The Broken Drum - Lurker's Thread

[Maksim]

Could you please post the screenshots of the starting land for each civ, like other mapmakers have done? Not all of us have regular access to Civ, alas.

[Square Leg]

Ok new WB file is here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18370161/PBEMIV....wordWBSave

I have made some edits correcting all the resource bad-ness from before. Everyone has easy access to horse and copper, Iron at the Azer city and no more and Mithral is at Acheron's city.

Mirror to heaven has been replaced by LF.

Illian's are a little cramped but I don't think that is bad for them. reduces maintenance on new cities at the expense of having the barbs a little closer.

Goodie huts added foro Svarts and Sheaim.

Dragon City not coastal now.

Can someone tell me how to turn the flipping clouds off and I'll post some screenshots of the starts. Or, someone really clever could do it from the WB save.

There is one pretty annoying problem and I don't know how to fix it. The clan already have met the Illians and Svarts... I think it came about when I was testing their worldspell. Does anyone know how to fix this?

[SevenSpirits]

Miscellaneous tips:

1) Find your CivilizationIV.ini file (in My Documents/My Games/Beyond the Sword, I expect).

a) To be able to take screenshots at various angles, edit that file so it says

Code:

AllowFlying = 1

(If it says AllowFlying = 0 right now, just edit that line.)

Then, in-game, you'll be able to hit Ctrl-Alt-F and go into Flying Camera mode.

b) In the ini file, also edit it so it says

Code:

CheatCode = chipotle

This allows you to hit Ctrl-Z in-game, revealing the entire map as well as various other bits of information that you don't have access to as a player. (Obviously, this doesn't work in multiplayer.)


2) To remove contact... first make sure no one has vision they shouldn't have. In worldbuilder, one of the last few modes is vision. Hide all tiles for every player. This will leave only the tiles they can currently see revealed.

Second, open up the world builder save file in a text editor. Near the top, you will see blocks of text like this:

Code:

BeginTeam
    TeamID=0
    ContactWithTeam=0
    ContactWithTeam=1
    ContactWithTeam=4
    RevealMap=0
EndTeam

Just delete the contact lines that shouldn't be there. (Team 0 should only have contact with itself, so delete the 2nd and 3rd contact lines in this example.)

[Square Leg]

Clan:



Svart:



Sheaim:



Illian:



Grigori:



Centre:




I rotated the Sheim Picture to fit it in better. I have also fixed the Clan knowing others problem I have. Thank you Sevenspirits!!!

Final WB save to follow shortly... Just need to look at starting techs...

[Square Leg]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18370161/PBEMIV....wordWBSave

[Azoth]

Some comments based on the screenshots:
1. The Broken Sepulcher (provides Death Mana) is on a river outside Seroe Vakas. It can be connected by coast and river to Myrean, Acheron's city. I don't know how the barbarians handle trade routes, but barbarian Death III Archmages would be nasty. You might want to move the feature off-river, just to be safe. (None of the other mana features appear to be on rivers.)
2. Giving Myrean the Remnants of Patria, Yggdrasil, Dragon Bones, and the world's only source of mithril might be overkill. In the early game, the city will grow to a massive size and might outproduce the players. A stack of four Enchanted Warriors/Axemen every couple of turns (on top of Raging Barbarians) might be too much to handle, especially if they all focus on one player.
3. Did you place any animal lairs? There are so many barbarian cities around that they might not spawn otherwise.

I'll try and take a closer look at the save when I get time.
I must say the map looks great overall.

[Maksim]

Ilians' starting position is a bit worse than the others - both settlers are hugging the coast, and settling the western one in place will pick up three tiles of ocean, if I read it correctly (and moving it off-coast either leaves it with a bunch of bad tiles - 3 coastal, or even makes it unable to build due to nearby barbarian cities).

Perhaps make the tiles 1S and 1SW of the settler into plains, to limit the number of ocean tiles for the western city.

For the eastern city, maybe move the crabs 1W 2S, so that they can be used by the city (whether it's built in starting location, or 1N) - it only has an oasis and a floodplain for food, which is not much.

Grigori - one of their settlers is starting on a hill with hidden copper. I'd suggest moving the copper 1W, so that if they settle in place, they do not lose out on the copper hammers.

[Square Leg]

Ok - I have boosted the Illians a little but they do have a fish 1S2E of that city and Corn in the first ring that isn't showing up on the resource indicator.

I have removed the river to Acheron's city making it impossible to get mana from anywhere unless the barbs build some roads - if they do that then good on them!

The Grigori Settler is 1S1E of that copper hill, there is just a warrior on the hil.

Everyone starts with 2 settlers and 4 warriors, everyone.

Here is the final WB save. I think we are good to go now so if you want to grab the save Mist and start them up? It is Ichabod to go first.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18370161/PBEMIV....wordWBSave

[Square Leg]

All the starting settlers have the vision bonus but once the cities are settled that will disappear.

All the barbs I placed have names!

[Mist]

And Svarts have only one settler :neenernee

Thank God I decided to take starting screenshots for everyone