Thinking about making a New Epic Mod. Anyone want to put some imput in?

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Well I think after years, Far Horizons is done. Towards the end I was moderately pleased with it. But i could never(of coarse) perfect it. I have trifled with other experiments, but I am, to be honest, not really a LH maker, I could never figure out that era pcxs thing some people do. (Although I have completed all the other pcs for some Lhs, along with the LHs themselves).

I'm thinking about a new epic mod. Mainly, I've seen all of Sandris great unit packs and it inspired me.

The main problem I always have with my approach to the epic game, is with the firaxis limit on culture groups. There are always a limit of five. And the two groups of Europeans are distinct, and its awkward to merge them to make way for others.

And as for others, I've always found myself at adds of which new culture groups, or old ones, to have.

African, then Middle Eastern(Which Starts as Mesopatamian), Indian(as in India), and Mesoamerican. I would like also to have a Northern Native American group to hold the Iroquois and other civs, but because of that culture group limit...

Also theres the East Asian group.

Again, I'm not sure what to do about this situation. I have afew ideas regarding the culture group problem, one of which is to make this mod unlike any other...

So basically, I'd have in this mod, an African group, an ackward European group, a Middle Eastern group, an Indian culture group, and a Mesoamerican culture group. The Iroquois and any other northern tribe of native americans would not be included in the mod at all.

As for this mod, I would not like to repeat the same Ancient, Middle Ages, Industrial and Modern rehash approach.

Maybe stop at the "Age of Reason" time period, as I like that time, and the Age of sail depicted in movies like Master and Commander and the pirate movies is just really cool in my opinion.

So if the "Age of Reason" is the last age, what would the other three ages be?

Maybe Bronze/Iron age for the first Epoch, then Middle Ages for the second, then for the third, the Renaissance?

Then comes the civilizations, this is no sure final list, I'd appreciate peoples opinions if you would like to share them with me.

Europe:

Spain
Germany
France
England
Russia
Romans
Scandenavia
Greeks

Middle East:

Egypt
Carthage
Arabs
Babylon
Assyria
Persia
Turks

India:

Perhaps Blue Monkey could fill us in here

East Asia:

Mongols
China
Korea
Japan

Mesoamerica:

Incans
Mayans
Aztecs

Africa:

Zulu
Ethiopia
Mali
Benin

Regarding the Culture Group problem:

One idea is to eliminate the Europeans. This would make the mod all about the civilizations other than Europe...

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Anyone?

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

Eliminating the Europeans altogether would make it a kind of "Years of Rice and Salt" situation. I'd say just keep the Europeans there. But you'd have to merge the "Mediterranean" group and the regular "European" category together. And of course that'd force you to put Africa under the "Middle East" group... At times like these, I'd be buying up a truck load of rotting tomatoes to chuck at the one who decided to hardcode these things!

Another option could be to do a regionally-focused epic mod. Just focus on one corner of the world.

 

[Deth McBones]

(Like the Master and Commander movies... )
But then you just get the Age of Sail, and Western civs...which has been done before.
Never mind.
I just like the Master and Commander movies.
Perhaps you could swap around regional types per era, for example, the "awkward Europeans" would have more Mediterranean look for the citizens and cities for the Bronze/Iron age, the next age would have more of a northern European feel (because of the shift in power/population/preference, or lack of power in the Mediteranean), and for the other two ages blend the two...you could extend this to have the MesoAmerican look in the early eras, then the Native American look in the later ages.
This is from an entirely historical perspective, to show the shifts in power...probably totally bad idea, but hey, at least I'm not lurking....

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Those are very good ideas.

I'd say I'd follow your advice Death regarding the Europeans.

I'd also eliminate the non-mesoamerican natives.

Maybe restrict the african civs to the northern ones, since they were heavily influenced by the middle eastern civilizations and would blend in easily to the middle eastern group.

 

[JSnider]

Well you could really just get ride of the standard cultures entirely with the associated civs connected to them and drop back to larger racial groupings, e.g. Indo-Aryan and so on. Then associate civs with them as you feel appropriate.

 

[Civinator]

To handle the limitation to 5 culture groups depends on the question if you want to do that mod for random maps or for a fixed map. On fixed maps there are possibilities to simulate much more than 5 culture groups also graphically.

Here is a link to early screenshots from my CCM-World Map:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4863067&postcount=15

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Well I have no problem with world maps, I just don't like limiting myself to them.

After some thinking, I think I will not include Europeans as a culture group, this will allow me to split the Middle East and Africa apart.

I will have Europe around though, because I remember some of the concepts I thought of in my NA mod thread. European mercanaries for example.

So basically its:

North African group

Middle-eastern

Mesoamerican

Indian

East Asian

I will be stopping the mod at 1700 AD.

Any thoughts?

 

[againsttheflow]

Kinda ot.. what's up with the Native America mod?

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

It required alot of things, like units, and other things, that were non-existant. And the leaderheads I made, I couldn't finish because of one last step. I didn't want to make a mod that would have holes in it pretty much. I'll revive it eventually. Perhaps it was too big, maybe having all of the natives toghether, maybe smaller, concentrated scenerios with different groups of them, like Mesoameran mods for example, would be better. I don't think you've seen the last of the first people in any case agaisttheflow..

If i ever did a scenerio of my own that wasn't a standard mod, it would involve the northern natives, probably the east coast tribes, like the Iroquois, Semimoles for example. They took names....

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I think I will return to the civs list as being the "official" in the opening post.

I'll outline something I had thought up earlier with one of my earlier mod ideas:

Each culture group of coarse, because of its society and views on war will have diffirent sorts of units. This goes beyond merely the signiture units of a certain civilization, like Rome's Legionaries for example, or the Incan Empire's Sun Warriors(UU unit for Incans in this mod as of now).

