Accurate Earth Map in development

[kevinman4404]

British Empire:

This is undoubtably the slowest the project has been so far... and I don't expect progress to get any faster in the next week or so. There are an estimated 15-17 settler maps left, at a rate of about one per day. Just to keep my schedule a little more regimented, I'll post the following releases.

German Empire
Danish Empire (Tuesday)

Spanish Empire
Khmer Empire (Thursday)

Portugese Empire
Dutch Empire (Saturday)

Arabian Empire
American Empire (Sunday)

@LastOne36- your images will be on the Tuesday post, unless my memory fails me

@gangleri2001- it would seem our sources conflict... may i observe your data? All I have near the region out of the 4 resources you suggested is a grapes/wine slightly NW of the territory of Catalonia, and this is already properly positioned on my map. As for the shape of Spain, it looks OK... do you know what exactly is wrong with it and how to fix it? Is Barc. a little too short/subtle? (edit: it would seem that although rice and wheet is grown on the delta, that it is not a huge player. And I doubt there's a lot of oil).

As for Antarctica, that was dropped a ways back. At one point I realized that depsite my gigantic map size, the actual land of Europe was <= that of Genghis Khan's map So I made the tough decision to cut off Antarctica, squish the map and here it is. I am considering one tile of the Antarctic tip near South America, so that the first person to put a research station there can reap some benefit, although I realize it is weak and silly at best. But when you think of it, how much better would it have been with a full Antarctica, seeing as it is horizontally cut? People in the center of the world would only have to walk a few tiles down from the coast to reach the pole, while those in the Americas/Australias would have to walk (or break their way through) half the map. However, I still plan on fully encompassing the Arctic fascination- conflict, resources, research, etc...

Kevin

 

[gangleri2001]

@gangleri2001- it would seem our sources conflict... may i observe your data? All I have near the region out of the 4 resources you suggested is a grapes/wine slightly NW of the territory of Catalonia, and this is already properly positioned on my map. As for the shape of Spain, it looks OK... do you know what exactly is wrong with it and how to fix it? Is Barc. a little too short/subtle? (edit: it would seem that although rice and wheet is grown on the delta, that it is not a huge player. And I doubt there's a lot of oil).

Probably it would help if I could see how does your Catalonia look like (the most eastern part of catalonia doesn't appear in the capture of your iberian peninsula) and how many tiles have been used (4 x 4 or whatever), then I could try to give you a more realistic shape.

BTW, grapes in the NW? There it's too cold for grapes to grow. I think that you should place grapes in the eastern tile next to Barcelona, that would be far more realistic. And choosing grapes is a great choice, since I think it's the most important resource of Catalonia.

 

[kevinman4404]

@gangleri2001: Wine is made in a very high quantity along the Duero river, which is quite north. Anyways, I have a screenshot of Spain on page 3- the wine resource I was talking about that I had already positioned is in that screenshot, and what I meant by just NW of Catalonia. That is where I thought would be the most logical place for the resource, and it would seem it is accurately similar to real life. Does it still need changes?

Just to keep on the ball here, I'll post the Danish Empire (including Norway before independance):

Oddly enough I just remembered its not a civilization in Civ4, so really I just wasted a bit of time on it; however, it will be needed later on when I am adding in the Danish Empire. German Empire tommorow.

 

[gangleri2001]

@gangleri2001: Wine is made in a very high quantity along the Duero river, which is quite north. Anyways, I have a screenshot of Spain on page 3- the wine resource I was talking about that I had already positioned is in that screenshot, and what I meant by just NW of Catalonia. That is where I thought would be the most logical place for the resource, and it would seem it is accurately similar to real life. Does it still need changes?

Ah! You meant the nw iberian peninsula, not the nw of catalonia (where grapes can't grow, since it's the pyrenees). That's right then. I only say to add some resource in the catalan area so Barcelona can have the importance that in real life has. I think that without resources in that area Barcelona just couldn't become something similar to what it in real life is. Anyways, I see that your Catalonia uses an area of 3 x 3 tiles. Here you got my suggestion on Catalonia

I told you: The only resource of this four that you should place is, in my opinion, grapes.

BTW, here you got some other suggestions on the iberian peninsula.

 

[Mattastic]

Well, somebody here is Spanish.

