Civilization 5 Scenario Into the Renaissance Map

Into the Renaissance Map

The Civilization 5 Scenario “Into the Renaissance” is the most complex scenarios I’ve played so far. And as such it also has the biggest map of all scenarios. The Into the Renaissance Map is dynamic again, so don’t count on this map when it comes to where resources are. They will be spread differently every time you play. Look at the (Deity) starting conditions in the map below: A start like this I most likely wouldn’t play on Deity difficulty. For most nations there are neither Iron nor Horses in radius of the capital. Restart games like this and cross fingers for a better outcome to win on Deity.

Download the Map (high resolution)

Right-click and open in new tab / new window to download.

Civilization 5 Into the Renaissance MapFor taking the screenshots I started 24 games of this scenario:

With each of the 12 playable civilizations I started one game on Deity to capture the start units and culture spread at the highest difficulty.

Then I started 12 games on Settler difficulty, to scout the surrounding: On Settler it was easier to buy loads of scouts, triremes and in general start exploring with the settlers, worker and units you start with.

Also: Scouting on Settler for the sake of capturing the map is better, because the AI civs don’t found many cities early on.

While the entire “Rise of the Mongols map” was created of only about 15 screenshots, it took about 70 screenshots of the strategic view playing the Into the Renaissance scenario to create this wonderful map.

Download the high resolution (4221x4180x24b) version of the “Into the Renaissance” scenario map by clicking the image!

City States on the Into the Renaissance Map

There are 24 City States spread across the map. Most of them resemble the independent kingdoms in Italy at that time:

  1. Milan
  2. Venice
  3. Genoa
  4. Florence
  5. Vatican City (Holy City for Catholicism)
  6. Naples

The second group are City States representing the German sectionalism:

  1. Cologne
  2. Augsburg (home of the Fugger dynasty, one of the most powerful family of mercantile bankers)
  3. Prague
  4. Wittenberg (Holy City for Protestantism and hometown of my girlfriend)

Then there are the independent kingdoms of Poland and Switzerland:

  1. Warsaw
  2. Gdansk
  3. Zurich
  4. Geneva

And finally there are smaller independent nations:

  1. Riga (Latvia)
  2. Polotsk (Belarus or, at that time, Lithuania)
  3. Antwerp (independent merchant city)
  4. Lisbon (Kingdom of Portugal)
  5. Budapest
  6. Belgrade
  7. Ragusa
  8. Tunis
  9. Valletta
  10. Jerusalem (acting as a “Holy City” for all religions, meaning: Controlling it grants Victory Points (VP) every turn)
  11. Mecca (Holy City for Islam)

All these City States increase the depth of the game by changing their allies frequently and thus waging war against different nations every few turns. Depending how the game develops there are many many possible outcomes: I’ve seen Tunis capture Valletta, Vatican City capture Naples and vice versa, Vatican City capture Florence etc.

The City States in Into the Renaissance are definitely well chosen and well placed on the map.

9 thoughts on “Civilization 5 Scenario Into the Renaissance Map”

  1. Hey Rob,

    I found an in game editor ( https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/ingame-editor.436912/#post-10812084 ) that should do the job. I can save the map from the into the renaissance scenario and use it, and in the first turn of the game I set up in this map I can move all Civs/city-state settlers to their proper location. I can even make them create their religion, and modify the number of followers for each religion in each city (I will probably control this manually in the beginning to make sure each civ follows the “exact” religion in the beginning). Still working on how to prevent other from creating new religion, but maybe I will create other religions in city states that I will destroy and so kill the religion before it can spread, but I’m quite tempted to create Judaism in Jerusalem to add some fun in the region haha.

    But my main concern and where you could give helpful advice, is how to create a balanced game. In the original scenario (and so on the map), muslims have tons of luxury resources and as no one wants to be friend with them or buy the resources at full price. In the same spirit, they have lots of available territory to colonize (same goes for Russia, but the Mongols will be at the beginning of the game so that should balance it a bit.

