I’ve dedicated the page to my Mega Civilization/Mega Empires retro re-design and map expansion. I updated this page 2020-05-27.

Mega Civilization was published in 2015 and Western Empires in 2019, both by 999 games. This site caters to both systems while giving a nod to its predecessors Civilization, published by Hartland Trefoil in 1980, and Advanced Civilization, published by Avalon Hill in 1991. The material on this site is fan made and non-profit, only intended for DIY purposes. No copyright infringement is intended.

July 2021: I haven’t updated this site for more than a year. My real life commitments (my wonderful family and the house we moved into in the summer of 2020) prevent me from spending time on this project. I hope to get more free time in the autumn of 2021; if I do then the first order of business is to put together the scenario booklet and the AST necessary to play. In the best of worlds, this coincides with the publishing of Eastern Empires. Needles to say, this whole page needs to be reconstructed and a lot of things large and small updated. Sorry for this interlude.

Acknowledgements

Dedicated to the memory of Francis Tresham, Master Game Designer.

A big thanks to John Rodriguez who once got me started into this madness, and Nathan Barhorst who got me to continue. Thanks also to Flo de Haan and Gerart de Haan, whos relentless efforts to evolve, refine and innovate keeps the Civilization/Empires system alive. Finally, many thanks to Bernie Roessler and Thomas Phinney for valuable contributions.

Many regards to the (now defunct) Expansion Project and (alive) civ.rol-play.com communities and anyone I might have forgotten. If you’d like to play Civilization online, be sure to go to Nathan’s civ.rol-play.com.

In the Eastern Himalayas, the mountain range opens up into a maze of tundras and glaciers. In these barren lands, can you build a civilization and start an empire?

This is “The Big One”, the entire 27-player map covering all of Mega Civilization (that is, both Western Empires and Eastern Empires), as well as a composite of the different East Asian maps online. Also included for the first time is my own Silk Road map extension.

Downloads

The Eurasian map is available both as one giant map (for those with the necessary recourses to print such a thing) and as three PA0 (A0/ANSI E) size connected maps:

A.S.T:s are also available. You’ll need the last file for all A.S.T:s but the first:

Archive: New World Empires

The land bridge between north and south; as well as the cradle of civilization in the western hemisphere.

I‘ve yet to update the map, A.S.T. and scenario booklet is not yet updated to the same standard as the Eurasian map.

This map is my take on Martin DeOlden’s Civilization: The New World. I’ve re-balanced the map for Mega Civilization and incorporated feedback from playtesters at Nathan Barhorst’s civ.rol-play.com. Credit for naming all areas goes to Dan Towse, Robby Ragas and the user aethelstan from civ.rol-play.com. If you prefer to play with Martin DeOlden’s original map and rules, be sure to give him some much appreciated feedback on BoardGameGeek.

Scenario booklet:

CMR Scenario booklet 2019-02-17

Map:

CMR New World 2019-01-29

A.S.T:

CMR New World AST 2019-02-05

Framework – time and space

Temporal scales

The Map Repository has its own sets of time scales for its A.S.T:s. The East Asia game begins 9.000 BC and ends in the Late Antiquity, for a total of around 9.000 years. Future Old World maps will use this time scale. The New World game begins 1.500 BC and ends at the beginning of European colonization, for a total of 3.000 years.

The Old World time scale is a compromise between Tresham’s original Civilization time scale (with a large focus on the Iron Age) and the original Mega Civilization time scale (with an equally large focus on the Bronze Age). It’s also harmonized with a exponential, universal time scale originating from our modern days. The New World time scale is extrapolated from this.

Spatial scales

All maps use the Plate Carrée projection.

  • New World – Scale A (1:8.000.000)
  • Eurasia – Scale B (1:6.350.000)
  • Hellas inset – Scale C (1:3.560.000)

What’s next?

Urgent

  • The Eurasian Empires scenario booklet should include the region map, but also answer questions like what commodities to use, which combinations of civilizations are playable, how many players are possible and other things, most importantly, credits.
  • I should probably make some kind of tokens and special building tokens for the nine easternmost civilizations.

Non-urgent

  • After things have quieted down, I’d like to release both the new graphical profile and my own “Meta Empires” balancing tool to the public as separate documents.
  • I should update the New World map to the latest balancing and graphical standards.
  • At this time, I’d like to point out that the purpose of making more maps for Civilization (and now Empires) was never to create games with unplayable player counts but to add variation. Even though, at some time down the road there should be trade cards and counters for really large player counts, even if this is only for novelty and completion value (and convention and online play).
  • In my mind, I have an idea about creating rules where you control more than one civilization. I don’t really know how that would work but it would be interesting to create a situation where you could play the entire Eurasian map without bringing a school class.
  • Should we cover the entire wold? There are probably four more civilizations in Africa, two in Oceania and one pre-Inuit, making for a 44 player game. How does the different areas of the world interact? What scales should the map use? Is this even a good idea?
  • I’m really more interested in creating rules for taking the game into the medieval times. I have some ideas but they aren’t ripe yet.
  • Crazy ideas for the far future include rule sets for playing Civilization in totally different ways and maps for Hellas, Mesoamerica and Nippon as well as lost continents such as Atlantis and R’Lyeh.