Transposition finished! New map available below.


This is a placeholder for the map development thread - please put input and ideas here.

The most recent version of the map, which I am currently transposing eastward to remove Mesopotamia and add the Canaries/Azores, is on page 6 of the organized development thread. The link to that is here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=249041&page=6

Input is welcome.

reserved for future use.

I'm transposing the map several squares to the east, and it is a tedious and time-consuming task. I'm about 1/3 of the way done, but if anyone would like to help, the current version is here. Any work that you can do (simply save, zip, and repost under a different name) is appreciated. If not, I hope to be done in about a week.

can't it be done by adding tiles west and cut east ? Sadly I don't know how to do this kind of stuff. But at least it seems that we are at a good point with the geographical map :)

can't it be done by adding tiles west and cut east ? Sadly I don't know how to do this kind of stuff. But at least it seems that we are at a good point with the geographical map :)

I had hoped that it could, and there's probably a way to go through the code in notepad and replace x = __ with x = __, but I was worried about the effect that would have on rivers and resources. This way is tedious, but effective - and it lets me clean the map up a little and remove some of the resources along the way.

Thanks for the vote of approval.

I looked at the map, good job. I made some modifications to Italy, if you like'em you can add them to the definitive version.
Reshaped Sicily and moved the peak closer to Etna's position
Added Sheeps in Sardinia, they have many (along with goats, btw...)
Added Fish near Liguria, a big part of our economy has always been fishing)
Added the lake of Garda, bigger than the one in Switzerland but missing in the original map
Added a short river to Venice
The river Po starts in the Alps now (extended by 2 tiles)

Maybe it's now a too much stronger start, but it conpensates with the lack of space.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/41379/RFC_europe_proto-map_-_transposition.rar

You can cut slices of the map at north and east easily with notepad - it works automatically.

You could do that instead of manually translate just to make room for Azores

I looked at the map, good job. I made some modifications to Italy, if you like'em you can add them to the definitive version.
Reshaped Sicily and moved the peak closer to Etna's position
Added Sheeps in Sardinia, they have many (along with goats, btw...)
Added Fish near Liguria, a big part of our economy has always been fishing)
Added the lake of Garda, bigger than the one in Switzerland but missing in the original map
Added a short river to Venice
The river Po starts in the Alps now (extended by 2 tiles)

Maybe it's now a too much stronger start, but it conpensates with the lack of space.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/41379/RFC_europe_proto-map_-_transposition.rar

Thanks! I'll certainly look at and consider your changes.

You can cut slices of the map at north and east easily with notepad - it works automatically.

You could do that instead of manually translate just to make room for Azores

Thanks! How exactly do I go about adding tiles to the west, though?

you can't - unless you want to manually translate everything

you can't - unless you want to manually translate everything

that was what i was afraid of. :( oh well, i'll just continue with the manual translation. i'm about halfway there.

what about Iceland? it's Europe too. Maybe it could be the last civ

too far away, too few influence, would extort the map too much, the mod is better off without team (performance wise)

I think you're right

Well i'm not really sure about it, but the Garda sea is only 369,98 square kilometres big, the one in switzerland which is probaly the Sea of Genf (only know the german name so its translated incorrect don't be harsh) is 580.03 square kilometres big.

But the one that is really missing is the -in german its called- "Bodensee", dont know the english expression, but its the one between the borders of germany, switzerland and austria. ;)

But the question is, shall the map be about realism or about gameplay?!?

If you think about gameplay you shold look for fitting cityplaces and then arange the resources and stuff.

For example i have got problems placing german cities on the map which are geografically on the right place and are good cities (food/resources).

Well i'm not really sure about it, but the Garda sea is only 369,98 square kilometres big, the one in switzerland which is probaly the Sea of Genf (only know the german name so its translated incorrect don't be harsh) is 580.03 square kilometres big.

But the one that is really missing is the -in german its called- "Bodensee", dont know the english expression, but its the one between the borders of germany, switzerland and austria. ;)



Genfsee: Lake Geneva/Lake Leman
Bodensee: Lake Constance

I managed to finish the transposition tonight. The updated map is in the first post of the thread. The following changes were made:

-Transposed entire map 12? squares east, eliminating Mesopotamia, the Caucasus region, and the Urals
-Added the Canaries, Azores, and Madiera islands
-Removed many resources from the map to make cities smaller and less powerful - in particular, those in Scandinavia, England, and the Maghrib
-Adjusted and fixed several rivers - added the Meuse, Arno, and a few others
-Incorporated some of Riker's suggestions for Italy - didn't increase the size of Sicily, but added lakes Garda and Constance
-Added locations of independent cities and probable (open to debate) starting points.

There's some other stuff in there too, but that's most of it.

Things to do:
-I plan on adding marsh tiles in for many/most of the places I currently have marked with jungle.
-I'm still looking for feedback re: resource placement, starting places, and other features that I might have missed.
-I haven't updated food/luxury resources yet. My next project is going to be learning how to do that, and changing some of that around.


On luxuries: What do people think about eliminating war elephants from the mod and just having ivory as a luxury resource? I'd change the graphic for it, or add a walrus for the Scandinavian version rather than having incongruous elephants in Norway. I can't remember elephants being used during the time frame of the mod, so is it reasonable to eliminate them?

Thoughts?

On luxuries: What do people think about eliminating war elephants from the mod and just having ivory as a luxury resource? I'd change the graphic for it, or add a walrus for the Scandinavian version rather than having incongruous elephants in Norway. I can't remember elephants being used during the time frame of the mod, so is it reasonable to eliminate them?

Thoughts?

Please do. The only notable use of elephants in war in europe was the Punic Wars, which are long since over by the time of the scenario. The only possible problem with 'walrus ivory' is determining where historically walruses might have lived. Do we know the Norse had walrus ivory?

Please do. The only notable use of elephants in war in europe was the Punic Wars, which are long since over by the time of the scenario. The only possible problem with 'walrus ivory' is determining where historically walruses might have lived. Do we know the Norse had walrus ivory?

Yes, it was one of their major trade goods (along with Narwhal tusks) throughout the Medieval period, and one of the reasons for the colonization of Greenland. Most of it came from areas off the map - Svalbard, Iceland, and Greenland - but I see nothing wrong with putting one in the Orkneys and a couple in otherwise remote/barren areas of Norway and maybe Finland. I'm thinking of making some of those areas a little less city-friendly anyway, although given how the Vikings are determined to build 6 poor cities in Scandinavia in ordinary RFC, it may not make a difference...



If you want a citation for the walrus ivory, I remember it being talked about pretty extensively in Jared Diamond's 'Collapse'.



One other thing that I was looking at when making the map - I preserved the traditional treatment of Denmark as being separate from Sweden by a narrow strait - with the island that Copehagen is on being attached to the peninsula. Upon further review, it seems pretty obvious that the island in question is much closer to Sweden than to the Jutland peninsula. Should I reverse the traditional order of things for accuracy, or leave them as they are? The geographically accurate placement would be to shift the island one square east, moving the strait two tiles west. This would result in a funny-shaped Sweden and a slightly off-looking Denmark, but it would be closer to the actual state of affairs.

I've seen the map. I like it and I have a suggestion. A great chunk of the map is ocean, the sahara and forest in the east. I played a tabletop game, Age of Renaissance, where the map covered only Europe and at the borders you had proxis of the Far East and the Americas. What about putting something like that, rich of resources and available with certain techs? In this way, we'll give importance to places that now are useless, like the ocean.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/192678

as you can see, there are squares near Spain and the Black Sea, which represent oversea colonies and far east trade. Sorry, I couldn't find a better image of the board

I've seen the map. I like it and I have a suggestion. A great chunk of the map is ocean, the sahara and forest in the east. I played a tabletop game, Age of Renaissance, where the map covered only Europe and at the borders you had proxis of the Far East and the Americas. What about putting something like that, rich of resources and available with certain techs? In this way, we'll give importance to places that now are useless, like the ocean.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/192678

as you can see, there are squares near Spain and the Black Sea, which represent oversea colonies and far east trade. Sorry, I couldn't find a better image of the board

Riker,

I've tried to do that by adding in the Azores and Canaries as sugar plantations, and by adding silk to some of the Caliphate cities (to represent the terminii of the silk road). While it might make sense to put a potential gold-producing colony at the south edge of the Sahara (to represent Guinea), I think we were going to handle most luxury-producing colonies (with luxuries such as tobacco, tea, etc.) as wonders or projects which provided resources, much as the Wembley/Graceland wonders already do.

I'm also wondering if I should add cotton to Egypt and Turkey, and what exactly to do about spices. Should I add some spice-producing areas to Europe, to represent saffron plantations, which have been around for hundreds of years? Should spices be another of the colonial wonder luxuries?

Riker,

I've tried to do that by adding in the Azores and Canaries as sugar plantations, and by adding silk to some of the Caliphate cities (to represent the terminii of the silk road). While it might make sense to put a potential gold-producing colony at the south edge of the Sahara (to represent Guinea), I think we were going to handle most luxury-producing colonies (with luxuries such as tobacco, tea, etc.) as wonders or projects which provided resources, much as the Wembley/Graceland wonders already do.

I'm also wondering if I should add cotton to Egypt and Turkey, and what exactly to do about spices. Should I add some spice-producing areas to Europe, to represent saffron plantations, which have been around for hundreds of years? Should spices be another of the colonial wonder luxuries?

Spices should be a colonial resource. I'd also consider making Cotton a colonial resource, though that doesn't necessarily mean Egypt and Turkey can't also have some.

I would add one wine resource to Portugal and perhaps 1-2 indepentend cities more to north africa, germany, east europe and to scandinavia. I placed on all spots which were maked from st.lucifer and then the map looked very empty in some areas.

I would add one wine resource to Portugal and perhaps 1-2 indepentend cities more to north africa, germany, east europe and to scandinavia. I placed on all spots which were maked from st.lucifer and then the map looked very empty in some areas.

Wine to Portugal sounds reasonable. North Africa is a problem - there's a great stretch of territory which is empty (although it isn't likely to be that way in the game) - I think that I'm going to have to dry/empty it out a bit to prevent it from being too powerful. When looking for independent cities, I found it very hard to find cities which were old enough or persistent enough to be worth mentioning; certainly there will be others on the map, but I wasn't sure which to include.

Eastern Europe has the same sort of problem. There weren't many solid cities that weren't locked into a specific empire. (Really, even finding cities that persisted is difficult.) Scandinavia's going to have to be weakened a bit, too - too much food available without serious threat of invasion. I don't feel comfortable putting independent cities in Scandinavia, but I'd be in favor of barbarians showing up regularly to trash improvements.

So, yes. The map will have some empty spots. If you have suggestions for how to fill those, put them into the map on WB, put it in a zip file with WINRAR, and post it back up here.

In my opinion Europe maps should usually be rotated like the Age of Renaissance one so that Up is a bit Northeast. That yields less wasted space and a faster game.

I also think distorting aggressively for gameplay is much better than preserving actual geography.

Yes, the Norse had walrus ivory and they traded it throughout Northern Europe. Very good candidate for a new resource.

You might also consider adding lead / tin / salt / peat in place of some of the more exotic resources.

I like the map of Britain. However, I don't like the way the island narrows to a single tile-width at Edinburgh. Not only is this inaccurate, it will give Edinburgh access to both seas, which is completely unrealistic, not to mention total control over land access to northern Scotland.

I like the map of Britain. However, I don't like the way the island narrows to a single tile-width at Edinburgh. Not only is this inaccurate, it will give Edinburgh access to both seas, which is completely unrealistic, not to mention total control over land access to northern Scotland.

Reasonable criticism. I'll consider reworking it. Scotland really isn't very wide at that point, though... I might just move Edinburgh one tile to the SE, which would eliminate the canal effect.

Thanks. I'd still rather have a land tile where the Solway Firth is though. It's 70 miles coast-to-coast here, and should a player manage to raze Edinburgh the 'canal city' problem may still arise.

Thanks. I'd still rather have a land tile where the Solway Firth is though. It's 70 miles coast-to-coast here, and should a player manage to raze Edinburgh the 'canal city' problem may still arise.

That is a point. It's worth noting that it's also possible to do it with a city and a fort, but the fort method wastes a tile, which probably means that it won't happen. I guess I'll give up my attempt at a pretty coastline for gameplay...*sigh* the sacrifices that one must make.

I think that resources are pretty well covered, where we're going to have the exotic resources be colonial (for the most part.) That covers silk, spices, cotton, and possibly tobacco or tea. If we substitute cotton, tobacco, and tea for hit singles, movies, and musicals, we come out even; if we remove elephants, ivory can stand alone, and then there's some question about what to do with rice, corn, and bananas.

I'm in favor of renaming/redrawing bananas as 'citrus fruit' to represent oranges and bergamots in the Mediterranean regions, but I worry that they weren't important enough in trade. It might be worthwhile to replace bananas with salt - the food/trade bonuses of the tile would have to be altered somewhat, but that's easy; the benefit to groceries would be consistent with the use of salt, and the artwork would be easy. :D

We had talked about having corn represent another grain such as rye or barley; it wouldn't be hard to redo rice in the same sort of way, possibly as flax. I don't want to have another metal such as lead or tin - tin was less of a valuable commodity in the era we're working with, and I'm not sure how easy it would be to add bonuses to the forge and such rather than replacing existing ones. I've never heard of peat being traded - while locally important in several regions, I don't know that it warrants full inclusion as a resource.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Cheers St Lucifer. I see your point re peat. Can you think of any tradable 'swamp' resource? Eels? :)

Cheers St Lucifer. I see your point re peat. Can you think of any tradable 'swamp' resource? Eels? :)

Flax. And originally, I had sugar beets on the map in the Pripet and Karelian marshes, but ended up moving them to the Azores as sugar beets weren't processed until the industrial era. I'm not sure if we want to make controlling marshes particularly advantageous, though, and making one of the luxuries a marsh resource would have that effect.

Thinking more about lead and metals in general: we definitely don't need/want uranium in this mod, or really, oil. Do we want to reassign those resources to something else? I had considered putting saltpeter back in (shades of civ 3); obsolete with chemistry - or is that overkill? Access to reliable supplies of saltpeter actually was an issue during the early gunpowder era.

Flax? Great idea.

Baltic amber was a luxury but I wonder if it's worthy of its own resource. You could have pitch to represent the trade in naval supplies. You could also have a tradable 'timber' resource in forests.

I totally agree with the salt and rye/barley. Both are a must as far as European history is concerned. I dunno about the rest, but there should be salt 1 or 2 tiles W of Marseille. And where Salzburg would be. Maybe TEN tiles with salt there?? (lol just kidding).

I'm sure there are tons of other places, I just don't know them.

Also, an almost risky suggestion: hemp. The single biggest crop ever... It's an essential resource to have, as most of everything - clothing, some foods, paper, fabrics, ropes, bags and more - used to be made out of hemp

Flax? Great idea.

Baltic amber was a luxury but I wonder if it's worthy of its own resource. You could have pitch to represent the trade in naval supplies. You could also have a tradable 'timber' resource in forests.

The timber idea has been kicked around for a while, and I think we ultimately rejected it. It's not a bad idea, but determining which forests provide timber and which don't is a potential headache, as is keeping the AI from filling Russia with useless mini-cities - unless we conditionally disallow settlers, which I am on record as being in favor of (perhaps alone).

Flax (to represent linen) is a well-supported historical luxury resource, and there are a number of marshy/swampy areas that would be appropriate for it. I believe that RFC code states that marshes cannot be improved, which would make the inclusion of a marsh-based resource questionable; I'm also a little reluctant to turn marshes productive (which is essentially what this would do, even if we gave it no tile bonus.) On the other hand, I'd rather not include both rye and barley (or oats, or any other cold-weather grain) - and I don't have anything better in mind for a food or trade resource. Potatoes would be perfect, but they don't show up until after the colonial period. Now, as standard RFC has resources popping up at regular intervals, that might work...

Agreed about amber. I proposed it earlier, but I think it's covered by gems - many of which are concentrated around the Baltic. It's kind of hard to come up with luxuries for a decidedly unluxurious time...

I totally agree with the salt and rye/barley. Both are a must as far as European history is concerned. I dunno about the rest, but there should be salt 1 or 2 tiles W of Marseille. And where Salzburg would be. Maybe TEN tiles with salt there?? (lol just kidding).

I'm sure there are tons of other places, I just don't know them.

Also, an almost risky suggestion: hemp. The single biggest crop ever... It's an essential resource to have, as most of everything - clothing, some foods, paper, fabrics, ropes, bags and more - used to be made out of hemp

I'll solicit more votes on this, but I think that replacing either bananas or uranium with salt is a good idea. It's probably the second or third most important/widely traded resource of the time period (behind spices), and it actually occurs naturally in the map and doesn't have to be wedged in through colonies. While hemp isn't a bad idea, how long has it been cultivated in Europe? I have a hard time thinking of hemp without thinking of the George Washington speech from Dazed and Confused. :D

What about olives? It could replace oil (the word oil actually comes from both English and French translations of the word olive). It has been important throughout European history, and the oil has been used for religious purposes (and still is, can create the +1 :) in temples?)

Hi guys

I'm really interested in helping out with the Rhyse of Europe map. I was thinking that using this viewpoint would be optimal for a few reasons:

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6163/45003629wk8.jpg

1. minimizes desert area in Africa
2. minimizes massive northern Europe/parts of Russia
3. minimizes ocean tiles
4. allows for inclusion of almost all of Egypt, Israel, and Mesopotamia which were important during the crusades and roman times

Hi guys

I'm really interested in helping out with the Rhyse of Europe map. I was thinking that using this viewpoint would be optimal for a few reasons:

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/6163/45003629wk8.jpg

1. minimizes desert area in Africa
2. minimizes massive northern Europe/parts of Russia
3. minimizes ocean tiles
4. allows for inclusion of almost all of Egypt, Israel, and Mesopotamia which were important during the crusades and roman times

Your assistance is welcomed, and minimizing 1, 2, and 3 is a good goal - but #4 is actually one of the things we were trying to avoid. Rather, we were trying to minimize the amount of Middle East involved - we're beginning the mod well after the collapse of Rome, and the map we've got includes all of the important crusader states without making the Arab state a default superpower.

Still, there are advantages to your map. If you can recreate the current one to that angle, I'd love to see it. We're not completely married to the existing map (although I've put a lot into it, so admittedly I'm a bit biased) - if you can come up with a good alternative, I think we should put it to a vote among contributors. Good to have you along. :)

I would love a map like that, but extended north just far enough to cover the Trondheim area and Gulf of Finland - or one similar to the Colin McEvedy projection minus the far north.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/3/31/350px-Europe_map_220BC.PNG

So what about the map?

I would propose that we keep st. lucifers map because i like it and it seems that we dont get any alternatives so far. Futhermore i guess that we can only deteminate the issuses by testing the map and not by only looking at it.

If everyone agrees we can perhaps have a first look at the starting points and the core areas of each civ. Something like the rfc atlas would be very useful to discuss this.

The existing map's just fine, I was but fantasising.

So since this is the map-thread, I figured this goes here.

I have looked at the map (proto-europe) and fixed around with sweden. What we imagined will be taiga is now jungle.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/112124/civsmthn1.jpg

Okay, alright. The pics' too big and the north isn't even in it. Well. It ain't mine fault some friggin' hackers took down my uploading site because "if you have bad security, blame yourself". Dang. The north looks just the same anyway. Jungle on tundra.
What I have done is that I have added the lake Mälaren and the river that floats through Stockholm and taken away the one to the south (?), cos I'd hate it really if that river went to Vänern instead. H'anyway. I also made Gotland a real island and not just a totally worthless dot that's just there for... idonnu. Something. It's very possible that it's to big now, but I wanted it worthy of settling. I also moved the wheat north so as to make Stockholm kinda hotter (idonnu, it will probably be super-huge know, but it's just an extreme). I added a plain to the area in the southwest so as to make the landscape look less... green. Ah well. I also replaced a stone with a coal in the north. That north might need a nerf, idonnu. Couldn't clearly see all the minerals due to the forest/jungle, but it looked like ALOT. Whilst iron is realistic, alot of it is called for I think, gems isn't. Neither is stone really. Sweden is unlikely to pursue wonders due to it's late spawn.
Not also that any norse city in Scania shouldn't flip. Sweden didn't capture that til... when was it? Middle 1600th somewhere? Ah well.
I am aware of the extreme scetchyness of the rivers and so on, but this is just a idea for you guys to see what I'm about.
That's really all. Can't put up a save right now, really tired. Will do tomorrow (friday, night to saturday to americans?).

So since this is the map-thread, I figured this goes here.

I have looked at the map (proto-europe) and fixed around with sweden. What we imagined will be taiga is now jungle.

Okay, alright. The pics' too big and the north isn't even in it. Well. It ain't mine fault some friggin' hackers took down my uploading site because "if you have bad security, blame yourself". Dang. The north looks just the same anyway. Jungle on tundra.
What I have done is that I have added the lake Mälaren and the river that floats through Stockholm and taken away the one to the south (?), cos I'd hate it really if that river went to Vänern instead. H'anyway. I also made Gotland a real island and not just a totally worthless dot that's just there for... idonnu. Something. It's very possible that it's to big now, but I wanted it worthy of settling. I also moved the wheat north so as to make Stockholm kinda hotter (idonnu, it will probably be super-huge know, but it's just an extreme). I added a plain to the area in the southwest so as to make the landscape look less... green. Ah well. I also replaced a stone with a coal in the north. That north might need a nerf, idonnu. Couldn't clearly see all the minerals due to the forest/jungle, but it looked like ALOT. Whilst iron is realistic, alot of it is called for I think, gems isn't. Neither is stone really. Sweden is unlikely to pursue wonders due to it's late spawn.
Not also that any norse city in Scania shouldn't flip. Sweden didn't capture that til... when was it? Middle 1600th somewhere? Ah well.
I am aware of the extreme scetchyness of the rivers and so on, but this is just a idea for you guys to see what I'm about.
That's really all. Can't put up a save right now, really tired. Will do tomorrow (friday, night to saturday to americans?).

Thanks - I propose that we use the arctic-looking forest for taiga. I think I was using jungle on this map to represent marsh. I had plans to nerf some of the resources, but I do feel like Scandinavia should contain both metals and gems. As for the stone, I figured that an area with such a high % of mountains would have at least some usable building stone... No problems with the addition of the lake, but I don't think that Gotland should be more than 2 tiles. If I messed up the location of the river and you've corrected it, I have no problem with that. Same with the plains. I'd be happy to make the changes to the official version to reflect this, if nobody else objects.

No, not really. But the question is how useful is it to place coal on the map, because if the szenario ends in 1800 there is no real industrial coal mining isnt it?

Surely there were coal diging but no real mining?

No, not really. But the question is how useful is it to place coal on the map, because if the szenario ends in 1800 there is no real industrial coal mining isnt it?

Surely there were coal diging but no real mining?

Heh, that totally slipped my mind. I'm sure I would have noticed when we removed the coal from the mod...

I do wonder if some of the terrain-related random events (like the tin or jade ones) could be modified to give a production bonus in coal-producing regions, to reflect the fact that those hills were historically more productive. If the event could be written in a way that it would be more likely to happen in one of those areas, that would be ideal - but I have to admit I don't really understand the events code.

Instead of the rather unrealistic plains, there should be some taiga forests in the middle of sweden below the lakes as well.

North of stockholm, but outside its range should be a lot of iron resources (at least 3) in a cluster, but the city that can work them should have very little food. This would show how sweden was the iron exporter, but lacked the population to do anything with it. Alternately, put iron resources deep in the forests that swedish culture but not cities will reach.

Re coal, I thought the mod was ending mid 18th (Seeing the napoleonic wars and the ensuing peace and british economic hegemony being the begining of the end of the old european system - and the revolutions of 1848 being the final phase change to an industrial, ideological and nationalist europe rather than the old dynastic driven system). If so coal is very important (and significant coal mining did occur before the end of the 18th century in britain).

Now that I've finally reclaimed my copy of CIV, I'm going to check out the map ;).

Okay had a look (won't upload a save as I lack BtS)

Major Points
1)There are far too many plains in the north, I think we need a northern plains/moorland graphic to make it more visually appealing (Scotland for one should not be orange ;)).
2) Not enough forests, northern europe was pretty much comprehensively covered at the begining of this period, which leads me onto point 3.
3) We really need to reduce the hammer yeild from chopping in the mod (perhaps down to only 5?) :lol:
4) Since there is a big lump of space, why not put Iceland (with whales and fish and not much else in), to give an impetus to develop astronomy.
5) Again as an impetus to astronomy there should probably be an ocean gap between the canaries and africa to prevent early gain of sugar.

Minor Points
1) You probably want to remove the oil and uranium more than the coal eh?
2) Is corn a placeholder for something?

