If you haven't already tried them out, I'd highly recommend the Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (RFC) genre of mods for Civilization IV. Civs spawn in their his

If you haven't already tried them out, I'd highly recommend the Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (RFC) genre of mods for Civilization IV. Civs spawn in their historical period (and location) and are given a set of historical goals. Maya may have been doomed to fail, but the historical victory goals make every country unique and interesting. A stability mechanic keeps countries in check and provides proper friction to nonsensical actions. Persia is much more capable of conquering and stabilizing the Middle East than say Japan would be. Economic downturns give instability; barbarians pillaging the Greek countryside could be the final straw leading to the collapse of Alexander's empire. Each civ also gets their unique power (before Civ 5 did it!) in addition to their unique unit(s) and building(s) that help them orient towards and accomplish their historical goals. Greece's Great Person generation bonus will help (and is probably necessary for) them to achieve their goals of being the research a number of techs. Persia's power helps them manage instability from maintaining a far-reaching empire. Overall, RFC essentially builds a new game on top of Civ4. The best part is that there's a number of RFC-derived modmods with varying locales and mechanics. Here's a few that I would highly recommend: * RFC Dawn of Civilization[0] - An actively developed fork of the original mod that keeps the "vanilla" feel and the global map. * The Sword of Islam[1] - A Middle East themed variant that although is long-abandoned is one of the most polished modmods * RFC Europe[2] - Self explanatory. Focused on Europe starting from the rise of the Franks ending with the Industrial Revolution. [0] https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/welcome-to-dawn-of-civilization.533861/ https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/welcome-to-dawn-of-ci... [1] https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-sword-of-islam-rfc-medieval-middle-east.373155/ https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/the-sword-of-islam-rf... [2] https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rhyes-and-fall-of-europe-starting-information.363679/ https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rhyes-and-fall-of-eur...