 

[Angst]

Here's a view from the Dane here

First of all, I stared a total of 341 seconds on your world map last page. It is awesome! It must be on top of the world map tiers in here, at least on the top three. I don't personally like Genghis' map (Europe's too big), but this is really a good job. Nice work!

Secondly, I was truly amazed to see you including Denmark now (And not before, say, Sweden or Poland, or Russia maybe). It gave a minor nationalistic kick in me

I have only one concern about your maps, but you must've done that with reason as you obviously knows Danish history (With the possessions in Latvia and Estonia). But my question is, what about Sweden? I'm thinking Kalmar Unionish - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_union -

I do know that Sweden wasn't a happy participating nation in the Union, is that why you made the Danish map that way? Or was it to make room for Sweden simply?

 

[kevinman4404]

@lord_joakim- the order I spew these out means nothing As for Sweden, I did forget to account for the Union of Kalmar, though I think for the historical component Denmark and Sweden will mostly be at odds. It does warrant at least a small change in interest, though.

@gangleri2001- here is what I have accepted and rejected, thus far:

Moving of the NW mountain: accepted, but positioned differently.
Guadiana river modification: accepted, wasn't paying attention when I drew it.
Ebro/Duero modification: accepted, but since the Duero is already the right length, and since Ebro is highly diagonal, I extended it north of the Duero.
Moving the Southern mountain: fixed the range.
Desert tile: rejected- there are no total deserts (according to land use mapping) though I'll have to check for wasteland. I don't think I will find any though. For now I am using arid plains on that tile.
Citrus Fruit: is already perfectly accurate.
Remove grapes and replace sheep: done, but moved grapes over.
Central Iberian steppe: did this to some degree. There is one tile of greener land which I kept.
Grapes instead of sheep: rejected. Although wine in the region is an important national resource, the sheep are to a far higher degree an international resource.

The same idea goes for possibly putting wheat in Catalonia. It appears to be an important national but not as much international resource. Rice does not appear significantly in my sources.

My current (new) wine placement should be accurate. There is nothing significant within the boundaries of Catalonia, but rather just outside.

Finally, I didn't really understand your chart, because I do not know where it is in relation to the image. Where it seems to fit it seems quite south for Catalonia (Barcelona). But Catalonia does seem to be more or less accurate, even if the rest of Spain was until now a little sketchy.

If you are worried about importance, realize that resources are deplaced. For example in an example where Belgium has a colony in Congo to hunt for ivory, the ivory can be used entirely by Brussels, rather than the nearby colony.

Finally, I really should have noticed and told you that this is an old image of Spain. Here is the image of the current Spain, and let me know if you see any quantifiable changes to be made to Catalonia. Also realize that there are a lot of resources in Spain right now.

Some notes: Those lemon bushes are my new citrus fruit. Olives are really hard to see but all resources are labelled. I'm not sure of the validity of the flax, as I do not remember where I got the information from.

Hopefully noone will comment on my makeshift mountain

~~~

Here are the requested screenshots of Venezuela (well, most of it):

Hopefully you like it; I know very little about SA in comparison to other regions, and I certainly wasn't as careful here as I was in Europe, etc.

~~~

I am even further behind; I will try and have two settler maps for tommorow. Any requests may still be made, but they will be fulfilled after the settler maps have been completed.

@Shiggs: your next update should arrive within 8-10 posts. I am quite a bit behind; I'm very confident it will be done in time for your release but will let you know if that changes.

EDIT: for clarification, the northern resources read "iron," "iron," "coal," "nat. gas." Usually the images are clearer.

Kevin

 

[moopoo]

Behind or not kevin, I feel i should commend you on your work ethic at the moment. It's very impressive, and quite a bit higher than mine

 

[EviltheMonkey]

Is there any plan to have lumber in a resource? Access to good quality timber was very important to many early civs (Egypt especially comes to mind) and it could be an important break on medieval to modern forest clearance (the history of Britain and Japan are good examples). As for the mechanics of it I would suggest that Lumber is provided by a Logging Camp tile improvement that can be built on any forest tile (temperate or tropical), if thats possible of course.

Also what do you think of having Electricity as a resource instead of a citywide effect? It would be produced by all power station buildings (converted from fuels?) and using a quantitative resource system would allow you assign bonuses to it (+1 , +1 ) and buildings could modify the bonus (factory would add one more perhaps?). An Electricity resource would also be one of the 'ingredients' in the conversion of Bauxite into Aluminium, if you want that kind of process modeled of course.