Geography Minor points/ideas/quibbles
1)Wouldn't it be cool if we put venice starting on a little spur with only marsh as ajoining land tiles - making it only attackable from the sea (though armies can raze its productive region)?
2) There should be more marsh around where St.Petersburg is, Guyenne, and ireland.
3) The west coast of ireland (aka one of the wettest places in europe) being plains amuses me quite a bit, ditto plains in denmark).
4) the Carpathans should probably be thickened so they present an actual obsticle ;).
5) Northern germany should have more forest, marsh and the odd unchoppable forest.
6) Is making Sjaelland an actual island a bad idea? especially if the vikings get a galley when they spawn?
7)North Africa does seem really productive - those berber hordes are going to have to be nasty.

Resource Points

I'm not that keen on the current resource placements, here's some suggests for resources that should appear in different areas, and some which should definately not appear in that area:
Scotland
Yes-Furs,wool,sheep,coal,maybe a cow
England
Yes- Wool, sheep, coal, several iron in the midlands, fish, wheat and horses in the south, maybe a dye.
Wales
Yes-Gold,Coal,Sheep
Ireland
Yes-Cattle,Sheep, fish, not much else
Denmark
Yes-Cattle,Pigs (several of both) No-Metals
Norway
yes-Copper,fish,whales,Deer,barley No-to many food resources
Sweden
Yes- IRON,copper(N of stockholm),fish,barley,some cattle and wheat on the west coast (I would recommend making stockholms lake larger to boost food rather than have actual food resources. If amber is represented by gems, put a source in Scania.
Finland
Yes - Copper,Fish,Deer,Iron east of the lakes.
Baltics
Yes - Amber/Gems on the west coast (several sources). the odd wheat or cattle.

More later.

Okay had a look (won't upload a save as I lack BtS)

Major Points
1)There are far too many plains in the north, I think we need a northern plains/moorland graphic to make it more visually appealing (Scotland for one should not be orange ;)).
2) Not enough forests, northern europe was pretty much comprehensively covered at the begining of this period, which leads me onto point 3.
3) We really need to reduce the hammer yeild from chopping in the mod (perhaps down to only 5?) :lol:
4) Since there is a big lump of space, why not put Iceland (with whales and fish and not much else in), to give an impetus to develop astronomy.
5) Again as an impetus to astronomy there should probably be an ocean gap between the canaries and africa to prevent early gain of sugar.



1: I'd be fine with that; I was mostly trying to simulate reduced food production, and plains fits that best. Actually, I remember Scotland as being a sort of dirty yellow/brown (and gray) color, but that might just be from tramping around the highlands looking at rocks. I'm sure that doesn't apply to everywhere.

2-3: Adding some more forest would be fine, but at the risk of historical inaccuracy, I don't think that covering 80% of N. Europe with forest is a good idea - I agree that reducing the chop bonus is a good plan, but think of the ramifications for defending armies, movement, etc. Arguably, movement should be slower in many of those areas (except river tiles - anyone want to go back to the CivII system? ;)) - but I'm hesitant to turn the whole area into the equivalent of Russia.

4-5: Good point on the Azores, I'll fix that. I ended up adding in Iceland (or at least, half of iceland) in the games I played with the map, and had intended to add it here.

Okay had a look (won't upload a save as I lack BtS)
Minor Points
1) You probably want to remove the oil and uranium more than the coal eh?
2) Is corn a placeholder for something?


The oil and uranium will be going, too. :) I haven't bothered to take them out yet as we haven't gotten the new resources in, but I'd really like to get the new resources in (and the old ones out) and work from there. I'd think that all of our resources are going to need re-examining, and many of them will be redone.
I believe I was using corn as a placeholder for barley. Certainly, corn itself has no place here.

Okay had a look (won't upload a save as I lack BtS)Geography Minor points/ideas/quibbles
1)Wouldn't it be cool if we put venice starting on a little spur with only marsh as ajoining land tiles - making it only attackable from the sea (though armies can raze its productive region)?
2) There should be more marsh around where St.Petersburg is, Guyenne, and ireland.
3) The west coast of ireland (aka one of the wettest places in europe) being plains amuses me quite a bit, ditto plains in denmark).
4) the Carpathans should probably be thickened so they present an actual obsticle ;).
5) Northern germany should have more forest, marsh and the odd unchoppable forest.
6) Is making Sjaelland an actual island a bad idea? especially if the vikings get a galley when they spawn?
7)North Africa does seem really productive - those berber hordes are going to have to be nasty.


1. That is a neat idea - I'm not sure if it's workable in the space we've got, but I like it.
2-3. I had planned to add a bunch of marsh to Karelia/Finland and some to Ireland, but wasn't sure where to put them in Germany. If you'd like to be in charge of marsh placement, go for it - I had a hard time finding terrain maps that showed me what I was looking for. Some of Ireland was changed to plains to prevent it from supporting such a large population; this can be achieved with marsh instead.
4-5: Agreed.
6: I played around with that while creating the map, and actually considered attaching it to Sweden rather than Denmark (since the strait is so much narrower on that side), but ultimately decided against it.
7: North Africa and Scandinavia are still in desperate need of nerfing. This isn't a finished product. :) This doesn't mean that I'm opposed to the Berber hordes being nasty- that wasn't exactly the most stable area in the world.


Resources addressed later - we're going to have to rearrange a lot of them.

The map is still great. But I still don't get the point of the huge ocean and the great chunk of desert. There is no reason to go there, to explore, to settle, nothing

1: I'd be fine with that; I was mostly trying to simulate reduced food production, and plains fits that best. Actually, I remember Scotland as being a sort of dirty yellow/brown (and gray) color, but that might just be from tramping around the highlands looking at rocks. I'm sure that doesn't apply to everywhere.

2-3: Adding some more forest would be fine, but at the risk of historical inaccuracy, I don't think that covering 80% of N. Europe with forest is a good idea - I agree that reducing the chop bonus is a good plan, but think of the ramifications for defending armies, movement, etc. Arguably, movement should be slower in many of those areas (except river tiles - anyone want to go back to the CivII system? ;)) - but I'm hesitant to turn the whole area into the equivalent of Russia.

4-5: Good point on the Azores, I'll fix that. I ended up adding in Iceland (or at least, half of iceland) in the games I played with the map, and had intended to add it here.


The oil and uranium will be going, too. :) I haven't bothered to take them out yet as we haven't gotten the new resources in, but I'd really like to get the new resources in (and the old ones out) and work from there. I'd think that all of our resources are going to need re-examining, and many of them will be redone.
I believe I was using corn as a placeholder for barley. Certainly, corn itself has no place here.


1. That is a neat idea - I'm not sure if it's workable in the space we've got, but I like it.
2-3. I had planned to add a bunch of marsh to Karelia/Finland and some to Ireland, but wasn't sure where to put them in Germany. If you'd like to be in charge of marsh placement, go for it - I had a hard time finding terrain maps that showed me what I was looking for. Some of Ireland was changed to plains to prevent it from supporting such a large population; this can be achieved with marsh instead.
4-5: Agreed.
6: I played around with that while creating the map, and actually considered attaching it to Sweden rather than Denmark (since the strait is so much narrower on that side), but ultimately decided against it.
7: North Africa and Scandinavia are still in desperate need of nerfing. This isn't a finished product. :) This doesn't mean that I'm opposed to the Berber hordes being nasty- that wasn't exactly the most stable area in the world.


Resources addressed later - we're going to have to rearrange a lot of them.

Are people posting on this thread rather than the other one now?
OK, Just a couple of observations:

1) The highlands of Scotland were originally dense oak forests (called the Caledonian Forest)
until they were stripped bare in 17th. and 18th. centuries to build the Royal Navy .
That's why they look so barren today. So really they should be wooded hills with lakes and mountains. And rather than be food poor, they should abound in game and fish, both sea and freshwater. (Obviously the way you saw the area is nothing like it was before .)

2)The west of Ireland should be represented by mixed marshland and stone outcrops with little grassland at all. Only the eastern half and south coast is rich grassland.

3)North Africa should have a few cities spaced apart on the coast except northern Morocco
which should include Fez, Meknes, Tangier and Tlemcen at least. Plus a cluster of cities in
the Tunis area as well.

4)I like the idea of tilting the map about 20%, so you could get rid of some of Siberia and
the Sahara and include Iceland and more of the Middle East.

5) Resources like oil and uranium are irrelevant but coal is important
fairly early for the smelting of iron and steel. Copper and tin are important
resources in areas like SW Britain as is gold (ie Wales and Scotland)
Sheep are, of course, everywhere esp. in Wales, Scotland and eastern England.
Which also explains the lack of trees in the Scottish Highlands today.
After 1750 The Highland Clearances stripped the land of trees and of
people in forced emigration to the Colonies to make way for sheep.
Wool was profitable and rebellious Scots expendable (ethnic cleansing?)

6) Most of Northern Europe would not have been forested in 500AD
Areas like southern Britain and the N. European plain would have mostly
been chopped for agriculture in Celtic times anyway. While only Central France,
Southern Germany and east Poland/west Russia still have areas of dense forests
today. But in general only northern Sweden, Finland and Russia would need
dense taiga forests thinning into scrub woods and muskeg, then tundra. :)

The map is still great. But I still don't get the point of the huge ocean and the great chunk of desert. There is no reason to go there, to explore, to settle, nothing

Yep, unfortunately the constraints of having a square map in civ mean you have to have the spacefilling ocean and desert (the desert at least gives a place for barbarians to spawn).

@Jessiecat:
Yes but under the 'wooded hill' should not be plains tiles, but a cold grassland/moorland type of terrain. Also I'm not sure about northern germany being comprehensively cleared at the start of the mod.

Yep, unfortunately the constraints of having a square map in civ mean you have to have the spacefilling ocean and desert (the desert at least gives a place for barbarians to spawn).

@Jessiecat:
Yes but under the 'wooded hill' should not be plains tiles, but a cold grassland/moorland type of terrain. Also I'm not sure about northern germany being comprehensively cleared at the start of the mod.

Totally agree. Lots of tiles should be changed. But the point is that Scotland
looks nothing like it used to when it was heavily wooded and full of food before about 1600.
And the west of Ireland would have been wet, as you say, and partly forested
with bogs and rocky outcrops.
Also my point about coal is important. It has been gathered since 2000BC
and mined from shaft and pit mines all over Europe from about 1000AD. You
can't smelt iron or steel without it. For example the famous Toledo steel
swords first fashioned by the Moors over a thousand years ago required coal
from Galicia and iron from the Basque region to smelt and forge the iron.
You may be right about Germany though, as dense forests still exist in
eastern Germany near the Polish border also in Bohemia, Moravia
and the Carpathians/Transylvania area.:)

Uhm. What about cutting some tiles in the west (taking away Canarias and Azores), and place them in place of the desert (with water of course). We would not have tons of ocean and would look like the europeans map on paper with Iceland pasted closer in a square

Instead of the rather unrealistic plains, there should be some taiga forests in the middle of sweden below the lakes as well.

But there isn't any taiga there. Seeing as these woods wouldn't be choppable until Biology, by some the future tech of the mod, at least I wouldn't want to be to generous with them. As of my own map, I see about 4 good city-placements in non-taiga Sweden. Stockholm, Malmo (ö), one rougly in Kalmars place site south of the cows on the east coast and Gothenburg 1s or 2s of the west-cows.
There is no real taiga south of the lakes Vätten, Vänern and Mälaren. Believe me on this one, I have been there. ;)

But there isn't any taiga there. Seeing as these woods wouldn't be choppable until Biology, by some the future tech of the mod, at least I wouldn't want to be to generous with them. As of my own map, I see about 4 good city-placements in non-taiga Sweden. Stockholm, Malmo (ö), one rougly in Kalmars place site south of the cows on the east coast and Gothenburg 1s or 2s of the west-cows.
There is no real taiga south of the lakes Vätten, Vänern and Mälaren. Believe me on this one, I have been there. ;)

Jaja, I believe you. Again, the problem was that with that area as grass, Sweden got 4 size-20 cities, which is both ahistorical and problematic for game balance. We'll probably have similar problems with food in England, but at least that'll be historically accurate.

The taiga will be choppable with replacable parts, which will be a late tech like biology. The central part of that area should be forested at least, right?

Uhm. What about cutting some tiles in the west (taking away Canarias and Azores), and place them in place of the desert (with water of course). We would not have tons of ocean and would look like the europeans map on paper with Iceland pasted closer in a square

My original map was actually shifted about 12 squares over in the other direction - I cut the Middle East, Caucasus, and Urals, and put in the Azores and Canaries. I agree that the western edge of the map is ugly and unproductive, but there IS a big ocean and a big desert out/down there. :D Sugar in the Canaries/Azores and ivory/whales in Iceland should at least provide some incentive to explore/colonize.


re: Jessiecat - I thought I had forested much of Scotland. If I didn't, I'll change that. I do think that it should be plains, if we're not coding in a northern grassland that produces less food - it's much less agriculturally productive than the grasslands of southern England. Much of it could arguably be marsh, but I don't want to make it impassable. I like your suggestions on Ireland - that's definitely a change that needs to be made.

I had planned on adding more cities to N. Africa, but I didn't find many that persisted from 500 AD onward - Fez was really the only one that was close. The city names on the map represent independents that are around from 500 AD - other independents could pop up later. The others you listed should probably be in that category - go ahead and put them in with the tag 'Tlemcen - 650 AD' or something like that.

All right, we'll keep coal. Should coal be a resource requirement for steel-based armaments? (late-game only)




For those of you who keep suggesting that the map be tilted - if you want to redo the entire map from scratch, tilting it, please go ahead and create that map. Once you have a workable version, then we'll talk. I'm not opposed to using such a map, but I don't think that any of you really understand the amount of work that goes into creating an accurate map of this size. This isn't a slam on any of you - I'm just going to say straight out that I don't have an extra 200 hours of time right now to do this, and I'm not interested in investing that time to do it when I think that our current map is pretty decent. Again, I'm willing to consider a tilted map - although we removed the Middle East on purpose - but I'd need to see the thing before considering it.

St. Lucifer - cities that existed from 500 onward in North Africa:
Carthaginian/Roman Tarabulus became today's Tripoli, Libya. It might be too close to Sabrat, though...
Also, maybe too close to Fez: Tanger (Carthaginian) became Tangier(s), Morocco.

If I notice others, I'll let you know.

All right, we'll keep coal. Should coal be a resource requirement for steel-based armaments? (late-game only)


Oui: Artillary/late cannon, and the last tier of ships perhaps?

Ideas for a reworked England and Wales


Okay, just going through and changing some stuff:
1)The Marshland wasn't in the correct place, East anglia is boggy yes, but its also very productive and far dryer than the Wash.
2) Added the Thames (london appearing to start on the Ouse in the old one :lol: ) and Tyne. I think the Avon may have been altered by accident (both work)
3) The tundra is a placehold for Moorland
4)Added the lack district as hills and put stone there
5) Resource placement: Agriculture resources in the southeast, iron and coal in historically correct locations. Proposed some places for wool (there may be a lot but it is one of only 2 happiness resources. Put some fish by liverpool, gold in wales is more accurate than silver.
6) Suggested some places for independents.

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/1430/englandwalesru1.png


Good ideas/bad ideas? Ireland tomorrow ;).

St. Lucifer - cities that existed from 500 onward in North Africa:
Carthaginian/Roman Tarabulus became today's Tripoli, Libya. It might be too close to Sabrat, though...
Also, maybe too close to Fez: Tanger (Carthaginian) became Tangier(s), Morocco.

If I notice others, I'll let you know.

As I mentioned earlier, Fez, Meknes and Tangier for sure, plus Tlemcen or
Cueta well to the East. after that you won't find much until a cluster of old
Carthaginian and Roman cities starting with Hippo, Utica and Carthage
(Tunis) and Kairouan(very old important mosque) to the south. Then you have
Tripoli and Benghazi. That's about all until you reach Egypt..:)

Oui: Artillary/late cannon, and the last tier of ships perhaps?

Ideas for a reworked England and Wales


Okay, just going through and changing some stuff:
1)The Marshland wasn't in the correct place, East anglia is boggy yes, but its also very productive and far dryer than the Wash.
2) Added the Thames (london appearing to start on the Ouse in the old one :lol: ) and Tyne. I think the Avon may have been altered by accident (both work)
3) The tundra is a placehold for Moorland
4)Added the lack district as hills and put stone there
5) Resource placement: Agriculture resources in the southeast, iron and coal in historically correct locations. Proposed some places for wool (there may be a lot but it is one of only 2 happiness resources. Put some fish by liverpool, gold in wales is more accurate than silver.
6) Suggested some places for independents.

http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/1430/englandwalesru1.png


Good ideas/bad ideas? Ireland tomorrow ;).

My ideas?
Coal necessary from at least 1000AD, not just for cannons and ships.
How do think they smelted steel? Just with wood?
2 Coal (S. Wales and Yorkshire) needs to be shown with iron
for smelting steel swords, also cannons from 1400.
First map much preferred to second.
Original map better for rivers except Ouse and Severn should be shorter
1) Cut marsh squares n. of London to 2 (1e, 1w, no north)
2) Thames OK as it shouldn't be more than 1 square from south coast.
London should start 1sq west, with estuary link deeper.
3) Tundra + grass OK for moorland
4) Lake District, stoney hills. Yes, but where's the water(ie lakes)?
5) Wool, as shown, but 1 more east of London and 1 in SW
6) Tin as well as copper in Cornwall.
7) Fish and crabs everywhere, esp East coast and SW

That's it. You asked for suggestions.:)

Ok ladies and gentlemen, here you have some pictures of the spawning areas. Its just a propose so feel free to comment it.

Notes to the Pictures:

#1: Where is the new starting point?

#2: I think France shall start with Paris as starting point, but i don't know where exactly i shall place it.

#3: I'm a bit unhappy with the german starting location, so please tell me a better one. Futhermore the question is how big the core areas shall be? are they to big or to small?

#4: I got 2 versions of the core areas of the andalus, because i didnt know how much influence they shall have when they spawn

#5: Shall sweden get the whole landmass of todays sweden?

Ok ladies and gentlemen, here you have some pictures of the spawning areas. Its just a propose so feel free to comment it.

Notes to the Pictures:

#1: Where is the new starting point?

#2: I think France shall start with Paris as starting point, but i don't know where exactly i shall place it.

#3: I'm a bit unhappy with the german starting location, so please tell me a better one. Futhermore the question is how big the core areas shall be? are they to big or to small?

#4: I got 2 versions of the core areas of the andalus, because i didnt know how much influence they shall have when they spawn

#5: Shall sweden get the whole landmass of todays sweden?

I approve. Give me this coming weekend, and I'll finish up the map - and I'll try to put in a suitable German starting point in your new spawning area. I think that your core areas are generally fine, although I might shrink Portugal's so that it doesn't go quite as far south. The smaller area for al-Andalus is probably appropriate - remember that we're giving them a flip area in N. Africa, too. For Sweden, how about everything north of Kalmar? They should have a strong preference for the Malmo area/southern tip, but I worry about cutting the heart out of the Norse areas.

Ok ladies and gentlemen, here you have some pictures of the spawning areas. Its just a propose so feel free to comment it.

Notes to the Pictures:

#1: Where is the new starting point?

I'd put it one SE of its current location, though I'm open to arguments against (its just that the current location is dead wrong). The England core should be 5 shorter in the west and extend 2 further north.


#2: I think France shall start with Paris as starting point, but i don't know where exactly i shall place it.




#3: I'm a bit unhappy with the german starting location, so please tell me a better one. Futhermore the question is how big the core areas shall be? are they to big or to small?


If its germany-as-Austrasia, then the capital should be Koln with areas as here. Also answering the french question ;).

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/6624/earlyfrancexj1.png

I think the sizes are about right.

The germany starting location is flat out silly, so I see why you're unhappy (what you have there is Brandenbergs core region ;)). There are many arguments for what the capital should be, but personally I prefer Koln or Frankfurt.

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/1751/earlygermanyft9.png


#4: I got 2 versions of the core areas of the andalus, because i didnt know how much influence they shall have when they spawn


I like the one you have here :shrug:


#5: Shall sweden get the whole landmass of todays sweden?

Nearly, it shouldn't get the southernmost 3 rows of tiles (Scania, historically danish, needs to be conquered).

@St. Lucifer, opinions on my redone england and wales?

If its germany-as-Austrasia, then the capital should be Koln with areas as here. Also answering the french question ;).

http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/6624/earlyfrancexj1.png

I think the sizes are about right.

The germany starting location is flat out silly, so I see why you're unhappy (what you have there is Brandenbergs core region ;)). There are many arguments for what the capital should be, but personally I prefer Koln or Frankfurt.

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/1751/earlygermanyft9.png



I had Germany starting in Brandenburg for balance over historical accuracy. If we can move the core area to center around Frankfurt, leaving some of that buffer zone unclaimed, I'd be more comfortable with that than having them start in Koln. While it's historically accurate that Germany, France, and Burgundy should constantly be warring over that area, it would be better if there was a little more space for it to happen. But I am in agreement that Brandenburg is a bad starting spot - I just threw it out there when making the map, to try and give the AI civs some space.


Nearly, it shouldn't get the southernmost 3 rows of tiles (Scania, historically danish, needs to be conquered).

@St. Lucifer, opinions on my redone england and wales?

I agree on Scania - that's what I meant by everything south of Kalmar. I may be a bit off on the spacing there.

I like some of what you've done with England/Wales, but I feel like it's way too resource-heavy - I'm going to take out some of the sheep and some of the coal. Is there actually gold in Wales? Silver is usually the byproduct of lead, tin, and zinc deposits, which Wales and Cornwall are famous for, so that was my rationale there. I'm fine with the change to moorland (although I'm going to have to find some way to represent it besides tundra - I may use snow as a placeholder) - proposed stats on it? Like plains, but movement cost of 2, defense bonus of 50%, no irrigation?

My early post was done concurrently with yours St. L ;).

I had Germany starting in Brandenburg for balance over historical accuracy. If we can move the core area to center around Frankfurt, leaving some of that buffer zone unclaimed, I'd be more comfortable with that than having them start in Koln. While it's historically accurate that Germany, France, and Burgundy should constantly be warring over that area, it would be better if there was a little more space for it to happen. But I am in agreement that Brandenburg is a bad starting spot - I just threw it out there when making the map, to try and give the AI civs some space.


Well its up to you, personally if one of them managed to conquer the others and then collapse whilst the conquered respawn I'd consider that an optimal outcome ;).


I like some of what you've done with England/Wales, but I feel like it's way too resource-heavy - I'm going to take out some of the sheep and some of the coal.

Well if you consider that Coal is comeing quite late, its actually somewhat resource poor with only 2 happy resources and a few food resources. Besides England needs something production wise to compete with the continent (not population though) ;). Plus britain was a huge wool and coal exporter.


Is there actually gold in Wales? Silver is usually the byproduct of lead, tin, and zinc deposits, which Wales and Cornwall are famous for, so that was my rationale there.

Yes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_gold), It was important from roman times till the 1990s when it got mined out. There is silver is several locations in the UK, but I think only one of the two metals should be in the UK (for balance), and gold is easier to place.


I'm fine with the change to moorland (although I'm going to have to find some way to represent it besides tundra - I may use snow as a placeholder) - proposed stats on it? Like plains, but movement cost of 2, defense bonus of 50%, no irrigation?

I was thinking just like plains but can't be irrigated/no bonus for irrigation (so it can still be used for irrigation chains), no need for a defence bonus greater than tundra as it will oftentimes be with hills and forests.

I approve. Give me this coming weekend, and I'll finish up the map [...]

Can you perhaps place also the independent cities we have agreed to on the map?

The problem i got right now is, that the most cities and capitals already existed before the game starts, so the civs shall start with these cities build or shall they found them like in original rfc?

What is about the Byzantium Empire, all the greek cities, egypt and the middle east?

Can you perhaps place also the independent cities we have agreed to on the map?

The problem i got right now is, that the most cities and capitals already existed before the game starts, so the civs shall start with these cities build or shall they found them like in original rfc?

What is about the Byzantium Empire, all the greek cities, egypt and the middle east?

That's going to be the hardest part. The initial independent cities that I placed were those that I thought would be around in the 500 AD start - but some of those don't make sense at that time period, and obviously there are a lot missing. I'll put as many in as I can (with start dates) but it may take another iteration or two of the map to get them all right.

Does anybody know how to add and remove resources and terrains, or to add graphics for them? I'd like to try and set up resources, swamps, moors, and taiga as long as I'm tweaking the map.

Ok ladies and gentlemen, here you have some pictures of the spawning areas. Its just a propose so feel free to comment it.

Notes to the Pictures:

#1: Where is the new starting point?

#2: I think France shall start with Paris as starting point, but i don't know where exactly i shall place it.

#3: I'm a bit unhappy with the german starting location, so please tell me a better one. Futhermore the question is how big the core areas shall be? are they to big or to small?

#4: I got 2 versions of the core areas of the andalus, because i didnt know how much influence they shall have when they spawn

#5: Shall sweden get the whole landmass of todays sweden?

