ORBIS TERRAE. The Circle of Lands v1.00
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    FANTASTIC WORLDS ADD-ON REQUIRED
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    January 14, 2000
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    by Jorrit Vermeiren
    jorrit@sidgames.com
    http://civ2.sidgames.com


** please use word wrap **

This is the first scenario I ever finished for CivilizationII. I made it mainly to improve my skills, so I can one day create a real masterpiece (maybe even for CivilizationIII).

As the basis for this scenario I used the CIRCLE.MP map you can find with the scenario. A map I created in a moment of boredom somewhere in the last two weeks of 1999.



* I N S T A L L A T I O N *

To be able to play this scenario you should have acquired two zipped archives, one for the sounds and one for the actual scenario. The sound archive isn't really necessary, but does improve the scenario.

Create a new folder under the SCENARIO subfolder of CivilizationII. You may want to call it ORBIS or whatever name you find appropriate.
Unzip both archives into this folder. Be sure to select the option "use folder names". If this option is selected the files from the sound-archive should automatically appear in a SOUND subfolder of the ORBIS folder.
If this isn't the case, create a subfolder called SOUND and unzip or move the sound files into it.



* S C E N A R I O   N O T E S *

HISTORY
In the year 1 AUC (Ab Urbe Condita: since the founding of the city), Praetorium, the Roman capital was founded. At that time, the Punians were already prospering on the Western border of this newly born empire. The Chinese were the dominant civilisation in the East.
After years of skirmishes with tribes, living on the foothills of the Orbis Mountains, the Romans finally controlled the inner valley. The Romans prospered, and their capital grew ever bigger. But they longed for more space and ventured across the mountains, finding hardly anything but desert. There were only four fertile regions over the mountains, all of them surrounding large warm bays. Shortly after those fertile plains were inhabited (around 300 AUC), Romans made their first contact with the outer world.
By this time, Punians, weary of their homeland, had run into the young Viking and Zulu nations. Preparing for a large war against both, they recruited Zulu warriors to fight against the Northern Vikings. Seeing through these wicked plans, Zulus and Vikings allied against the Punians, starting a war that would last for centuries to come.
A little earlier, the Chinese had found out, they joined their land with a fierce nomad people, the Mongols. Unfortunately for the Chinese, they found out too late. By the time their huge wall ran through the landscape, they had nearly been decimated. With the help of Chinese dissidents and prisoners of war, the Mongols controlled the Eastern peninsula, partly mingling with the much larger Chinese population.
During the long Golden Era, with great advances in Philosophy, Literature and Astronomy, the Romans managed to calculate the size of the World and found out Praetorium was in the exact center of it. Interpreting this as a divine omen, a magnificent temple was built in the heart of Praetorium, the Center of the World.
But after this glorious time, the Romans started to become greedy and they were looking eagerly towards the lands across the surrounding channel. Carefully, they made contact with the civilisations of the four quarters of the world, and set them up against eachother. Preparing for their own final blow, a most unhappy incident occured. One of their agents was unmasked in Carthage and the Roman plans, as well as the knowledge that Praetorium was the center of this circular world, were unveiled.
This incident happened on the 6th of June 666 AUC. The four civilisations immediately halted their own quarrels and allied to fend off the Roman threat. Not only to fend off the Romans, but even to capture the most sacred place on Earth.
Can you, as the Romans, cope with this sudden change of Fortune and continue your goal to conquer the World? Or will the Alliance of Four stand, and dethrone you? And will the Alliance stand when Praetorium falls to only one of the Four?


GENERAL
This scenario is meant to be played by the Romans only. The events are designed for a Roman human player. You may try any of the others, of course, at your own "risk".
This scenario is tough to win. Don't be ashamed when you can't make it on Deity level. For advanced Deity players, a regular game is easy at all difficulty levels. This scenario is supposed to be easy at Chieftain and extremely difficult at Deity.
With some random events, text messages will appear. These messages may not always be suitable, e.g. when the civilisation concerning that message has already been destroyed.
This is a total war scenario. Negotiations are not allowed, science and pollution are not an issue and you can't change your government.


PLAYERS
The government form of all players, except where noted, is Communism (renamed to Despotism).

The Romans are a quite small civilisation with only five cities, positioned on an island surrounded by a medium-sized continent. The Roman government form is Republic, making it extra difficult to maintain a large army.

The Zulus are a rather weak civilisation. Apart from Shaka, none of their units should be much of a problem. But don't think they are an unimportant opponent, especially at higher difficulty levels their Sorcerer (Spy) can be a real pain.

The Vikings are a force to be reckoned with. They have a pretty decent army, but the unit you'll be in contact with most will be their Dragon Boat.

The Punians are a fundamentalist state and can therefore maintain a large force. Watch out for their War Elephants.

The Mongols are probably the most difficult opponent. They have the best defenses and have some very powerful units, such as their Golden Horde and Mangonel units.


