Maps of Earth for PtW?

[Stuie]

Originally posted by WarpStorm
A more radical approach I've been experimenting with lately is to not allow contact and map trading till later in the game (I'm trying to find the sweet spot, but I'm leaning towards Navigation). This makes for tech haves and tech have nots.

That's something I've done in my mod that makes the entire game MUCH more enjoyable. I linked map trading to Astonomy, and communications to Navigation. That way you have an early game (in which you are mostly concerned with your immediate neighbors) that lasts a good long time, allowing you to really develop good/bad relations in the smaller sub-set of civs that are near by. Then along comes Astronomy/Navigation and BOOM the rest of the world appears. The civs you meet later really feel like strangers after playing strictly with your neighbors for so long. I like it.

For reference, I play 24 civs on a 180x180 random map. I'm still tweaking the tech rate to reach a comfortable level of tech progression (something close to reality). My current tweak has me researching Refining right around 1800. Time to up the Tech Rate a little more...