Crowded Middle East

[Gangerolf]

It's getting crowded down there in the eastern Mediterranean/Middle East now...

We already have:

Greeks
Babylonians
Egyptians
Persians

And these are proposed for an expansion pack:

Phoenicians
Hebrews
Turks
Arabs
Byzantines

That is 9 civs from the same region. Now, on a random map this isn't a problem. But on a world map the civs starting in this area would get little land to expand on, and many civs would be destroyed early in the game.

This makes me think that an expansion pack wouldn't include more than 1 or 2 civs from that region (Arabs and Phoenicians preferably ), and that XP civs to a greater degree will be chosen on basis of geography.
In Civ3-worldmap-game-play terms, more civs are needed in the Americas, Africa and the Pacific, not in the Middle East region IMO. Any thoughts?

[Gangerolf]

Here's a map to set things in perspective:

[Alexander I]

I whole-heartedly agree.

That's probably why Firaxis didn't include the others in the first place. On the other hand, they could keep the civ limit at 16 instead of 32 to avoid that, or make a really big middle east map, or just increase the world map to the point where the middle east civs can get along, and it will be 1485 before any other civs even meet.

Still... imagine this:

World Map, 16 civs. Players include:

Babylon
Persia
Egypt
Ethiopia
Greece
Rome
Byzantium
Phoenicia
Israel
Spain
India
Russia
Turkey
Arabia

and dunno, France & Germany? One big Mediterranean mishap.

Chaos. Complete and Absolute.

But maybe that's why some civers play the game at all.

[orange]

I propose we ditch Hebrew, Byzantine, and Phoenician (replace with Carthaginians )

Hebrew are important religiously, but to civilization...

Byzantine are an offshoot of the Greeks and Romans. Period.

Carthaginian would add another much needed African civ and balance out the mediterranean.

But this is only my opinion. Thoughts?

[Alexander I]

I agree to an extent.

Byzantium is redundant. Interesting, but too Greco-Roman. Too many civs in one place.

Phoenicians have a chance, but need AI revamping (compared to CivII AI). Perhaps Maritime Civ Attrbiute. Lots of colonies on islands and coasts around the sea. Like real life.

Israel. Come on, who hasn't wanted to pull a David v. Goliath on a global scale? Just for kicks.

Perhaps if we dumped the Arabs or Turks (keep one, drop the other) because a lot of Turkish stuff was Arabian, and was simply subjugated.

This leaves:

Greeks
Babylonians
Egyptians
Persians

And these are proposed for an expansion pack:

Phoenicians
Israelites
Turks OR Arabs
Ethiopians

It still makes Levant/Palestine a powderkeg, but there's realism for you. And not quite so congested.

[Locutus]

Well, I don't think there's a real problem since you can only play with 8 civs at a time. Yes, 'unofficially' it's 16 but it remains to be seen how well that will work out. Either way, it should be fairly uncommon to have more than 4 civs from the ME in an average wold map scenario if you have 32 civs to choose from...

BTW, looking at Gangerolf's map, some minor changes could be made to make the area less crowded: make Persia start further to the east (near Kerman/Ormuz or even further east), Egypt slightly further to the south (near Luxor/Aswan), Turkey further to the west (near Ankara/Trabzon or even near Georgia), Arabs further southeast (in Yemen). Some of these changes might reduce historic accuracy slightly but on a fairly large map they could make a big difference in terms of gameplay.

[Rosacrux]

Israelis are definitely not worth to be included into the game - they are historicaly insignificant and the only product of their civ that had any impact out of their boundaries, was ...yes... Judeo-christianism

On a more playfull note, If included in the expansion pack,the Israelis (but you should call them "Jewish" then) could start off from... Hollywood... or New York

That would add to gameplay balance

[Gangerolf]

Well, I don't think there's a real problem since you can only play with 8 civs at a time. Yes, 'unofficially' it's 16 but it remains to be seen how well that will work out. Either way, it should be fairly uncommon to have more than 4 civs from the ME in an average wold map scenario if you have 32 civs to choose from...

Yes, it's not necessarily a problem if you can freely choose the civs you want to play against. But I don't think an expansion pack will contain this many ME civs. Looking at how Firaxis has chosen civs earlier (Iroquois, Zulus ), expansion pack civs will probably (hopefully?) be quite geographically spread and unexpected (smaller civs/tribes). I'm just guessing, of course

[orange]

Originally posted by Locutus
Well, I don't think there's a real problem since you can only play with 8 civs at a time. Yes, 'unofficially' it's 16 but it remains to be seen how well that will work out. Either way, it should be fairly uncommon to have more than 4 civs from the ME in an average wold map scenario if you have 32 civs to choose from...

What are you talking about? It's 16 at a time at most, not 8

I would definitely put Arabs in over Turks, and Carthage over Phoenicians, and ditch the Israelis completely.

The Persians would start near Persepolis, would they not

[The Templar]

There really is too much in the middle east.
Carthaginains would be good for balancing out Africa. But -

Indonesians would balance out pacific (I know, they're not that old and fairly fragmented ... yada yada yada)

Argentina/Incas would actually put something in South America. Again, I know the Argentines are also new, but so what? Post colonial civs are woefully underrepresented.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Locutus
BTW, looking at Gangerolf's map, some minor changes could be made to make the area less crowded: make Persia start further to the east (near Kerman/Ormuz or even further east), Egypt slightly further to the south (near Luxor/Aswan), Turkey further to the west (near Ankara/Trabzon or even near Georgia), Arabs further southeast (in Yemen). Some of these changes might reduce historic accuracy slightly but on a fairly large map they could make a big difference in terms of gameplay.

2-3 squares wont make a difference.

[St Leo]

But on a world map the civs starting in this area would get little land to expand on, and many civs would be destroyed early in the game.

Great, early combat.

[Jer8m8]

If you need something in the Pacific, try the Polynesians. They're an old civ and were able to cross the pacific many years before Europe

[Mongoloid Cow]

But where would the Polynesians start? On an island in the middle of the Pacific somewhere. They would be stuck with one city until they developed navigation or map making or whatever the first good naval unit is that doesn't get destroyed in oceans.

[KrazyHorse]

Give the Polynesians a [insert name of polynesian oceangoing vessel here] as a CSU. Make its tech requirement extremely low (or preferrably null).