Great NEWS: MOD section opened on civ3.com

[player1]

www.civ3.com/mods.cfm

There are 4 maps for download.


And this:

HAVE SOMETHING TO SHARE?
We Want YOU!
... to send us your mods! We're looking for fan-created Civ III content to highlight on Civ3.com:

mods
maps
tutorials
strategy tips
Have something we should see?

.::Email Us at civ3mod@firaxis.com!

[player1]

Maps are:

Ring World by Mike Breitkreutz
Map Size: Large (140x140)

A 'gold rush' map with a twist. Establish yourself on the huge main continent and then sail off in search of the only source of uranium in the world.

First "official" map for Civ3, made several months before.

Imperialism by Dan McClure
Map Size: Standard (100x100)

A 'gold rush' map. Conquer the old world and make your way to the new world where modern resources await.

This could prove interesting. If all players start at one continent, you'll need to colonise another one.

Game Board by Matt Blind
Map Size: Custom (120x106)

A tribute to classic strategy board games of the past. Lots of choke points and fairly equalized starting locations.

Strange, but could be fun to play.

Marla's World Map by Marla Singer
Map Size: Custom (255x203)

A beautiful, accurate, and huge map of the world based on the Miller Projection.

Finnaly!
A good world map.

[ixnay]

Cool.

At least it's something.

[player1]

WARNING (Firaxis READ this):

There is a problem with Marla's World map & Game Board map.

Since these maps have CUSTOM map size, their BICs have RULE chages.

And RULES are not upgraded from 1.16f
(If we had separate TXT files for Map sizes there would be no such bugs)

So expect when plaing these maps to have disabled upgrades to UU and similar things added in 1.17f.


Also, in 1.17f Aluminium & Oil is unavaiable on Plains. But I don't think it'll make difference for Map makers (they can still put those resoures where they want, I think).



P.S.
It looks I'll try Imperialism map first!

[player1]

MarkG,

Since these maps are news item,
why not top this thread?

[aahz_capone]

hmmmm.... I think this looks suspiciously like FIRAXIS picking our brains (not to mention our MODs) for ideas on patches and expansions... Not that thats WRONG, as we have a plethora of great ideas, it still seems that we're doing what should have been done in the begining.

Is it the "Lets bring out a BETA and let the fans finish it" strategy? You decide!

[Grumbold]

Whats the point of sailing off in search of Uranium when you just know 4 turns later its going to be somewhere else - leaving aside the fact that it will have bee colonised about 2000 years before anyone will be able to even SEE uranium

[player1]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Whats the point of sailing off in search of Uranium when you just know 4 turns later its going to be somewhere else - leaving aside the fact that it will have bee colonised about 2000 years before anyone will be able to even SEE uranium

Chace for switching Uranium is 1 in 100.
So, if avreage game has 500 turns, that means that there would be average of 5 swiths in whole game.
Even less for other resourses.

So Imperialsm map is still a nice challenge.


What worries me in rules chages problem.
If you make small tweaks in editor, you'll need to make additinal tweaks after new patch comes out. Or start from scratch.

Also, you now what happens if you force defult rules for Marla World Map (civ3.com verion).
You loose all Aluminum & Oil resourses placed on Plains

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Grumbold
...about 2000 years before anyone will be able to even SEE uranium

Oh, the AI can, don't worry .

[player1]

I am mostly worried about old pre 1.17f maps beeing incompatibile with 1.17f

Why?

Because Aluminium & Oil are not anymore available on Plains (from 1.17f Aluminium can be found on Tundra).
So, If you try to save your map, again while using 1.17f, you'll lost all resourses those resourses placed on Plains.

For test:
-make copy of standrad earth map.
-load it & then save it.

-using bicstat (file forum), look how much oil was in older BIC, and how much in newer one.

-For making Marla's World Map & Game Borad Map playable with 1.17f rules without losing resources, we need to make different version on "default" civ3mod.bic which has strat resources as they were before (like in 1.16f)
-then we should restart rules to default (now a version with resources on plains)
-then make custom chages to map from scratch (for Marla map it means changing stats for settlers, extra ship unit, city names and several other things).
-return civ3mod.bic to normal state (no resourses on plains)


For no-rules chaged maps:
-they need a rule chage to preserve resourses on plains
-first make different version of civ3mod.bic
-then swich to custom rules in that map (but don't chage anything)
-then return civ3mod.bic to normal state (no resourses on plains)

That way you get maps as they were before, and still preserve new "official" rules for random games (no oil & aluminium on plains).

While those maps will retain old resourse rules (as in 1.16f), but will contain all other rule chges form 1.16f to 1.17f (like UU upgrades, etc...)

[Grumbold]

So what happens if you play a 1.16 map under 1.17 apart from vanishing resources? Does it play like 1.16 completely or include a mix of the new 1.17 rules?

[player1]

Originally posted by Grumbold
So what happens if you play a 1.16 map under 1.17 apart from vanishing resources? Does it play like 1.16 completely or include a mix of the new 1.17 rules?

If map had defualt rules nothing else happens, only resourses perish.
It will use 1.17f rules completly.

If map had CUSTOM rules (like that World Map) it will use those old rules, so resouses won't wanish, but you won't be able to upgrade to UU, defense for bombardment wold still be 8, unhappines for drafting will stay 20, etc...

To convert them to new rules (exept rules for resourses wich you want to keep as they were before 1.17f) you'll need to use trick I posted before.

Chage default rules (civ3mod.bic) to have old resourse system, then convert maps to that system (1.17-1.16 hybrid), and at the end return random game rules (standard 1.17f) from backup civ3mod.bic.

[player1]

Originally posted by player1
If map had CUSTOM rules (like that World Map) it will use those old rules, so resouses won't wanish, but you won't be able to upgrade to UU, defense for bombardment wold still be 8, unhappines for drafting will stay 20, etc...

Of course things like stack movment and cavalry retreat wich are HARDcoded (no in BICs) will be in use in both cases.

[Grumbold]

Yuck what a mess

[Jeffrey Morris FIRAXIS]

The plan is to simply make the maps and mods more easily accessible to those who are interested. If the creators of these maps update them to v1.17f, we'd be happy replace them. Otherwise, they're provided as is.

Jeff