The plain GEM - modern resource

The plain Giant Earth Map - with modern resource allocation
This is the thread to discuss and update anything related to the plain map development (with modern resource allocation).

Description
This is the same map as the ancient old except resources are distributed according to modern statistic. Yes, it means there will be cows and sheeps in Brazil and New Zealand.

The 36 civs

Reserved for screenshots group 1

Reserved for screenshots group 2

Reserved for screenshots group 3

Reserved for screenshots group 4

Reserved for screenshots group 5

Hey! i just started my 1st version 5 game with modern resources (played as Hungary) and i noticed that my cities were named Constantinople, Thessalonica, etc. (the Byzantine city names) was this intentional or a mistake?

Firestorm94 said:

Hey! i just started my 1st version 5 game with modern resources (played as Hungary) and i noticed that my cities were named Constantinople, Thessalonica, etc. (the Byzantine city names) was this intentional or a mistake?

Click to expand...

Oh really? That wasn't intentional. I have created some pseudo civilizations in v5 and probably forgot to link to the correct civ in the plain map.

If anyone want to fix it yourself, just open the map file in notepad, search for CIVILIZATION_BYZANTIUM and replace it with CIVILIZATION_HUNGARY.

Genghis_Kai said:

Oh really? That wasn't intentional. I have created some pseudo civilizations in v5 and probably forgot to link to the correct civ in the plain map.

If anyone want to fix it yourself, just open the map file in notepad, search for CIVILIZATION_BYZANTIUM and replace it with CIVILIZATION_HUNGARY.

Click to expand...

OK thanks

I am again making some minor changes to the plain map. The main changes are following:

1) Added more smaller islands - mainly added for those remote air bases for the modern scenario.
2) Modified Caribbean islands - now it can fit in a few more islands.
3) Modified Colombia. Change some Mountains to hills so that Colombia is more habitable.
4) Modified British Isles - Expanded Ireland and Scotland a bit. Now we can fit Belfast and Aberdeen on the map!
5) Modified Madagascar. It wasn't done correctly previously.
6) Connected Denmark to Sweden via land. I don't know whether this will be popular or not, but I think if Istanbul is acting as a land bridge, then so should Copenhagen. Now after the change, Copenhagen has more strategic importance just like Istanbul does. The Scandinavia is also not as far away from Europe heartland anymore.
7) Disconnected Sri Lanka from India. The distance between the two is much further than Danish Straits.

Feel free to comment.

I think additional land bridges are always a good idea, since the closeness calculation of the AI is often fooled by narrow straits, making them engage in somewhat pointless wars.

How about having "land bridges" at Gibraltar and Aden, respectively? This would make both locations strategically more important and improve the AI performance for Maghreb/Western Europe and Arabia/East Africa interaction.

On a sidenote, I think the land bridge from Sri Lanka to India was justified. Although the Palk Strait is rather wide, a series of small islands called Adam's Bridge connects Sri Lanka to the Mainland. According to Wikipedia, the water is very shallow there (between 1 and 10m) which means that military units should be able to cross in small boats without larger transport ships - therefore, I think that a land bridge would be okay there.

Best Regards,
Martin

EDIT: wikipedia links for the narrows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibraltar_Strait (North Africa/Spain)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bab_el-Mandeb (East Africa/Arabia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam's_Bridge (India/Ceylon)

I was just reading those wiki pages too

I think these are tough decisions. Making them as land bridge would connect the land but dis-connect the sea route before a city is placed. Seeing Gibaltar and Aden connected doesn't look nice on the map either, I think.

In fact I am doing some research to see whether my judgment of those land bridges on GEM are objective enough. Let me show them here for your interest. Those marked in Red are the one I decided to change.

