Favorite Pre-Made Map

[Dr.Oogkloot]

What's your favorite pre-made-map, and why?

I personally like maps of Europe and Middle Earth. I also like maps that have both Europe and America on it but not the rest of the world. I don't really maps of the world, don't know why, maybe because I'm tired of them, maybe because I don't like the terrain and form of land.
But I play on all kinds of maps, not just the ones mentioned above.

[Gatekeeper]

Dr. Oogkloot, et al.:

I generally prefer two pre-made maps:

1. Earth (Large)
2. Northern Hemisphere

I have made some terrain modifications to both maps to suit my personal tastes and enjoy playing on them (well, most of the time).

CYBERAmazon

1. large earth
2. the europe map that came with FW in the atlantis scenario, atlantis overpainted with ocean... the europe map that came with the orig civ2 sucks

[Seeker]

1. Europe PW (right here at Apolyton)
2. Mercator's Earth
3. Mars
4. My stupid map, "Essence of Civ" (two large, letter sea continents with thin, Bosporous like channels leading to main bays)

[cavebear]

Well, for what it's worth, if I want to win a game a play on either the world map and take Americans, or on the European map and take Russians. With the former, I can build all around the coastlines and with the latter, I can built defensive cities to the East and expand West...

I'm bad enough so that those can still be a challenge if I don't attack the AI civs and let them develop. At deity level, of course, and with raging tribes...

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[Scouse Gits]

This may be a silly question, but ...
except for historical scenarios and the like what is the point of playing on a pre-made map? After all the discovery of the unknown is one of the best aspects of the game.
Maybe I have missed the point

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Scouse Git[1]

"CARTAGO DELENDA EST" - Cato the Censor
"The Great Library must be built!"

[Dr.Oogkloot]

Pre-made maps can have all kinds of forms, they can have lots of very small islands or one huge continent or almost only arctic terrain or almost only mountain or almost only ocean or very weird-shaped continents, whereas random maps are always more or less the same. Besides, I just think it's fun to play on a map I know from the real world or from a book. From a game-strategic point of view random maps might be a little better, but pre-made maps are usually more interesting IMO.

Which leads me to something else: does anyone ever play on the maps roof.map (himalaya) and a map that's just made of ice with rivers and good terrain along the rivers (I think it's called ice.mp)? In my experience these maps lead to interesting games.
[This message has been edited by Dr.Oogkloot (edited September 01, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Dr.Oogkloot (edited September 01, 2000).]

[kcbob]

Maybe I should make this my next area of "exploration" in the world of Civ.

I've progressed from Settler to Deity, done OCC, ICS, and all points in between, but I have always played on a computer generated random map. A question I would have about scenarios and maps would be how accurate are they? Do they play pretty much according to history?

That's the wonderful thing about Civ, I guess. No matter what you are currently finding engrossing, there's always something more.

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Frodo lives!

Better dead than "Red"... or green... or blue... or yellow... or orange... or purple... or white.

[Comrade Dan]

The latge World map (play as Zulu's, and expand to maybe close to 100-120 cities), or as the british on the Europe map.

Andz - the next time you're on ICQ, send me that Europe map please!

[Comrade Dan]

That Europe map is HORRIBLE!

[War4ever]

that Europe map is way too easy, and in my opinion if you see the map ahead of time, the game play is totally different. although many random maps have less than desired shapes, i think, and i think Scouse Gits and (2) would agree that half the fun of civ is exploring new terrain....... you can't do that with premade maps. *Scouses backing ends here*
I love to look at the map after i have won just to see my starting point and where the map points for me to go....... i realize one gets this with the Apollo program but i do not usually study the map as intensely then...... at anyrate i am babling now... point is the map always points out conquest either economically or physically hence my preference for random maps..... pls i hope civIII has a good random map generator

[Dr.Oogkloot]

IMO the original Europe map extends too far to the east...Europe itself is too small there. I like the PW Europe map better (although it's a bit...messy. But nice)

quote: Originally posted by Comrade Dan on 09-02-2000 11:01 PM That Europe map is HORRIBLE!

no, it's good! its only disadvantages are:

Northern Europe is cut
the strange angle

[Mercator]

I like my own map of Australia, especially when I'm trying to break a new population record.
I like my own map of the world, especially when I want to do a very, very quick game. I start as the Romans, pick several other European tribes with me, and try to conquer all of them with my starting settler(s)
Actually, I love making maps, but I hardly ever play on pre-made maps.