IMO both the France and the Burgundy starts should each
be 2 squares east and the Germany start 2 squares south.
Also Leon to start 1 sq. NE and Barcino 2sq. West.

Also, what is that alt. Spain start? That doesn't happen in history.
Madrid was est. as capitol in the 1600's, long after unification.
That should be labelled as Toledo, the Visigoth capitol,
which Al Andalus will have as it's first conquest.
You should also place Valencia down the coast from Barcino.
That should be it's second conquest.:)

Since the only thing I really have any real knowledge about is my native Sweden, I'm gonna add some more concerning it.

Sweden: This is Kalmar, which is where I think we'll have the Swedes spawn: http://www.civicheraldry.com/page/2858

(from the code-thread)

I'd kinda not want that. Kalmar was never the capital of Sweden, nor for the pre-unificationary semi-states the geats and the swedes (suiones).
The capitals were really just first Uppsala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Uppsala_in_Sweden.png) and then todays Stockholm. As you can see on the map, Kalmar is way off from those positions. If Sweden is going to colonize both Finland and Norrland ("lapland") there might be stability problems in having the capital so far away from all the other cities.
Also, it's close to the area that won't flip to Sweden, in Scania. About that, I'm down with this map (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=166107&d=1198080760) 'cept you'd maybe want to give sweden the northeastern and 1s of the northeastern tile too.

My suggestion for capital is just plain Stockholm. Making it first Uppsala is just messy and unnecessary since they are so close to each other.

Since the only thing I really have any real knowledge about is my native Sweden, I'm gonna add some more concerning it.


(from the code-thread)

I'd kinda not want that. Kalmar was never the capital of Sweden, nor for the pre-unificationary semi-states the geats and the swedes (suiones).
The capitals were really just first Uppsala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Uppsala_in_Sweden.png) and then todays Stockholm. As you can see on the map, Kalmar is way off from those positions. If Sweden is going to colonize both Finland and Norrland ("lapland") there might be stability problems in having the capital so far away from all the other cities.
Also, it's close to the area that won't flip to Sweden, in Scania. About that, I'm down with this map (http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=166107&d=1198080760) 'cept you'd maybe want to give sweden the northeastern and 1s of the northeastern tile too.

My suggestion for capital is just plain Stockholm. Making it first Uppsala is just messy and unnecessary since they are so close to each other.

I agree - who's talking about making it Kalmar?

I suggest to change the Denmark area to something like this:

http://imageshack.dk/imagesfree/xg283920.jpg

Notice the added tile in Scania as well. I havent considered exactly where to put bonus tiles, but a cow or two and a pig would perhaps be fitting - a couple of 1 tile rivers might be as well.

Latest update to map!



Lots of changes - possibly too many, but I think that most of these are improvements.

-Corrected some coastlines - made a more accurate England, Denmark; minor changes to France, Sweden, Norway, Spain?
-Corrected a few rivers; added one in Denmark
-Corrected starting locations (may not be perfect, but are hopefully close)
-Added marshes (represented here with jungle) in many areas
-Added unchoppable forest (represented here with snow-covered forest) in many areas
-Added moorland (represented here with ice) to much of the British Isles. It should probably be added to other places as well. I may have overdone it a bit.
-Added part of Iceland, with whale and ivory resources. Remember that elephants are disabled, and that ivory is going to cover both elephant and walrus ivory - I'm going to have to find a new graphic to go in the resource file. This is also why there are elephants in Norway and the Orkneys.
-Separated the Canaries/Azores from Africa by changing coast to ocean.
-Made Sweden, N. Africa, and parts of Russia much less city-friendly. This may not be 100% accurate, but it's done in the name of gameplay balance - and even then, it may not be enough.
-Removed extraneous resources. Reshuffled a few existing ones. Almost all resource placements are temporary and subject to change, but they're generally in the area that I think they should be.
-Added several independent cities - some with dates. Dates, in many cases, are a little later than the cities were actually founded - this is intentional, to prevent significant independent development before they flip or are conquered. Independent cities without dates are presumed to be present in 500 AD, although some of them shouldn't be. If anyone wants to correct them, please do. Some independents may be a tile or two off from where they should be on the map (Meknes comes to mind) - this is mostly for spacing and playability over accuracy. I'm open to changing them, but I'd rather avoid RFC Scandinavia situations with 12 cities in a small, unproductive area.

We're not done yet, especially in terms of resource placement, but this should be a better map to work from.

Latest update to map!



Lots of changes - possibly too many, but I think that most of these are improvements.

-Corrected some coastlines - made a more accurate England, Denmark; minor changes to France, Sweden, Norway, Spain?
-Corrected a few rivers; added one in Denmark
-Corrected starting locations (may not be perfect, but are hopefully close)
-Added marshes (represented here with jungle) in many areas
-Added unchoppable forest (represented here with snow-covered forest) in many areas
-Added moorland (represented here with ice) to much of the British Isles. It should probably be added to other places as well. I may have overdone it a bit.
-Added part of Iceland, with whale and ivory resources. Remember that elephants are disabled, and that ivory is going to cover both elephant and walrus ivory - I'm going to have to find a new graphic to go in the resource file. This is also why there are elephants in Norway and the Orkneys.
-Separated the Canaries/Azores from Africa by changing coast to ocean.
-Made Sweden, N. Africa, and parts of Russia much less city-friendly. This may not be 100% accurate, but it's done in the name of gameplay balance - and even then, it may not be enough.
-Removed extraneous resources. Reshuffled a few existing ones. Almost all resource placements are temporary and subject to change, but they're generally in the area that I think they should be.
-Added several independent cities - some with dates. Dates, in many cases, are a little later than the cities were actually founded - this is intentional, to prevent significant independent development before they flip or are conquered. Independent cities without dates are presumed to be present in 500 AD, although some of them shouldn't be. If anyone wants to correct them, please do. Some independents may be a tile or two off from where they should be on the map (Meknes comes to mind) - this is mostly for spacing and playability over accuracy. I'm open to changing them, but I'd rather avoid RFC Scandinavia situations with 12 cities in a small, unproductive area.

We're not done yet, especially in terms of resource placement, but this should be a better map to work from.

Thanks for the new map. Looks pretty good, though like you say, there are
some cities that probably need moving a square or two. Hope you don't mind
me making a couple of suggestions, mostly to Spain which I'm most famililiar with.

1) Barcino to move 1 sq west, on the hill.
2) Zaragoza to move 1 sq NW
3) Toledo to move 1 sq west
4) I think you need Badajoz, important independent,
should be about 3 sq sw of Toledo
The rest, incl. those in Morocco, look about right to me.
5) Where's Mecca? Surely the Arabs start there?
6) I think Caen in Normandy should be Rouen, the Norman capitol
7) There's a really big gap west of Antioch. No city there?
8) Also west of Alexandria, Maybe Benghazi in that gap
9) Last but not least:
As you know, I live in Cornwall, on the south coast.
Why haven't we been told about our Ice Age?:eek:
I have strong objections to depicting the whole area as Arctic hills.
There's only one tiny moor around here, called Bodmin Moor.
(Maybe you've heard of Jamaica Inn by Daphne De Maurier)
It wouldn't fill half a square on your map.. Anyway, the rest of
Cornwall and Devon too, is lush green hills, not moorland.
Even Dartmoor in Devon is green wit rocks and bogs.
It NEVER freezes here! What do you think those sheep are eating anyway?
Snow? :( The same goes for Wales as well. OK, maybe one mountain
square in the North for Snowdonia, but no more.
I wouldn't wish that tundra even on a Welshman.:lol:
"How green was my valley"? Not on your map!
Even Scotland isn't covered by icy tundra, either, in real life.
Scrubby bracken, hills, woods and a couple of mountain
squares in the Highlands, maybe?

OK, I've had my rant. But seriously, depicting warm, wet, green hills and
scrub-covered moorland as barren icy hills is totally flawed. There has
to be another way. What's wrong with grassy hills like they are in real life?
You really gave me a shock there when I saw where I live transferred
to the Arctic. And to think they call our coast the Cornish Riviera!:lol:

*smacks forehead in frustration*


I used ice to represent moorland because I didn't have another terrain available that wasn't spoken for. I suppose I could have used fallout instead, but that didn't seem appropriate either. I'm not sure how to add the additional terrain type which we're going to use to represent moors, and I'm not sure that I could add it without making everyone install the whole modpack just to look at the damn thing. Yes, I'm aware that moors are not frozen tundra, just as I hope that you are aware that Karelia or the Netherlands are not covered with lush, Amazonian rainforest. I agree that the ice looks ugly - but people complained of inaccuracy when I used the much more reasonable plains, so I did this to avoid confusion. Clearly, that didn't work.

While I may make more than my share of mistakes, please give me a little bit of credit - I've come this far, so obviously I'm not completely retarded. If I do go down that path, I'll be sure to make my very own mod - RFC British Ice Age.

Hmph.

I will now demonstrate my superior intelligence by posting the same thing three times in two minutes.

stupid lag.

stupid lag.

I'm sorry if I've caught you in a sensitive mode. It wasn't my intention to be
overcritical. And I am aware of the work you're putting into this. It is much
appreciated. Why do you think we all wanted you to coordinate?

I understand your frustration at the terrain types available. And yes, some
people jumped on you for using plains terrain. But let me try to be helpful
here. IMHO you could get away with grassy hills, some forested esp in
Scotland. Selected moors, Bodmin, Dartmoor, Scottish Highlands etc. could
be represented by rocky outcrops. We can do rocks, can't we?

The reason I go for grassy hills, esp in the Southwest and Wales, is that they
need to be food productive. In my own area, Cornwall, yes it is hilly but very
wet, so they are very green and are covered with very productive farms.
It would make more sense to make these areas hilly but food-rich.

I replied to your map with suggestions which I hope you welcome. If I can
help in areas where I have some knowledge, then I hope that help is
appreciated. I also have other things I could be doing. But, like you, I am
very interested in this project. If that's OK by you.:)


BTW I've just been looking at the map again in Worldbuilder. Couldn't we
get away with hills? They produce 1 food, don't they? For more extreme
areas of selected moorland just a tundra square. OK?

On a lighter note, an Ice Age mod would be cool.

...no pun intended.

I'm sorry if I've caught you in a sensitive mode. It wasn't my intention to be
overcritical. And I am aware of the work you're putting into this. It is much
appreciated. Why do you think we all wanted you to coordinate?

I understand your frustration at the terrain types available. And yes, some
people jumped on you for using plains terrain. But let me try to be helpful
here. IMHO you could get away with grassy hills, some forested esp in
Scotland. Selected moors, Bodmin, Dartmoor, Scottish Highlands etc. could
be represented by rocky outcrops. We can do rocks, can't we?

The reason I go for grassy hills, esp in the Southwest and Wales, is that they
need to be food productive. In my own area, Cornwall, yes it is hilly but very
wet, so they are very green and are covered with very productive farms.
It would make more sense to make these areas hilly but food-rich.

I replied to your map with suggestions which I hope you welcome. If I can
help in areas where I have some knowledge, then I hope that help is
appreciated. I also have other things I could be doing. But, like you, I am
very interested in this project. If that's OK by you.:)

My point was that I'm using the ice as a stand-in for the moor terrain for now. I'm fine with changing some of that back to grass, and if you can show me which squares should be higher production, I'll be happy to change them. I think we had decided that the moor terrain would have the same stats as plains but would gain no bonuses from irrigation.

I'm sorry if I come off as overly sensitive. I just didn't expect anyone to take the map so literally - I initially stayed away from the ice because of the jarring visual effect, but I couldn't think of anything else to use as a stand-in and I figured that at the very least, it would be easy to find and replace it once we had the new terrain added. I'm not mad, just frustrated.

I do welcome your suggestions and input, and I'll probably make some of the adjustments for cities that you suggested.

I have a suggestion for an independent city: Eboracum/Jorvik/York (in the north of England). It's a Roman city, was capital of Britannia Inferior. Then it was the main city in the Dark Age kingdom of Northumbria and the capital of the Danelaw and continued to be England's second city right up until the civil war.

Does anybody know how to add and remove resources and terrains, or to add graphics for them? I'd like to try and set up resources, swamps, moors, and taiga as long as I'm tweaking the map.
I suspect its a dll thing, that put together with what you pointed out - that it would involve everyone installing a small useless mod - makes me thing that it's probably best left to the very end.

Perhaps you could add notes to the map pointing out which terrains represent which to clear up any confusion?

On a lighter note, an Ice Age mod would be cool.

...no pun intended.

Agreed. I always liked that map.

On a lighter note, an Ice Age mod would be cool.

...no pun intended.

Ya, there's at least one I know. And very boring it is too.

BTW Are we OK now about the 1300 start for the Ottomans? If so, I really
think the green Osman flag would be most appropriate. Then all the Muslim
civs would include green and they'd be a nice contrast from the red ones.:)

My point was that I'm using the ice as a stand-in for the moor terrain for now. I'm fine with changing some of that back to grass, and if you can show me which squares should be higher production, I'll be happy to change them. I think we had decided that the moor terrain would have the same stats as plains but would gain no bonuses from irrigation.

I'm sorry if I come off as overly sensitive. I just didn't expect anyone to take the map so literally - I initially stayed away from the ice because of the jarring visual effect, but I couldn't think of anything else to use as a stand-in and I figured that at the very least, it would be easy to find and replace it once we had the new terrain added. I'm not mad, just frustrated.

I do welcome your suggestions and input, and I'll probably make some of the adjustments for cities that you suggested.

Thanks for your reply and kind words. And maybe I took umbrage at your
frustration a little too quickly. my apologies. It's just that I just saw that
Ice Age cartoon on the telly. The thought of this beautiful, warm part of
the country looking like that filled me with horror.

Seriously though. I've just been looking at Worldbuilder and I might have
the solution. SW England and Wales could all be hills producing 1 food, more
if you could irrigate them. Small moorland areas could be represented by
tundra. Is there such a thing as a tundra hill? Same for Scotland and the
North of England, except for a few mountain tiles in the Lake District and
North Wales and Scotland. Most Scottish hills could be wooded with the
odd deer and salmon in the rivers. That'd get rid of all the white squares
and look more natural as well as producing some food for nearby cities.
How about that?:)

Ya, there's at least one I know. And very boring it is too.

BTW Are we OK now about the 1300 start for the Ottomans? If so, I really
think the green Osman flag would be most appropriate. Then all the Muslim
civs would include green and they'd be a nice contrast from the red ones.:)

I wasn't aware there was a green Osman flag. Where you getting your info?

PS. we should probably keep this on the one thread. Please reply there.

I wasn't aware there was a green Osman flag. Where you getting your info?

PS. we should probably keep this on the one thread. Please reply there.

Yes. I thought you'd seen it. It's on the Code Coordination thread, post 46
in reply to your new set.
According to Wiki, it's the religious flag first carried By Osman I, who started the
Ottoman dynasty in 1299. Nice flag, I think.:)
Here's a zip of it again.

Wikipedia describes it as being used by the Caliphate 1793-1844 (outside the timescale of the mod) or as a generic "religious flag" with no dates and no reference to Osman. I believe I said that on the other thread.

Why don't you load the original RFC files? There you got swamp and moor and things. ;)

Wikipedia describes it as being used by the Caliphate 1793-1844 (outside the timescale of the mod) or as a generic "religious flag" with no dates and no reference to Osman. I believe I said that on the other thread.

My apology about that. Can't find the reference to Osman myself now.
So i guess the red and white crescent one will be fine.:)

Why don't you load the original RFC files? There you got swamp and moor and things. ;)

AFAIK you can't use worldbuilder on a different map with RFC loaded without it freaking out. I may be wrong.

AFAIK you can't use worldbuilder on a different map with RFC loaded without it freaking out. I may be wrong.

Or just use the hills and tundra from Worldbuilder, as I suggested. I just
tried alterring it on lucifers' map. All I did was turn the snow to plains
or grassland and add a couple of wooded squares. All those grassed
hills look Ok and will provide some food. It looks fine.:)

AFAIK you can't use worldbuilder on a different map with RFC loaded without it freaking out. I may be wrong.

Yeah, sadly, it doesn't work. Since RFC is so closely tied to individual map placements, putting a different map in makes it very unhappy.

Jessiecat, I'm going to leave the map the way it is right now - just suspend your assumption that the ice is actually ice, and assume that it gives 1 food, 1 hammer, and 1 trade next to a river. Eventually, we'll get the graphics loaded in to switch it out - but for now, I don't want to inaccurately use a terrain that already represents a land type which we have a lot of on the map. If we weren't using tundra for anything else, I'd go for that - but I'd rather demarcate it clearly as something we need to switch out, and ice is the best way of doing that. I seriously considered doing something similar with the marsh, because the jungle tiles can be easy to overlook.

What do you UK'ers think about the revised shape? I realized from looking at Disenfrancised's map alterations that I had made what I intended to be East Anglia look like the bulge SE of the Wash, so I did my best to correct it. I also added Anglesey to Wales, which I had somehow missed. Spain's still a bit distorted, but it sort of has to be with the projection.

Yeah, sadly, it doesn't work. Since RFC is so closely tied to individual map placements, putting a different map in makes it very unhappy.

Jessiecat, I'm going to leave the map the way it is right now - just suspend your assumption that the ice is actually ice, and assume that it gives 1 food, 1 hammer, and 1 trade next to a river. Eventually, we'll get the graphics loaded in to switch it out - but for now, I don't want to inaccurately use a terrain that already represents a land type which we have a lot of on the map. If we weren't using tundra for anything else, I'd go for that - but I'd rather demarcate it clearly as something we need to switch out, and ice is the best way of doing that. I seriously considered doing something similar with the marsh, because the jungle tiles can be easy to overlook.

What do you UK'ers think about the revised shape? I realized from looking at Disenfrancised's map alterations that I had made what I intended to be East Anglia look like the bulge SE of the Wash, so I did my best to correct it. I also added Anglesey to Wales, which I had somehow missed. Spain's still a bit distorted, but it sort of has to be with the projection.

I'm fine with the shape, though I wish East Anglia was a little bigger, so
we could fit a city on the coast, far enough away from London, ie Norwich.
Still, we can't have everything. The maps not big enough for that.

I'm trying to get my head around your reasoning on the other issue. I've
been playing with Worldbuilder myself and what I think is as in my last
post. Why are you trying to make Cornwall and Wales so unproductive?
If you used a base of grassland for all those hills and couldn't irrigate them,
they'd produce 2 food each, as they are. What's wrong with that?
In real life all the hills round here are covered with farms. Same in Wales.
There's very little moorland in these areas at all. Even in the north
of England where there is more, it's grassy and covered with sheep.

Where does this idea come from that hills and moorland are largely infertile
and unproductive? I've travelled all over this country for more than 30 years
and I've rarely come across moors that bleak except in small specific places
like Dartmoor, Exmoor,Bodmin, North Yorkshire, etc.
I'm not having a pop at you, but I wish you could see how green and
productive some of these places are. And down here, it's nearly as warm
as the Carolinas, although a lot wetter. I've even got a palm tree
outside my flat. All due to the Gulf Stream, of course.
We don't even get frosts in the winter. Maybe one light snowfall. that's all.
Anyway, I probably can't convince you without you seeing for yourself.
I guess you've got your own view and I've got mine. I don't want to fall
out about it. It's only a game, afterall.:)

Yeah, sadly, it doesn't work. Since RFC is so closely tied to individual map placements, putting a different map in makes it very unhappy.

Jessiecat, I'm going to leave the map the way it is right now - just suspend your assumption that the ice is actually ice, and assume that it gives 1 food, 1 hammer, and 1 trade next to a river. Eventually, we'll get the graphics loaded in to switch it out - but for now, I don't want to inaccurately use a terrain that already represents a land type which we have a lot of on the map. If we weren't using tundra for anything else, I'd go for that - but I'd rather demarcate it clearly as something we need to switch out, and ice is the best way of doing that. I seriously considered doing something similar with the marsh, because the jungle tiles can be easy to overlook.

What do you UK'ers think about the revised shape? I realized from looking at Disenfrancised's map alterations that I had made what I intended to be East Anglia look like the bulge SE of the Wash, so I did my best to correct it. I also added Anglesey to Wales, which I had somehow missed. Spain's still a bit distorted, but it sort of has to be with the projection.

The east coast looks fine. But I don't think it's perfect: the Hebrides, the Isle of Mann and the Isle of White look overrepresented. Also, did you see my suggestion about Eboracum/York on the last page? I think it deserves to be an independent city.

jessiecat may have a point with the moors. I'm not sure what the exact reasoning behind them is but though iconic, it's my understanding that moors are quite small; not the length of a square on the map at least. And I do live in Yorkshire, where most of the countries' moorland is found. That's not to say the north is particularly arable, but perhaps maybe that's adequately represented with hills and plains.

I'm fine with the shape, though I wish East Anglia was a little bigger, so
we could fit a city on the coast, far enough away from London, ie Norwich.
Still, we can't have everything. The maps not big enough for that.

I'm trying to get my head around your reasoning on the other issue. I've
been playing with Worldbuilder myself and what I think is as in my last
post. Why are you trying to make Cornwall and Wales so unproductive?
If you used a base of grassland for all those hills and couldn't irrigate them,
they'd produce 2 food each, as they are. What's wrong with that?
In real life all the hills round here are covered with farms. Same in Wales.
There's very little moorland in these areas at all. Even in the north
of England where there is more, it's grassy and covered with sheep.

Where does this idea come from that hills and moorland are largely infertile
and unproductive? I've travelled all over this country for more than 30 years
and I've rarely come across moors that bleak except in small specific places
like Dartmoor, Exmoor,Bodmin, North Yorkshire, etc.
I'm not having a pop at you, but I wish you could see how green and
productive some of these places are. And down here, it's nearly as warm
as the Carolinas, although a lot wetter. I've even got a palm tree
outside my flat. All due to the Gulf Stream, of course.
We don't even get frosts in the winter. Maybe one light snowfall. that's all.
Anyway, I probably can't convince you without you seeing for yourself.
I guess you've got your own view and I've got mine. I don't want to fall
out about it. It's only a game, afterall.:)

Oh, no - that's fine. As I said in the initial post, I may have been too aggressive with replacing grass with moor. I'm ok with changing most of Cornwall and Devon back to grass - I'm working off a map that has Exmoor and Dartmoor very prominently labeled, which is probably the source of much of the problem. Most of my time in the UK has been spent doing geology field work in the Scottish Highlands, so my perspective may be just a bit skewed.

Game balance may also be an issue - in the original RFC map, the British Isles are good for four very large, very productive cities (with a fifth, less productive one in Plymouth), which can often forgo military production as they're unlikely to face a serious invasion. On a larger map like this one, maintaining that level of productivity (especially with accurate resource placement, with all of the metals and coal in Wales, Cornwall, and Northumbria) could easily make England the runaway leader in every game. But we'll work on that when the time comes.

The east coast looks fine. But I don't think it's perfect: the Hebrides, the Isle of Mann and the Isle of White look overrepresented. Also, did you see my suggestion about Eboracum/York on the last page? I think it deserves to be an independent city.

jessiecat may have a point with the moors. I'm not sure what the exact reasoning behind them is but though iconic, it's my understanding that moors are quite small; not the length of a square on the map at least. And I do live in Yorkshire, where most of the countries' moorland is found. That's not to say the north is particularly arable, but perhaps maybe that's adequately represented with hills and plains.

I'm fine with putting York in as an independent. We need something up there anyway, and that's the best candidate. Feel free to add it.

I could detach the Hebrides from the main mass of Scotland. Would that be better? I had intended the bridge tile to represent Skye, but the west coast of Scotland is such a mess that we're going to have to simplify it dramatically. I'm flexible on that, so please feel free to propose changes.

The east coast looks fine. But I don't think it's perfect: the Hebrides, the Isle of Mann and the Isle of White look overrepresented. Also, did you see my suggestion about Eboracum/York on the last page? I think it deserves to be an independent city.

jessiecat may have a point with the moors. I'm not sure what the exact reasoning behind them is but though iconic, it's my understanding that moors are quite small; not the length of a square on the map at least. And I do live in Yorkshire, where most of the countries' moorland is found. That's not to say the north is particularly arable, but perhaps maybe that's adequately represented with hills and plains.

Thanks for your comments on moorland. I think we both have observed that
the really bleak, desolate places like Dartmoor are pretty small as a percent
of the UK as a whole. I guess I got pretty passionate about it cause I know
Cornwall's not at all like that in general.
I like your suggestion about York. Was it part of Northumbria or Mercia
in 500AD? Maybe it could flip to the Danes at some point then be at war
with Wessex by 900AD. Have you been to the Jorvik exhibit? Great!
Anyway, I'm fairly OK about the shape of the UK given the size of the map.
Gotta go. Just got up. Cofffee first priority. Have a good XMAS.:) ;)

Oh, no - that's fine. As I said in the initial post, I may have been too aggressive with replacing grass with moor. I'm ok with changing most of Cornwall and Devon back to grass - I'm working off a map that has Exmoor and Dartmoor very prominently labeled, which is probably the source of much of the problem. Most of my time in the UK has been spent doing geology field work in the Scottish Highlands, so my perspective may be just a bit skewed.

