Open Land!!!!!

[tolerategravity]

Well, it has finally happen. The computer hasn't eaten up all the available land.

Huge Map (I forget which land setting)
9 Civs
Regent

I'm about 1400 AD into the game, and all the civs have begun the colonization of England. England had the largest land area, and the southern half of their continent was basically open. So the Chinese, Americans (me), Romans, and Russians have all basically started to build cities there for the resources. England has also tried to expand to those areas, but is starting to get blocked out by all the new boarders.

This is the first time I've seen a game that has had open land, but I like it like this. Since this area has a TON of resources everyone is jumping on them and it is starting to look like North America right after Columbus discovered it.

So my game has a sort of poetic justice, England is being colonized!

Anyone else finding open land with tons of resources or is my game the rare exception?

[Ecthy]

not bad... I didn't know there's usually no open land left though.. sounds disappointing, makes colonization scenarios in a standard game less likely... but then, stories like this make it look a bit different

what kind of ressources are on that land then?

[Dire Wolf]

Actually many firmly believe a Viking named, Leif Erickson, discovered North America

[Ironwood]

Originally posted by Dire Wolf
Actually many firmly believe a Viking named, Leif Erickson, discovered North America

Yeah, but the only problem was, he couldn't *do* anything with that discovery. The only way to get there and back was by way of the Greenland colony... which disappeared with the start of the "little ice age" which preceeded the worst era of Plague in Europe. Their ships couldn't get there and back (couldn't carry enough food) otherwise.

"Europe" didn't discover America until Columbus, and then, they had enough excess population and big enough ships to make the voyage. And Columbus made his first landfall in an area considerably more valuable than that which the Vikings discovered. (Newfoundland was just too far away to exploit).

[Ironwood]

As to the question of "colonization" type scenarios, I'd like to see a standard setting that places *all* civilizations on the largest continent (or, barring that, in the largest archepalago). Civilizations that got eliminated would be restarted in the unoccupied land (with the others having a considerable head start against him; primitive natives), and, once the "new world" was discovered, colonization would be considerably more profitable than war (though war most certainly would be a constant threat, as in real history).

Personally, the first "scenario" I intend to design will be little more than a huge-earth game (edited, if necessary, to include the appropriate ecological barriers), with seven civs starting in Eurasia and Africa (Babylonians, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, Zulus (yes, I know the name wouldn't reflect any sort of historical accuracy... but then again, are they Babylonians, Sumarians, Chaldeans, or what?), Greeks, and maybe English (just for the starting positions). Should be interesting to see how it turns out.

[tolerategravity]

Ironwood that sounds like an interesting scenario, I'd love ot play it once fraxis releases everything to make that type of scenario creation possible.

The resources on the unclaimed land, that I've seen are saltpepper, iron, gold and horses. So these little cities are very important for the middle ages. I'm just hoping I have coal in my own boarders, because China is really starting to get it's butt and gear and claim the rest of the land.

The only reason I used Columbus as an example, is because of the Colonization of America right after Columbus made landing.

[[LordLMP]]

Vikings discovered the new world, true, but as it was said, they couldn't properly colonize... and they didn't seriusly mention it to other kingdoms and so on of the lands, else Columbus would of had a easier time to convince the King of Portugal or the King/Queen of Spain or any other Kingdoms willing to sponsor his mission to go West.

Now, i say we also make a scenario where Columbus didn't found the new world, atleast, didn't went back to spain.......

or a scenario of what would happened if Columbus didn't went off to pursue his quest to go West....why did he want to so badly?

Wasn't mention that his first quest was to lead Christianity to another crusade by liberate Constinopole, then Jerusulem. To effectively elliminate Islam. If he could convince close minded people to allow him to sail West, then i am sure he could of convince and lead this new crusade against Islam.
(nothing to do with what happened in 9-11...just got this idea from a book i read written before that tragedy)

So if Columbus didn't sail off West...they say it could of been the Portuguese by accident...few years after Columbia discovered Haiti, the Portuguese by accident found brazil. Then, eventually discover the Carribian...and a more power Aztec Empire...actually, the Azted Empire was in the verge of collapse beofre the Spanish arrived to conquer them, but without the Spanish, other smaller kingdoms like the Tlaxcan (mispelled i am sure) or the Zapotec to take over as the new Empire in Meso-America.

Anyway, blabbing on

-LMP

[open air]

actually... Columbus sailed west to find an alternate trade route to asia...

[DarkCloud]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
not bad... I didn't know there's usually no open land left though.. sounds disappointing, makes colonization scenarios in a standard game less likely... but then, stories like this make it look a bit different

what kind of ressources are on that land then?

But leaving no open land is more like real life

[SerapisIV]

Expanding into new territories far from your inital territories I've found is exceedingly difficult. I edited the corruption rules such that a large map's optimal # of cities is 40, yet still had crippling corruption on random islands I found across the map, and I only had 25 cities because I got stuck between two civs on my main continent. Any new expansion anywhere other then within a few dozen tiles of your core civ I've found is almost useless because of the inability to get any production going. I've had to rush buy harbors just so that I don't have to wait 80 turns to get the new resources available to me. Is your game any different?

I think a game that would try to emulate the colonization of the Americas after 1492 would be damn near impossible to play because of the corruption problem (and I'm running a democracy too)

[kimmygibler]

I had same type of thing. Playing on normal contenents map, it somehow ended up with everyone on one huge cintenent. The whole rest of the map wasn't explored until magnetism, so there was a huge rush for about 5 or six small islands. This caused tons of wars for these 'colony' type cities. It was interesting...