A Proposal to improve Crete

[Lennon789]

The Minoan civilization that emerged on the isle of Crete around 2000 BCE had a very influential role on Greek and world history. I proposed the idea of having an independent city spawn on tile (78,48) to represent the first palace complexes being built in Knossos. However, a user named manio curio made a point I couldn't help but agree with:

I fear any Cretan city would end up being so unproductive to be useless since there are not many tiles available, especially considering Athens is really close. In RFC Europe the map is bigger and you can get a decent city out of it.

Fortunately, I've come up with several proposals and recommendations to address Crete's lack of productivity:

1. Change the topography of tile (78,48) from plains to hills, to represent Mt. Ida. This will have the benefit of adding another hammer to the tile Knossos is on.

2. Replace the wine on tile (77,48) with marble, to represent that Crete's largest marble deposits are in Chania, in the west of the island. A quarry built on this tile adds two hammers to it (three with Slavery).

3. Change tile (79,48) from a coast tile to a flat plains tile, to represent the Prefecture of Lasithi.

4. Place wine on tile (79,48), to both preserve the existence of wine as a resource on Crete, and to represent the distinctive wines made from the Liatiko grape grown in Sitia, in the east.

5. Add a river that flows northward between tiles (78,48) and (79,48). This will both give Knossos a source of fresh water and reference the Kairatos river.

6. Add Islands (3) to tile (77,47) to represent the isle of Gavdos, and Islands (3) to tile (79,47) to represent the isles of Chrysi and Koufonisi.

7. Add Clams to tile (78,49) to represent the edible mollusks so important to Minoan/Cretan culture and cuisine. Dickinson, O (1994) The Aegean Bronze Age p. 28

Now, I don't really know the first thing about balancing the map for gameplay purposes, and I concede that adopting all of these suggestions might very well make Knossos too powerful of a city. Honestly, I think adopting even one of these suggestions would make it a much more viable city site. I'm eager to hear thoughts from the community!

I've attached a screenshot of my proposed changes to this post.

edit: removed a superfluous comma from suggestion 5.

 

[Hickman888]

The Minoan civilization that emerged on the isle of Crete around 2000 BCE had a very influential role on Greek and world history. I proposed the idea of having an independent city spawn on tile (78,48) to represent the first palace complexes being built in Knossos. However, a user named manio curio made a point I couldn't help but agree with:

Fortunately, I've come up with several proposals and recommendations to address Crete's lack of productivity:

1. Change the topography of tile (78,48) from plains to hills, to represent Mt. Ida. This will have the benefit of adding another hammer to the tile Knossos is on.

2. Replace the wine on tile (77,48) with marble, to represent that Crete's largest marble deposits are in Chania, in the west of the island. A quarry built on this tile adds two hammers to it (three with Slavery).

3. Change tile (79,48) from a coast tile to a flat plains tile, to represent the Prefecture of Lasithi.

4. Place wine on tile (79,48), to both preserve the existence of wine as a resource on Crete, and to represent the distinctive wines made from the Liatiko grape grown in Sitia, in the east.

5. Add a river that flows northward between tiles (78,48) and (79,48). This will both give Knossos a source of fresh water and reference the Kairatos river.

6. Add Islands (3) to tile (77,47) to represent the isle of Gavdos, and Islands (3) to tile (79,47) to represent the isles of Chrysi and Koufonisi.

7. Add Clams to tile (78,49) to represent the edible mollusks so important to Minoan/Cretan culture and cuisine. Dickinson, O (1994) The Aegean Bronze Age p. 28

Now, I don't really know the first thing about balancing the map for gameplay purposes, and I concede that adopting all of these suggestions might very well make Knossos too powerful of a city. Honestly, I think adopting even one of these suggestions would make it a much more viable city site. I'm eager to hear thoughts from the community!

I've attached a screenshot of my proposed changes to this post.

edit: removed a superfluous comma from suggestion 5.

I like this idea. I think you might be right, all of these suggestions together might make Crete too powerful of a city. After a very thorough look at Google maps (that is to say, I’m not overly familiar with the geography of the island) I personally think the two island tiles to the south are too small IRL to warrant being represented in game, and the river is likewise not important enough to be shown in-game. For the Clam, I think you should move it one time west, so it can be potentially shared with Sparta.

But other than those small caveats, I like the idea!

 

[Lennon789]

Great suggestions Hickman888! I've attached a screenshot to this post with the suggestions you made:

 

[a pen-dragon]

3. Change tile (79,48) from a coast tile to a flat plains tile, to represent the Prefecture of Lasithi.

4. Place wine on tile (79,48), to both preserve the existence of wine as a resource on Crete, and to represent the distinctive wines made from the Liatiko grape grown in Sitia, in the east.

Does the island really have to be expanded? Placing the wine on the proposed location for Knossos will still result in it being useful due to Crete being a small island.

This has the benefit of only changing resources and not adding land tiles which would require more effort due to settler/war/city names/stability maps.

 

[burgirl]

I will add that unlike all other mediterranean islands, Crete is usually never entirely covered by culture from adjacent cities (the eastern tile is too far from any continental city), which always felt wrong to me (what do you mean half of Crete belongs to noone in 2020?) but at the same time, why would anyone build an unproductive city there? With the new map and it being outside of Athens' second ring, I think making a city there more viable (and even adding an independant city spawn there) would be great!

