Saph’s Middle East: Cradle of Civilization (TSL)

A TSL map of the Middle East (All sizes!)

Welcome to the cradle of civilization & the theatre of empires!
Can you lead your people to glory greater than that of Sargon, Darius, Alexander & others?

• Middle East Plus:
  This map covers the Balkans, the Black Sea, Anatolia, the Caucasus, East Africa, the Levant, Arabia, Mesopotamia, the Persian Plateau, Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan) & the Indus.
• Sections of all sizes:
  The full map is Enormous, but if you are less ambitious, 20 sections of the map are available as smaller maps[imgur.com].
• True Starting Locations:
  18 official civs, 11 city states & 4 natural wonders (plus 2 Terra Mirabilis wonders) are placed at their real world locations.
• Support for custom civs & city states:
  TSLs are included for 34 custom civs & 56 custom city states. Their locations are marked on this Google map[www.google.com].
• Toggleable "Ancient Persian Gulf Shoreline":
  A set-up option is available to advance the northern shoreline of the Gulf northward/landward, so that Ur can be a coastal city like in Sumerian times.
• Toggleable navigable rivers:
  The Bosphorus Strait and each of the rivers Nile, Volga, Euphrates, & Tigris can be turned from normal rivers to coastal tiles during set-up, allowing naval units to traverse deep into land while creating obstacles for land units.
• Choke points:
  In addition to the presence of navigable rivers, choke points are also created by careful placement of mountain tiles on land, & island tiles at sea. Plan your tactical maneuvers carefully!
• Map generated floodplains:
  This YnAMP-based map has map-generated river floodplains, so dam construction and flooding events are possible.

Map size: Full map is 94 x 110 (Enormous). See all 21 map sections[imgur.com].

Required Mod: Gedemon’s Yet (not) Another Maps Pack

Recommended Mods:

• Religion Expanded: This adds enough beliefs to vanilla’s 20 so that you won’t get locked if you are playing with more than 20 civs but haven’t chosen a belief.
• Prismatic – Color and Jersey Overhaul: This adds enough jersey colors so that you can play with more than 20 civs in one game. Otherwise some civs will get transparent colors.

• Arabia (at Cairo, or Damascus if Egypt is present, or Mecca / Medina if Phoenicia is present)
• Babylon
• Byzantium
• Egypt
• Ethiopia
• Georgia
• Greece: Gorgo & Pericles
• India (at Delhi)
• Macedon
• Mongolia (at Sygnak near the Aral Sea. There is an alternate start at Sarai when you play smaller map sections or when you want to have both Genghis and Kublai Khan)
• Nubia
• Ottomans (at Constantinople, or Sogut if Byzantium is present)
• Persia: Cyrus (at Pasargadae) & Nader Shah (at Mashhad)
• Phoenicia (at Tyre)
• Rome (at Romula)
• Russia (at Tsaritsyn)
• Scythia (at the base of the Aral Sea, or in Crimea on some map sections)
• Sumer

Anshan (X Persia), Hattusa (X Merrick’s Hittites), Jerusalem (X Kingdom of Jerusalem), Kabul, Mohenjo Daro, Preslav (X Merrick’s Bulgaria), Muscat, Yerevan, Akkad (X CIVITAS Akkad), Lahore, Samarkand (X Gedemo Timurid)

Note: City states with (X civ/leader) will not spawn if the civ/leader specified is present

34 custom civs & 56 custom city states have TSL on this map.

To play with advanced YnAMP settings, you need to

1. Have this mod and Yet (not) Another Map Pack installed and enabled ingame
2. Single Player –> Create Game –> Load Database (next to the BACK button) and wait for the game to load
3. Once loaded, you will be back to the main menu
4. Single Player –> Create Game (You should see a tick next to CREATE GAME at the top.) –> Choose Map Type –> Saph’s Middle East: Cradle of Civilization (TSL) –> Advanced Setup

Recommended Settings

1. Turn on Only Civilizations/City States with TSL (or Turn off if you want to play with custom city states)
2. Adjust the number of civs, city states & religions in the game to your liking.
3. Manually pick the civs to play as/against or leave them random.
4. Map Section: Select among the 21 available sections[imgur.com] to play.
5. Select Natural Wonders: Leave it at Everything / Uncheck the ones that you don’t want to appear
6. Coastal Lowland: Choose Map Generator for random placement / Matching flatland for more dramatic flooding / Empty for no lowlands
7. Rivers Flooding: Choose Map Generator / Empty for no floodplains & flooding (and hence no dams)
8. Resource Quantity: Your own preference (Resources are map-generated; this map does not contain pre-placed resources.)
9. Civilization Placement: Choose True Starting Locations for accurate historical placement / Map Generator for random placement
10. Enforce TSL: AI if you don’t want the AI to stray from their TSLs
11. Use Leaders TSL when available & Use Alternative TSL if required and available: On
12. Allow random placement for civs without TSL: Off (You can turn it on if you want random placement for civs not in the list above)
13. Desert floodplains along the Nile: Enable to turn the grass/plains tiles along the Niles river valley into desert floodplains (up to Aswan). Please note that these floodplains do not actually flood and thus do not allow you to build dams on (only map-generated floodplains allow the construction of dams), but at least you get to build nice Sphinxes.
14. Ancient Persian Gulf shoreline: Enable to advance the northern shoreline of the Gulf northward, so that Ur can be a coastal city like in Sumerian times.
15. Navigable Rivers: Check the rivers that you want to turn into coastal tiles for naval units.
16. Real City Naming: On (This is only for the capitals for several civs which do not start at their actual capitals e.g. Arabia at Mecca)
17. No Duplicate Civilizations: Off, if you want to have, both Gorgo & Pericles, or Genghis & Kublai Khan, at the same time.

This map is made possible by Gedemon’s YnAMP & Zobtzler’s YnABMC.