Why does civ franchise not seem to care about TSL Earth maps?

[Krikkit1]

Sure it might work for the first era, but once you swap civs then what? You'd end up with the US in Europe or something weird like that. It is nuked.

Well first of all it’s TSL. Rome / China conquering the Americas instead of Spain, England, and France is legitimate.

However, if you want Mexico to only exist in the southern part of North America, you could probably make a mod where the only unlock for Mexico is having a City in the Southern/Western part of North America. and the only way to unlock Meijii is to have a city on the Japanese islands, etc..

 

[Glassmage]

Try my modpack for Civ5. As closest to EU4-like game as you can get but span from Ancient to Future eras.

 

[Civinator]

Try my modpack for Civ5. As closest to EU4-like game as you can get but span from Ancient to Future eras.

Unfortunately nexusmods wants accepting to have access to my personal data. Is there a site for your modpack without that problem ?

 

[Xur]

Well first of all it’s TSL. Rome / China conquering the Americas instead of Spain, England, and France is legitimate.

However, if you want Mexico to only exist in the southern part of North America, you could probably make a mod where the only unlock for Mexico is having a City in the Southern/Western part of North America. and the only way to unlock Meijii is to have a city on the Japanese islands, etc..

You could do that, but that's obviously not what people want. If Rome "conquers" i.e. swaps to America, then they would still be in Italy. Civ swapping is not compatible with TSL as people knew it from civ3, civ4, civ5 and civ6. It would be something else than what people wanted. It's not really a discussion so much as a fact.

 

[Disgustipated]

I loved TSL maps in Civ 2. Played them almost exclusively. As the series went on, I played them less and less. But even Civ 4's TSL I played quite a bit. I'm not sure if I ever played Civ5's, but I'm sure I did on the scenarios. Which this thread hasn't touched on. But scenarios is the main reason TSL maps should exist. I even enjoyed making my own ww2 scenarios back in the day.

As for Civ 6, there is a mod to disable loyalty flipping. But that still gives a lot of issues in Europe. Many civs can only get 1 city, and it was easy to eliminate them. Some civs couldn't even get 1 city up or lost their settler. Still, I did enjoy games where I tried to cram every single civ I could into one map just to see who could come out on top on the AI side.

I do hope we can see some scenarios in the future, or at least fan made ones if the devs don't care. Obviously they probably should take place only in one age, otherwise they would be a mess. And so we do need TSL maps for these.

 

[lander]

I mean apparently devs had somehow believed that people care more about leaders than civilizations, hence the idea of civ switching and leaders dissociated with civs, so it's safe to say that devs' grasp of the fans' preferences is limited

Some said about couple of days ago that they believe the civ switching was implemented to increase dlc sales of leaders.

I fully believe this is correct. I dont think there is any other thought process involved other than the board coming up with strategies to boost sales.

Following the gotcha trend and building the game around micro transactions seems to be where every single game and developer is heading now.

 

[MutilationWave]

I loved TSL maps in Civ 2. Played them almost exclusively. As the series went on, I played them less and less. But even Civ 4's TSL I played quite a bit. I'm not sure if I ever played Civ5's, but I'm sure I did on the scenarios. Which this thread hasn't touched on. But scenarios is the main reason TSL maps should exist. I even enjoyed making my own ww2 scenarios back in the day.

As for Civ 6, there is a mod to disable loyalty flipping. But that still gives a lot of issues in Europe. Many civs can only get 1 city, and it was easy to eliminate them. Some civs couldn't even get 1 city up or lost their settler. Still, I did enjoy games where I tried to cram every single civ I could into one map just to see who could come out on top on the AI side.

I do hope we can see some scenarios in the future, or at least fan made ones if the devs don't care. Obviously they probably should take place only in one age, otherwise they would be a mess. And so we do need TSL maps for these.

Yeah you've got it right on. TSL for scenarios is the only way I've really played it. The most fun I ever had in civ was playing Iroquois in civ 5 on the conquest of the new world scenario. I conquered Europe.

I miss scenarios.

 

[trev1972]

I have played over half my games on tsl maps - the number of downloads of those maps in previous iterations suggest they are popular.
Civ switching killed Earth TSL maps however.

 

[aieeegrunt]

Gedemon is doing yet another TSL and more project:

Spoiler :

Thread 'YnAMP - Larger Map, TSL, Continents++ (beta)'

Feb 6, 2025

New map sizes, Continents++ script and TSL Greatest Earth Map

See the download page for full description, manual installation instructions, known issues and debugging

Screenshots

Some consecutive map generation using the "Continent+ (YnAMP)" script at various sizes

Spoiler :

download here:...

• Gedemon
• Replies: 234
• Forum: Released Mods

• 

It appears the recent patch may have broken things. I had played with it earlier, and it did in fact allow for very large maps, and Distant Lands on a TSL map, etc.

If it weren't for his Civ VI version, I would have played that version half as much. I loved all the variation you could throw into an Earth (or Near Earth) Map with that mod, and for me, having general coastline or Natural Wonder knowledge with no idea of terrain, CS, and civs was a blast. It was like being in the second wave of exploration, if that makes sense.