 

[manio curio]

The Minoan civilization that emerged on the isle of Crete around 2000 BCE had a very influential role on Greek and world history. I proposed the idea of having an independent city spawn on tile (78,48) to represent the first palace complexes being built in Knossos. However, a user named manio curio made a point I couldn't help but agree with:

Fortunately, I've come up with several proposals and recommendations to address Crete's lack of productivity:

1. Change the topography of tile (78,48) from plains to hills, to represent Mt. Ida. This will have the benefit of adding another hammer to the tile Knossos is on.

2. Replace the wine on tile (77,48) with marble, to represent that Crete's largest marble deposits are in Chania, in the west of the island. A quarry built on this tile adds two hammers to it (three with Slavery).

3. Change tile (79,48) from a coast tile to a flat plains tile, to represent the Prefecture of Lasithi.

4. Place wine on tile (79,48), to both preserve the existence of wine as a resource on Crete, and to represent the distinctive wines made from the Liatiko grape grown in Sitia, in the east.

5. Add a river that flows northward between tiles (78,48) and (79,48). This will both give Knossos a source of fresh water and reference the Kairatos river.

6. Add Islands (3) to tile (77,47) to represent the isle of Gavdos, and Islands (3) to tile (79,47) to represent the isles of Chrysi and Koufonisi.

7. Add Clams to tile (78,49) to represent the edible mollusks so important to Minoan/Cretan culture and cuisine. Dickinson, O (1994) The Aegean Bronze Age p. 28

Now, I don't really know the first thing about balancing the map for gameplay purposes, and I concede that adopting all of these suggestions might very well make Knossos too powerful of a city. Honestly, I think adopting even one of these suggestions would make it a much more viable city site. I'm eager to hear thoughts from the community!

I've attached a screenshot of my proposed changes to this post.

edit: removed a superfluous comma from suggestion 5.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Crete now has 3 land tiles, same as Sicily and Sardinia+Corsica, but in reality Crete is much smaller than both Sardinia and Sicily.

 

[Orbii]

My 2 cents is that all these changes are unnecessary and buff the island too much relative to its importance. At most, I would suggest adding a production resource on the existing eastern tile so the city has some hammers, but two extra resources, let alone a third land tile, makes it a strong city on par with many of the other cities in the eastern Mediterranean that are historically more important (e.g. Thessalonica, Smyrna, Damascus).

I particularly don't agree with the extra land title --- as mentioned, this makes the island as big as larger islands. I also suggest, if there is an extra seafood added, that it be placed east of Knossos so that no mainland city is buffed by its inclusion. The original placement of the Clam 1N is also fine. The suggestion to move it 1W allows Athens access to the extra seafood and thereby buffs an already strong city.

 

[Tigranes]

Correct me if I am wrong, but Crete now has 3 land tiles, same as Sicily and Sardinia+Corsica, but in reality Crete is much smaller than both Sardinia and Sicily.

Right now it is 2 tiles. I really don't think @Leoreth will change it due to the popular demand. This was already done in a modmod, and that's enough for me.

 

[Lennon789]

First, I would like to thank all of y'all for your input and suggestions. It honestly hadn't occurred to me that adding an extra land tile would mess with the AI maps, so it really isn't necessary. Listed below are my new proposed changes, with an attached screenshot.

Proposed Changes (revised):

1. I still would argue that the Knossos tile (78,48) should be a hill. the extra hammer will be a nice boost without being game breaking.

2. Orbii, I'm certainly aware that in later years, other cities surpassed Knossos in importance, but right now Crete is so crappy Knossos can't even exist as a small city. That's why I like a-pen-dragon's suggestion of putting the Wine on tile (78,48). I do like your suggestion that only Knossos should have access to the clams, so I moved them back to my original proposed location, 1 tile N of Knossos.

3. I still think marble should be on tile (77,48), to both give Knossos a production resource and represent that Crete's largest marble deposits are in the west.

Screenshot:

 

[manio curio]

Right now it is 2 tiles. I really don't think @Leoreth will change it due to the popular demand. This was already done in a modmod, and that's enough for me.

Forgive me for not being clear enough, by 'now has 3 tiles' was referred to the updated Crete design made to host a city, now the default design currently implemented in the game

 

[Steb]

Sounds like a good time to shill my idea that will never be implemented of adding a land tile 2N of Knossos and move the marble there, to represent the great marble quarries of Paros (plus other islands of significance like Naxos and Santorini etc.) and generally make the Aegean more significant

 

[Lennon789]

Sounds like a good time to shill my idea that will never be implemented of adding a land tile 2N of Knossos and move the marble there, to represent the great marble quarries of Paros (plus other islands of significance like Naxos and Santorini etc.) and generally make the Aegean more significant

I decided to experiment around in the World Builder, and have determined that it is actually possible to edit the tile 2N of Knossos to have the Islands (3) feature, marble, and a quarry. Now, it's impossible for this to be built manually, but I could see an argument for the resource and improvement to spawn some time between the proposed founding of Knossos (2000 BCE) and the Greek spawn in 1600 BCE. If we were to do that, we could make less extensive changes to Crete itself, just adding a hill to the Knossos tile. Here's a screenshot of what this would look like:

 

[Derdan]

I don't think it makes sense for Crete to have a seafood resource. At the very least it should have to disappear by Alexander's time.

 

[Lennon789]

I don't think it makes sense for Crete to have a seafood resource. At the very least it should have to disappear by Alexander's time.

I'm not sure I agree. I don't think the city will be viable without some source of food, and Crete is not uninhabited. I think there might be another seafood resource that yields less food, Crabs I believe. Another possible solution would be to give Greece a new UB, a Harbor that adds +2 food to coast tiles instead of +1 food. This would also allow the UB to exist in an Independent Knossos.