Game balance may also be an issue - in the original RFC map, the British Isles are good for four very large, very productive cities (with a fifth, less productive one in Plymouth), which can often forgo military production as they're unlikely to face a serious invasion. On a larger map like this one, maintaining that level of productivity (especially with accurate resource placement, with all of the metals and coal in Wales, Cornwall, and Northumbria) could easily make England the runaway leader in every game. But we'll work on that when the time comes.

I guess I have been a bit fanatical in defending where I live. But it's a nice
area. Prob. why it gets so many tourists. And why we moved down here
from London a couple of years ago (both recently retired - Ya, I'm that old!)

Interesting about your geology work in the Scottish Highlands. Years ago,
I did a lot of mountain and fell walking in the Cairngorms. Fantastic scenary,
as you'll agree. I'm an ex-history teacher myself, still my first love, with
geography and maps a close second. So, I guess we have a lot in common.

A quick comment on game balance. I've had most of my best wins as the
English in RFC, but I think that's been accomplished by rushing Astronomy
and dominating N. America before the Americans spawn. They always
become my vassal (Sorry 'bout that!). However, in this mod, I don't think
the English will have such an advantage in expansion. Nowhere to go.
I don't really understand yet how you're going to handle colonies, but
it's early days yet.
Anyway, keep up the good work. It's appreciated.:goodjob:
And have a great XMAS!:) ;)

Thanks for your comments on moorland. I think we both have observed that
the really bleak, desolate places like Dartmoor are pretty small as a percent
of the UK as a whole. I guess I got pretty passionate about it cause I know
Cornwall's not at all like that in general.
I like your suggestion about York. Was it part of Northumbria or Mercia
in 500AD? Maybe it could flip to the Danes at some point then be at war
with Wessex by 900AD. Have you been to the Jorvik exhibit? Great!
Anyway, I'm fairly OK about the shape of the UK given the size of the map.
Gotta go. Just got up. Cofffee first priority. Have a good XMAS.:) ;)

Northumbria. I've been to Jorvik, I did a training excavation up there last summer by the same organisation that runs Jorvik and got free tickets.

Merry Christmas.

Don't you think that since the British isles are bigger, Scotland can be included, or Ireland? I mean, Scotland's talking about becoming independent again at the moment, and Ireland *is* independent. Plus Scotland has not been a part of England for most of history. England could be named the United Kingdom if it had Scotland as a vassal or conqured their territory.

Just to be clear, Scotland isn't part of England. They are equal partners in a union.

I live here too, I know it isn't part of England, I used that term because that's how it's named in Civ at the moment. I can't think of a better way to represent the union in civ than that though. :(

And you have to be honest, England is very much the "dominant partner".

Not really, English culture may be dominant due to its greatly larger population (and tbh, is that really any different from London/southern culture being more prominent than our culture here in the north?). But constitutionally speaking they're equal partners, and in real political terms Scottish MPs probably have slightly more influence right now.

Not really, English culture may be dominant due to its greatly larger population (and tbh, is that really any different from London/southern culture being more prominent than our culture here in the north?). But constitutionally speaking they're equal partners, and in real political terms Scottish MPs probably have slightly more influence right now.

Well, I suppose. But how do we represent that in the game?

Eh, I dunno. I try to stay out of the discussion phase tbh... I'm sure Scotland will have been discussed.

Well, I suppose. But how do we represent that in the game?

Basically, we don't.

The idea of a Celtic civ (Irish, Scottish, or an unholy amalgamation of both) has been proposed and rejected. We'll have some independents representing Celtic cities, but in terms of historical importance, timing, playability, spacing, and game balance, it does not make sense to have a second civ in the British Isles. Sorry.

Basically, we don't.

The idea of a Celtic civ (Irish, Scottish, or an unholy amalgamation of both) has been proposed and rejected. We'll have some independents representing Celtic cities, but in terms of historical importance, timing, playability, spacing, and game balance, it does not make sense to have a second civ in the British Isles. Sorry.

I'd reject that too. Esp. if you factor in real historical events like the Danish
influence in the North and the Norman invasion in the south. The English will
have their hands full in conquering independents in the beginning anyway.

BTW Welcome back to these threads. Which of the three are we using now?
Hope you had a good holoiday. Happy New Year.:)

Meh. I suppose I agree in terms of gameplay, but they did have a very large historical influence.

Meh. I suppose I agree in terms of gameplay, but they did have a very large historical influence.

Welcome to this thread. St. lucifer's in charge, but everybody's input is
welcome. Small world, this CFC. My Mum's from Manchester and her dad
played football for Oldham in the 20's. I support Man U. myself.
:satan: :satan: :satan: :satan: :satan: :newyear:

Welcome to this thread. St. lucifer's in charge, but everybody's input is
welcome. Small world, this CFC. My Mum's from Manchester and her dad
played football for Oldham in the 20's. I support Man U. myself.
:satan: :satan: :satan: :satan: :satan: :newyear:

Wow, small world indeed! Yeah, I've lived here all my life (15 years :p). Dad's from Stoke, mum's from Wolverhampton.
:newyear:

Meh. I suppose I agree in terms of gameplay, but they did have a very large historical influence.

Agreed. But you could make similar arguments about other unrepresented peoples in most other parts of Europe. The Celts are just better known and more highly romanticized. If you wish to contest this, I invite you to America to see thousands of drunken fraternity members, ignorant of their dubious heritage, wearing kilts. :D

Seriously, the Celts did get consideration, as did the Normans - the Normans, I think, were the last possible civ we eliminated (as they had important roles in France and S. Italy as well.) There's just not enough room. The UK regions are tricky to balance - the channel makes invasions infrequent and difficult, and the region really should have a lot of resources - but if you give them too many, and no competition, England will always be a dominant power in the game. Conversely, as there isn't much space to expand, the English game is limited in terms of conquest options (with big stability penalties for controlling areas of continental Europe.) The best balance seems to be giving an independent, proto-Celtic civ Edinburgh, York, Ath Cliath, and possibly a small Welsh city, and forcing England to expend its energy early securing its core region.

That seems fair. I just saw how large the British Isles are on the Europe map, didn't seem fair to give it all to England from the start :p.

Agreed. But you could make similar arguments about other unrepresented peoples in most other parts of Europe. The Celts are just better known and more highly romanticized. If you wish to contest this, I invite you to America to see thousands of drunken fraternity members, ignorant of their dubious heritage, wearing kilts. :D

Seriously, the Celts did get consideration, as did the Normans - the Normans, I think, were the last possible civ we eliminated (as they had important roles in France and S. Italy as well.) There's just not enough room. The UK regions are tricky to balance - the channel makes invasions infrequent and difficult, and the region really should have a lot of resources - but if you give them too many, and no competition, England will always be a dominant power in the game. Conversely, as there isn't much space to expand, the English game is limited in terms of conquest options (with big stability penalties for controlling areas of continental Europe.) The best balance seems to be giving an independent, proto-Celtic civ Edinburgh, York, Ath Cliath, and possibly a small Welsh city, and forcing England to expend its energy early securing its core region.

A powerful Viking civ could also pose problems for England in the early part of the game. That put together with strong independents should slow England's expansion down sufficiently so they only become a power later in the game.

Or alternatively, I just had an idea: how about having England spawn in 1050ish? With one Norman city and a good military, with one of their UHV goals being to conquer the entire British isles? This would be good because it is historical, modern England is ultimately a legacy of the Norman conquest rather than earlier states, and at the moment a lot of civs seem to be spawning in the beginning of the game.

A powerful Viking civ could also pose problems for England in the early part of the game. That put together with strong independents should slow England's expansion down sufficiently so they only become a power later in the game.

Or alternatively, I just had an idea: how about having England spawn in 1050ish? With one Norman city and a good military, with one of their UHV goals being to conquer the entire British isles? This would be good because it is historical, modern England is ultimately a legacy of the Norman conquest rather than earlier states, and at the moment a lot of civs seem to be spawning in the beginning of the game.

Late spawning England sounds really good. It solves lots of problems, and evens out the civ spawning more :D

A powerful Viking civ could also pose problems for England in the early part of the game. That put together with strong independents should slow England's expansion down sufficiently so they only become a power later in the game.

Or alternatively, I just had an idea: how about having England spawn in 1050ish? With one Norman city and a good military, with one of their UHV goals being to conquer the entire British isles? This would be good because it is historical, modern England is ultimately a legacy of the Norman conquest rather than earlier states, and at the moment a lot of civs seem to be spawning in the beginning of the game.

Are you really sure about this? What you're suggesting means that historically
you've got a British Isles of independent cities right up to1050 which
suddenly all fall, just like that, to a Norman conquest. What's going to stop
a strong Viking civ from grabbing the whole lot before that. I know there
was the Danelaw up to about 1000AD, but do you really want the Vikings
to grab everything? The history of England didn't suddenly start in 1066,
did it? The idea has serious flaws.:confused:
I thought we had the right idea in the first place. An English civ that
spawns in the south after 500AD with independents elsewhere.
Why change that?

It has flaws, not necessarily unsolvable. You could include southern England in the Norman spawn for a start.

No, the history of England didn't suddenly start in 1066. But nor did it suddenly start in 500 AD, there are no sudden starts for any of the civs. I think 1066 is an appropriate start because it marks a change from unstable, warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (in 1066 the Kingdom of Wessex had "united" England, but in the century before that it Mercia had done the same and before them Northumbria had done the same, and there was the short period when it was part of Canute's empire) to a single, solid state which has had continued existence to this day. It involved a complete replacement of the ruling class not since repeated, and had a lasting effect on our language and culture.

And a 1066 start makes more sense from a game play perspective:
* reduces crowded civ spawning around 500 AD (it should be noted that two civs can't spawn at exactly the same turn in RFC!)
* makes things more difficult for England. I think we're all starting to realise that England has a very strong position that needs to be counterbalance, conquest of the British isles should occupy it for a few centuries, which is historically correct.
* It lets us have England start with cities in northern France. Immediately embroiling England in a rivalry with France which was the arguably the most prominent feature of its Medieval history. Otherwise the AI would be too inclined to isolate themselves in Britain, giving them another advantage: great relationships with its neighbours. In reality we want it to greedily pursue France throughout most of the game (another UHV goal, maybe?).

It has flaws, not necessarily unsolvable. You could include southern England in the Norman spawn for a start.

No, the history of England didn't suddenly start in 1066. But nor did it suddenly start in 500 AD, there are no sudden starts for any of the civs. I think 1066 is an appropriate start because it marks a change from unstable, warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (in 1066 the Kingdom of Wessex had "united" England, but in the century before that it Mercia had done the same and before them Northumbria had done the same, and there was the short period when it was part of Canute's empire) to a single, solid state which has had continued existence to this day. It involved a complete replacement of the ruling class not since repeated, and had a lasting effect on our language and culture.

And a 1066 start makes more sense from a game play perspective:
* reduces crowded civ spawning around 500 AD (it should be noted that two civs can't spawn at exactly the same turn in RFC!)
* makes things more difficult for England. I think we're all starting to realise that England has a very strong position that needs to be counterbalance, conquest of the British isles should occupy it for a few centuries, which is historically correct.
* It lets us have England start with cities in northern France. Immediately embroiling England in a rivalry with France which was the arguably the most prominent feature of its Medieval history. Otherwise the AI would be too inclined to isolate themselves in Britain, giving them another advantage: great relationships with its neighbours. In reality we want it to greedily pursue France throughout most of the game (another UHV goal, maybe?).

I appreciate your points about game play and crowded civ spawning but
your idea presents other problems as well. Assuming your last point about
the English spawning in Normandy, wouldn't that be too close to the earlier
French start, and run the risk of being swamped by it? Also, if the whole
of the British Isles are occupied only by independents up to 1050, why
wouldn't it be invaded early by an earlier Viking start? In that scenario, the
English would find it hard to expand from Normandy and never get a chance
to develop. I understand the conflict between an Anglo-Saxon start and
the Norman Conquest, but I don't think starting the English as the Normans
is really the answer. I'd prefer an earlier start (800?) allowing the English
kingdoms to unite into one by 1050 and then Normandy flipping to it in 1066.
Whichever way you start England, there are problems. As there are with
a lot of other civ starts in this mod, aren't there? I think we should be
guided more by the way it was handled in RFC while retaining some
historical accuracy where we can. I'd like to hear Rhye's opinion on
issues like this. It's his mod too, isn't it? :)

That's actually one of my motivations for this suggestion: I was thinking about what is the core concept of RFC, because this is a modcomp of RFC after all (which reminds me, I dare say Rhye has noticed it, but I has anyone actually asked his permission to mod his code? We probably should), and its clearly the "Rise and Fall" bit. Unless we have civilizations periodically falling and being replaced by new ones then its just another civ scenario where a load of civs start and then compete for the rest of the game. Yes, the Vikings will have the opportunity to invade Britain, but Greece, Rome, Babylon, Persia and Arabia all have the opportunity to colonise Anatolia before the Turks spawn and it doesn't stop them from becoming a world power. And Viking presence is not a bad thing:
1) Viking-controlled areas were historically among the Dark Age British kingdoms.
2) It will add more challenge for Britain, otherwise it would be quite boring: conquer a load of independents, maybe some of France and then wait?
3) Successful conquest by Britain (we should make this almost a certainty) would reduce the early power of the Vikings, maybe even collapse them, which is historically correct and a good move in terms of game play.

I think this is a perfect case of something we should be thinking of throughout the mod: there should be several phases to the game. Let's not just have France and Germany and Britain in their modern territories all the way through the game. Like RFC, regions should be controlled by a few civs. I've already mentioned how the Middle East goes from Babylon/Persia -> Arabia -> the Ottomans, but there are plenty of examples. Central America starts off Maya, then becomes Aztec (this is basically a case of one civ replacing another, like the Viking-England thing, so there is a precedent in RFC) then usually becomes European. India starts off Indian, then usually is split between Persia and the Independents then usually some Europeans and finally India rebirths. I could go on.

And a 1066 start makes more sense from a game play perspective:
* reduces crowded civ spawning around 500 AD (it should be noted that two civs can't spawn at exactly the same turn in RFC!)


This is not correct, on gamestart it is possible. The only problem is the popup with the question if you want to change your civ which will pop up for two civs at the same time which is going to cause an error. As you might noticed you can't change your civ from egypt to china at the start of RFC. ;)

That's actually one of my motivations for this suggestion: I was thinking about what is the core concept of RFC, because this is a modcomp of RFC after all (which reminds me, I dare say Rhye has noticed it, but I has anyone actually asked his permission to mod his code? We probably should), and its clearly the "Rise and Fall" bit. Unless we have civilizations periodically falling and being replaced by new ones then its just another civ scenario where a load of civs start and then compete for the rest of the game. Yes, the Vikings will have the opportunity to invade Britain, but Greece, Rome, Babylon, Persia and Arabia all have the opportunity to colonise Anatolia before the Turks spawn and it doesn't stop them from becoming a world power. And Viking presence is not a bad thing:
1) Viking-controlled areas were historically among the Dark Age British kingdoms.
2) It will add more challenge for Britain, otherwise it would be quite boring: conquer a load of independents, maybe some of France and then wait?
3) Successful conquest by Britain (we should make this almost a certainty) would reduce the early power of the Vikings, maybe even collapse them, which is historically correct and a good move in terms of game play.

I think this is a perfect case of something we should be thinking of throughout the mod: there should be several phases to the game. Let's not just have France and Germany and Britain in their modern territories all the way through the game. Like RFC, regions should be controlled by a few civs. I've already mentioned how the Middle East goes from Babylon/Persia -> Arabia -> the Ottomans, but there are plenty of examples. Central America starts off Maya, then becomes Aztec (this is basically a case of one civ replacing another, like the Viking-England thing, so there is a precedent in RFC) then usually becomes European. India starts off Indian, then usually is split between Persia and the Independents then usually some Europeans and finally India rebirths. I could go on.

Your idea of a Norman start for England has a lot of merit, the more I think
about it but I'm still concerned about balance. Sure you could make them
strong to take over Britain but what would stop the AI or the human player
from deciding to wipe out the French instead of invading Britain? Wouldn't
this completely nullify any chance of France deveoping at all? Pity the
poor mug who wants to play as France, eh? Unless France and the Normans
started off as allies for the first few turns anyway? I'm not sure you'd not
end up completely skewing the balance from the start. Still, it's one idea.
As far as Rhye is concerned, I thought he was involved from the beginning.
If not, why are we using his name and his concept without permission?
I'm surprised to hear this.:confused:

Question is also:
The IA will have France too in it's area of "lands to be conquered". If the IA chooses to invade England first (I think it will not because the IA will most of the time not attack independents, but rather real civs, and it has to invade over sea, not its speciality), can it conquer enough land to make it a civ that would make it's homeland on the Island, and will it change its capital to London (or on other island based city).

The idea of the invasion is a great one, but can the AI conquer England about 90% of the time? We need to see a strong England a lot of the time, els the game would be close enough to a history-symulator. Sometimes it will be nice to see a what is world were the Norman Invasion failed, but not to often.

I think the Normans will try to conquer France rather than to go to England.

I like the idea very much, and if you can find a good mechanism so they will conquer England first and don't go after France, it would be overwelming.

Okay, I see your point. But the AI I think is easily discouraged - just have the starting units in Britain not on the mainland, ensuring they should go for Britain first. To clarify something, what I was suggesting was a spawn area covering Normandy and a portion of southern England (perhaps just London). So their capital would still be London from the start. Also, when defining homelands (I'm not exactly sure how this works, but going from Whitefire's map of the Mongol areas I think it's a three-tier system) England would be a core, while Ireland, north-western France and Scotland would be the second level. There would be a stability hit for pushing too far south into France.

I think its the best thing to do really, st.lucifer can have the final word.

If not, why are we using his name and his concept without permission?
Well, for the same reason he used Firaxis' name and concept without formal permission. But I agree we should ask him for his approval at some point.

If he dissaproved, he would have said so a long time ago. It's "his" forum after alll... ;)

m

The map is looking very nice, good job!

3 points:
-German start : the current start is in the borders of the HRE. Aachen would be the best start Otto I was elected in Aachen. Germany has moved east during it's excistance. Aachen is close to France and Netherlands, this could crow up the map to much though.
Maybe this was been discused about earlier, but would it not be better to have a HRE and Prussia. Prussia could spwan later on (1600 or so) and grow to become Germany. This is how it would work out in reality. You could get the HRE and the dualisty Austria/Prussia, and some great chances for alternative history (what is Austria became th dominat power in the HRE and a great Germany would have formed)
-Maybe adding the river Schelde in Flanders. Flanders was a very rich countship from the 900's to 1400's (ended with the reformation when all the rich traders when to Holland and the Golden Age started there) A river would bring in some more gold (= wealth) and gives the delta look of the medieval coast of the low lands
-Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul:
this is going to be hard to improve, but, the city has no connection to the Medditerrenian Sea. Maybe putting a fort on the hills of Dardanelles could do the job. This passage is important. Due to the way maps are cnstructed in CIV IV, this is the best way, I think.

Okay, I made a couple of tweaks to the last map: the stuff we discussed about Britain, I filled in the med and the black sea with coast because there's no reason that galleys shouldn't be able to traverse it and I opened up the Dardanelles to connect (using a fort would be messy, imo, it could be destroyed) Constantinople to the med.

The map is looking very nice, good job!

3 points:
-German start : the current start is in the borders of the HRE. Aachen would be the best start Otto I was elected in Aachen. Germany has moved east during it's excistance. Aachen is close to France and Netherlands, this could crow up the map to much though.
Maybe this was been discused about earlier, but would it not be better to have a HRE and Prussia. Prussia could spwan later on (1600 or so) and grow to become Germany. This is how it would work out in reality. You could get the HRE and the dualisty Austria/Prussia, and some great chances for alternative history (what is Austria became th dominat power in the HRE and a great Germany would have formed)
-Maybe adding the river Schelde in Flanders. Flanders was a very rich countship from the 900's to 1400's (ended with the reformation when all the rich traders when to Holland and the Golden Age started there) A river would bring in some more gold (= wealth) and gives the delta look of the medieval coast of the low lands
-Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul:
this is going to be hard to improve, but, the city has no connection to the Medditerrenian Sea. Maybe putting a fort on the hills of Dardanelles could do the job. This passage is important. Due to the way maps are cnstructed in CIV IV, this is the best way, I think.

If you can find Squirreloid, he'll argue it with you. :D

I'm not in favor of including the HRE as a civ. We've beaten the subject to death a few times, but it just...won't...die. Would it make sense to have multiple German kingdoms? Sure. But Prussia (historically represented) would show up at the very end of the mod - with maybe 20 turns of gameplay - what would their role be? Voltaire's joke about the HRE not being Holy, Roman, or an Empire is flippant, but it's also true. The suggestion that we had more or less adopted was to have the title of Holy Roman Emperor granted by the Apostolic Palace (as in the Charlemagne mod, but having it confer some special bonuses rather than victory.)

I do agree with your suggestion about the Dardanelles. That's a good idea, and shows the problem with trying to represent things based on their shape rather than gameplay. :)

If you'd like to put the Schelde in on a copy of the map, I'd be willing to consider it. I was trying not to overdo the rivers, but you're entirely correct that the Flanders/Netherlands area should be wet, full of rivers, and rich in trade.

The map is looking very nice, good job!

3 points:
-German start : the current start is in the borders of the HRE. Aachen would be the best start Otto I was elected in Aachen. Germany has moved east during it's excistance. Aachen is close to France and Netherlands, this could crow up the map to much though.
Maybe this was been discused about earlier, but would it not be better to have a HRE and Prussia. Prussia could spwan later on (1600 or so) and grow to become Germany. This is how it would work out in reality. You could get the HRE and the dualisty Austria/Prussia, and some great chances for alternative history (what is Austria became th dominat power in the HRE and a great Germany would have formed)
-Maybe adding the river Schelde in Flanders. Flanders was a very rich countship from the 900's to 1400's (ended with the reformation when all the rich traders when to Holland and the Golden Age started there) A river would bring in some more gold (= wealth) and gives the delta look of the medieval coast of the low lands
-Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul:
this is going to be hard to improve, but, the city has no connection to the Medditerrenian Sea. Maybe putting a fort on the hills of Dardanelles could do the job. This passage is important. Due to the way maps are cnstructed in CIV IV, this is the best way, I think.

Okay, I made a couple of tweaks to the last map: the stuff we discussed about Britain, I filled in the med and the black sea with coast because there's no reason that galleys shouldn't be able to traverse it and I opened up the Dardanelles to connect (using a fort would be messy, imo, it could be destroyed) Constantinople to the med.

I like your changes to Britain and the Dardanelles. I'm a little less comfortable with the Med being completely coastal - there are some areas which are well-justified ship graveyards - but I'm fine with that if we have a galley-sinking event that pops up commonly in some of the more dangerous areas (somewhat like the Bermuda Triangle event.) Umarth's updated map is the 'official' one until the next 'official' update.

Prussia could start out as the Teutonic Knights, it could start around 1255, and could give some fun for Poland and Lithuania, later on they were vassals to some nations, and then they became the strong and powerfull Prussians. So? I had expected that there had been a lot of arguements about this, but he... Could add some more swing to the game.

About the Low Lands:
I put in the Schelde (in Flanders) and the IJsel (in the Netherlands).

Put Dutch start 1 up to the North (that's Amsterdan, current is more or less Rotterdam) and switch grassland/jungle for those square, same thing with the grassland/Jungle to the right.

I was thinking of adding some fish too.

I made a Flemish jungle into plain (Kempen = less furtial area in Flanders)

Also: the dye-square: that's the location of Bruges (= Brugge in dutch) With the Dutch start moved up, you could place a city here around 800-900 AD. Bruges was a very important harbor during the Middle Ages, and an important trading centre

Here is an image of the map I had in mind:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/98114/Nederlanden.png

Prussia could start out as the Teutonic Knights, it could start around 1255, and could give some fun for Poland and Lithuania, later on they were vassals to some nations, and then they became the strong and powerfull Prussians. So? I had expected that there had been a lot of arguements about this, but he... Could add some more swing to the game.


The Teutonic Knights became the Prussian state in much the same way Texas became America - i.e. not. The moderately powerful Brandenburg gained prussia and used it as an additional power base outside the HRE. I personally think Prussia should be in, but starting as Brandenburg in 1415 (which would give them a good run), not as Prussia.

Besides the Teutonic Kights are likely to be represented twice already in the Mod: as the military order corporationesque thing, and probably as a HRE historical goal to conquer the east.

Added to that is the apparent concensus to not include Prussia :(.


I made a Flemish jungle into plain (Kempen = less furtial area in Flanders)


Compared with other areas it is still rather fertile.


