[WARLORDS MOD + SCENARIO] Legends of Ancient Arabia

[vktj]

Happy New Year 2022! I attach a 2022 revision of Legends of Ancient Arabia:

• Underground canals bug fix
• New map script: ArabianTotestra
• One more Arabian Caulixtla variant added to the collection of static maps (scenarios)

To extract, use 7-zip: https://7-zip.org

 

[vktj]

Updated for 2025:

• We no longer gimp the Arabian Merchant. This is I believe closer to the original intention of the mod: The game is now a game of going to war instead of an economic grind.
• Two more maps added.
• Another mapscript added to the base mod: Sandypelago, which is great for making large purely land maps.

People have brought up updating this Mod for BTS multiple times over the years. Here in 2025, where I am running Civ4 in Windows 11 with a 4 gigahertz processor, the end of turn wait issue is now a non-issue: Turns now end quickly. Likewise, the once very slow Perfect World style map generators are now reasonably fast.

To install Legends of Ancient Arabia (updated for 2025):

Download the attached file. In Windows 11, no special software is needed to open this file. In previous versions of Windows and maybe MacOS, go to 7-zip.org to download 7-zip.

Make sure Civilization 4 Complete is installed. In the install location for Civ4 (e.g. Program Files (x86)/2KGames/Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete/, but your exact path is probably different), look for Warlords/, then look for Mods/. Put the Ancient Arabia/ folder in that Mods folder.

Now, start up Civ 4 Warlords, go to Advanced → Load a Mod → Ancient Arabia.

This will start up Legends of Ancient Arabia. To start out, start a single player game, choose the EZRLakmidCaulixtla map, and play the Lakmids at Settler difficulty. This will be a long but easy game, have fun!

 

[vktj]

I didn’t get a chance to add this to the 2025 version of LoAA, but attached are two maps:

• A smaller version of the Arabian Caulixtla map. This version has the same general shape and climate, but there are notable differences in the geography, e.g. the lake in the middle of the land is now gone, and there is only one single small island accessible without deep sea sailing. Like with the bigger version of Arabian Caulixtla, some land is accessible once Dhows (deep sea sailing) are available. This map results in a lot faster and more tactical play; like Arabian Caulixtla, the land mass supports nine players.
• The same smaller Arabian Caulixtla map, but with the full world rendered. This results in making a domination victory harder, and in there being more land accessible via deep sea sailing.

To install, place it in the PublicMaps/ folder. In more detail: In the install location for Civ4 (e.g. Program Files (x86)/2KGames/Sid Meier's Civilization 4 Complete/, but your exact path is probably different), look for Warlords/, then look for Ancient Arabia/ then look for PublicMaps/. Omit the folder name in the .7z file and place just the .CivWarlordsWBSave files in the PublicMaps/ folder.

 

[vktj]

This is a patch for Ancient Arabia 2025. To install, install Ancient Arabia 2025, then paste these files over the files in Ancient Arabia 2025. Included in this patch:

• Four more maps, including the two smaller Arabian Caulixtla maps posted earlier in this thread. All new maps are variants on the Arabian Caulixtla maps.
• One more map script: SandypelagoBig.py, which makes larger versions of Sandypelago maps, and has the maps have a 4x3 instead of a 1x1 aspect ratio (the “Duel” map is smaller than the normal Sandypelago Duel map and square though)
• Since Arabian maps have large desert areas where barbarians thrive, the ancient Arabians adapted by learning extensive combat techniques from fighting barbarians. This in mind, the maximum experience Arabian units can have when fighting barbarians has been doubled. If this change is not desired, delete the GlobalDefinesAlt.xml file.

The patch is attached to this post. If using Windows 10 or sooner, get 7-Zip at 7-zip.org. Or update to Windows 11.

 

[vktj]

Interesting bug:

1. When the victory condition is domination
2. And the player has gotten enough land to go over the 60% threshold to win the game during his turn (i.e. not with cultural expansion which happens at the beginning of a turn), by for example having a settler establish a new city.
3. And the player is not the first player
4. And another computer AI player which goes before the player attacks’s one of the player’s units during the game

What happens is this:

1. The game declares the player has a domination victory
2. After the AI attacks one of the player’s units, the game freezes and it’s only possible to save the game
3. If we load that saved game, it’s possible to continue play, get the domination victory, and see how the game was played out in the recap screens.

So the workaround if the games freezes right after winning is to save the game, then load that saved game to continue seeing the victory screens and continue playing if desired.

 

[vktj]

This is anoother patch for Ancient Arabia 2025. To install, install Ancient Arabia 2025, then paste these files over the files in Ancient Arabia 2025. Included in this patch are all of the items in the previous patch against AncientArabia-2025, as well as the following:

• The map script ArabianTotestra.py now, when giving the player handicap resources, gives the player resources which are really useful in the Legends of Ancient Arabia mod. Any level of handicap resources gives the player camels, since they are needed for LOAA’s economic model. Pigs, which cause cities to grow quickly are commonly given [1], and also, depending on the handicap level, the player will get copper, iron, and horses in their starting position’s “big T”.

[1] It should be noted that this patch is for a pre-Islamic Arabia mod, a culture which did not have a prohibition against pork. See https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smar...dle-east-until-1000-bcwhat-changed-180954614/ for discussion.

 

[vktj]

This is yet another patch for Ancient Arabia 2025. To install, install Ancient Arabia 2025, then paste these files over the files in Ancient Arabia 2025. Included in this patch are all of the items in the previous patches against AncientArabia-2025, as well as the following:

• ArabianBigIsland.py now places Legends of Ancient Arabia specific important resources near player start when the player has a handicap (as per yesterday’s update to ArabianTotestra.py)
• ArabianBigIsland.py now has the same extensive hut placement options ArabianTotestra.py has.
• 60 more possible Arabian maps added to ArabianTotestra.py.

 

[<Nexus>]

Is it updated to BtS?

 

[vktj]

In this new patch, I have added four more variants on the ArabianCaulixtla map, and have a map script which is a variant on ArabianTotestra, except it can only choose one of two map seeds. On the other hand, this variant map script (“SeventySeeOne”) allows the two worlds to be any size from duel to huge, be of any climate (use “Arid” for Arabian adventures), allows the player starting landmass to change, and allows the maps to have more oases.

I have also fixed the maximum latitudes for some of the maps, so that snowy tree forests do not proliferate on the maps. And have made sure King Yadail has a river so he can, if desired, make farmland.

BtS: I don’t see the value in updating a mod for a 20-year-old game to use an 18-year-old update. With modern 4 gigahertz CPUs, the end of turn wait issue is pretty much solved.

 

[vktj]

In this patch, I have:

• Updated the smaller Arabian Caulixtla maps to be more like their bigger counterparts, i.e. the map now has a large inland lake like the big map.
• Added a new world, “Magolandi” (the 0x0000_70c1 seed map)
• Fixed snowy tree issues in Amira maps
• Updated SeventySeeOne map script to have more options (This script made both the new “Arabian Caulixtla smaller” as well as the “Magolandi” maps)
• Edit: Fixed King Yadail’s river in the EZRLakhmid2 maps (2025-10-26 bugfix-only update)