I also played a ton of other TSL maps - Northern Europe, the Med, the Med inside of North America (!!!). That one was very clever and a hoot. With clever maps you can always try to tweak your strategy, and maximize things like Isthmus cities in various locations.

I’ll have to check out his Civ6 TSL map then, thank you for the mention

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

I’ll have to check out his Civ6 TSL map then, thank you for the mention

There are various sizes for the world, and more interesting - you can set the east/west edges. For example, just play Europe/Africa/Asia. Or just the Americas. Or from about Spain to the Urals... many options. Of course, those will not allow circumnavigation.

After trying many, many things, my favorite setup was some form of Terra/Earth, where all the Natural Wonders were placed "correctly", but the coasts varied - and that variation amount may have even been on a slider. Anyway, you could have a decent sized sea in the Middle East, allowing easy passage from roughly the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. So many variables to play with... hope you enjoy!

And fwiw, it's a full mod, not just a map.

 

[Smegger213]

I have a stupid question.
What does TSL stand for? LOL.

 

[Braze]

I have a stupid question.
What does TSL stand for? LOL.

True start location. So you start where your civs capital is on earth.

 

[Smegger213]

True start location. So you start where your civs capital is on earth.

Thanks for that lol. I really didn't know. Despite the fact that I have run TSL Earth map mods in the past lol.

 

[AD1730]

My view on it is that TSL removes the exploration X from the 4X formula, since you already know where everything is. I understand that some people are into TSL maps, and more power to them, but I have never been drawn to them because they remove one of the fun parts of the game.

 

[Gedemon]

I think this has gone under the radar, so from the official civ discord (in a thread about larger map sizes, that was closed after the patch):

Very good work on the map and the video! My question is: Is it not possible in Civ 7 to make the map so much bigger, that a civ can really become a civ ? What are the limits in size in Civ 7 that cause such a "claustrophobic" feeling on the map and is there a chance to overcome these limits ?

On the other side it is very nice to see these ships on the navigable rivers in Civ 7. This is not possible in Civ 3 and is not working well in Civ 2 ToTPP.

Actually the game doesn't render terrain textures on tiles with X > 128

Spoiler :

And IMO for a map that have positions for all civs, even with enlarged Europe/Japan/UK, IMO the Giant Earth Map is the minimum size (180x94)

Curiously there is no issue for Y > 128, but we can't have warpY at the moment and the game crashes when scrolling too far north at that 94x180.

My view on it is that TSL removes the exploration X from the 4X formula, since you already know where everything is. I understand that some people are into TSL maps, and more power to them, but I have never been drawn to them because they remove one of the fun parts of the game.

As mentioned above you can have TSL on semi-random maps, I loved playing that way.

 

[Civinator]

Gedemon thank you very much for your answer.

This is a great thread for learning about worldmaps in the different versions of the civ series. Also a thank you very much to SupremacyKing2 for giving this thread a title that is open for all versions of the civ franchise.

 

[Aquila SPQR]

For me Earth maps basically died with Civ VI. I can't imagine playing an Earth map with all that urbal sprawl in Civ VII. I tried it in Humankind and it was absolutely awful to have entire Europe covered by basically one huge city.

I can play Earth maps only on Civ IV and V.

 

[evonannoredars]

I don't think it's current absence is an indication they don't care about TSL maps - I think it's more likely that the opposite is true. Sure it doesn't seem to be a priority for them, but I imagine they want to give themselves sufficient time to do it well. Wouldn't be surprised if someday we get another community discussion thing about how they handle a TSL map, since the age system (and some other new civ 7 features) would shake up how TSL works quite a bit:

• Should IPs 'respawn' in the same spot between eras or only appear in their historical spots?
• How would civ unlocking work with TSL?
  • Does being able to turn into any other civ from the globe go against the TSL experience?
  • Should the AI at least be constrained to geographic paths and how? Would having two Spains be preferable to entering exploration and finding the Mediterranean is now occupied by the Chola alongside Spain?
• What about a leader-basedTSL? i.e. you start in the birthplace of your leader instead.
  • Should there be some sorta balance between the two? Would it still feel odd if civs were geographically based but you shared the Americas with Napoleon of the Maya?
• How should the globe be divided into homelands/distant lands? Eg. Americas + Afroeurasia/Oceania, Americas/Oceania + Afroeurasia, or Americas + Afroeurasia + Oceania (which would probably some extra work to make possible)

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

What about a leader-basedTSL? i.e. you start in the birthplace of your leader instead.

That would be interesting. Too bad if that happened right now Europe would still be mostly crowded in that scenario.
Lafayette and Charlemagne would be right on top of each other in France. If we go by actual birthplace of origin Napoleon would at least start farther away from them and on an island in the Mediterranean. But then we would also possibly have Catherine start in Prussia along with Frederick, and Augustus and Machiavelli both in Italy.

 

[Smegger213]

Not that long ago I started a game on a TSL Earth map in, I think Civ 6. But it may have been Civ 5, I can't remember now. But I started as Elizabeth 1st on a TSL Earth map.
It turned out that I was stuck on the tiny Island of Britain for many turns because I had to wait till I had researched Sailing before I could get my units across the channel and into Europe lol.
That's a downside of playing TSL as England.