23-11-2001 04:21									#1
	A New Look at the World EPISODE II Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

Hey Everyone

Well, its done !! My map of the Earth as it appeared in the Early Cretaceous period (about 140 million years ago) has been completed and play tested by myself and 5 others this afternoon and with a all around, I've now posted it

I should note here that to all those who wanted to play test for me and I said would have the chance, you will be on the play test list for my next map of a futuristic world. Don't worry, I haven't forgot about all of you !

Okay ... so here comes the Low-Down on this map ... Firstly, it was created in response to ideas put forth by people posting on the thread for my other world map (which can be seen here ... be sure to get the map while you're there and read-up on the posts that lead to this map; mostly on page two). Again, I wanted this map to give that familiar feel of our Earth with a twist for gameplay. It is designed, again, for FUN taking priority over 100% REALISM.

Now, the IDEA behind the map was to allow people to think of human history from a different viewpoint. What if the dinosaurs didn't exist and humans came in to power 140 million years ago? What if the continents drifted much slower and the world as we all know it was still hundreds of millions of years away. I had a great time learning about the evolution of our world as I created this map, and had a lot more fun playing it; being able to throw humans into the mix. In my opinion, this map is a wonderful balance and symbolizes everything Civ 3 is after - redifining history the way we choose !

I guess there isn't much else to say !

I hope this map is as much of a success as my last world map. Again, it is a HUGE map and you can use any number of civs you wish on it - there are more than enough start locations (over 20 in fact).

Again, LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK !!! Your feedback to this map and my last one are vital for the creation of my next map. If you find that I'm moving in the wrong direction, let me know!!! If you feel my maps are missing it then let me know!!! Like I said, this map was playtested by a few people, but my last map was downloaded over 550 times since it was posted only a few days ago, and i haven't gotten that much feedback given the ratios.

So I kindly ask that if you download this map or my previous map, or ANY of my future maps that you please leave me your comments! As I've said, a simple or is enough but any additional information you can offer would be greatly appreciated !

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who took the time to download my maps and read through my threads, vote and reply to them

Good Gaming Everyone!!!
Cheers!
~Alex

Attachment: thaddeusalexanderscretaceous.zip
This has been downloaded 1929 time(s).

Last edited by ThaddeusAlexander on 24-11-2001 at 00:26

	23-11-2001 04:27									#2
	The Pic! Tired of ads?

Of course, what would this thread be without a pic of the world I've created

So here it is ! Look hard and you can see all the continents there as they were 140 mya ...

~A.

Attachment: thaddeusalexanderscretaceous.jpg
This has been downloaded 4775 time(s).

	23-11-2001 07:40									#3
	Re: A New Look at the World EPISODE II Remove this text

Honored to be the first to download the Cretaceous map. Now I have to decide whether to suspend the New World map game I started yesterday or go for the new one.

quote: Originally posted by ThaddeusAlexander Now, the IDEA behind the map was to allow people to think of human history from a different viewpoint. What if the dinosaurs didn't exist and humans came in to power 140 million years ago? What if the continents drifted much slower and the world as we all know it was still hundreds of millions of years away.

I have always thought of evolution as being highly influenced by plate tectonics. For example, the splitting of continental masses probably spurred diversification of species. As they separated, migration paths elongated (for birds and marine animals, anyway). And climate changes caused by the reconfiguration of landmasses probably had an effect, too.

So, I would posit that slower rates of plate movement would be accompanied by slower rates of evolution.

On the other hand, I could be totally wrong.

One other random thought. I'm not sure, but weren't coal and oil nonexistent (or at least very sparse) in the Cretaceous?

Looking forward to playing.

	23-11-2001 07:52									#4
	i know i know ... Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

At this time, they were existant ... coal not as much as oil however ... lets not forget that there was 200 million years of plant life already on the earth at the time the world looked like this ...

Besides, with no oil and no coal the game would lose a lot ... so i had to put them in. Lots of stuff on this map isn't historically accurate depending on your school of throught. There are thousands of hypotheses on prehistory and evolution of the earth, so I took what I liked and made this map.

Again, fun is key. If you play this game, don't over analyze the map but just play and you have fun, I've done my job

Good gaming and thanks for being the first to find and download my newest map !

Cheers!
~Alex

	23-11-2001 07:57									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

I agree that historical accuracy should take a back seat to playability, at least for my $$$. All the random maps generated by the game have a certain element of sf. Doesn't bother me at all.

Cheers,
Purp

	24-11-2001 00:20									#6
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by Purple I agree that historical accuracy should take a back seat to playability, at least for my $$$. All the random maps generated by the game have a certain element of sf. Doesn't bother me at all. Cheers, Purp

Good to hear

~Alex

	24-11-2001 00:42									#7
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Well I've d/led it but I'm only up to 980AD on the game I'm playing with your other map(busy with going out with the family for Thanksgiving and all) (side note, damm holidays when they conflict with Civ playing ) so it may be awhile until I can post to tell you if I like it, I have one question though that southern most continent is that supposed to be what antartica was back then?