    How do you think I could balance the game ? I have the option to modify tiles, but I wonder if I should delete completely some type of ressources the muslim owns and/or the number of exemplary of the resources (that is meant in the original scenario to compensate for the trading of those ressources at lower price). I could also add some civilization (I will already add Dandolo in Venice that should not harm the game except if he wants to conquer the rest of Italy, which actually could be helpful for me as I won’t get considered as much as a crazy warmonger if I conquer a civ instead of city states). I was thinking of Didon in Carthage (and so remove Tunis of the game), maybe the Polish to temper Russian colonization in the east.

    Main issue remaining (for realism) is that I can’t choose which city-state I start the game with. I can add more than required and delete the unwanted, but maximum number is 41 and so I won’t get all city-states I want from the beginning. Any ideas about this ? If I deactivate the game extensions (scramble for Africa probably introduced new city-states for example), will the city-state won’t appear in a new game ?

    Btw I would be happy to share this experience with you if you want. Once the game is setup I could juste send you the saved file so you can try to play on this (feasible ?)

    Best,
    Couzzman

    1. First: Nice one! I’d be happy to play that modified scenario. I think you’d find plenty of people who would — put it on the Steam Workshop! 🙂
      I wouldn’t worry about balancing too much: Most players who are still with Civ5 at this point play higher levels of difficulty. There everything is biased against the player, but the AIs amongst one another are fairly balanced. In the Into the Renaissance scenario I’ve seen all kinds of different outcomes, but never does one AI completely defeat or dominate another one. Basically: Wherever the human player(s) start – the neighboring AIs will get stronger, because of the human player(s)’s disadvantages.
      Poland is a nice idea, especially since the timing is right. Carthage – well… Everyone knows Northern Africa could need another civ in that area, but unfortunately Carthage is an anachronism. Maybe do some more edits and create a custom civ? Or place A LOT of barbarian camps there, to slow the spread of the Almohads and Ayyubids?

  2. Hey Robert,
    Recently played into the Renaissance with the French on Deity, conquered the Dutch and allied with the English, holding off the Spanish with the Pyrreneans mountains. Then I converted each Italian city states to protestantism before conquering them, and I finished the game by conquering most of Almohads empire, hated by the whole world haha with some 11’000 points.

    I tried to play some more because I’m very interested on what would happen if the game continues after 200 turns, how long it would take me to conquer all of it. I’m only at turn 225 and this is not worth it considering how time consuming it is.

    Coming to my question, I would like to create the same scenario but from Antiquity to modern times without the reduced tech tree, but with the same Civilization and city states (the points system is not necessary in my opinion, I’m only aiming for global dominance and want to see what other civ would I be competing against at the end).

    I’m new to creating map and scenarios, and I can’t seem to download the SDK and use it on steam (although it seems to exist and some people are apparently still using it : https://steamdb.info/app/16830/# )

    Can you please advise if you already created such scenarios/map, if my idea is possible and maybe if you know why I can’t find the SDK tool after I downloaded Steam.

    Best,
    Couzzman

    1. Hi Couzzman,
      congratz on your epic France-game! Playing beyond turn 200 is indeed time consuming. I’ve done this several times with the Ottomans and other nations, but I’ve excelled playing Sweden: With the Swedes I conquered EVERY city on the map until the early 300s. I think your idea for a scenario sounds amazing. Also it shouldn’t be hard to do, because the map already exists in this scenario and includes the starting locations, the civs and the city states. Regarding the SDK (let alone actually using it) I have no idea: I’ve never actually created scenarios or maps. I’m just playing 🙂 But check back on the Steam forums for Civ5 or CivFanatics. People there are usually resourceful and willing to help.

      Best,
      Rob

  3. Riga is Latvia (Livonia), and Polotsk is Lithuania at that time. I mean you got Lithuania-Latvia the other way around. 🙂

    1. Hi Justinas, I’ve updated the post. Thanks for the hint! 🙂
      This mistake (to my very embarrassment) happens to me quite often…

  4. Hi Kalle. Thx for a great many texts on ItR 🙂 A lovely scenario, which I enjoy reading about on your site. The map here is not in a very good resolution when I see it online and download it to my pc. What can be the cause of that you think?
    Thx Again 😀

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.