UNITS
Nearly all of the units are mentioned in the Civilopedia. Only a handful of units aren't mentioned in the Civilopedia. Most of those units are unique or created through events in some way:

u n i t		o w n e r	 A D M / H P
Shaka		Zulus		15 6 1   3 3
Canute		Vikings		18 7 1   3 3
Caesar		Romans		16 6 1   3 3	Leaders
Hannibal	Punians		15 5 1   3 3
Genghis Khan	Mongols		19 7 2   3 3

V. General	Vikings		11 3 1   3 2
R. General	Romans		10 4 1   3 2
P. General	Punians		 9 3 1   3 2	Generals
Jebe Noyan	Mongols		12 9 1   3 3
Subedei Bahadur	Mongols		10 7 1   3 3

B. Infantry	ALL		 4 3 1   2 1	[Partisans]
Sorcerer	Zulus		 0 0 2   1 1	[Spy]

In case your wondering what the abbreviations in some of the units names stand for:
B. = Barbarian		C. = Chinese
M. = Mongol		P. = Punian
R. = Roman		V. = Viking
Z. = Zulu

p e a s a n t s
Since this is a total war scenario I didn't want to have any settler-type units available. The problem with that, however, is that pillaged infrastructure can never be rebuilt, possibly causing starvation etc. So I decided to allow peasants to be built. To avoid the AI from building cities I used a small trick I found out some time ago: the AI only builds cities on the terrains in the Plains/Grassland slots, no matter how fertile other terrains may be. So, to prevent the computer players from ever building cities, I put the Plains and Grassland terrains in the Tundra and Glacier slots instead.
This trick doesn't prevent you from building cities. Please don't build any cities (you probably won't have the time or space anyway).
Fortresses can't be built either, so you'll have to do it with the ones already available.
Apart for the above mentioned two exceptions peasants work as a settler would in a regular game.


TECHNOLOGY TREE
Although technology is not important at all in this scenario, I did make a completely new technology tree. Most technologies are mentioned in the Civilopedia (in alphabetical order, which isn't as obvious as you may think). In using "Lost Knowledge" technologies I was able to give each civilisation its own unique units, while still keeping them in the Civilopedia.
You will probably find your enemies regularly stealing technologies, don't worry about it, they're just wasting their time.


LAST NOTES
For those of you who aren't as familiar with Latin as I am:
orbis terrae	- "The disc of the earth"; the name used for the
		  world, when it was still expected to be flat.
septentrio	- North
oriens		- East
meridiens	- South
occidens	- West
praetorium	- Headquarters of a Roman legionary camp
		  and residence for the commander (praetor).

Some Mongolian terms:
Khan	- Tribal leader, King	[Genghis Khan]
Noyan	- Baron			[Jebe Noyan]
Bahadur	- Knight, Hero		[Subedei Bahadur]




* C R E D I T S *

First of all thanks to Erwan. He created most of the units (all units with an "E" in the lower-right corner in the UNITS.GIF). His units can be admired and downloaded at [http://perso.club-internet.fr/erwanc]. Without his marvellous graphics, this scenario would probably never have existed.
Many many thanks to St. Leo and Mathias Köster for playtesting my scenario. The inspiration for many additions and "bugfixes" came from their notes. 
Thanks to Harlan Thompson for his "Advanced Scenario Making Ideas" as well as his excellent Vikings and Mongols scenarios.
Also thanks to Leon Marrick for his excellent "Advanced Scenario Design". Special thanks to Cam Hills and Mathias Köster for their notes on the Apolyton forum (in a thread called "scenario making steps" posted by ottok).
Wonders, units, civilisation characteristics etc. were sometimes inspired by the Microprose "Midgard" and "Verne" scenarios as well as the following:
-The Third Punic War: The Fall of Carthage
 By Stefan Härtel
-The Boer War
 By Allard H.S. Höfelt
-The Viking Age
 By Harlan Thompson
-The Mongols: From Genghis to Kublai Khan
 By Harlan Thompson
And, last but not least, my own imagination and extensive knowledge of the late Roman imperial army as well as the Mongols under Genghis Khan. I wrote history essays on both those subjects.


GRAPHICS

Apart from Erwan's units, nearly all of the graphics were taken from Microprose's "Fantastic World" add-on. Here's a list of the things that weren't created by Microprose or Erwan:

CITIES.GIF
The far east city icons have been recolored to blue by me.

ICONS.GIF
The first column and the last row of technology icons were created by me (except for the fire icon).

TERRAIN1.GIF & TERRAIN2.GIF
The Hills, Mountains and Mountain resources were most likely made by the person behind this e-mail address [CHRGU@t-online.de], I'm not sure, but I'll try to find out.
The farmland icon was made by me.

UNITS.GIF
Apart from Microprose's and Erwan's units, only the Mangonel unit is made by someone else, namely me. That graphics was taken, quite a while ago, from a site that showed a preview for the Mangonel graphic for Age of Kings.


SOUNDS

As with the graphics, most of them are from the "Fantastic Worlds" add-on. Only the following have different sources:
ELEPHANT.WAV is a sound from the Windows98 "Jungle"-theme.
HORNS.WAV is a very, very short fragment from the classic "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff.
KILLED.WAV originally came from Shay Yates Roberts "Age of Piracy" scenario (I think).
MISSILE.WAV was recorded from a Dutch radio-commercial introducing the movie "Scream 2".




* D I S T R I B U T I O N *

Free distribution of this scenario is encouraged, as long as the original zip-archives are left intact. Do not attempt to make money with it in any way.


Jorrit Vermeiren