Also: the dye-square: that's the location of Bruges (= Brugge in dutch) With the Dutch start moved up, you could place a city here around 800-900 AD. Bruges was a very important harbor during the Middle Ages, and an important trading centre


I like the dye, though a few more marsh squares (to aid defense and make the dutch ability (if we keep it being able to build on marshlands) more useful).

I very much like Umarth's idea about a 1066 English start (though it does smack of determinism) with an spawn area that includes Caen (have a Independent city there from the start to help ensure this) and has a settler in london to make the capital. Anglo-saxon england could well be represented with independents/a minor civ, which might also encourage Norse attacks prior to englands spawn.

Prussia could start out as the Teutonic Knights, it could start around 1255, and could give some fun for Poland and Lithuania, later on they were vassals to some nations, and then they became the strong and powerfull Prussians. So? I had expected that there had been a lot of arguements about this, but he... Could add some more swing to the game.


That was one of the proposals, and it was a good one - but we're doing the Teutonic Knights as a military order (replacing corporations), and the area's not going to be empty. I only have Gdansk on the map at the moment, but Baltic cities such as Konigsberg, Memel, and Riga will show up at some point, as will Leipzig and possibly Berlin (if not founded yet), and Poland is going to want to expand northwards. You can make a strong argument for having multiple German civs, but I'm much more comfortable representing the HRE/Germanic kingdoms this way. It's unfortunate that the history of the area is so complicated - if one faction or electorate had dominated for hundreds of years, they'd be worth including. Instead, you can make reasonable arguments for Saxony, Bavaria, Moravia, and Brandenburg/Prussia, and weaker arguments for some of the smaller states. I think that having 'electorate' as a government civic and the HRE title being a possible grant from the AP (with a territory requirement) is probably the best way to represent the German conundrum.

Thinking about it, it would probably be better if we kicked this back into the civ discussion thread if you're interested in debating it further.


About the Low Lands:
I put in the Schelde (in Flanders) and the IJsel (in the Netherlands).

Put Dutch start 1 up to the North (that's Amsterdan, current is more or less Rotterdam) and switch grassland/jungle for those square, same thing with the grassland/Jungle to the right.

I was thinking of adding some fish too.

I made a Flemish jungle into plain (Kempen = less furtial area in Flanders)

Also: the dye-square: that's the location of Bruges (= Brugge in dutch) With the Dutch start moved up, you could place a city here around 800-900 AD. Bruges was a very important harbor during the Middle Ages, and an important trading centre

Here is an image of the map I had in mind:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/98114/Nederlanden.png

Thanks for the map update. Would moorland (wettish lower-food-production area) be more appropriate for Kempen than plains?

Also, didn't the IJ change course sometime during our mod's timeline? Is it large enough to be important? I know that Brugge/Bruges was an important city/harbor, but more so than Antwerp, Rotterdam, Ghent, or Amsterdam?

The fish and the Schelde are fine.

The Teutonic Knights became the Prussian state in much the same way Texas became America - i.e. not. The moderately powerful Brandenburg gained prussia and used it as an additional power base outside the HRE. I personally think Prussia should be in, but starting as Brandenburg in 1415 (which would give them a good run), not as Prussia.

Besides the Teutonic Kights are likely to be represented twice already in the Mod: as the military order corporationesque thing, and probably as a HRE historical goal to conquer the east.

Added to that is the apparent concensus to not include Prussia :(.



Compared with other areas it is still rather fertile.



I like the dye, though a few more marsh squares (to aid defense and make the dutch ability (if we keep it being able to build on marshlands) more useful).

I very much like Umarth's idea about a 1066 English start (though it does smack of determinism) with an spawn area that includes Caen (have a Independent city there from the start to help ensure this) and has a settler in london to make the capital. Anglo-saxon england could well be represented with independents/a minor civ, which might also encourage Norse attacks prior to englands spawn.

I'm in favour of Umarth's idea too, as long as London becomes the capitol.
And they should hold one city in Normandy from the start, but not Caen.
It should be Rouen, which became the capitol of Normandy under Rollo or
Robert of Normandy in 912. And Rouen Cathedral was where all the Norman
kings of England where crowned.:)

I'm in favour of Umarth's idea too, as long as London becomes the capitol.
And they should hold one city in Normandy from the start, but not Caen.
It should be Rouen, which became the capitol of Normandy under Rollo or
Robert of Normandy in 912. And Rouen Cathedral was where all the Norman
kings of England where crowned.:)

I think that makes everyone except ZZZ weighing in, then. Starting them in 1060 is fine with me, and I agree with Jessiecat that we should use Rouen rather than Caen. Caen may have been more significant early, but Rouen was a much more important city through the mod timeline.

If we start the Normans with an army in England and only a few defenders in Rouen, they'll head north rather than trying to transship the army a couple of units at a time.

I like the idea of running Anglo-Saxon England as a strong independent. Actually, this might be a good way of satisfying those parties who keep clamoring for the inclusion of a Scottish or Irish civ - if we had pre-Norman England as an early civ like Babylon, with two fast UHV goals (the third being survival), that could make for an interesting balance and ensure that England gets built up a bit before the Normans spawn (ensuring that the conquest of England isn't an easy or given thing, and making up for their late start by giving them some existing population and infrastructure.)

What do people think about having a pre-Norman British Isles civ, and what would we call it?

I think that makes everyone except ZZZ weighing in, then. Starting them in 1060 is fine with me, and I agree with Jessiecat that we should use Rouen rather than Caen. Caen may have been more significant early, but Rouen was a much more important city through the mod timeline.

If we start the Normans with an army in England and only a few defenders in Rouen, they'll head north rather than trying to transship the army a couple of units at a time.

I like the idea of running Anglo-Saxon England as a strong independent. Actually, this might be a good way of satisfying those parties who keep clamoring for the inclusion of a Scottish or Irish civ - if we had pre-Norman England as an early civ like Babylon, with two fast UHV goals (the third being survival), that could make for an interesting balance and ensure that England gets built up a bit before the Normans spawn (ensuring that the conquest of England isn't an easy or given thing, and making up for their late start by giving them some existing population and infrastructure.)

What do people think about having a pre-Norman British Isles civ, and what would we call it?

I'm not sure about a pre-Norman civ at all mainly due to it's short timespan
historically. The unification of England only really began in 825 when Egbert
of Wessex defeated the Mercians and annexed Essex and Kent. Alfred had
limited success in unifying England from 871 to 899. But after his death
England was ruled on and off by the Danes right up to Godwin and Harold
in 1066. I think it would be more effective to have strong independent
cities like London,Winchester, Nottingham, York and Durham before this
time. The Normans could quickly conquer London and flip Winchester at
first. Then they would have to conquer the rest.
It would make more sense to have Scotland starting in 900 as a civ that
would give the English real competiton for next 800 years of the mod and
be a counterweight to Viking ambitions in England. Geographically it's very
doable with Edinburgh as capitol. Possible early UHV goals could include
taking Durham and invading Ireland as well as Orkney and Shetland.
That would please our Celtic fans as well, wouldn't it? Just a thought.:)

We can't have a civ (Scotland) just to give a challenge to another civ (England) - I know we've been talking about making it hard to be England but in the end we've got to have it fairly certain that the AI can unify Great Britain at least, otherwise they'll become a bit of a nonentity in the larger scheme of things. So we'll either have a civ predetermined to die or two very weak civs.

A pre-Norman civ... I like the idea, but I think there are some significant obstacles to implementing it: should it represent the Romano-British ('celtic') or Anglo-Saxon people, it would be hard to justify lumping them together because they had completely different languages and culture. What would their UHVs be? They may be the only civ on their island, and if we have them unifying it (which I think would be likely given how early in the game it is) then England will have a very hard time. Really I think we should have the early period in Britain free to let the independents build up and the Vikings to play around.

Also, the map only has space for Durham or York really (they'd be on adjacent tiles, although there's always the possibility that one would be raised and the other re-founded) and my vote is definitely for York.

We can't have a civ (Scotland) just to give a challenge to another civ (England) - I know we've been talking about making it hard to be England but in the end we've got to have it fairly certain that the AI can unify Great Britain at least, otherwise they'll become a bit of a nonentity in the larger scheme of things. So we'll either have a civ predetermined to die or two very weak civs.

A pre-Norman civ... I like the idea, but I think there are some significant obstacles to implementing it: should it represent the Romano-British ('celtic') or Anglo-Saxon people, it would be hard to justify lumping them together because they had completely different languages and culture. What would their UHVs be? They may be the only civ on their island, and if we have them unifying it (which I think would be likely given how early in the game it is) then England will have a very hard time. Really I think we should have the early period in Britain free to let the independents build up and the Vikings to play around.

Also, the map only has space for Durham or York really (they'd be on adjacent tiles, although there's always the possibility that one would be raised and the other re-founded) and my vote is definitely for York.

Actually the only reason I floated Scotland is that I'm sure an Anglo Saxon
one wouldn't be around long enough to matter. My original thought was no
other civ on the island at all. So I'm with you on that as long as we make
York and Edinburgh fairly strong, developed independents and the Vikings
aren't too strong in the beginning to swamp Scotland and the North. I think
there'd be room on the map too for weaker independents like Winchester,
Nottingham, Chester and Inverness as well, don't you think?:)

@st. lucifer. I think that makes it two votes against so far.

I think that makes everyone except ZZZ weighing in, then. Starting them in 1060 is fine with me, and I agree with Jessiecat that we should use Rouen rather than Caen. Caen may have been more significant early, but Rouen was a much more important city through the mod timeline.


I agree with Rouen being more significant, but its also much closer to Paris, and thus very likely to get swamped in French culture, and led to earlier wars. (plus its not coastal ;)).


If we start the Normans with an army in England and only a few defenders in Rouen, they'll head north rather than trying to transship the army a couple of units at a time.


Sounds good, though obviously needs testing once things get up and running.



I like the idea of running Anglo-Saxon England as a strong independent. Actually, this might be a good way of satisfying those parties who keep clamoring for the inclusion of a Scottish or Irish civ - if we had pre-Norman England as an early civ like Babylon, with two fast UHV goals (the third being survival), that could make for an interesting balance and ensure that England gets built up a bit before the Normans spawn (ensuring that the conquest of England isn't an easy or given thing, and making up for their late start by giving them some existing population and infrastructure.)

What do people think about having a pre-Norman British Isles civ, and what would we call it?

Personnally if we are allocating extra playable slots there are a number of states with greater scope (Aragon springs to mind, eh?).

Some options

A) Having three powerful independent cities (Beorma, Winchester/Bristol, and Durham for Mercia, Wessex, and Northumbria), whilst the south east flips to the Normans would be to my liking.

B) If we have different independents, perhaps a 'Celtic independent' in ireland, scotland, wales, Brittanny and north spain, whilst a 'Germannic' independent has cities in the west of germany and in england?

C) If we do have it as a minor civ then Anglo-Saxon England works fine IMO, but if its a full civ then I would suggest it starting out as Wessex, and growing to be Kingdom of the Anglo-Saxons* (really any of the bigger saxon kingdoms could have ended up on top, so we might as well go with the one who lucked out in real life).

*This is the title Athelstan and other kings were crowned with after all.

D) If it is a full civ (which I would like, but not as much as other civs being included) then perhaps something like this?:
UU: Fyrd (Spearman with bonus verses Melee)
UB: Deemings House (Courthouse with extra culture and happy)
UP: Power of Invasion: All units get a boost to city attack
UHV: 1) Conquer England by 1000 2) build X courthouses, monastaries and Castles by 1200 3) Have 1 Vassal in 1300 (implicit: survival)

Ugh, do I have to point this out again about the most recent map?

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/5485/fenswq1.png

York is more appropriate for Northumbria, I think.

York is more appropriate for Northumbria, I think.

Why not have both? ;).

Okay here is a map with differing independents, also demonstrating the problem with a realistic placement of Rouen:

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6483/mostrecentenglandindrp8.png

Heres a possible wessex spawn area:

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/5016/mostrecentenglandwesjh1.png

The Norman flip zone looks fine to me. But what is "Yorvick"?

The Norman flip zone looks fine to me. But what is "Yorvick"?

I think he means Jorvik/York, or are you just being:rolleyes:
Looking at Normandy, Caen looks better as it's not too close to Paris.
In fact, why not Cherbourg? Still don't favour an Anglo Saxon civ though.
It could only last 200 years then get swallowed up by the Normans.
Unless you want two weak English civs? Instead I would make the
flip zone include Winchester as well. And if you want one city south of York,
either Peterborough or Nottingham are old enough and far enough south.
I agree about East Anglia as well. It is fertile, not just marshland.
If I can have my gripe too, When are getting rid of that awful white tundra?
Just grass all those hills over, it's not tundra for gods sake!
People in Cornwall and Wales have to eat too. And not just fish!:sad:
Have a look at this satellite map. The only non-green area is the extensive
china clay workings near St Austell. Even the "moors" are green!

@St. lucifer: IJsel-river is important so that Amsterdam can build a dyke, that's why I wanted it in.

Bruges was the most important city in the lowlands untill the 1400's. Ghent had a littke bit less importance, Antwerp en Amsterdam became important after 1500 when the harbor of Bruges became land. In 1300 a revolte in Bruges (= Brugse Metten) against the French rule (they killed all French) lead to a war. Millitia's from Bruges Ghent, Ieper(=Ypers) and Kortrijk (the most important Flemish cities, Bruges was the leader)) destroyed the French Knight armies.

About the Kempen:
It has a sand soil with small shrubs, it's hooter in the day, and colder at night. It has some simmilarities with medditerranian lands-> plains
(it's a heath-land, in Dutch : heide). There were also some coalmines here. It isn't lowlands, so I'd go with plains.

On the teutonic Knights:
Clearly has been worked out, so...whatever you thought about is fine by me.

On the Anglo-saxon thing:
I once heared the anglo-saxons had a lot of little Kingdoms in England fight off eachother. In those days, a big army has around 80 warriors. So, why a civ for small tibal nations. I'm in favour of a Norman invasion (London flip) with a group of independent cities here.

Yeah, I was thinking that, but it's the wrong side of the Humber. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't another city I wasn't aware of before I corrected that. Although, thinking about it York could be on the tile to the right of its current position; it just depends whether you want it coastal or not.

I'm also not a fan of the anglo-saxon/wessex civ.

With regards to the Britain thing, lots of strong independants is pretty historically accurate really, but adding one more civ would be unnececary.

@jessiecat, the ice is a placeholder for moorland, since we want to distiguish it from plains visually though it has the same characteristics. See jungle filling in for marsh.

Cherbourg would not be my choice as a) it would be a crappier city, b) provoke less conflict with France and c) although younger Caen was more important and more typical of the frankified Normans this spawn is representing

Yeah, I was thinking that, but it's the wrong side of the Humber. Just wanted to make sure there wasn't another city I wasn't aware of before I corrected that. Although, thinking about it York could be on the tile to the right of its current position; it just depends whether you want it coastal or not.


Yorvick is a misspelling yes ;).

Yeah there wasn't space for York and a another Northumbrian city so I shifted it south. It really should be coastal though as its a) further east than the main body of the Pennines represented by the hills, and b) it should be a major norse target

I'm also not a fan of the anglo-saxon/wessex civ.

Neither am I, unless we're planning to add another 10 civs to go with it ;). I am liking the idea of difference between Celtic and Germannic independents though (to which we can add Slavic and 'North African/Mediterranean' to bring the total to 4).

I am liking the idea of difference between Celtic and Germannic independents though (to which we can add Slavic and 'North African/Mediterranean' to bring the total to 4).

This I like. I hate declaring war on an independent and getting attacked by ones in a completely different place. :)

This idea that England was a mire of squabbling petty states prior to 1066 should have died long ago.

By 1066 England was a culturally self-assured and relatively well-centralised kingdom by the standards of Northern Europe, and had been for well over a century. Canute's reign was relatively short and did not substantially affect Anglo-Saxon culture. If the idea of English unity starts with Bede, it could be argued that the concept of a unified English culture predates the Norman conquest by at least 350 years, and the concept became reality after a series of false starts and the Danish wars during the reign of Alfred and his son at the latest.

This idea that England was a mire of squabbling petty states prior to 1066 should have died long ago.

By 1066 England was a culturally self-assured and relatively well-centralised kingdom by the standards of Northern Europe, and had been for well over a century. Canute's reign was relatively short and did not substantially affect Anglo-Saxon culture. If the idea of English unity starts with Bede, it could be argued that the concept of a unified English culture predates the Norman conquest by at least 350 years, and the concept became reality after a series of false starts and the Danish wars during the reign of Alfred and his son at the latest.

Interesting information. Is the gameplay value enough in itself to justify the historical innacuracy?

I'd say so! Historical accuracy isn't everything. And as we know it from normal game. Germany and France and most other civs have much more place to them, so if we give the English too much time, they will be too far in time, as they really don't have that much room to spare. When was Wales conquered? 1280AD? When Scotland? (First try ~1300, Successful: 1600) When was the hundred years war (campaigns in France) 1340 or so.

I'd say 1066 is good. Gives them much (just enough) to do in a short time. But that is probably more gameplay stuff... ;) Btw. We really need to have a look in the events system. If the English manage to conquer Scotland easily early enough, there need to be numerous rebellions... ;)

m

Interesting information. Is the gameplay value enough in itself to justify the historical innacuracy?

There may still be valid reasons for starting England late / on the Continent in game terms, but certainly not because late Anglo-Saxon England was extraordinarily fragmented or backwards.

There may still be valid reasons for starting England late / on the Continent in game terms, but certainly not because late Anglo-Saxon England was extraordinarily fragmented or backwards.

I always thought it was a few seperate kingdoms that would be impossible to represent in the game, not that they were backwards. I may be wrong...

There may still be valid reasons for starting England late / on the Continent in game terms, but certainly not because late Anglo-Saxon England was extraordinarily fragmented or backwards.

I agree with you that england was a unified and well off state by the 900s, but it is hard to show this in the gameplay

a) Its not that long before the Norman conquest so this Anglo-Saxon kingdom won't have much time to do things.
b) It rose out of various smaller kingdoms - any of which could probably have won out, so we really have to include several OR none of them, which again constrains the time we have for the unified state.
c) Anglo-Saxon england didn't really do much abroad (or domestically in terms that can be shown in CIV), making it less fun to play historically (just sitting there being the envy of Europe), whilst the Norman legacy influenced English politics for the next 800 years.

Thus the compromise of strong independents (who don't fight each other after all) is best in my opinion.

Ok, let's scrap the pre-Norman British civ idea. Independents it is. I'm in favor of making York coastal - should its coastal tile be a hill? I know the area's hilly, but I've never been to York. Putting it on a hill would also make it much harder to conquer.

Disenfrancised, are you suggesting that the marsh be moved west to encompass the squares around the Ouse? I did that initially, but then worried that it essentially made the river worthless. I left the square to the east of the mouth open for Norfolk, figuring it would be a more productive city there - but it can be changed to be more accurate. Do we put sheep or cows east of there?

Caen over Rouen for gameplay. You're right about the culture issue. Do we include any of Normandy in the flip - Brest or Rennes, or is that too big/powerful?

@SM - Dikes can be built in coastal cities - they don't require a river like levees. We may want to tweak the function/value/tech requirement for dikes anyway - as they stand, they're obscenely powerful - so I would be less inclined to add the IJsel. I'm fine with reordering swamps to open up Bruges' space, although I think the proposed UP for the Dutch is still being able to build on/improve marsh, so it may not make much difference.

I agree with you that england was a unified and well off state by the 900s, but it is hard to show this in the gameplay

a) Its not that long before the Norman conquest so this Anglo-Saxon kingdom won't have much time to do things.
b) It rose out of various smaller kingdoms - any of which could probably have won out, so we really have to include several OR none of them, which again constrains the time we have for the unified state.
c) Anglo-Saxon england didn't really do much abroad (or domestically in terms that can be shown in CIV), making it less fun to play historically (just sitting there being the envy of Europe), whilst the Norman legacy influenced English politics for the next 800 years.

Thus the compromise of strong independents (who don't fight each other after all) is best in my opinion.

Sorry if I'm still banging on about the tundra, but I'm surprised you're still
using placeholders. Wouldn't it be much easier just to green all that white
and add a few rocky bits later to represent moors? As Umarth has already
suggested, moorlands are really quite small areas, less than a map square
on our scale. The rest should be grassy hills to provide enough food resources,
esp. in Cornwall and Wales. It's not all wasteland and all of it is green.
(Look at the satellite map I posted of Cornwall). Otherwise building cities
like Plymouth or Swansea with no food would be impossible later in the game.
I'm also with Umarth on English cities being independent prior to the
Norman invasion. As I said earlier, 821 to 1066 is too short for a workable
civ. Just make York and Edinburgh fairly developed and well-defended and
the problem is solved. You can't have 2 playable English civs. That's a
recipe for chaos. The Normans need a chance to get started, or England
as a playable civ would never get off the ground. :)

The site of York shouldn't be a hill: York city is very low-lying, is at/near the convergence of several rivers, and floods often. Nor is it a remarkable strongpoint.

Sorry if I'm still banging on about the tundra, but I'm surprised you're still
using placeholders. Wouldn't it be much easier just to green all that white
and add a few rocky bits later to represent moors? As Umarth has already
suggested, moorlands are really quite small areas, less than a map square
on our scale. The rest should be grassy hills to provide enough food resources,
esp. in Cornwall and Wales. It's not all wasteland and all of it is green.


Unfortunately, we have to use placeholders. Modifying the terrain files would require the creation of another mod, which we could theoretically build the rest of RFC Europe from - but it'll be much harder to work from, and it won't do anything else at this point. I'd love to have updated terrains and resources ready to go, as the map is the area I feel most comfortable being in charge of - but that won't happen until we've got all of the other stuff ready to go. As I said before, I'm fine with changing most of Cornwall back to grass (I'm still going to leave the northernmost hill as a moor), but I'm not going to do an official map update with that and the addition of the Schelde (and the realignment of some marshes) as the only changes.

And I think the pre-Norman English civ idea is dead. No mourning here, even if it was my idea.

The site of York shouldn't be a hill: York city is very low-lying, is at/near the convergence of several rivers, and floods often. Nor is it a remarkable strongpoint.

Great. Thanks.

Ok, let's scrap the pre-Norman British civ idea. Independents it is. I'm in favor of making York coastal - should its coastal tile be a hill? I know the area's hilly, but I've never been to York. Putting it on a hill would also make it much harder to conquer.

Disenfrancised, are you suggesting that the marsh be moved west to encompass the squares around the Ouse? I did that initially, but then worried that it essentially made the river worthless. I left the square to the east of the mouth open for Norfolk, figuring it would be a more productive city there - but it can be changed to be more accurate. Do we put sheep or cows east of there?

Caen over Rouen for gameplay. You're right about the culture issue. Do we include any of Normandy in the flip - Brest or Rennes, or is that too big/powerful?

@SM - Dikes can be built in coastal cities - they don't require a river like levees. We may want to tweak the function/value/tech requirement for dikes anyway - as they stand, they're obscenely powerful - so I would be less inclined to add the IJsel. I'm fine with reordering swamps to open up Bruges' space, although I think the proposed UP for the Dutch is still being able to build on/improve marsh, so it may not make much difference.

Sorry about banging on about the moors, but please read my last two posts
and consider what I've suggested. As far as the other stuff goes, glad you
agree about no pre-Norman civ. It's just not workable game-wise.
About Norfolk, yes to cattle and sheep. it was centre of the medieval wool trade.
And you shouldn't put more than one square of marsh near the Ouse.
Yes to Caen over Rouen only because of position.
As far as York goes it's inland on the bend of the river, but not on a hill,
and as Jorvik it was navigable by river to the sea. So maybe just an inlet
to the square it's on.:)

Disenfrancised, are you suggesting that the marsh be moved west to encompass the squares around the Ouse?

Very much so. In fact I might whine about it a lot ;).

I did that initially, but then worried that it essentially made the river worthless.

Yes, as it should be, besides it still gives fresh water to 3 tiles.

I left the square to the east of the mouth open for Norfolk, figuring it would be a more productive city there - but it can be changed to be more accurate. Do we put sheep or cows east of there?


I'd say keep it marshy and then put a cows or wheat to the east of it, enabling a city founded in ipswich's location (which should probably get a fish from the North sea) 2 NE of london.


Caen over Rouen for gameplay. You're right about the culture issue. Do we include any of Normandy in the flip - Brest or Rennes, or is that too big/powerful?


Not accurate (the normans would not gain overlordship of Brittany (which i assmue is what you're talking about ;)) till the 1150s), and rather powerful to.


@SM - Dikes can be built in coastal cities - they don't require a river like levees. We may want to tweak the function/value/tech requirement for dikes anyway - as they stand, they're obscenely powerful - so I would be less inclined to add the IJsel. I'm fine with reordering swamps to open up Bruges' space, although I think the proposed UP for the Dutch is still being able to build on/improve marsh, so it may not make much difference.

I'm fine with dikes power level, and think they should be moved earlier in the tech tree (and possibly increased in price) - that'd be the Nederlands true UP as improving marsh is not that good.