[Sten Sture]

Merc - these aren't yours are they??

Some of these are pretty good, but most have too much ocean for the AI to deal with very well.
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare...apcentral.html

[Mercator]

Nope. Well, that's not quite true. Two of the maps over there are mine, namely "Sine Nomen" (normal size) and "J-World" (maximum).
Mine can be found at http://civ2.sidgames.com

[Dr.Oogkloot]

Slightly Off-Topic: Map Central has good maps, but awful Latin.

[N35t0r]

i am working on a fictitious map, with the idea of making it as balanced as possible.

I have also finished a SA map, the best i've seen so far, but it's no good for playing, as the player who takes control of the River Plate basin usually outgrows everybody else.

[DarkCloud]

Heck, when I make fictitious maps all I do is make a large landmass of plains and see how large I can grow my cities.

Or I make a maze of 1 row squares of plains and see how few cities I can build to take over the world.

[Exile]

To Mercator. As a matter of fact, one of the first items I ever downloaded from the net was the series of maps with the cute names from your site. (Sincal, Sinon, Marcap, Nivmon, etc.) Knowing a little something about geography, the random maps are simply unacceptable. Actual landmasses do not look like patchwork quilts. The maps provided at your site were exemplary--always fun to play on and, this is important, THE LANDMASSES LOOKED BELIEVABLE. There were mountain RANGES, watersheds, areas of broad plains and areas of lush grasslands. In short, these maps, even if fictitious, MAKE SENSE.

To ScuseGits (is that really the name you chose?, isn't GIT an English insulting name?) If you download several, or a bunch of maps like those on Mercator's site, then pick one to play on at random (flip a coin or something) during any given Civ2 solo session, you will tend to forget exactly which map you're playing on and the map that you've selected will be "new" for that session. Also, if you select the random start position, even maps that you've played on several times might not be recognizable for much of the game. Additionally, Mercator's maps have a fringe benefit. Historically, cultures that have thrived and made a significant mark have generally started out in an area w/a good, arable land base. The Mercator maps conserve on the use of grasslands. Because an area of grasslands is rare on these maps, they become valuable. To my mind, this condition much more accurately simulates historical development than the hotch-potch random maps or the maps that consist primarily of grasslands.

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[Julius Brenzaida]

Mercator, I've appreciated your world map and tried to improve it.
I have indeed found that I can make 32768 (instead of 10000) squares map.
See the topic "gigantic maps" I've just posted in the civ2 creation forum.

While it is true that discovery is one of the pleasure of playing a civ game, conquering the world or some parts of it comes pretty close to that.
And I believe the bigger and the more realistic the map, the more you can enjoy your conquest.
So I am quite proud of my gigaworld map and hope others will enjoy it too.

[Comrade Dan]

Julias - can you make an accurate world map using the same scale as the Europe map I've described earlier? I like that map, and would like to do a good world scenario on it...

[Mercator]

Exile, I hope you didn't think I made all those (latin named) maps. Only the sinon thing is mine, the rest were made by Mike Strong, the guy from the Map Central. But indeed those maps are very nice, loads better than the civ2 random maps.

[Julius Brenzaida]

quote: Originally posted by Comrade Dan on 09-25-2000 05:45 AM Julias - can you make an accurate world map using the same scale as the Europe map I've described earlier? I like that map, and would like to do a good world scenario on it...

Unfortunately, I don't earn my life making civ maps.
I'm working on another, bigger earth map.
I don't see when I could do yours in the near future, unless I lose my job.
Could you not try to do it yourself ?


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Oh Man, when will you understand that your greatness lies in your failure - Goethe

[Comrade Dan]

I have this slight problem of being an idiot, Julias.