 

[mrhoeivo]

Yikes, pretty much every other tile in Spain is a resource.

 

[moopoo]

EviltheMonkey (what would that be shortened to?), that is a great idea. the Electricity one, that is

 

[kevinman4404]

@ETM (moopoo that's my shortform)- Lumber=Cedar, ie for Lebanon and Canada, though there may be more (I've hardly placed this yet). The improvement will be the standard lumber mill, though its bonuses will be stripped or changed. By the historical examples, are you talking about overcutting?

I like your electricity idea. I'll have to figure out how I could accomplish that (such as the conversion of fuel to energy)- I'm curious, what problems of the standard system does this address? In the game it works like this- you get a fuel, you build a plant and it produces energy. Either way, it looks like it's realistic. Let me know your view of this. But quantity would be a strong inclusion, and allow it to be tradeable I suppose. Are those the advantages? Also, there's no Bauxite in the mod Bauxite and chromite are represented by aluminum- there're already so many resources (may have to make a whole new fontcard).

@mrhoeivo- that's not the worst region for resource overcrowding It isn't that intrusive when playing though. (Though I do wish I could not have to grind my teeth and place a city on impeding resource tiles, such as at London).

Germany tonight, I hope.

Kevin

 

[kevinman4404]

German Empire:

Note: I have plans to extend the German Empire's territory further east just past the Black Sea, and further east in NAf into Egypt.

I'll try and have another done tommorow.

Kevin

 

[Mattastic]

Really? The Germans have no interest in Switzerland at all? I also note that while you've suggested they have an interest in Finland and Norway, they have no interest in Sweden? Are you basing their European interests on the conquests (both successful and not) of Nazi Germany? Because with respect, I don't think that really counts. Hitler would have gladly invaded Fiji if he thought he could manage it.

 

[Gooblah]

I think that Germany's interests should include Switzerland and Istanbul/The Dardanelles. Also, its African Empire should include Madagascar and the Gold/Slave Coast. It got into the Imperialism! game late, but it was a major thorn in the British sides, and it wanted solid control between Cameroon and Togo.

keep up the good work.

 

[mrhoeivo]

I think Mattastic has a point. I am not going to claim to know anything about the imperial efforts of the German empire, but I don't think that any Civ's settler maps should only be based on which lands they attempted to capture at some point in history, especially by a person who was interested in controlling the entire world.

 

[kevinman4404]

No new map tonight, but here is an improved German Empire:

Let me know what you think. Please note that I am aware that I forgot to include Alaska and that I drew my US/CAN border a little poorly. It will be improved.

Yeah, I try to encompass both conquests and desires, but I really didn't have any idea of Hitler's intentions. Really, it's almost every civ's desire to have reign over the entire world. But, Hitler is special, and anyways I tried (in the newer map) to give interest in areas that made some sort of sense.

Kevin

 

[moopoo]

Nice work kevin, it's looking good.

Regarding the current system of power/electricity, i don't think it properly highlights our dependency on it. In game at the moment, you build a factory you got more shields. you get electricity, you get some more shields. Really, there isn't all that much motivation to build power plants, and i often find myself waiting extended periods of time until i can i can build a power plant without an unhealthiness bonus.

Compare this to modern life. EVERYTHING uses electricity. There are multiple power plants in, well, i imagine pretty much every medium-to-large city in the developed world. Electricity gets traded (in australia it's just between states, but again, i imagine in europe this could/would happen between countires). Power outages mean unproductiveness and unhappiness until it's fixed, no matter how big or small the outage is. Power really isn't done justice in Civ atm

EDIT: A possible system (don't ask me how, i'm no coder ) would be, as ETM (that is one snappy nickname) suggested, to have power plants create the resource electricity, which in turn can be applied to buildings for bonuses.

Ooooh! The modern age windmill (clearly modelled on wind power plants), could produce an electricity resource

 

[Angst]

Its good, but I think you should stick with a Germany without Australia or America, like in the first map. Europe, Asia, the scattered islands in the Pacific and Africa are wisely drawn.

 

[Angst]

in australia it's just between states, but again, i imagine in europe this could/would happen between countires)

.