The site of York shouldn't be a hill: York city is very low-lying, is at/near the convergence of several rivers, and floods often. Nor is it a remarkable strongpoint.
Sorry about banging on about the moors, but please read my last two posts
and consider what I've suggested. As far as the other stuff goes, glad you
agree about no pre-Norman civ. It's just not workable game-wise.
About Norfolk, yes to cattle and sheep. it was centre of the medieval wool trade.
And you shouldn't put more than one square of marsh near the Ouse.
Yes to Caen over Rouen only because of position.
As far as York goes it's inland on the bend of the river, but not on a hill,
and as Jorvik it was navigable by river to the sea. So maybe just an inlet
to the square it's on.
Yes I agree, it should be one tile to the east. I put it there because I wasn't sure whether we wanted it to be coastal. And maybe a tiny bit of vanity because I live on that tile :D And yes York is well away from the Pennines, it's very flat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_of_York).

It's at the confluence of the Ouse and the Foss, and there was a harbour there in the middle ages if my memory serves me correctly.

Yes I agree, it should be one tile to the east. I put it there because I wasn't sure whether we wanted it to be coastal. And maybe a tiny bit of vanity because I live on that tile :D And yes York is well away from the Pennines, it's very flat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_of_York).

It's at the confluence of the Ouse and the Foss, and there was a harbour there in the middle ages if my memory serves me correctly.

You remember your visit to the JorvikExperience, don't you? What they
uncovered there was part of the original Viking quayside and shops, so
it was a significant port in the 10th. C. As I said earlier, you could just
leave it as it is with an inlet to the sea. That'd work, I think.:)

Yes, as it should be, besides it still gives fresh water to 3 tiles.
I'd say keep it marshy and then put a cows or wheat to the east of it, enabling a city founded in ipswich's location (which should probably get a fish from the North sea) 2 NE of london.


All right. Sheep ok? Jessiecat pointed out that it was the center of the wool trade. No objections to adding fish either. Moving the marshes west allows either Norfolk or Ipswich. Fine by me.



Not accurate (the normans would not gain overlordship of Brittany (which i assmue is what you're talking about ;)) till the 1150s), and rather powerful to.

I'm fine with dikes power level, and think they should be moved earlier in the tech tree (and possibly increased in price) - that'd be the Nederlands true UP as improving marsh is not that good.

Blah, my brain must not be working today. I meant Brittany, yes. And that's all the logic required. The spawning area that you included with the earlier map should be fine. Now, this would give the Normans Rouen also (which seems a somewhat likely candidate for the AI to found), but they'd struggle to keep it due to Paris's culture.

I'd rather have a proto-Bristol than Beorma. I realize that Bristol showed up later (around 1150), but it's a much stronger city site.

Increasing the price of a dike might do it. The cities building them often struggle with production before the dike is built, so that would be a good handicap. We're going to have to redo much of the tech tree anyway, so it'll definitely be moved up. The dike is the UB for the Dutch - the UP is the power of polders (? I forget how it was phrased. If I remember right, you were the one who proposed it. :D), which involved being able to develop and build on marsh squares. Not a fantastic UP, but the UB more than makes up for it - and it's well-suited to the area.

@jessiecat
What do you mean by an inlet?

A single water tile protuberating inwards Humber style I shouldn't wonder.

If we simply move York one tile eastwards, onto what is currently the square with the corn (representing barley) in it, we solve the problem: it's in the coastal lowland (check), it's got water access (check), and it's on the Humber (check). Problem solved. We can move the barley onto the moor northwards, and there'll be some sort of seafood resource offshore. No major changes needed to the map there.

If we simply move York one tile eastwards, onto what is currently the square with the corn (representing barley) in it, we solve the problem: it's in the coastal lowland (check), it's got water access (check), and it's on the Humber (check). Problem solved. We can move the barley onto the moor northwards, and there'll be some sort of seafood resource offshore. No major changes needed to the map there.

Sounds OK for York though its not on the Humber as Umarth has pointed
out. It should be on the coast, I agree, but with the grain south of it and
that sheep on a hill to the north of it. With one fish to the east.
I've posted a revision on the other thread about the Norse and Burgundy
start dates, but I'll retell it here.
I probably erred in the Norse date a bit. In order to take in the earliest raids
on Britain (ex. Lindesfarne -793) we really should be looking at an earlier
spawn for the Norse. Say, 750AD or thereabouts.
Burgundy presents more of a problem because the geographical proxity to
the French and German starts. Also Burgundy existed at different times as
different things. Although the Dukes of Burgundy ruled a fairly centralized
state from 843 to 1477, there were earlier smaller versions like Upper
Burgundy and Lower Burgundy whose origins lie in the breakup of the
Frankish Empire in about 500AD. So I agree the Burgundy start must be
earlier but by how much? I would suggest no earlier than 800 but their
spawn area must be strong and southward in direction, as someone else
already mentioned.:)

There was no significant continuity between the C5 Germanic kingdom of the Burgundians and the Carolingian-era Burgundian state never mind the fifteenth century duchy. At least not that I know of.

The Viking raids may have begun late in the C8 but these were the work of freelancers attacking targets of opportunity not a planned assault coordinated from any central power. Not until early in the C10 do stable Scandinavian monarchies begin to form. Even the Great Army was more or less a wandering host and not until Sweyn Forkbeard's time did the monarch of a Scandinavian kingdom involve himself in England. The nobility got involved earlier - Erik Bloodaxe frx, who came to England precisely because he wasn't able to make good his claim at home.

There was no significant continuity between the C5 Germanic kingdom of the Burgundians and the Carolingian-era Burgundian state never mind the fifteenth century duchy. At least not that I know of.

The Viking raids may have begun late in the C8 but these were the work of freelancers attacking targets of opportunity not a planned assault coordinated from any central power. Not until early in the C10 do stable Scandinavian monarchies begin to form. Even the Great Army was more or less a wandering host and not until Sweyn Forkbeard's time did the monarch of a Scandinavian kingdom involve himself in England. The nobility got involved earlier - Erik Bloodaxe frx, who came to England precisely because he wasn't able to make good his claim at home.

OK. So taking your valid points, have you any suggestions of dates when
the Norse and the Burgundians could spawn for the purposes of THIS game?
Otherwise, I'm not sure how helpful your comments are.:)
BTW Check Wiki entry on Duchy of Burgundy.

Burgundians c.880, Norse c.900-950 I would say.

Burgundians c.880, Norse c.900-950 I would say.

I'm OK with the first, though prefer the 840 date to cooincide with the start
of the Duchy of Burgundy.
As for the Vikings it would be hard to start so late, as they need time to
develop as a civ in their spawn locations, ie Denmark and Sweden, as
they'd be under pressure from the start from the earlier spawning Germans
who might expand into Denmark before they do. They'd have to start early
enough to found Normandy (ie 911) and earlier than the Kievan Rus as well.
We've already got 860 for Kiev and it was they who founded it.
So maybe about 800-820 for the Norse as I've suggested..:)

Please move this discussion to the civ thread.

Please move this discussion to the civ thread.

OK, please see my suggestion on the discussion thread.:)

Can someone please tell me the exact spawnareas of the ottomans, byzantium and arabia? I'm unsure about them.

Besides that the spawnpoints and spawnareas are translated into the const.py. ;)

Can someone please tell me the exact spawnareas of the ottomans, byzantium and arabia? I'm unsure about them.

Besides that the spawnpoints and spawnareas are translated into the const.py. ;)

Just my opinion, but they must be similiar to RFC. Constantinople for the
Byzantines, Eastern Anatolia for the Ottomans and Southern Arabia for
Arabia. I haven't seen all the cities on the map yet though and nothing so
far in Arabia (like Mecca or Medina). I don't think I've got the up-to-date
map though. Maybe st. lucifer's already picked the spots for them.
Better ask him.
BTW I posted my revised spawn dates for the Norse(820) and the
Burgundians(840). Did you see that and is the list now finalized?:)

Yes i saw them, but i didn't changed it by now. I'll go for it when Umarth got the DLL working.

The problem for me is, that the byzantine empire had lots of cities in the whole mediterranean sea at 500 AD, so it would be very unhistorically that they just spawn in Constantinople and settle a bit around it.

For arabia my problem is, shall they have egypt and israel under their control on spawn or shall they capture these cities. And where shall i put their starting point, since there is no Medina or Mekka on the map.

The ottomans spawn in anatolia that is clear, but shall the spawnarea cover the whole landmass of anatolia and how much of the middle east (damascus and that area).

Since Byzantium is there from a beginning can we not just include their units and cities in the world builder file?

Still working on that dll, by the way.

Yes i saw them, but i didn't changed it by now. I'll go for it when Umarth got the DLL working.

The problem for me is, that the byzantine empire had lots of cities in the whole mediterranean sea at 500 AD, so it would be very unhistorically that they just spawn in Constantinople and settle a bit around it.

For arabia my problem is, shall they have egypt and israel under their control on spawn or shall they capture these cities. And where shall i put their starting point, since there is no Medina or Mekka on the map.

The ottomans spawn in anatolia that is clear, but shall the spawnarea cover the whole landmass of anatolia and how much of the middle east (damascus and that area).

Like I said, if they spawn like they do in RFC, there shouldn't be a problem.
Like Umarth just said, the Byzantines start in their own cities. The Turks
spawn at and around Sogat and the Arabs start in Arabia and conquer the
independents like Jerusalem, Damascus etc. Simple if we stick to how its
done in RFC. Don't you agree?:)

I'd say the Arabs starting in Arabia won't work. Not having the exact map in mind but they would simply have way too much to conquer, besides it doesen't exist on the mapr As I understand, the Arabs =/= "Andalusians". Right? Because that is an absolute necessity. I would say test it!

Well, what are the starting possibilities then? I'd say Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. The last one falls out, as we don't want it to be the Arab capital, right? Baghdad probably isn't/shouldn't be on the map which leaves us with Damascus and Cairo. Thinking of the "Crusades" and the place, I'd say we give the Arabs a headstart in Egypt.

But needs to be tested though. ;)

EDIT: Just to say: Starting place = capital. We don't want that to be crappy. We thus need an "event" if possible that makes the Turkish capital Istanbul as soon as it is conquered... ;)

m

Byzantines start with Constantinople, Athens, Thessalonica, Nicaea, Adrianople, and Ephesus. I think that's the list of cities on the map - there should probably be a few more in Anatolia, but they're going to be in a powerful position as is.

Turks flip most of Anatolia upon spawning. The capital should not be Sogut - most of us agree that Sogut is an unfortunate but necessary bastardization for the RFC map - but instead, the bulk of their units should start at the 'Turk start' or 'Ottoman start' point in central Anatolia, near Ankara. Again not perfect, but better than Sogut. Damascus and the areas south of Anatolia should not flip.

'Arabia' starts out with the cities in the southeastern part of the map. Mecca, Medina, and Baghdad are all off the table - they aren't within the scope of the map, and this was a deliberate decision. I'm fine with putting the Arabian capital in Damascus; I'm also fine with putting it in Cairo. Both are pretty good options, but the Cairo one would force them to conquer most of the Levant, which would be more historical. Not that it's entirely historical to start them in Egypt... what about having Jerusalem and Acre flip, and giving them a massive army to conquer the rest? This does create the problem of making the Arab capital Jerusalem, which isn't the best city in the area, but it is central to both likely wings of the empire and should have high value for most civs.

Returning to civ start dates, I would once again like to express reservations about having Burgundy start late, and I'd like to have the Norse around from the beginning. There's a little bit of flexibility there, depending on UHV goals, but our early landscape is not going to be very populated if all of our civs start in the 800s.

I'd say the Arabs starting in Arabia won't work. Not having the exact map in mind but they would simply have way too much to conquer, besides it doesen't exist on the mapr As I understand, the Arabs =/= "Andalusians". Right? Because that is an absolute necessity. I would say test it!

Well, what are the starting possibilities then? I'd say Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. The last one falls out, as we don't want it to be the Arab capital, right? Baghdad probably isn't/shouldn't be on the map which leaves us with Damascus and Cairo. Thinking of the "Crusades" and the place, I'd say we give the Arabs a headstart in Egypt.

But needs to be tested though. ;)

EDIT: Just to say: Starting place = capital. We don't want that to be crappy. We thus need an "event" if possible that makes the Turkish capital Istanbul as soon as it is conquered... ;)

m

Sorry, but i'm afraid you've missed the fact that will be 2 Arab civs in this
mod. One will start in the Middle East in 660, the other as Al Andalus will
start in Morocco and Andalusia in 700.
As far as I see it, the earlier Arabs should start in Mecca or Medina with
a large army and go on to conquer from there. As for the rest, I think we
do it as in RFC, like I've just said, Why should this mod be different?:)

Byzantines start with Constantinople, Athens, Thessalonica, Nicaea, Adrianople, and Ephesus. I think that's the list of cities on the map - there should probably be a few more in Anatolia, but they're going to be in a powerful position as is.

Turks flip most of Anatolia upon spawning. The capital should not be Sogut - most of us agree that Sogut is an unfortunate but necessary bastardization for the RFC map - but instead, the bulk of their units should start at the 'Turk start' or 'Ottoman start' point in central Anatolia, near Ankara. Again not perfect, but better than Sogut. Damascus and the areas south of Anatolia should not flip.

'Arabia' starts out with the cities in the southeastern part of the map. Mecca, Medina, and Baghdad are all off the table - they aren't within the scope of the map, and this was a deliberate decision. I'm fine with putting the Arabian capital in Damascus; I'm also fine with putting it in Cairo. Both are pretty good options, but the Cairo one would force them to conquer most of the Levant, which would be more historical. Not that it's entirely historical to start them in Egypt... what about having Jerusalem and Acre flip, and giving them a massive army to conquer the rest? This does create the problem of making the Arab capital Jerusalem, which isn't the best city in the area, but it is central to both likely wings of the empire and should have high value for most civs.

Returning to civ start dates, I would once again like to express reservations about having Burgundy start late, and I'd like to have the Norse around from the beginning. There's a little bit of flexibility there, depending on UHV goals, but our early landscape is not going to be very populated if all of our civs start in the 800s.

Sorry about the double post. You just beat me to it.

I agree with your view on tthe Arab start. If it's not Mecca or Medina,
them it must be Damascus with Jerusalem and the Levant to be conquered
or maybe they could flip in a couple of turns. Historically, most of that area
fell without a fight anyway.They could easily switch their capitol to Cairo later.

You're right too about the Ottoman start, I'm fine with the area you
designated on the map. Same with the Byzantines.
They'd just start off in their own cities, wouldn't they?

I beg to differ on the Burgundy start. 840 is historically accurate and they
could have a strong south spawn to prevent them being swamped by the
Germans and the French.And there is a gap in the list between 800 and 860.

As far as the Norse goes, I originally proposed 700 but people objected and
said it should be 900. So if you want it early, that's fine with me.:)

I think Burgundy should be later, though there may be issues with France and Germany's sandwiching them. The Vikings should start earlier - just because they didn't leave Scandinavia until the late 800s doesn't mean they didn't have a culture there that grew into the raiding, trading, colonizing group of people later.

The Arabs should start in Damascus, giving the Byzantines someone stronger than Independents to worry about at first, as well as historical accuracy in conquering Egypt after Mesopotamia. This also means Jerusalem won't suddenly become the capital if and when it flips.

I beg to differ on the Burgundy start. 840 is historically accurate and they
could have a strong south spawn to prevent them being swamped by the
Germans and the French.And there is a gap in the list between 800 and 860.

As far as the Norse goes, I originally proposed 700 but people objected and
said it should be 900. So if you want it early, that's fine with me.:)

It's not the history that I have an issue with - it's that the spawn and flip is going to tear the guts out of either France or Germany every single time, probably collapsing one of them - which would be bad in 840. We could move the spawn area further south, but that's getting away from the historical side of things as well, and there's no logical capital - they'd probably end up in Switzerland with a couple of fairly weak cities, or fighting independents in Provence (which might not be so bad.)

I vote for having the Vikings around from the beginning. They'll start out fairly weak - Tonsberg and probably Aarhus, depending on where they found the city in Denmark - but we can reduce their preferences for Germany and the Netherlands to drive them north, which should spur normal development.

It's not the history that I have an issue with - it's that the spawn and flip is going to tear the guts out of either France or Germany every single time, probably collapsing one of them - which would be bad in 840. We could move the spawn area further south, but that's getting away from the historical side of things as well, and there's no logical capital - they'd probably end up in Switzerland with a couple of fairly weak cities, or fighting independents in Provence (which might not be so bad.)

I vote for having the Vikings around from the beginning. They'll start out fairly weak - Tonsberg and probably Aarhus, depending on where they found the city in Denmark - but we can reduce their preferences for Germany and the Netherlands to drive them north, which should spur normal development.

OK, I do take your point about the later Burgundy spawn, so for the sake of
balance I'll vote for an earlier date.
Same for the Vikings as long as they don't muck up the Germany start or
start raiding Britain too early.

I'd be happy with a Damascus start for the Arabs too. Jerusalem and Acre
should flip early, leaving them free to invade Egypt. And I just realized why
they couldn't start in Cairo as it they didn't found the city until 969AD.
It didn't exist before that. They could hardly start there, could they?
In fact Cairo shouldn't even be on our map. It should be Fustat instead.

BTW Did you know that Damascus is considered to be the oldest continually
inhabited city in the world? :)

Jeruzalem is the 3th Holy City of Islam (after Mecca and Medina), so could be a good start for the Arabs.
And I think the Arabs conquered Egypt witch was a Byzantian Province at the time. But I would make Egypt flip to Arabia after the spawn.

Jeruzalem is the 3th Holy City of Islam (after Mecca and Medina), so could be a good start for the Arabs.
And I think the Arabs conquered Egypt witch was a Byzantian Province at the time. But I would make Egypt flip to Arabia after the spawn.

Yes, that's true. Jerusalem became Islam's 3rd. holiest city as it was there
that Mohammed was thought to ascend to heaven. But it was never their
capitol. Damascus was conquered in 634 and Jerusalem fell in 638 where
they were welcomed by the local Christians and Jews. The first Umayyad
caliphs made Damascus the capitol and later it was transferred to Bagdad.
Egypt was conquered a couple of years later. Their main base there was
Fustat. Cairo was only founded later in 969.:)

Yes, that's true. Jerusalem became Islam's 3rd. holiest city as it was there
that Mohammed was thought to ascend to heaven. But it was never their
capitol. Damascus was conquered in 634 and Jerusalem fell in 638 where
they were welcomed by the local Christians and Jews. The first Umayyad
caliphs made Damascus the capitol and later it was transferred to Bagdad.
Egypt was conquered a couple of years later. Their main base there was
Fustat. Cairo was only founded later in 969.:)

I actually had Fustat on the map and changed it to Cairo. Can't remember why... I'll change it back in the next update.

Damascus for the capital, then?

Damascus sounds good to me.

BTW Did you know that Damascus is considered to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world? :)

Yeah, it's at least 7000 years old!

<-- *had always thought Fustat = Al-Qahira, just a different name, goes off looking it up on wikipedia*

Btw. Are there any news or a schedule?

<-- *had always thought Fustat = Al-Qahira, just a different name, goes off looking it up on wikipedia*

Btw. Are there any news or a schedule?

Just read the article on Fustat myself. Very interesting. Al-Qahira was the
Arabic name for Cairo but they were very close together. Fustat was the
first capitol until Cairo was founded in 969AD. Cairo became capitol in 1168.:)

Yeah and basically they are at the same place, (Fustat East of the Nile, Cairo/Al-Qahira West). Fustat got "deliberatively" (the Arabs let them) razed by Crusaders and then Cairo, formerly something like a "suburb" was made the new capital. That's what I read from the article... ;)

I cant make this map work. When i load it direktly from windows it just open in vanilla, and if i try to open it trough RFC it craches... isent this map playable or what im i during wrong ?

This isn't a playable map, at least not in RFC (you can play it in Vanilla, but, it's just a Europe map). It's posted here for development purposes, so we can discuss improvements to the map and so those working on the coding can coordinate with it.

Watch this space though.

Interesting.

Okay, sorry for that last post. The truth is, you need to have posted at least once before you are allowed to upload files. Why would I want to upload files, you may ask? It is simple!
I have been reading these threads for ages, lurking per se, but never bothered to post (as is the case with so many these days). I'm quite a history fan, so had always been drawn to classics like TAM and teturkhan's world map in CIII. Of course, with the advent of CIV, I went straight from Sulla's introduction to RFC. I kind of miss those first versions where the whole world would be conquered by barbarians and huge waves of instability would cause all of Europe to collapse, but honestly I think Rhye's is much better now. In fact, I think it is perfect and, being perfect, requires no more work. Therefore, everyone should work on Rhye's of Europe! Why? Because, as an influential part of the world, Europe's history and politics are quire complex; unrepresentable to a sufficient level on the world map. Plus, Europe's just cool and interesting, and what could be better than playing an exciting, historically based game with its setting in Europe? Nothing!
You may be wondering what I'm getting at, why I needed to upload files, and how I have the nerve to waste your time. Well, here it is! After having read about and seen pictures of the map so many times, I decided to download it and see it with my own eyes. Now, I started placing capitals and one thing led to another, and soon I had spent six hours creating a sort of settler map without the complex codes. How? Well, I took out all of my historical atlases (did I mention I like history? ;) ) and compared them, together with my modern one, to see which cities were truly 'important.' Of course, I was lenient, and used any that appeared in more than two. Basically, this lead to a city on most squares in Spain, France, Italy, the UK, and Germany, but with one only about every four squares in Russia, North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In fact, Ukraine and Romania are especially empty. To tell you the truth, this isn't for lack of places on the maps, but rather that I disliked placing cities I'd never heard of. I actually didn't place any cities at all I hadn't heard of, except for Écija in Spain (Don't know how I'd managed to avoid hearing of that one :blush:).
Now, I know you are probably disappointed that I didn't do something you actually needed (eg: code all this stuff that's been so magnificently planned), but I hope you will at least download it and have a look around. It did take me quite a while!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/settlermap.rar

:eek:

Wait... you're apologizing for creating a city/settlement database???

This is great. It may not be usable in its current form, but this is definitely something we were going to have to do - and I appreciate your correcting some of my original city placements (even if I feel obligated to defend them!)

To address some of the points you flagged on the map:
-The landmass in the NW corner is meant to be part of Iceland, to encourage civs to develop astronomy. It's too far south, and possibly too far east, but we felt that we should have something there.
-The Hungary start is further south on the plain than Budapest. The Magyars and Avars didn't really have a capital, if I remember right; Buda/Pesth were eventually established as capitals of the region, but unfortunately they're right next to the Austria start. I placed the Hungary start south for better geographic spacing, in part because we initially didn't have Bulgaria; seems like it would be better to move it back.
-I deliberately misplaced Smolensk to have something between Moskva and Kiev. Bryansk will work; it's pretty old too.
-Some of the other city misplacements were due to confusion on my part. :blush: Others, like Granada, were attempts to keep landlocked cities from being coastal.

Thanks a lot for your work on this - it's really impressive. Please keep contributing! If you can work out a better map of swamps/wetlands than I managed to, I'd appreciate that - I didn't have much luck with it, and Disenfrancised keeps yelling at me.

Please feel free to 'waste our time' whenever you wish. :D

I'm pretty glad that you've found my placements useful! I was worried it was all just for fun, and no longterm benefit. The truth is, I don't really know how to actually make a settler map. But I'd be perfectly willing if I did!
Now, I must admit, it was obvious to me why you had moved some of the cities. For example, Granada, as you mentioned, clearly did not work on the coast. However, I wanted to stick with reality whenever possible, even if it would obviously have to be changed. I had not realized the explanation for Smolensk, however, and I thank you for the clarification. I was at first really worried that I had mixed up one of the rivers... I hope you can imagine my shock! I'm glad Bryansk will work, as historical accuracy and game balance are always better than just one or the other. Unfortunately there will always be those 'Granadas' throwing a wrench in the works...
As for Hungary, I had always thought they migrated from the east. From the steppes, right? I seem to remember them starting in Székesfehérvár in someone else's scenario. Is this accurate? One thing I can say is that the current place is startlingly close to Belgrade. I won't suggest it move to Budapest, but I will suggest it move from there. I'm near certain Serbia has always been in control of that region. Has it not?
A few more questions, though: was Athens purposely placed where it was? I couldn't tell if it was a better location. And Nicæa? I've been under the impression that it was a port, so I don't know why it would be inland. I may be wrong here, which is why I ask.

As for swamps/wetlands, I don't know if I could be of much help. I enjoy placing the land and cities on maps, but the individual terrain and rivers always frustrate me. It looks wonderful as it is already, at least to me, anyway, and I certainly commend you for your outstanding work.