	24-11-2001 01:49									#8
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

If I'm not mistaken, it's a conjoined Australasia/Antartica. Those two were the last to split...

	24-11-2001 02:16									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by Cian McGuire If I'm not mistaken, it's a conjoined Australasia/Antartica. Those two were the last to split...

Cian is correct ... as a side note the smaller island between said land mass and africa is India in case that was also confusing you.

Cheers!
~ALex

	24-11-2001 03:10									#10
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

That's right, then it veered north and crashed into Eurasia resulting in the Himalayas as fender damage...

	24-11-2001 06:09									#11
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

ThadAlex, good work on the maps. Thanks for all your hard work, and for emphasizing that it's not intended to be realistic! Some of those "REAL WORLD MAP" threads are quite nasty. It's just a game, folks!

	24-11-2001 08:02									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by crayonx_2K ThadAlex, good work on the maps. Thanks for all your hard work, and for emphasizing that it's not intended to be realistic! Some of those "REAL WORLD MAP" threads are quite nasty. It's just a game, folks!

TESTIFY Brother

Cheers
~Alex (aka thadd)

	25-11-2001 09:53									#13
	Suffering from ads?

I've been playing with the Cretaceous map off and on today, emphasis on exploring, exposing most of the land areas. I especially like the broad mountain ranges, but I'd like to see more rivers extending from them to the coasts, except maybe through deserts (even so, your map is much better in this respect than the game-generated maps). Otherwise I wouldn't change a thing.

Can't wait to see your future era map.

	25-11-2001 21:12									#14
	Got spare money?

quote: Originally posted by Purple I especially like the broad mountain ranges, but I'd like to see more rivers extending from them to the coasts, except maybe through deserts (even so, your map is much better in this respect than the game-generated maps). Otherwise I wouldn't change a thing.

Thanks for the idea purple ... I'll jot that down on my list of potential changes which I hope to start tackling very soon (I'm still hard at work on my Future World map ... but it IS the weekend and I'm slowing down for a few days as usual.

Cheers
~Alex

	26-11-2001 08:51									#15
	Remove this text

2 for 2

Alex, your maps look a heck of a lot of fun to play. and if it wasn't for this damn engineering degree i just might be able to play them.

one thing that worries me when i look at the maps is the resources issue. there look to be a plethora of resources, and i am worried that there are going to be too many to make resources a point of conflict in the game. are you planing for this not to be an issue, or is 60 seconds not enough time to fully take in the map

	26-11-2001 17:43									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Solomyr:

I agree that at first glance it would seem like there are a lot of resources, but this was done for a few reasons. Firstly, the obvious: my maps are Huge and are designed to support all 16 Civs ... secondly, although my maps are Huge the actual % of land is very low making the games slightly more fierce when compared to Civ3 randomly generated huge maps.

But thirdly and most importantly, my resources are largely clumped. For example, there might be a dozen vines on the map, but you won't find one here, another further away and scattered everywhere around my maps. Like I think I might have mentioned , my maps are designed for fun... Maybe there is saltpeter is such-and-such mountain range, but I'd rather sacrifice the spreading of resources for realism for better gameplay. Once you play, you'll realize that the resources are strategically placed so even though there are a lot, its quite easy for a civ starting near a resources to pounce on a monopoly and then exploit that advantage.

Give it a try, i KNOW that 30 seconds is not enough

Good Gaming !
Cheers
~Alex (& Joanna)

	26-11-2001 20:07									#17
	Hardcore Evangelicals Tired of ads?

Man those hardcore evangelical christians are gonna have your head for this, they think the world is only 6000 years old. lol I just had to say that cuz I work for one of their radio stations and I could hear them whining about your map and how it's secretly underminding the youth of america about evolution. lol But anyways, AWESOME map two big thumbs up!

	27-11-2001 00:14									#18
	Re: Hardcore Evangelicals Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by SkyBanditSiegel Man those hardcore evangelical christians are gonna have your head for this, they think the world is only 6000 years old. lol I just had to say that cuz I work for one of their radio stations and I could hear them whining about your map and how it's secretly underminding the youth of america about evolution. lol But anyways, AWESOME map two big thumbs up!

Thanks brother

Strange thing I guess here would be that I'm Catholic

Cheers!
~Alex&Joanna

	30-11-2001 08:52									#19
	A suggestion for map naming Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

This thread is getting too low, so I thought I just throw this idea out FWIW:

In naming future Earth maps, it might be useful to include the date in the filename. This isn't so necessary if the map is named after a geological epoch, as in Cretaceous, but for a future map, it could be something like "Earth-150 million AD".

Any progress on that map, Alex? (Sorry for the impatience.)

Purple

	12-12-2001 17:47									#20
	Tired of ads?

*bump*

I've been playing as the Japanese on this map. So far, it's been an interesting game.

BTW, how's the future Earth map coming along?

	15-01-2002 05:10									#21
	Coal, Oil, and *Diamonds* Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Amusing thought:
In the cretacious, there would be less coal and oil, but the huge difference would be a near-total lack of diamonds. If you think they're expensive now, imagine a world where the coal deposits haven't had time to super-impact and compress into diamonds!

