real history/world

[I was "n.c."]

I'd like to play Civ IV in a very specific way that wasn't possible in Civ III. My main criteria are:
1) to start on a world map,
2) having chosen the other civs with
3) each starting in their historical location and
4) resources being basically where they are/were.
From what I understand this can't happen in Civ IV either.

I raised this question in another thread entitled "before I spend $40 and a few hours..." in the General area but it died out.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=145791

There were some good ideas but none that seemed conclusive.

Either a game edit or scenario would be fine. The only problem with the first could be that I have 0 programming ability. (Apparently you can get into the guts of this game, which is great for some people.) My recollection of the latter is that they aren't a fully functional game but that may be wrong.

While these are highly specific requirements, I don't see why the designers would leave out the possibility of coming close to re-creating history. Having Aztec, Inca, Zulu, Romans, Babylonians, Chinese, Mongols and Indians would be a lot of fun.

Any suggestions are welcome. I'd really like to play this game but it won't be fun without these components.

[smellymummy]

look for the earth maps. if you order the threads in this forum by name, scroll to the M's, and you'll see several earth maps which will let you play like that

[MoonWolf]

Then the question is... How do you handle civilizations that was "created" from others? USA is one large example, Iceland is a small one (former Norwegian settlement in the Viking Era).

[I was "n.c."]

mummy- I tried that but did't see the thread you must've had in mind

wolf- that is a downside of my preferred style of play; later Civs like the U.S. don't become part of the game

[Badtz Maru]

A big problem is that Civ doesn't accurately portray the political landscape of the past. Nations as portrayed in Civ are relatively new developments - Germany was not united until 1871, until then it was made up of several independent states. An accurate portrayal of Medieval Europe would require hundreds of independent kingdoms, and you can't just lump a bunch together and say the Holy Roman Empire is the equivalent of Germany, because even the HRE had a lot of warfare going on between the different states that made it up. You could give each player one city on a very crowded Huge map and have something approximating reality at first, but someone would start conquering other cities and it would soon become very unrealistic.

The Civ series is a lot of fun, but it's not realistic, and it can't even be modded to make it realistic because the game concepts are all built around the idea of one unified multi-city civilization, and those were very rare until recent times.

If you want a realistic historical strategy game, I would suggest Europa Universalis II. It still gets pretty unrealistic when the player starts taking over, but at least you'll have to deal with large scale revolts and civil wars if you try to expand beyond what's realistic for the times.

[I was "n.c."]

You are exactly right, and realistic isn't the right word. I just get annoyed when things are clearly wrong, like the Greeks in Japan or a lot of oil in New York. It's also a bummer when a civ gets left behind and is a total backwater. For whatever reason these detract from the gaming experience.

In Civ II it was possible to choose civs such that each was in their historical spot and had some room to expand before encountering another.

Seems like the designers would keep this functionality, but I guess not. That's a real shame.