Name Closest_distance(km) Separated_in_GEM?(1=yes,0=no)

Strait of Gibraltar 14.2 1
Turkish Straits 0.7 0
Strait of Dover 34.0 1
Danish Straits 4.0 1
Strait of Messina 3.1 0
Straits of Moyle 20.0 1

Zanzibar 20.0 1

Strait of Hormuz 54.0 1
Bab-el-Mandeb 30.0 1
Palk Strait 64.0 0
Qiongzhou Strait 30.0 0
Taiwan Strait 131.0 1
Victoria Harbour 1.8 1
Straits of Johor 0.0 0
Tsugaru Strait 19.5 0
Naruto Strait 0.0 0
Kanmon Straits 0.0 0
Strait of Malacca 2.8 1
Madura Strait 5.4 0
Bali Strait 3.2 0
Lombok Strait 18.0 0

Cook Strait 20.0 0
Foveaux Strait 14.0 1
Bass Strait 240.0 1
Backstairs Passage 13.0 1
Torres Strait 150.0 1
Dundas Strait 15.0 0

Strait of Magellan 2.0 0
Bering Strait 85.0 1
Strait of Belle Isle 15.0 0

I remember Europe Universalis 3 had a great game mechanic for that - you could cross those narrow straits as long as they were not blocked by enemy navies. Too bad that can't be done with the civ engine. I agree it's a tough decision, basically it's accuracy vs. gameplay.

Best Regards,
Martin

I'd go with something like this: - If it is less than 30km in real life, put a landbridge on the map. 30km or above, leave it as a sea tile.

Do the red numbers mean what it is changing from, or changing to?

Conqistador said:

I'd go with something like this: - If it is less than 30km in real life, put a landbridge on the map. 30km or above, leave it as a sea tile.

Do the red numbers mean what it is changing from, or changing to?

Click to expand...

30km is far to much to make arbitrary. This would almost connect the UK to Europe!

Kai, I think you need to make a subjective decision for each depending also on the historical significance of the water bridge, just as you have exaggerated certain elements of the map in the first place for the same reason.

Also consider what's going to happen in the start only scenarios if you join the land mass at, say, Gibraltar, but a city is not placed on the one land tile connecting the oceans? You are going to have navies in the med landlocked. This sucks.

However, you could pre-place a fort there, which would allow navies to pass through right from the start. The only concern would be that the fort can be pillaged or replaced by another improvement.

Maybe you could also add a new terrain type via XML called "narrows" which uses the coast graphics but can be moved into and out of by both naval and land units. You would only have to try out what this would do to combat then if a naval unit blocks the passage and a land unit enters, or vice versa.

Best Regards,
Martin

Ace of Spades said:

However, you could pre-place a fort there, which would allow navies to pass through right from the start. The only concern would be that the fort can be pillaged or replaced by another improvement.

Maybe you could also add a new terrain type via XML called "narrows" which uses the coast graphics but can be moved into and out of by both naval and land units. You would only have to try out what this would do to combat then if a naval unit blocks the passage and a land unit enters, or vice versa.

Best Regards,
Martin

Click to expand...

I like the narrows idea- this sounds like a really good solution. Not too keen on the forts idea. Seems a bit contrived, artificial.

Would the AI understand 'narrows'? If not then you're going to have the same problem with tactics?

The AI is programmed with some flexibility. It can handle custom units and about every other XML-modded aspect of the game, so I am confident it could handle a tile that is both sea and land. After all, it can use the "panama canal" consisting of a fort or city, and this is not that much different.

My proposal would be for the narrows to have something like 2F 1H 5C yield values, since a narrow strait might bring high commerce because of tolls.

Best Regards,
Martin

I had a look at the XML. Apparently, it is a bit tricky to to, since there are no separate switches for land-pathable and water-pathable. So I believe that you would have to create:

a) a terrain type that is land-pathable but does not allow for the construction of improvements

b) a copy of the fort improvement which is invisible and permanent, has no defensive bonuses and cannot be built (just be pre-placed).

Maybe you could just give it a try. I'm not sure if the improvement would be safe from nukes, though - otherwise this could possibly messed up by nuclear warfare.

Best Regards,
Martin

Haven't been checking this thread. Quite a few things to reply:

@Conqistador: the red numbers are the v6.1 values, i.e. not changed yet.

@Adhensive: I agree, it is going to subjective for sure. But just like most of my other work, I will start off with some objective numbers, then adding exceptions based on subjective reasons.

@Ace of Spades: The suggested modification is a bit difficult to make I think. May be not for now, and for me