Btw, if my understanding of geology is wrong, pls correct me

	15-01-2002 07:54									#22
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Well, and I doubt you could find many cows, either.

	15-01-2002 09:15									#23
	Remove this text

Possible apologies are in order as I may very well have downloaded this link from the first Cretaceous thread --

http://www.scotese.com/earth.htm

Of especial interest:

1. Ice age map. VERY recent theory points out that genetically modern homo sapiens have been around for (sorry, I don't have the "precise" # in front of me) hundreds of thousands of years, and that the last 500 thousand years have been punctuated by 100 thousand year cycles each consisting of 90 thousand years of glaciation then 10 thousand years of temperate times (we're evidently near the end of one such cycle now). Anyway the theory holds that climatological conditions hindered our forebearers from hoisting their own proud banners of Civilization ... but what if? ... An interesting and "realistic" setting for Conan's world etc.

2. Future earths -- settings for such as Gene Wolf's "Earth Of The New Sun" series (btw for an extraordinarily interesting & fun book, based on sound evolutionary theory, of life, geography and biomes 50 million years from now, see Dougal Dixon's "After Man: A Zoology Of The Future").

Such "realistic" settings allow us to explore entirely different approaches to technology -- a perpetual favorite of mine, an earth where underground helium deposits are far more prevalent than is the real & present case and airships rule the air until replaced by aircraft yet remain viable transports; etc.

Delighted that these paths are being explored (and especially to thee oh wondrous map maker!),

Oz

	26-01-2002 04:26									#24
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Hey Everyone

This is actually THADDEUS ALEXANDER writing from my girlfriend's Apolyton account.

I know you're all wondering about my maps and where the heck i went, so the short story is that my computer got a wonderful worm and its been dead for a while. Although its up and working again, I can't get back on the web to post my maps from home, but as soon as I can get my net working again i'll finish the maps and then i'll post them

Sorry again for leaving so abruptly

Hoping to be back soon and wishing you all good gaming,
Alex

	25-05-2002 02:56									#25
	Tired of ads?

quote: Originally posted by starshower Hey Everyone This is actually THADDEUS ALEXANDER writing from my girlfriend's Apolyton account. I know you're all wondering about my maps and where the heck i went, so the short story is that my computer got a wonderful worm and its been dead for a while. Although its up and working again, I can't get back on the web to post my maps from home, but as soon as I can get my net working again i'll finish the maps and then i'll post them Sorry again for leaving so abruptly Hoping to be back soon and wishing you all good gaming, Alex

Hey guy, where are You? Where Your so creative new works?

	26-05-2002 20:27									#26
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

This is Thaddeus Alexander again! Heheh. No. It's not the great Alexander, it's just little ol' loser Leonel. :P

Couldn't Mr Alexander make these maps into a standard size? It takes forever to get a turn! Unless I'm really dumb and that's how you actually play the game. Standard sizes would be big enough to have fun on, yet small enough to not have to wait along time for a turn.

	27-05-2002 12:05									#27
	Remove this text

Reading a book or something off-turn sometimes works..(when playing on a maxed out map with 16 players with the off-turn being almost five minutes)

	05-08-2002 08:28									#28
	Increase the size of your Attachments

Hey its ACTUALLY me

You know what? Tacticus Alexandrius will be up again soon!!

Now I KNOW I've been away for a long time ... its been a spiritual journey or something like that, but I've been away from computer gaming for a while. But hearing about the new add-on to Civ3 coming out in the winter has sparked my interest again. Mind you, I've never lost faith in Civ3, just no time really!!

ANYway, I have the other map done but instead of posting them all here and wasting Apolyton's webspace, I'll simply be posting links to my site where you can download a bunch of my maps and mods and stuff like that, but for Civ3 (I'm putting away the old Tacticus Alexandrius site that was devoted to CTP2 and replacing it with something MUCH different Something I think everyone will like).

The new site will have the same Scribe's Book which is responsible for literally hundreds of e-mails of praise since the site went up many years ago now. When Civ3 came out I was flooded with e-mails again wondering if I'd continue my site with Civ3 but i had to decline for reasons both personal and for sheer lack of time.

Now, I DO HAVE TIME!! And Tacticus Alexandrius will be better than ever. Now equipped with web-building knowledge of Flash animation and the like I'm going to make a website that is both visually appealing, informative and fun, but most importantly, something you'll hopefully find yourself checking every day as I aim to update my Scribe's book daily. I also plan on forums and a chat section, download sections, useful links and much much more.

Even though this might be starting to sound like a sales pitch, its not .... my site are always non-profit So you'll never have to worry about annoying banners, pop-ups and all the rest of the junk you hate the net for.


.... But then again, is selling out all that bad? hehe, no i'm just joking


So I'll keep everyone posted about the site but I don't think it'll be up for another month or so (that is, september/october 2002), giving it some time to settle in before the official launch of Play the World.

Hope to see you all there!
~Alex (aka Thaddeus Alexander)

P.S. Thank you all for your comments on my maps and for supporting my last silly little site. All the work I do is because of your support because Lord knows I'm not gettin' paid for it