Certain civilizations will not deploy things that others will, and others can deploy things that others cannot because historically, they had the resources other civilizations lacked.

Here is a list:

Europeans: The European civs are probably, militarily the most well rounded militarily, and in the later part of the game, probably the most formidable in many areas. Of the European Civs, all of them have had Empires in all ages of this mod's time period(Stone Age to Age of Reason), or have struck feared in the hearts of those who have.


Middle East: This group comprosise those of the Mesopatamian group, egypt, the turks, as well as Carthage. This group has the distinction of that while its civilizations start out very diffirently in terms of battle tactics, generally speaking, eventually Middle Eastern Civs are more uniform, but not identical, although it is true that the Turks controled much of the Middle Eastern region at one point. The group is known for its strong Camelry during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Mesoamerica: This group makes up the civilizations of pre-columbian Mexico, with one exeption: The Incans. This group is composed of only infantry, but the Mayans also possess a siege weapon. They are divided into the peasant infantry, and the nobility. The spanish utterly conquered the Mexican region soon after cortez' bloody and brief war with the Aztecs, but the Incans in the andes managed to resist for another century. During the "Age of Reason" Mesoamerica militarily is represented by colonial spanish soldiers. This isn't a what-if mod.

Indian: I liked the idea of an Indian culture group ever since Rob used it in Anno Domini. But I know little about what an overall Stone Age to "Age of Reason" unit theme should be for theme(and don't say elephants.... )

African: See above, but this was because of Plotinus. Other than the Zulu's Impi tactics(Who aren't going to be in this mod btw) I don't know anything about what the civilizations like the Mali, Benin, etc did militarily.

East Asian: The three "dueling dragons" are represented in this mod of coarse. Korea, Japan, and China. Each of these civs play differently threwout the mod. China is an innovator, with a powerful military as well. They receive gunpowder weapons for infantry earlier than most other civilizations. Their naval units are better than europeans until the late Age of Reason(fourth Age). Japan is also a strong offensive power. The right combination of their various special units can be very deadly. Korea I don't know much about unit wise to form a concrete unit strategy for them(ingenius siege weapons, Hwarang, and Turtle Ships are not enough).

 

[Ogedei_the_Mad]

Koreans historically have dealt with quite a lot of invasions. They could be better at defense compared to other civs in the mod.

Not sure if Turks were "known" for Camel-riding warriors. They probably were better known for their Sipahi and Janissaries than camels.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Yeah I know about that my friend. According to my brother the Turks were also very skilled in siege warfare...

Its hard to lump everyone in with one generic strategic summary.

 

[againsttheflow]

I don't think you've seen the last of the first people in any case agaisttheflow..

Glad to hear it. I do recall thinking that the scope of the mod may have been too large so that sound cool too.

 

[TopGun]

in Africa, you shan't forget the Ethiopians!

 

[RedAlert]

And the leaderheads I made, I couldn't finish because of one last step.

Out of curiosity, what was this last step?

I think I will return to the civs list as being the "official" in the opening post.

I'll outline something I had thought up earlier with one of my earlier mod ideas:

Each culture group of coarse, because of its society and views on war will have diffirent sorts of units. This goes beyond merely the signiture units of a certain civilization, like Rome's Legionaries for example, or the Incan Empire's Sun Warriors(UU unit for Incans in this mod as of now).

Certain civilizations will not deploy things that others will, and others can deploy things that others cannot because historically, they had the resources other civilizations lacked.

Here is a list:

Europeans: The European civs are probably, militarily the most well rounded militarily, and in the later part of the game, probably the most formidable in many areas. Of the European Civs, all of them have had Empires in all ages of this mod's time period(Stone Age to Age of Reason), or have struck feared in the hearts of those who have.


Middle East: This group comprosise those of the Mesopatamian group, egypt, the turks, as well as Carthage. This group has the distinction of that while its civilizations start out very diffirently in terms of battle tactics, generally speaking, eventually Middle Eastern Civs are more uniform, but not identical, although it is true that the Turks controled much of the Middle Eastern region at one point. The group is known for its strong Camelry during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Mesoamerica: This group makes up the civilizations of pre-columbian Mexico, with one exeption: The Incans. This group is composed of only infantry, but the Mayans also possess a siege weapon. They are divided into the peasant infantry, and the nobility. The spanish utterly conquered the Mexican region soon after cortez' bloody and brief war with the Aztecs, but the Incans in the andes managed to resist for another century. During the "Age of Reason" Mesoamerica militarily is represented by colonial spanish soldiers. This isn't a what-if mod.

Indian: I liked the idea of an Indian culture group ever since Rob used it in Anno Domini. But I know little about what an overall Stone Age to "Age of Reason" unit theme should be for theme(and don't say elephants.... )

African: See above, but this was because of Plotinus. Other than the Zulu's Impi tactics(Who aren't going to be in this mod btw) I don't know anything about what the civilizations like the Mali, Benin, etc did militarily.

East Asian: The three "dueling dragons" are represented in this mod of coarse. Korea, Japan, and China. Each of these civs play differently threwout the mod. China is an innovator, with a powerful military as well. They receive gunpowder weapons for infantry earlier than most other civilizations. Their naval units are better than europeans until the late Age of Reason(fourth Age). Japan is also a strong offensive power. The right combination of their various special units can be very deadly. Korea I don't know much about unit wise to form a concrete unit strategy for them(ingenius siege weapons, Hwarang, and Turtle Ships are not enough).

I like where you're going with this. I have more to say, but I guess I'll do that in your other thread, seeing as you are having a unit discussion there.