I'm pretty glad that you've found my placements useful! I was worried it was all just for fun, and no longterm benefit. The truth is, I don't really know how to actually make a settler map. But I'd be perfectly willing if I did!
Now, I must admit, it was obvious to me why you had moved some of the cities. For example, Granada, as you mentioned, clearly did not work on the coast. However, I wanted to stick with reality whenever possible, even if it would obviously have to be changed. I had not realized the explanation for Smolensk, however, and I thank you for the clarification. I was at first really worried that I had mixed up one of the rivers... I hope you can imagine my shock! I'm glad Bryansk will work, as historical accuracy and game balance are always better than just one or the other. Unfortunately there will always be those 'Granadas' throwing a wrench in the works...
As for Hungary, I had always thought they migrated from the east. From the steppes, right? I seem to remember them starting in Székesfehérvár in someone else's scenario. Is this accurate? One thing I can say is that the current place is startlingly close to Belgrade. I won't suggest it move to Budapest, but I will suggest it move from there. I'm near certain Serbia has always been in control of that region. Has it not?
A few more questions, though: was Athens purposely placed where it was? I couldn't tell if it was a better location. And Nicæa? I've been under the impression that it was a port, so I don't know why it would be inland. I may be wrong here, which is why I ask.

As for swamps/wetlands, I don't know if I could be of much help. I enjoy placing the land and cities on maps, but the individual terrain and rivers always frustrate me. It looks wonderful as it is already, at least to me, anyway, and I certainly commend you for your outstanding work.

Honestly, I don't know how to do the settler map thing either. Maps are my passion, and I've done a ton of them for other versions of civ (and vanilla civ4), but didn't discover RFC until the BTS expansion. I think it's one of the neater concepts in the mod, and I hope that we can do it justice.

Placing cities in Russia/Ukraine is hard. I did screw up a couple of the rivers - had to go back and fix them upon transcription when I noticed that what I was calling 'Moscow' was closer to Kazan... and obviously, I still didn't get everything right.

Yes, Hungary migrated from the east, and controlled pretty much everything south/west of the Carpathians. There weren't a lot of cities there when they showed up, and they didn't do the existing ones any favors. Beograd seems like a decent starting point for a couple of reasons - 1, it's got a long history; 2, we don't have the Serbs in here (or any other Western Slavs - I'm not sure the Bulgars count.) I'm not sure when the Serbs began calling themselves the Serbs, but I'm pretty sure that the area around Serbia was controlled by Magyars up until the Serbs showed up.

I think your placement of Athens is better. Makes it possible to place a second city in the Peloponessus, and shrinks the area between Athens and Thessalonica.

Nicaea was on a lake slightly inland. I'm not sure that the lake is large enough to be worth adding; the city could be moved another tile or two to the west.

Thanks again for the help.

Honestly, I don't know how to do the settler map thing either. Maps are my passion, and I've done a ton of them for other versions of civ (and vanilla civ4), but didn't discover RFC until the BTS expansion. I think it's one of the neater concepts in the mod, and I hope that we can do it justice.

In the past I have looked at Rhye's settler map and understood it, I figured out how to change it and stuff, but that's about it. I am totally clueless when it comes to creating a new one for a new, different sized, map. Hopefully some know-it-all shows up pretty soon, unless s/he already has and I missed it.
What's truly novel about Rhye's for me is this settler map. It is definitely my favorite part (although trust me, there are a thousand things tied for a close second).

Yes, Hungary migrated from the east, and controlled pretty much everything south/west of the Carpathians. There weren't a lot of cities there when they showed up, and they didn't do the existing ones any favors. Beograd seems like a decent starting point for a couple of reasons - 1, it's got a long history; 2, we don't have the Serbs in here (or any other Western Slavs - I'm not sure the Bulgars count.) I'm not sure when the Serbs began calling themselves the Serbs, but I'm pretty sure that the area around Serbia was controlled by Magyars up until the Serbs showed up.

You've got me convinced that Beograd is probably a better idea than Budapest, but maybe you might consider Pécs? It is one of the oldest cities in Hungary, and it's pretty far south. If you really won't hear any words for cities in Hungary, though, I can deal with Beograd. The Serbs were supposed, however, (per Wikipedia) to have lived in Beograd 200 years before the Magyars crossed the Carpathians. Yet, as you've said, they will not be represented in the game, and will be settled by Hungary (or maybe someone else?) every time. No use delaying the inevitable, right?

Nicaea was on a lake slightly inland. I'm not sure that the lake is large enough to be worth adding; the city could be moved another tile or two to the west.

You're right, I can see, as I have a map of the Roman Empire right on my wall (I should really have looked before I asked...). A pity; kind of makes it a worse city. Anyway, I'll attach an update.

I've also got some more work done. I split up all of the cities into the civs from the other thread (except for Papal States, Venice, and Genoa). The aforementioned three didn't work because I couldn't have more than 18 civs without the game crashing. I don't know why, but I'm not expert so the reason is probably obvious. Anyway, I added the 18 civs to the just land map, too, as long as I had had the codes written up. The only real use of these is it helps to visualize, so that's their basic purpose.
I hope you find great uses for them!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/R_FoE.rar

The most important centre of power in early Hungary was probably Esztergom.

That's fantastic Zavoevatell! I can begin putting this information into CityNameManager.py

What an introduction...

In the past I have looked at Rhye's settler map and understood it, I figured out how to change it and stuff, but that's about it. I am totally clueless when it comes to creating a new one for a new, different sized, map. Hopefully some know-it-all shows up pretty soon, unless s/he already has and I missed it.
What's truly novel about Rhye's for me is this settler map. It is definitely my favorite part (although trust me, there are a thousand things tied for a close second).



You've got me convinced that Beograd is probably a better idea than Budapest, but maybe you might consider Pécs? It is one of the oldest cities in Hungary, and it's pretty far south. If you really won't hear any words for cities in Hungary, though, I can deal with Beograd. The Serbs were supposed, however, (per Wikipedia) to have lived in Beograd 200 years before the Magyars crossed the Carpathians. Yet, as you've said, they will not be represented in the game, and will be settled by Hungary (or maybe someone else?) every time. No use delaying the inevitable, right?



You're right, I can see, as I have a map of the Roman Empire right on my wall (I should really have looked before I asked...). A pity; kind of makes it a worse city. Anyway, I'll attach an update.

I've also got some more work done. I split up all of the cities into the civs from the other thread (except for Papal States, Venice, and Genoa). The aforementioned three didn't work because I couldn't have more than 18 civs without the game crashing. I don't know why, but I'm not expert so the reason is probably obvious. Anyway, I added the 18 civs to the just land map, too, as long as I had had the codes written up. The only real use of these is it helps to visualize, so that's their basic purpose.
I hope you find great uses for them!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/R_FoE.rar

Welcome to the project. Fantastic, all the work you've done.:goodjob:

Just a word about the Serbs though. Yes they were there long before
the Hungarians turned up, as early as the 6th. century according to
Byzantine reports. The first Serbian kingdom controlled all the land
south of Belgrade including much of Croatia from 812AD. The Avars had
the whole Carpathian basin to the north of the Danube until they were
replaced by the Magyars. In fact the first king of Hungary, Stephen I, was
only crowned in 1000AD. The Serbian kingdom was always under pressure
from them from the start and hemmed in by the Bulgars to the east but it
did manage to survive until defeated by the Ottomans in the 1400's.
So the Serbs were there long before the Magyars (sorry, st.lucifer;) )

The most important centre of power in early Hungary was probably Esztergom.

This is definitely true. However, the whole reason we are avoiding Buda(pest) is because it is too close to Wien, right? And Esztergom is even farther north, almost exactly the same distance from Wien. It would be an obvious choice, but strategy-wise it'd kind of limit the Austrians.:rolleyes:

That's fantastic Zavoevatell! I can begin putting this information into CityNameManager.py

Oh! This is wonderful news! You will have to tell me how to do this some time, as I'd love to help. If you have spaces you want me to fill, just say so, because if neccessary I can put a city on every square! Except for North Africa, that is, and it would require a lot of doubles. But no matter! It's seriously a lot more fun than writing English essays!

Also, D. Zavoevatell is short for Dzheremi Zavoyevatel', or 'Jeremy the Conqueror'. So feel free to call me Jeremy!

Welcome to the project. Fantastic, all the work you've done.

Thank you :blush: I could certainly tell you all the same...

Just a word about the Serbs though. Yes they were there long before
the Hungarians turned up, as early as the 6th. century according to
Byzantine reports. The first Serbian kingdom controlled all the land
south of Belgrade including much of Croatia from 812AD. The Avars had
the whole Carpathian basin to the north of the Danube until they were
replaced by the Magyars. In fact the first king of Hungary, Stephen I, was
only crowned in 1000AD. The Serbian kingdom was always under pressure
from them from the start and hemmed in by the Bulgars to the east but it
did manage to survive until defeated by the Ottomans in the 1400's.
So the Serbs were there long before the Magyars (sorry, st.lucifer )

It is nice to hear an explanation and have all those questions answered, it is. This leaves us, though, in the dilemma of finding a starting location for Hungary. We don't want them to flip a ton of Austria's cities, and vice-versa, but all of the centers of Hungarian civilization (as I've been told, that is) are up in the north: Esztergom, Buda(pest), Székesfehérvár, &c.. :crazyeye: I really have no idea what the solution is/will be.

Oh a new contributor, welcome on board. :)

Your map is amazing and i'm quite happy with most of the locations but i have got some troubles with a few spots in Germany (I'm german, so its the country i have the most knowledge about :lol: ).

I would place Bremen one square south and make the old location water, which is more accurate in point of view. Futhermore Hannover would be southeast of its old location. I'm missing cities in the middle of Germany which is "quite" empty on your map. Perhaps you can add some like Kassel, Würzburg or Erfurt there. :)

Oh! This is wonderful news! You will have to tell me how to do this some time, as I'd love to help. If you have spaces you want me to fill, just say so, because if neccessary I can put a city on every square! Except for North Africa, that is, and it would require a lot of doubles. But no matter! It's seriously a lot more fun than writing English essays!

The way it works is very straightforward: each civ has a huge grid in RFC\Assets\Python\CityNameManager.py which corresponds to the tiles on the map, with the names of their cities (and any cities they're likely to expand into) on every tile. If the tile does not have a name associated with it but the civ founds a city there the normal civ system of naming is used, going through a list regardless of location, so obviously the more tiles have names the better. City names can double up (they do in RFC) but if you have the same name on two non-adjacent tiles then theoretically you could have two civs with the same name, which is bad.

Cities can also be renamed on a certain turn or if a certain civ conquers it. If a civ conquers a city which has been founded by another civ but its included in their map it gets renamed to "their" version, otherwise it retains the original version.

You could do this manually in notepad, but I think it would be cumbersome so I was planning to write a simple utility that would generate the grids from a list of cities and coordinates.

I have got some troubles with a few spots in Germany (I'm german, so its the country i have the most knowledge about :lol: ).

I would place Bremen one square south and make the old location water, which is more accurate in point of view. Futhermore Hannover would be southeast of its old location. I'm missing cities in the middle of Germany which is "quite" empty on your map. Perhaps you can add some like Kassel, Würzburg or Erfurt there. :)

Okay! So I took most of your advice. I moved Bremen and added the coast as you suggested, and moved Regensburg (you'll see :)) and Hannover. I added Brauschweig, Wittenberge, Erfurt, Kassel, Würzburg, Stuttgart, Ulm, and a second location for München, as well as Linz in Austria. Tell me if you disagree with any of the placements. In the process I accidentally deleted a part of the Donau, so I had to redo it. I think I got it back to the original, but if it's not, then I apologize.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/VersionD.rar

The way it works is very straightforward: each civ has a huge grid in RFC\Assets\Python\CityNameManager.py which corresponds to the tiles on the map, with the names of their cities (and any cities they're likely to expand into) on every tile. If the tile does not have a name associated with it but the civ founds a city there the normal civ system of naming is used, going through a list regardless of location, so obviously the more tiles have names the better. City names can double up (they do in RFC) but if you have the same name on two non-adjacent tiles then theoretically you could have two civs with the same name, which is bad.

Cities can also be renamed on a certain turn or if a certain civ conquers it. If a civ conquers a city which has been founded by another civ but its included in their map it gets renamed to "their" version, otherwise it retains the original version.

You could do this manually in notepad, but I think it would be cumbersome so I was planning to write a simple utility that would generate the grids from a list of cities and coordinates.

Wow! You must be an expert, Úmarth, or something close to be able to 'write a simple ultility' like that. Either way, it sounds like a great plan. The problem would be the repeats (next to each other) because they are named Granada, Granada2 on the map. I'm sure you'll be able to just search for '2's and just delete them all though. Also, there are two different 'Reggio's on the map, but the second has an asterisk after it (it wasn't near the other one, so it wasn't just a second version). Finally, I don't know if you'll want the full names or the short ones like Frankfurt (am Main), Boulogne (sur Mer), Newcastle (upon Tyne), Rostov (na Donu), Talavera (de la Reina), Figueira (da Foz), &cætera &cætera... I'm neutral on the issue, but it might be wiser to remove them in order to save
I think the only places where we'll need the multiple names is probably Poland, Baltic, Bohemia region (for German names) and Turkey for Byzantine vs. Ottoman names. Although places like Italy and Hungary and even France could I guess be done if they were in danger of conquest by each other. I guess that would make for a difficult task, but it wouldn't be that hard with wikipedia... I don't know. If you need any help, tell me!

We need more double names as for example Milan should be Milano (any Italian civs), Mailand (Germany), Milan (France, England) or anything else. If you see what we are getting at... ;)

But I would say, start with the first names for the "real"/home civs. Then we can add on to that at any time later...!

m

This is exciting. I second the suggestion that we work out the initial names first and worry about cities with language-variable names second.

I'm not 100% sure how the city placement works on the original RFC map when there are multiple spots for the same city - but there are many areas on the original RFC map where different tiles will generate the same city (Boston, Kyoto, etc.); I imagine that Granada et al can be handled in the same way. On a map this size, I doubt we'll have that many cities founded within two tiles of each other (probably more likely in Italy, England, and Netherlands, but less so elsewhere - at the very least, we shouldn't have to worry about there being 12 useless cities in Scandinavia.)

I like the idea of Pecs being the start for Hungary. Does that work for other people? Jessiecat, thanks for the history update on Serbia. I think our Hungary start date goes with the Avars rather than the Magyars, but it sounds like we should have Beograd and Buda/Pesth as independents. Others in that area? Zagreb or Split? I was thinking that we should have Trieste, which would flip to Venice upon spawning, but didn't put it on yet.

Eastern Europe is full of unknowns and less-well-known-than-I-would-like areas, so anyone who has a good grasp of the area is enthusiastically encouraged to offer corrections.

Wow! You must be an expert, Úmarth, or something close to be able to 'write a simple ultility' like that. Either way, it sounds like a great plan.

Haha, no really I'm not just being modest it's a bit of javascript.

Hope you get the DLL running too, Umarth. :bowdown:

@Jeremy
I like your placements. To me it looks much better then before. :)

This is exciting. I second the suggestion that we work out the initial names first and worry about cities with language-variable names second.

I'm not 100% sure how the city placement works on the original RFC map when there are multiple spots for the same city - but there are many areas on the original RFC map where different tiles will generate the same city (Boston, Kyoto, etc.); I imagine that Granada et al can be handled in the same way. On a map this size, I doubt we'll have that many cities founded within two tiles of each other (probably more likely in Italy, England, and Netherlands, but less so elsewhere - at the very least, we shouldn't have to worry about there being 12 useless cities in Scandinavia.)

I like the idea of Pecs being the start for Hungary. Does that work for other people? Jessiecat, thanks for the history update on Serbia. I think our Hungary start date goes with the Avars rather than the Magyars, but it sounds like we should have Beograd and Buda/Pesth as independents. Others in that area? Zagreb or Split? I was thinking that we should have Trieste, which would flip to Venice upon spawning, but didn't put it on yet.

Eastern Europe is full of unknowns and less-well-known-than-I-would-like areas, so anyone who has a good grasp of the area is enthusiastically encouraged to offer corrections.

Eastern Europe isn't my area either, but I was sure the Serbs were there
early, so I looked in Wiki. They've got some good maps there, esp. if you
do a search on Serbia or Hungary. IMHO Belgrade would make the best
start for Hungary so they can spawn south in the absence of the Serbs
who could be represented by independents like Pristina, Sarajevo and
Mostar. We should rember though that Hungary's historic area was the
Carpathian basin north of Belgrade so they'd have to be able to spawn
to the north as well, with Pecs and Budapest as independents.
I take everybody's points about multiple tiles for city starts but we need
to be careful about balance, In the case of Granada I'm happy with where
you've got it, 2 sq N of the coast, it as I am with most of the Spanish starts.
As far as other possible cities in Spain we should focus on what existed
at the time, like Badajoz, Merida, Cadiz, Malaga, Cartagena,Tarragona,
Huesca, etc rather than try to name every tile separately with town names
not appropriate to the period. This, of course, would apply as a rule of thumb
in other parts of the map as well.:)
BTW Don't agree with Trieste. Too close to Venice. Zagreb, Split and
Dubrovnik(Ragusa) would be plenty for Dalmatia.

This is exciting. I second the suggestion that we work out the initial names first and worry about cities with language-variable names second.

It's true. There are a thousand (and counting) more neccesary things.
Here's this, though, for whenever that is gotten to: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/Cities.xls.zip

I'm not 100% sure how the city placement works on the original RFC map when there are multiple spots for the same city - but there are many areas on the original RFC map where different tiles will generate the same city (Boston, Kyoto, etc.); I imagine that Granada et al can be handled in the same way. On a map this size, I doubt we'll have that many cities founded within two tiles of each other (probably more likely in Italy, England, and Netherlands, but less so elsewhere - at the very least, we shouldn't have to worry about there being 12 useless cities in Scandinavia.)

I think we can safely say that as long as all repeats are within one tile of each other, it is safe. For big, important, places, like Milano, or vague locations like Moskva, there will certainly end up being multiple locations. For some, though, like Lisboa or Granada, they will probably spawn and we won't even need to worry about the surrounding squares. If they were destroyed, though, it might be neccessary... either way. What worries me is that in the far East we will not have very many names, and there won't be very many cities either, but will they build the cities where we have the names? Probably not. I don't want to have like "any tile within six squares of Bryansk will be Bryansk" or something outrageously broad (I'm sure no-one wants that) but I don't really want them founding obscure little cities when Bryansk was only two tiles away. I don't know... we'll leave that for expert Úmarth.

IMHO Belgrade would make the best
start for Hungary so they can spawn south in the absence of the Serbs
who could be represented by independents like Pristina, Sarajevo and
Mostar. We should rember though that Hungary's historic area was the
Carpathian basin north of Belgrade so they'd have to be able to spawn
to the north as well, with Pecs and Budapest as independents.

I like the idea of Pecs being the start for Hungary. Does that work for other people? Jessiecat, thanks for the history update on Serbia. I think our Hungary start date goes with the Avars rather than the Magyars, but it sounds like we should have Beograd and Buda/Pesth as independents. Others in that area? Zagreb or Split? I was thinking that we should have Trieste, which would flip to Venice upon spawning, but didn't put it on yet.
Pécs has always been an important city, and it's famous for being old. Although jessiecat's arguments for Beograd are convincing, I think I like Pécs better. :p Plus, it rhymes with Bécs, so it will still rival Vienna without actually sharing a direct border. I like the idea of Zágráb as an independent, but I think Venice should found Spalato itself. Maybe have Dubrovnik as an independent? I also like Trieste, but I think we want to give Laibach to Austria. They would have to both spawn, since they'd be so close, and I don't know which is better. Perhaps Trieste, but who knows?

I take everybody's points about multiple tiles for city starts but we need to be careful about balance, In the case of Granada I'm happy with where you've got it, 2 sq N of the coast, it as I am with most of the Spanish starts. As far as other possible cities in Spain we should focus on what existed at the time, like Badajoz, Merida, Cadiz, Malaga, Cartagena,Tarragona, Huesca, etc rather than try to name every tile separately with town names not appropriate to the period. This, of course, would apply as a rule of thumb in other parts of the map as well.:)
I agree with you. I think that, although I personally created all the specific ones :lol:, it is important to make sure the significant cities are founded before the insignificant ones. I think some specific nonsense ones are Écija and Castelló de la Plana, personally, but apparantly they are more important than I'd thought. I think most, if not all, of the remaining spaces should be used for more possibilities of founding existing, important, cities rather than unique villages we'll never hear of otherwise.

BTW Don't agree with Trieste. Too close to Venice. Zagreb, Split and Dubrovnik(Ragusa) would be plenty for Dalmatia.
You are much faster than I :crazyeye: I like Dubrovnik, too :goodjob:

Yes, my favorite historical city I've visited (after Barcelona and Cordoba):)
As Ragusa it was an important Roman city and became a powerful trading
rival to the Venetians.(It's where the term Ragu for sauce came from).

We need more double names as for example Milan should be Milano (any Italian civs), Mailand (Germany), Milan (France, England) or anything else. If you see what we are getting at... ;)

But I would say, start with the first names for the "real"/home civs. Then we can add on to that at any time later...!

m

I agree, It's important to start with their original names, ie Fustat rather
than Cairo and Ragusa rather than Dubrovnik. Maybe their name could
change later when appropriate. I think there's a mechanism in RFC to
cover this, isn't there?

BTW To all you Brits. You can't have Benidorm or Torremolinos!:crazyeye:
That's final!:lol:

Okay, the CityMap utility is done. You can find it here (http://meat.arvixe.com/~joeyroe/rfc_citymapgenerator.html). I hope it's easy to use but I've included instructions on the right-hand side.

So, if anybody has a spare moment (ok... more than a moment) they can start doing some CityMaps (need one for each civ) and posting them here so I can add it to CityNameManager.py. Don't worry if you don't finish, I will have an importer working very soon (for now I need to go to bed, I have an exam tomorrow morning and I've been doing this for the last 5 hours or so! :P) so we can edit existing CityMaps and collaborate more effectively.

(I have tested it fairly thoroughly but I apologise for any bugs that might remain)

@ZZZ, sorry mate still working on that DLL.

I'm pretty sure that we had an existing list of Iberian independents (many of which flip to either al-Andalus, Leon/proto-Spain, and eventually, Portugal. We probably don't need to reinvent that.

For most large/important cities, they're going to start out as independents, so we don't necessarily have to worry too much about the tiles around them - as Jeremy said, the only way that comes up is if the original cities are razed.

For Dalmatia - Ragusa/Dubrovnik, certainly. You may be right about Trieste being too close to Venice proper - I just want to be sure that they don't end up in a 1-city challenge; they controlled the Dalmatian coast for most of the Renaissance period. Wasn't Split/Spalatum Roman, as well? (ed. wiki says founded as a Greek colony, secondary town to Salona; gained in importance after Avars razed Salona). I think one of Venice's proposed UHVs was territorial - control Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Dalmatia by ____ (I forget the date); would it be better to have the closer of the coastal cities flip to them (Split, in this case, if we're not doing Trieste), or have them all remain independent to be conquered? Most of Venice's strength early on will be naval, and the city doesn't have much production - they'll struggle to turn out units without some sort of second city.

This may be better handled down the line, but I just want to bring it up while I'm thinking about it.

For the far east, we may have to weaken some of the terrain so that the good city sites are more obvious. There were a number of independent principalities in proto-Russia and Ukraine, but there won't always be a Bryansk where we need one. ;) If and when he comes back, this might be a good area for Disenfrancised to take over - he seems pretty comfortable with Russia and its environs.

Okay, the CityMap utility is done. You can find it here (http://meat.arvixe.com/~joeyroe/rfc_citymapgenerator.html). I hope it's easy to use but I've included instructions on the right-hand side.

So, if anybody has a spare moment (ok... more than a moment) they can start doing some CityMaps (need one for each civ) and posting them here so I can add it to CityNameManager.py. Don't worry if you don't finish, I will have an importer working very soon (for now I need to go to bed, I have an exam tomorrow morning and I've been doing this for the last 5 hours or so! :P) so we can edit existing CityMaps and collaborate more effectively.

Okay, I cannot hope to convey my elation!! Two thumbs up, I tell you. Now, I have a few questions before I begin.
--Should I include the parts in the parenthesis? Exempli gratia: Newcastle (upon Tyne) or not?
--Will the civs be discouraged/encouraged to settle in the right places? In short, will Spain's map need to have San-Peterburgo?
--Will everyone have a chance to settle Iceland, the Açores, and the Canarias?

I'm pretty sure that we had an existing list of Iberian independents (many of which flip to either al-Andalus, Leon/proto-Spain, and eventually, Portugal. We probably don't need to reinvent that.

For most large/important cities, they're going to start out as independents, so we don't necessarily have to worry too much about the tiles around them - as Jeremy said, the only way that comes up is if the original cities are razed.

This is good. Maybe there is a way to encourage the artificial intelligence to settle on ruins? That would be helpful and would solve this problem in a heartbeat. However, it'd be kind of irrealistic... but kind of realistic at the same time. I don't know...

