Is there a difference between "Terra" and "New World"?

[Melboz99]

Hey all.

I played through an entire game last night after I opened up the box.

I decided since I was a little rusty (haven't played Civ in about 9 months) I would just play on Settler to get the feel for it.

So, I chose the Arabs because they looked like they would be real good with Spi/Phi. I chose a "Terran" map to keep it as "normal" as possible. I left most everything on defaults except for map size, which I set to large.

After I played for about 2 hours and made my way into the second age, I realized that ALL of the other 7 Civs were on the same continent as I was.

Once I got Satellites I found that there was indeed an entire second continent completely unihabited save for a few colonies.




Why did the game do that?


I just don't understand it. It's not like Civilization in the real world all started in Europe or anything. By 4,000 BC there as the Chinese, Indians, Aztecs, and thousands of African tribes.

Basically, by 4,000 BC Man was on every continent but Antarctica. Granted, most of North America, South America, Africa, and Australia were tribal. but that doesn't mean that grand civilizations couldn't have started on one of those continents. All continents had plenty of resources to support a large civiliztion.



Sorry, that's just my rant for the day.

I guess I'll go play on an Earth map with proper starting locations for Civs. Would make it a lot harder playing as the Arabs though.


Dan O.

[PeaSoup]

That's the idea of the Terra map, to have all the civs start on one continent while the other continent is left to be discovered.

The barbs that roam the new continent can be considered as the tribes that you mention...

check out the properties of the Terra map here:

http://civilization4.net/3/175/332/

[Gelondil]

Re: Is there a difference between "Terra" and "New World"?

Originally posted by Melboz99
I just don't understand it. It's not like Civilization in the real world all started in Europe or anything. By 4,000 BC there as the Chinese, Indians, Aztecs, and thousands of African tribes.

Nobody is suggesting that Civilization in the real world all started in Europe. The 'Old World' that you start in on the Terra map is not supposed to be just Europe but is supposed to include Asia and Africa too. Of all those Civilizations you mentioned, only the Aztecs start in the "New World" - all the rest historically DID start together (relatively speaking). If by Europe, you meant the "Old World" then, actually, yeah - Civilization in the real world really did all start in the Old World. I like the Aztecs as much as the next guy, but to be entirely blunt, they didn't exactly make a lasting impression on global history.

The Terra map is supposed to give people a real opportunity for colonizing/subduing a new and geographically isolated continent - the New World. As PeaSoup said, the barbarians of the Terra map are a substitute for Aztecs and other relatively primitive native tribes that you would expect to find there. If you were to put full-blown civs in the New World they would be superpowers by the time you got there, so it wouldn't be the same kind of game.

[Ninot]

its a game, not a simulator.

Note that there is a "Hub" map afterall.

[Boris Godunov]

The Aztec civilization certainly wasn't around in 4,000 BC. Civilization as commonly defined (urban dwelling) didn't arise in the Americas until well until the Common Era.

[Yolky]

You said it's not like all Civilizations started in the OLD WORLD. Well the Aztecs were around way before the Americans, so maybe Firaxis should have taken out the USA out of the game since they were not around 4000bc.

The point of the map is to make it like the other people said. To have a rough simimulation of starting out on a single continent and finding the NEW WORLD ripe for the picking. If the Aztecs were to be there they would be a SUPER POWER and it wouldn't feel like founding the NEW WORLD.

[Melboz99]

Guys, did you even read the Topic Heading???


The question was, what is the difference between "Terra" and "New World" maps?


The New World map is one where every civ starts out on the same continent, and there's another continent that is uninhabited.


That's the way the book describes it at least.


My point is, what is the difference between the two maps if BOTH of them start off with every civ on the same continent and there is another large continent uninhabited.


Also, why did the Terran Map only have 2 Continents?

Even if you consider Europe and Asia to be one continent, there is still Africa, North America, South America, and Australia.

There was a small land mass off to the SE of the main continent, but that was just too small.


Dan O.

[Yolky]

Originally posted by Melboz99
Guys, did you even read the Topic Heading???


The question was, what is the difference between "Terra" and "New World" maps?



Dan O.

Did you read your post? From your ranting it didn't go with your topic, hence what we have been saying.

[Ninot]

You didn't end the post with a question. You even referred to it as a rant.

What do you expect?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Melboz99
Guys, did you even read the Topic Heading???


The question was, what is the difference between "Terra" and "New World" maps?

There is no "New Wolrd" map option. Load up the game and see for yourself. The "Terra" names just seems to have replaced it (though that means their is a manual misprint, as both are in there).

Also, why did the Terran Map only have 2 Continents?

Because it's...random? The stipulation with Terra maps is that most civs start off on a single large landmass on one side of the globe, while an uninhabited (except barbs) new world waits to be explored on the other side.

So I hope this settles the point. If you want civs to start out on all large land masses, choose "Continents." You can even choose how many.

[Melboz99]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


There is no "New Wolrd" map option. Load up the game and see for yourself. The "Terra" names just seems to have replaced it (though that means their is a manual misprint, as both are in there).

Thanks Boris,

That's the answer I was looking for.

I don't get why they removed "Terran" and renamed "New World" to Terran.

I had been reading the manual, and I have seen quite a few discrepencies already. I guess I'll have to do my learning somewhere else from now on.

[SIZE=1]
Because it's...random? The stipulation with Terra maps is that most civs start off on a single large landmass on one side of the globe, while an uninhabited (except barbs) new world waits to be explored on the other side.

So I hope this settles the point. If you want civs to start out on all large land masses, choose "Continents." You can even choose how many.

Thanks again Boris,

Now that I know Terran is really New World under a different name, it makes more sense that there are only two continents.


I am glad though that you can choose the number of continents under "Continents". That's really cool!

Thanks for anwering my question, that manual really misled me!

Dan O.