Giant Earth Map for Civ 5

One thing i always wanted to see in a world map is some "exaggeration" on some areas that were basic to human development, such as nile delta or Tigris/Euphrates area. By exaggeration i mean forgetting a little about reality and try to mimic what they meant to human kind.

I loved your work in Civ4, so Im extremely glad youre back for 5.

Cheers.

EDIT: Im not a huge fan of maps that try to balance things too much. I love challenges and to try hard to make an underdog civilization the worlds superpower.

Kai, I might be able to do some research on resources and stuff (especially on India), also Britain should have lots of trees because they did before they chopped most down for Ships

Should be interesting! I still would like to know the map sizes. Then I could start planning out some maps. Like my Earth like (but not Earth) map, etc.

Yakk said:

So, we want a larger Europe. We probably want Siberia to be smaller. South-east Asia, the Middle East, and India should be large.

Canada's northern frontier, and Greenland, can be made smaller. Oceans can be made smaller.


So, as a proposal: we rotate North America clockwise. Then Africa swings west relative to where it should be, while Europe gets larger. The middle east gets larger, as does india and south-east asia, which is made up by chomping away at much of Siberia.

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Your suggestion and the map served as a good starting point for more in-depth discussion

I agree with some of your suggestions in general. However, keep in mind that when doing all these distortion, we are running the risk of twisting too much the contour of some area on the map.

For example, if we are to rotate Africa clockwise against Europe, Europe can possibly gain some space overall, but the western Europe, particularly Spain, is seemingly going to be compressed.

Another example is expanding India southward as I did in GEM civ4. The result overall is good for an expanded India, but I cannot avoid having an elongated and extremely distorted Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As mentioned in my starting thread, I am hoping for this version to have less distortions than GEM civ4. I will be very cautious in taking any further steps to distort the map, other than those steps I've already mentioned in generating the current basemap.

Hence, everyone, while suggestions are very welcome, I wouldn't consider those suggestions that aren't specific enough and yet to show careful analysis on the consequence of such suggested distortion. Possibly the best way to prove your suggestion is to distort the basemap yourself and post it here.

civ_king said:

Kai, I might be able to do some research on resources and stuff (especially on India), also Britain should have lots of trees because they did before they chopped most down for Ships

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Thanks for the offer. At the moment we don't have too much news about what new resources we will have yet. But if you do have any references that you can provide to me (as a link or as an attachment), I am more than happy to get that.

Zomgmeister said:

“Siberian Tundra”? Are you serious? Tundra at London latitude?

Man, I respect what you are doing, but you definitely need this. Tundra is very rare biome. And also probably you're gonna need this, though maybe it would require some historical correction; I am not sure that Britain always was that bald.

At least I think that you need them if you are aiming for more realistic and detailed image of Earth.


And you are right, of course. Enlarged Europe is definitely a must have.

My favorite is Robinson projection. It's a compromise.

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Almost missed your post. Thanks for pointing the naming problem of the tundra biome on my basemap.

I can't remember where I got this source map that I developed my basemap from. But please note that I didn't develop this source map myself. I know about tundra, and it should be very rare and only located at the very north (i've got that map from FAO you provided as well). Indeed, I think Firaxis also misunderstood tundra as well, otherwise there wouldn't be both tundra and ice in the game. It should better be Taiga and Tundra.

I would definitely need more of your advice when I get into more details about drawing Russia. Please stay in the loop.

I'd agree that much of the in-game "tundra" really represents Taiga biome.

But we have what we have, and from screenshots there is clearly a "grey" cold zone and a "white" cold zone, which will probably be called tundra and polar, or something similar.

So Genghis's approximation seems reasonable.

this sounds like too much distortion to me for a "perfect" earth map.

Ahriman said:

I'd agree that much of the in-game "tundra" really represents Taiga biome.

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Indeed, I think Firaxis also misunderstood tundra as well, otherwise there wouldn't be both tundra and ice in the game.

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How I understood Civ 4's climate system, is "tundra"+forest is supposed to represent taiga, clear "tundra" is real tundra, and "ice" is actual glacier

awesome said:

this sounds like too much distortion to me for a "perfect" earth map.

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"Perfect" for gameplay .

even still, i want a map with as little distortion as possible. obviously no distortion is impossible, but double digit distortion is a lot.

And while the sahara desert is huge, that also isn't that interesting.

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I actually recommend against cutting the Sahara too much. The vast and uninhabitable Sahara is a major reason as to why there is a huge difference between North African civilizations and sub-Saharan civs. The desert acted as a buffer - an ocean of sand - that prevented the spread of knowledge and culture between North Africa and the rest of the continent. While it was possible to cross the desert, it was very improbable. The desert itself is uninteresting, yes, but the effects it has is enormous

But judging by Genghis Kai's projections (and his history for making awesome maps) I don't think this will be a problem.

i agree with awesome here. u just don't need to put all european civs in the game as the only real reason behind making the distortion is this.
i like europe map more than world map. it is easier to place civs. it will be both accurate and good for gameplay.

awesome said:

this sounds like too much distortion to me for a "perfect" earth map.

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It becomes a matter of taste. Giant Earth Map will continue it's philosophy of "reasonable" distortion to have "perfect" gameplay, while there will surely be someone else building geographically perfect maps, like in Civ4.

Junuxx said:

How I understood Civ 4's climate system, is "tundra"+forest is supposed to represent taiga, clear "tundra" is real tundra, and "ice" is actual glacier

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Yeah, you may be correct. And to add complexity, there is also feature ice that can be placed on top of any terrain in civ4. How these combination can represent the types of real biomes is an interesting question. Looking forward to see what Civ 5 would offer.

wideyedwanderer said:

I actually recommend against cutting the Sahara too much. The vast and uninhabitable Sahara is a major reason as to why there is a huge difference between North African civilizations and sub-Saharan civs. The desert acted as a buffer - an ocean of sand - that prevented the spread of knowledge and culture between North Africa and the rest of the continent. While it was possible to cross the desert, it was very improbable. The desert itself is uninteresting, yes, but the effects it has is enormous

But judging by Genghis Kai's projections (and his history for making awesome maps) I don't think this will be a problem.

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Don't worry, I wouldn't cut out Sahara

I really would appreciat it if an earth map with fixed realistic civ positions was included as well..instead of just random start loactions every time.

I tend to find it annoying that earth maps lack civ in their start locations as the whole purpose of an earth map is to have a realsitic struggle for power ect ect.

earth maps usually do have realistic starts. maybe not the europe or earth2 maps, but those are different.

The Bigger the map the better for realism because otherwise most tiles will have to have resources

Too big a map makes the game unplayable for all but the very fastest computers.