WAS a power on the sea.

Does CivIII have a good scenario editor available yet? I haven't bought CivIII yet, and won't until it has these kinds of features. But that game DOES allow more than 7 civs, so it just may be what I need. But I've already come pretty far with this, although I'm more and more tempted to start the whole map over (and hence, much of the tedious work again ). I've seen advice to create scenarios in the Deity level (I worked in King level, what I usually still play ), that this makes them most suitable for play for some reason (he didn't explain WHY--this was from one of the scenario creation guides here) in ALL levels--so since I've made it so far in King, I may have to start over anyway.

But I think I'm going to try a scenario or two from this period and maybe get some ideas. Is yours available for download, for playtesting? I'll look for some others too. But I want mine to emphasize sea power--indeed, most of the units are different types of ships.

 

[Henrik]

If you want to help playtest I suggest you join the second pbem playtest which is being set up over at apolyton ( http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72088 ,you could also just post your mail adress so that I can send you the url). The scenario is indeed available for download but I am not allowed to post the link openly in this forum so I'll have to mail it to you.
And as I said our scenarios are going to have some significant differences as yours takes place on a world map and mine is on a giga map of europe.

I wouldn't consider civ 3 for scenario editing, it does have tools but they are stil inferior to what the original version of civ 2 had (pre CiC or FW).

Although I generally hate such civs, how about a "mercantile" civ or similar which would encompass both the Dutch and the Italian city states (as well as possibly Danzig, Lübek, etc as well)?
This would give you room for a french civ...
I still think portugal could be either grouped with spain or made barbarian (if for nothing else to allow some more diversity, China is going to be pretty lonely back east...) but that is up to you

I understand about St. Petersburg (though I should probably add that while there where indeed nothing but swamps there in 1500, those swamps wheren't even Russian at the time, nor was they even when the city was built historically!).

Again this project looks very promising, I love this kind of scenarios (lots of opertunities to take history into new directions, etc) and I love the period
I'd love to playtest when the time comes (also I am certain this scenario would make a very good pbem).

 

[allan2]

Sent you a PM regarding your scenario. Can you PM the link?

As for China being alone, they'll be surrounded by some formidable barb cities. Any expansion they do will come with either a fight or lots of cash (I've put Customs Houses (Courthouses) in many of the cities, and Osaka and Ayuthaya (Bangkok) will have palaces). The cities to the north and west are in Mongol country, with Mongol units (3-movement cavalry) coming from them now and then. No, they won't be alone . The AI China probably won't expand much if at all (which was pretty much the historical case anyway)--I've made the leader a perfectionist--but the human playing China will hopefully have a good challenge penetrating the barb lands, while preparing for the Europeans to get there whenever they do (I've wondered about how to get the AI European civs to gravitate toward China, as they certainly did historically--I mean, I know the AI always tries to seek out the human, but will the rather simple movement algorithms allow the ships to actually GET there, around Africa and all that? There is no Suez Canal either).

Anyway, I've just started playing the Imperialism 1870 scenario, and although the scope of this game is very different (monthly turns from 1870 through 1900, versus yearly turns from 1500 to 1900), I've gotten a bit of insight into early-industrial tech development, and I may make a few modifications to the late-game tech tree and units based on this. I've downloaded a couple other "Age of Discovery"-era scenarios from CFC and will look at these next. And of course, hopefully yours too, Henrik!



P.S. Speaking of movement algorithms, I wonder now if it was a mistake putting London on the zero-vertical axis (I did this initially when making the map, to keep a little track of what space I had as far as longitude as I made the landmasses)--I didn't think of this before, but isn't there some sort of complication with AI ships moving from point A to B through the zero axis? Might be another reason to remake the map--or use the Imperial 1870 map (that is a BEAUTIFUL gigamap of the world), with some modifications like widening the Panama and Suez isthmuses to make canals impossible before their time (i.e. until you get the Engineers that can transform swamp to ocean).

But any of you scenario pros have tips about where to put the zero axis, or is this really an issue?

 

[Henrik]

PMed you a reply
I've also made a small update to the discovery age scenario that ships with the game if you're interested in that.
I modified it quite a bit (placed it on a gigaworld map, changed the playable civs, units, govts, etc).
If you want to have a look I'll upload that and send you the url to it as well (it IS just a simple update though, and I haven't devoted as much time to it as I have "'de Historibus Europae" which has been under development for almost two years)-

 

[Legions4Ever]

Henrik, I would definately like a copy of that if you please!

 

[Henrik]

Historibus or the updated discovery age?

 

[Kamilian]

you said in one of the posts that you advanced the idea into a world thats 1500 up to the 20th century. You said that eastern europe as well as Russia would be all barbarian. Well I'm from Poland and dont fancy the idea of my country being represented as Barbarians. Poland was a quite powerful monarchy at the time - it was joined in a personal union with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the time. That meant that it was like a confederation of two monarchies that took up all of what we now call central and eastern Poland, roughly half of the Baltic States, and all of mdoern Ukraine, and Belarus. It wasn't technologically backward compared to its fellow kingdoms, or at least if it was then not by much, and already had the Teutonic Knights of Prussia as a fiefdom. The same goes for Russia. It was, indeed, still recovering from Tatar rule, but it was already rising in power as the Grand Principality of Muscovy. If you want some Barbarians in eastern Europe, then please just make SOME of those areas Barbarian, and the rest, Polish-Lithuanian (suggestion for the Poles and Lithuanians) and Muscovite(suggestion for the Russians), because you only have 5 civs so far.