For Dalmatia - Ragusa/Dubrovnik, certainly. You may be right about Trieste being too close to Venice proper - I just want to be sure that they don't end up in a 1-city challenge; they controlled the Dalmatian coast for most of the Renaissance period. Wasn't Split/Spalatum Roman, as well? (ed. wiki says founded as a Greek colony, secondary town to Salona; gained in importance after Avars razed Salona). I think one of Venice's proposed UHVs was territorial - control Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, and Dalmatia by ____ (I forget the date); would it be better to have the closer of the coastal cities flip to them (Split, in this case, if we're not doing Trieste), or have them all remain independent to be conquered? Most of Venice's strength early on will be naval, and the city doesn't have much production - they'll struggle to turn out units without some sort of second city.

This may be better handled down the line, but I just want to bring it up while I'm thinking about it.
Wise thinking, indeed. I can easily see Venice playing out the entire game as someone's vassal never controlling any other land. That is wholly undesirable and I think we should flip Spalato, as you suggested, to keep the chances of that at a minimum. Of course, it will likely fall to Hungary or the Ottomans eventually, but by then Venice should have a sizeable sea empire already.

For the far east, we may have to weaken some of the terrain so that the good city sites are more obvious. There were a number of independent principalities in proto-Russia and Ukraine, but there won't always be a Bryansk where we need one. ;) If and when he comes back, this might be a good area for Disenfrancised to take over - he seems pretty comfortable with Russia and its environs.
It is always such a pity to have to weaken terrain... But it is usually the only option. It might be a good idea to make the unchoppable forest also unable to be built upon, but unable to spread, and then foresting a large swath of undesirable territory. True, it wasn't all forest, but it's better in my opinion to have a forest than a bustling city where there really's been a deserted plain.

Okay, so here we go. I made the settler map for Spain! :) It includes all of the Iberian Peninsula, the Canarias, the Açores, Southwestern France, the Baleares, Sardegna, Corse, and Italia from Roma south including Sicilia. It took surprisingly long, but it was just typing in numbers and names from the map file I created and looking up Spanish versions online a couple of times. There is a city on almost every square in Iberia, so it is pretty good, I'd dare say. I didn't put it in any file, just a textedit save.

Here is the world-builder save with all of the cities:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/Iberian_Peninsula_Canarias_Baleares_Acores_Citied-Out.rar
Here is the settler map:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/SpainSettlermap.rar

This may work for Portugal, too, as it includes all areas it has controlled except for North Africa. North Africa also has been many times Spanish, so this will probably have to be changed. Hopefully Al-Andalus will hold on to North Africa through the Reconquista and prevent Spain and Portugal from holding land there....;)

Okay, so here we go. I made the settler map for Spain! :) It includes all of the Iberian Peninsula, the Canarias, the Açores, Southwestern France, the Baleares, Sardegna, Corse, and Italia from Roma south including Sicilia. It took surprisingly long, but it was just typing in numbers and names from the map file I created and looking up Spanish versions online a couple of times. There is a city on almost every square in Iberia, so it is pretty good, I'd dare say. I didn't put it in any file, just a textedit save.

Here is the world-builder save with all of the cities:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/Iberian_Peninsula_Canarias_Baleares_Acores_Citied-Out.rar
Here is the settler map:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/SpainSettlermap.rar

This may work for Portugal, too, as it includes all areas it has controlled except for North Africa. North Africa also has been many times Spanish, so this will probably have to be changed. Hopefully Al-Andalus will hold on to North Africa through the Reconquista and prevent Spain and Portugal from holding land there....;)

Thanks for the maps. Look forward to seeing them when I get my computer
back from the doctor. Massive crash, wiped the hard drive, damaged the
motherboard. Major surgery required.:sad:

Re. Dalmatia and Venice: Latter needs to be strong from the start, so
should flip Spalato/Split. Zagreb will be under pressure from Venice and
Hungary. But Ragusa(Dubrovnik) should begin as a strong independent to
provide early competition to Venice.

Re, Spanish map: Thought major independents already placed as st.lucifer
has said. Hope to include others from my previous post if possible. Then
it's just filling the settler points up in between I guess. Is that how you've
done it?

Re. North Africa: Tangier, Fez, Meknes and Tlemcen already there. Possible
others could include Cueta, Melilla, Rabat, Marrakesh and Agadir if possible.
Further east, area around Tunis had a lot of cities in Roman times. An
important one for the Arabs should be Kairouan to the south (very major
mosque for the Fatimids).

Still, I shouldn't say much until I see what's been done. For that I need
my computer back. On the missus' machine at the moment (too slow!)
Come back baby, all is forgiven!:D

Thanks for the maps. Look forward to seeing them when I get my computer
back from the doctor. Massive crash, wiped the hard drive, damaged the
motherboard. Major surgery required.:sad:

Re. Dalmatia and Venice: Latter needs to be strong from the start, so
should flip Spalato/Split. Zagreb will be under pressure from Venice and
Hungary. But Ragusa(Dubrovnik) should begin as a strong independent to
provide early competition to Venice.


Sounds good. BTW, wiki says that it was Ragusa until WW1. I guess that solves the dynamic name issue. :) Is Zagreb old enough?


Re, Spanish map: Thought major independents already placed as st.lucifer
has said. Hope to include others from my previous post if possible. Then
it's just filling the settler points up in between I guess. Is that how you've
done it?

Re. North Africa: Tangier, Fez, Meknes and Tlemcen already there. Possible
others could include Cueta, Melilla, Rabat, Marrakesh and Agadir if possible.
Further east, area around Tunis had a lot of cities in Roman times. An
important one for the Arabs should be Kairouan to the south (very major
mosque for the Fatimids).

As tempting as it is to fill N. Africa with cities (and as historically accurate as it would be), remember that we've already nerfed it extensively to make it less city-friendly. If we didn't, whichever independent civ controlled the area from Tunis to Marrakech would be the most powerful in the game; claiming the area from the independent (as presumably al-Andalus would do) would have a similar effect. While there are great historical arguments for the inclusion of all of the cities you've mentioned, I think that game balance requires us to weaken the Maghreb in the same way that we've got to shrink the arable part of Russia. We're getting ahead of ourselves a bit with the whole game balance issue, but if there are problems visible months before playtesting starts, it seems logical to go after them. I'm fine with adding one city west of Tunis and keeping the four independents in modern-day Morocco; I'm wary of adding more.

We could potentially add more if we put them in the hands of barbarians, but that doesn't necessarily help the historical side of things much, and would probably serve to weaken barbarian invasions (generally, when they have cities, they tend to mill around rather than invading others.)


Still, I shouldn't say much until I see what's been done. For that I need
my computer back. On the missus' machine at the moment (too slow!)
Come back baby, all is forgiven!:D

Good luck with the puter. Having lost a masters thesis and the manuscript to a textbook to computing catastrophe, I hope you're better about backing things up than I am. :P

Wow! You really lost bigtime! I guess you're like me. Never really backed up
my files before. Guess that'll teach me. Still not as bad a loss as yours.

Agree with you on North Africa. Between Tlemcen and the Tunis area there's
really only Algiers and Oran that should concern us. But around Tunis there's
a case for more. Hippo and Saldae to the west and Kairouan and Sousse to
the south. East of there really only Tripoli and Benghazi before Egypt.

Great to see Jeremy on board, I'm not a modder. History's my bag. So it's
good to have another techy type to lighten the load.:)

A small remark in the cities.xls file:
Hamburg in Dutch is Hamburg.
I know Rhye uses it to, but it should be Hamburg. Look at the name of the Dutch and Belgian provinces Limburg (not Limborg). Burg has the same origine in Dutch and German. It is derived from burcht = castle (first: fortrefied house).

Other names of cities in Belgium and the Netherlands are Leopoldsburg, Luxemburg, Middelburg,...
There are not much examples of the Borg form (only Borgt, but in Flanders there is a town called Burcht).

About the city-renaming of Fustat to Cairo: when Egypt respawns after an Arab conquest, the Arab names stay in RFC. Also, the renaming to Stalingrad in Stalin leads Russia could be used (this is in the RiseAndfall.py)

A small remark in the cities.xls file:
Hamburg in Dutch is Hamburg.
I know Rhye uses it to, but it should be Hamburg. Look at the name of the Dutch and Belgian provinces Limburg (not Limborg). Burg has the same origine in Dutch and German. It is derived from burcht = castle (first: fortrefied house).

Other names of cities in Belgium and the Netherlands are Leopoldsburg, Luxemburg, Middelburg,...
There are not much examples of the Borg form (only Borgt, but in Flanders there is a town called Burcht).

About the city-renaming of Fustat to Cairo: when Egypt respawns after an Arab conquest, the Arab names stay in RFC. Also, the renaming to Stalingrad in Stalin leads Russia could be used (this is in the RiseAndfall.py)

Funny, I thought I saw cities renaming themselves in RFC. Maybe not.
Still It should only effect Fustat so if it keeps that name, so be it.
As far as Ragusa goes, as st. lucifer says, it doesn't become Dubrovnik
until WW 1, so that doesn't matter anyway.:)

The only cities which change in RFC are St Petersburg and Caricyn, I think, and only when Stalin becomes the new leader of Russia. You could look at the code if you want to figure out how that's done, I suppose.

The Spanish CityMap is perfectly fine, I've put it into the Python. Keep up the good work.

Shall I re-use it for Portugal? I'm not sure if the names of cities would differ between Portuguese and Spanish.

Re. North Africa: Tangier, Fez, Meknes and Tlemcen already there. Possible
others could include Cueta, Melilla, Rabat, Marrakesh and Agadir if possible.
Further east, area around Tunis had a lot of cities in Roman times. An
important one for the Arabs should be Kairouan to the south (very major
mosque for the Fatimids).

Agree with you on North Africa. Between Tlemcen and the Tunis area there's really only Algiers and Oran that should concern us. But around Tunis there's a case for more. Hippo and Saldae to the west and Kairouan and Sousse to the south. East of there really only Tripoli and Benghazi before Egypt.
I didn't think to add Kairouan; I had thought it had only been important for too short of a time. However, that was just an impulse. If you think it's important, it must've been, right? I mean, if you've even heard of it, it must have been. You'll have to see the current ones there, I think Sousse is there already, and Sfax, maybe? I'm currently at school, so I can't look. I hope you get your computer fixed!

Great to see Jeremy on board, I'm not a modder. History's my bag. So it's good to have another techy type to lighten the load.:)
Ha! I don't know anything about the technological aspect of things. I think you've got Úmarth for that stuff!

As tempting as it is to fill N. Africa with cities (and as historically accurate as it would be), remember that we've already nerfed it extensively to make it less city-friendly. If we didn't, whichever independent civ controlled the area from Tunis to Marrakech would be the most powerful in the game; claiming the area from the independent (as presumably al-Andalus would do) would have a similar effect. While there are great historical arguments for the inclusion of all of the cities you've mentioned, I think that game balance requires us to weaken the Maghreb in the same way that we've got to shrink the arable part of Russia. We're getting ahead of ourselves a bit with the whole game balance issue, but if there are problems visible months before playtesting starts, it seems logical to go after them. I'm fine with adding one city west of Tunis and keeping the four independents in modern-day Morocco; I'm wary of adding more.

We could potentially add more if we put them in the hands of barbarians, but that doesn't necessarily help the historical side of things much, and would probably serve to weaken barbarian invasions (generally, when they have cities, they tend to mill around rather than invading others.)
Amen! There are so many things like this that you'd feel guilty doing but feel guilty not doing as well. I think we should try to minimize the importance of North Africa as much as possible (nothing new for anyone to hear, but true all the same). I don't know if barbarians are the way to go, I think it's wiser just to discourage city building with any and all tools available.

The Spanish CityMap is perfectly fine, I've put it into the Python. Keep up the good work.

Shall I re-use it for Portugal? I'm not sure if the names of cities would differ between Portuguese and Spanish.
I'm glad it's worked! It took surprisingly long, so I don't know how it'll be for others. I think it's fine for Portugal, as all of the cities in Portugal have their Portuguese and all of the cities in Spain have Spanish names. I think that if there is a chance that Portugal could ever conquer these areas, then maybe it might need reworking, but that probably won't happen (right?). Usually the Spanish and Portuguese names are the same...

A small remark in the cities.xls file: Hamburg in Dutch is Hamburg. I know Rhye uses it to, but it should be Hamburg.
I think the reason for both of our plights is wikipedia. It explicitly states the contrary. I'd be glad to believe you, but keep one thing in mind: oftentimes there have been ancient names that nobody knows anymore for places that we now call by their normal names. Even in English, there are old names like Gothenburg (Göteborg) that most people have never heard and are not in use anymore. Yet during the time period of this mod, it was consciously called Gothenburg. I don't know if this is the case with Hamburg, but just thought I'd mention it just in case.

Great to see Jeremy on board, I'm not a modder. History's my bag. So it's good to have another techy type to lighten the load.
Outside of the python, which takes a bit of scripting knowledge, (and I should add for Jeremy, Zipzapzup has done the vast majority of that so far not me), the designing and the art everything is just a case of processing information into the right form - be it maps, xml, whatever - and that's something anybody can do. And if it does involve some coding then I can always make more utilities like the CityMap generator.

I should add for Jeremy, Zipzapzup has done the vast majority of that so far not me

Sorry 'bout that. :blush: I guess I was so impressed by that 'simple' utility that I just assumed (and you know what happens when you assume). What I should've said is:

Ha! I think you have Úmarth and Zipzapzup for that!

Outside of the python, which takes a bit of scripting knowledge, (and I should add for Jeremy, Zipzapzup has done the vast majority of that so far not me), the designing and the art everything is just a case of processing information into the right form - be it maps, xml, whatever - and that's something anybody can do. And if it does involve some coding then I can always make more utilities like the CityMap generator.

Which is a lot more than I can currently do, esp. with my recent computer
crash, as I expect you've heard about. Anyway, keep up the good work!:)

bumping this thread for easy reference.

bumping this thread for easy reference.

Have started doing a settler map of SE Europe starting with Bulgaria but where would their capitol be?
We have them spawning North of the Danube but both Pliska and Sofia lie well to the SW. Their
settler would found the first city on the south bank of the Danube where I've got Varna. Would that be OK?
I'll try to cover everything south of the Danube, on the basis that Hungary will spawn to the north of that. One initial question though. Where the Byzantine spawn area overlaps the Bulgaria one, which city name should take priority? The rest should be obvious I think, with Serbian names to the west of Bulgaria I guess, where neither overlap? Do you agree?:)

OK Just finished a settler map for SE Europe. I'le try to post the Worlbuilder save
but don't know to post a screenshot from Worldbuilder yet. Hope this helps.
Whoops! Too big to attach. What do I do know?:confused:

Also tried to link the excel map on the Wiki. Got a "genera error input/output"?

Have started doing a settler map of SE Europe starting with Bulgaria but where would their capitol be?
We have them spawning North of the Danube but both Pliska and Sofia lie well to the SW. Their
settler would found the first city on the south bank of the Danube where I've got Varna. Would that be OK?
I'll try to cover everything south of the Danube, on the basis that Hungary will spawn to the north of that. One initial question though. Where the Byzantine spawn area overlaps the Bulgaria one, which city name should take priority? The rest should be obvious I think, with Serbian names to the west of Bulgaria I guess, where neither overlap? Do you agree?:)

I put them N of the Danube for spatial reasons only; Varna would be a good starting point. In places where the Byzantine and Bulgarian maps overlap, go ahead and rename those Byzantine cities that were captured and renamed - leave those that retained their original name. Similarly, the Byzantine settler map would be coded as though the Bulgars never existed - if they lose cities to the Bulgars, they'll take the Bulgarian name; if they found cities in Bulgar territory, they'll have the Byzantine name; if they capture Bulgarian cities, they'll rename them to the Byzantine version.
That's a mouthful, but I think it makes sense.

Some of those Serbian regions were at one point part of the Bulgar empire, weren't they? If there's a dual name for a town, go ahead and use the Bulgarian name; if there isn't or you can't find one, the Serbian name is fine. We'll probably only have 1 (at most 2) independent towns in that area, anyway.

Thanks!

Oh, and to post WBsaves, I usually have to compress them into .zip files with WINRAR, which is free and quite simple. Good luck.

OK thanks for that. I'll try to compress the whole map to win.rar and post
that if it let's me. Have you noticed the wiki excel link may be broken as I've said?

Also please check the discussion thread (posts 309 to 313)where I'm trying to flesh out the
Bulgaria civ. Your comments will be appreciated.:)

Err there's only a shortcut to the file in the archive not the file itself.

Err there's only a shortcut to the file in the archive not the file itself.

Reposted link. See other thread.

I am doing city names map for Poland, but it is really difficult because of some errors in geography. For example the Dniester river is completely wrong. This is how it is:
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4928/beforewi4.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=beforewi4.jpg)

And how it should be:
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/5374/aftersu6.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=aftersu6.jpg)

And the Pinsk Marshes are too large too. They shouldn't span to Warszawa or L'viv

I am doing city names map for Poland, but it is really difficult because of some errors in geography. For example the Dniester river is completely wrong. This is how it is:
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4928/beforewi4.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=beforewi4.jpg)

And how it should be:
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/5374/aftersu6.th.jpg (http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=aftersu6.jpg)

And the Pinsk Marshes are too large too. They shouldn't span to Warszawa or L'viv

Thanks for the correction on the river - you're right. I'll be sure to fix it in the next map update.

Making the Pinsk/Pripet marshes too large was deliberate, in an attempt to reduce the amount of good city sites in Poland and the Ukraine (also, to give the two a little bit of a natural barrier and room for development.) There are similar issues with Russia - we've replaced a lot of excellent farmland with unchoppable forest just so they don't overwhelm everyone else. I'm willing to shrink the marshes in the interest of accuracy, but we might have to do something else for balance there. As a compromise, would you consider putting the city names on the map as if the marshes were not present, and then indicating which are most important? We can clear land around those cities, and leave some of the less important areas impassable.

Just finished the Worldbuilder map as far as Egypt. So it now covers south of
the Kievan Rus area and the Danube, around the east of the map to Fustat
and Alexandra in Egypt. Will begin tomorrow moving west across North Africa
to the Atlantic. here's the link.
EDIT Revised and moved

Just finished the Worldbuilder map as far as Egypt. So it now covers south of
the Kievan Rus area and the Danube, around the east of the map to Fustat
and Alexandra in Egypt. Will begin tomorrow moving west across North Africa
to the Atlantic. here's the link.

Lots of overlap in the Levant, but that's ok - there'll be built-up cities there from the beginning, and probably very few founded outside of Anatolia.

I wonder about Sinope and Trebizond. They're important, and should be included - but I worry again about making the Byzantine empire too strong from the start. Nicomedia falls into the same category - certainly important enough to justify inclusion, but if it starts out with the infrastructure or population that it should...

I'm assuming that the city in Epirus is intended as an independent, in the same orbit as Sarajevo, Beograd, and Zagreb? I'd remove it and Zagreb - six cities in that area (Split and Ragusa) is a lot to start out with. If we want to have some of these pop up later, that might be all right - but I'd rather start out with Split, Sarajevo, and Beograd, maybe Ragusa.

Nice job so far. I'm interested in what others have to say about the cities in question, especially as far as game balance is concerned.

Lots of overlap in the Levant, but that's ok - there'll be built-up cities there from the beginning, and probably very few founded outside of Anatolia.

I wonder about Sinope and Trebizond. They're important, and should be included - but I worry again about making the Byzantine empire too strong from the start. Nicomedia falls into the same category - certainly important enough to justify inclusion, but if it starts out with the infrastructure or population that it should...

I'm assuming that the city in Epirus is intended as an independent, in the same orbit as Sarajevo, Beograd, and Zagreb? I'd remove it and Zagreb - six cities in that area (Split and Ragusa) is a lot to start out with. If we want to have some of these pop up later, that might be all right - but I'd rather start out with Split, Sarajevo, and Beograd, maybe Ragusa.

Nice job so far. I'm interested in what others have to say about the cities in question, especially as far as game balance is concerned.

You're probably right. Maybe just Trebizond then. And forget Nicomedia too. Preveza in Epirus was included to give the Byzantines a presence on the Greek Adriatic south of Ragusa. (Also personal for me I guess. Nearly drowned snorkel-diving off the Venetian castle there many years ago). Agree also about Spalato and Ragusa but I'd favour Ragusa as more important. Zagreb is pretty close to Venice so maybe not.
The city problem near the Danube will be interesting as it's going to be too crowded. Something will need to go but keep Sarajevo, which I've placed too close to Beograd. Same north of the Danube where it meets the the Kievan Rus. Anyway, it'll all be worked out by discussion in the end, I guess.:)

You're probably right. Maybe just Trebizond then. And forget Nicomedia too. Preveza in Epirus was included to give the Byzantines a presence on the Greek Adriatic south of Ragusa. (Also personal for me I guess. Nearly drowned snorkel-diving off the Venetian castle there many years ago). Agree also about Spalato and Ragusa but I'd favour Ragusa as more important. Zagreb is pretty close to Venice so maybe not.
The city problem near the Danube will be interesting as it's going to be too crowded. Something will need to go but keep Sarajevo, which I've placed too close to Beograd. Same north of the Danube where it meets the the Kievan Rus. Anyway, it'll all be worked out by discussion in the end, I guess.:)

Yeah, the problem of accurately representing Byzantine territory without making them a superpower will be a challenge. Certainly they did control all of those places.

I'd go with Spalato and Ragusa over Zagreb in part because I think we had agreed in principle to flip Spalato to Venice upon spawning. If we want to have it (or both of them, really) appear well after the start of the mod, that's fine too.

If we move Sarajevo one space NW and Beograd one space E, there's room for both.

One word of caution on city placement - using a 9-square block rather than a 4-square block means that two cities could potentially be founded within the same-named area. In most cases, this would involve razing an existing city, but it's still something to think about.


If we gave the Byzantines Sinope and left Trebizond independent, that would keep their empire semi-manageable in size and preserve an important city. If we took out Sinope and gave them Trebizond, that would lead to some maintenance and possible stability issues, which would be a good counterbalance to the power of the Byzantine start. I think there are arguments to be made either way.

Is there any chance you can take some screenshots jessiecat? It's a bit cumbersome opening up a wbs.

Is there any chance you can take some screenshots jessiecat? It's a bit cumbersome opening up a wbs.

OK. I'll try to do that. There might be quite a few though.

Still not sure about posting to the wiki. Do I start a new page dedicated to
civ descriptions? Or do you want to make the city list clickable so we can
open each one and add details?:)

Yeah, the problem of accurately representing Byzantine territory without making them a superpower will be a challenge. Certainly they did control all of those places.

I'd go with Spalato and Ragusa over Zagreb in part because I think we had agreed in principle to flip Spalato to Venice upon spawning. If we want to have it (or both of them, really) appear well after the start of the mod, that's fine too.

If we move Sarajevo one space NW and Beograd one space E, there's room for both.

One word of caution on city placement - using a 9-square block rather than a 4-square block means that two cities could potentially be founded within the same-named area. In most cases, this would involve razing an existing city, but it's still something to think about.


If we gave the Byzantines Sinope and left Trebizond independent, that would keep their empire semi-manageable in size and preserve an important city. If we took out Sinope and gave them Trebizond, that would lead to some maintenance and possible stability issues, which would be a good counterbalance to the power of the Byzantine start. I think there are arguments to be made either way.

Spalato and Ragusa is fine with me. And I would choose Trebizond rather than Sinope.
Maybe not Preveza or Zagreb though. I'll alter them.

I think I can make enough room for Sarajevo by moving Beograd 1 sq. east. I take your point about 9sq. blocks.
I did that to give room for major city growth but I'll try to reduce others to 4 for the reasons you said.

I'll make these changes and repost the map and I'll try to make screenshots but there'll be a few,
as I said. Thanks for the tips.:)

EDIT: Revised map reposted here. Working on screenshots later today.

Not sure I've done this correctly but here goes. I've done them as rar archive.
Hope it works.

EDIT Save deleted

OK. I'll try to do that. There might be quite a few though.

Still not sure about posting to the wiki. Do I start a new page dedicated to
civ descriptions? Or do you want to make the city list clickable so we can
open each one and add details?:)
Just add a link under "Maps (.xls)". Although adding pages for each civ to add info on is a good idea. Done.

Not sure I've done this correctly but here goes. I've done them as rar archive.
Hope it works.

It's just full of loads of .zips with WBSs in them :S

All you need to do is hit Print Screen/"PrtScn" in your keyboard and then paste into Paint or another image program. Then save the image and attach it to a post.

I think that the map is a little wrong. Some of the rivers should be remade and smaller lakes should be considered to be put in. Also, I think that there is a lack of resources.

It's just full of loads of .zips with WBSs in them :S

All you need to do is hit Print Screen/"PrtScn" in your keyboard and then paste into Paint or another image program. Then save the image and attach it to a post.

Sorry. That won't work I'm afraid. My Print Screen key seems disabled.

However I could save it all on a wiki map and post that if you wish.:)