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 ea