Acularius' GEM for Caveman2Cosmos

Here you go.

Obsidian

Papua New Guinea
14318d5.png

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1835-9310.1982.tb01243.x/abstract

Carpathian Mountains
swshtd.png

http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/rosania/

Caucasus
2pos8es.png

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/arcm.12007/full

Corsica-Sardinia proxy + Lead
epfwqp.png


Lipari and Pantelleria proxy sight
zkoiki.png


25auivk.png

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305440384900487

Wonders

Basalt Organ
30nj4g7.png


Dead sea
2q1wizp.png

Had to remove Olives
 
Here you go.

Obsidian

Papua New Guinea
14318d5.png

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1835-9310.1982.tb01243.x/abstract

Carpathian Mountains
swshtd.png

http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/rosania/

Caucasus
2pos8es.png

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/arcm.12007/full

Corsica-Sardinia proxy + Lead
epfwqp.png


Lipari and Pantelleria proxy sight
zkoiki.png


25auivk.png

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0305440384900487

Wonders

Basalt Organ
30nj4g7.png


Dead sea
2q1wizp.png

Had to remove Olives


PERFECT, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! This is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping you might post.

What did you mean about "removing Olives", by the way? It looks like you just moved them south a tile- they're still in the area, right?



Regards,
Northstar
 
Also, several more changes that I've been working on (research below- but these have not been implemented in a clean version of the GEM yet- so feel free to work them into your own revisions if you want, though I'll do them soon enough.)



Silver Deposit in Spain- Southwest Iberia (specifically the Riontinto River Valley) was home to some of the largest silver and copper deposits ever discovered in the ancient world- greatly out-producing any other mines on Earth under the Roman Empire, and helping to catapult Rome to being the word's largest producer of copper and silver for several centuries.

First of all, the Empire's output: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_metallurgy#Output

The most productive mines in the entire Roman Empire were in southern Spain- particularly in the southwest, along the Guadalquivir river watershed (known at the time as the Baetis River), but all along the entire southern coast:

http://barryyeoman.com/2010/09/the-mines-that-built-empires/

http://www.jstor.org/stable/296070?seq=1

http://www.spain.info/en_US/reportajes/riotinto_marte_en_la_tierra.html


As such, I suggest adding a silver deposit to southern Iberia (Spain)- in the south, located somewhat to the east of the richest deposits in the southwest to reflect the fact that rich silver mining operations occurred along the entire southern coast (this should allow at least two cities to share the deposit in their radius- allowing for greater bonuses to wealth production, and smelting of multiple Silver Ingots from the deposit, thus reflecting that in antiquity Iberia was a major *exporter* of silver- it produced more than enough for just the owners' needs).



Additionally, it might be worth moving the copper deposit already in the area around a little, or adding a second one, to reflect the true extent of copper mining operations. I'll have to take a look at this.


Lead Deposit in Spain - Although less famous than its silver and gold mines, Iberia was also a significant source of lead- providing one of the largest sources for the Roman Empire. Please see my previous sources, several of which discuss the lead mining as well as silver mining.

I propose a deposit in southern Spain- as most of the mining and mineral wealth of lead and other minerals in Spain occurred in the south (with the major exception of the gold mines in the north- which are already implemented in the existing GEM).


The iron deposit already in southern Spain could also use a looking at and possible slight relocation- particularly as a silver deposit is also being squeezed into the general area.



More thoughts:

Greece is, as most players are aware, currently a very weak starting position. It lacks a number of historically important resources which, if implemented, might help to even the balance a little. Of particular importance to Greek agriculture were vineyards and olive orchards- but these were not the only crops. Adjusting the position of existing agricultural resources and adding ones not currently present (that history says should be there) might even things out a little, as well as adding realism... I'll have to get back to you guys later on this with some specific changes- my current memory of what that area of the GEM looks like is a little fuzzy right now at this time of day. I need to load it up again and take a look to see what needs to be changed...



Regards,
Northstar
 
OK, with some playing around with the resource bonuses in southern spain to fit them all in, and make them accessible to the correct possibly city locations, I think I found an arrangement that works. Bear with me- quite a few things had to get moved around to cram in the Lead and Silver:


Silver: Added south of Copper bonus

Lead: Added East of Cow bonus

Iron: Moved to hill with cave tile

Sulphur: Moved to location Southeast of Cow bonus, west of Silver (tile also changed to Plains, see note below)

Barley: Moved to west of cave tile (north of Fig)

Donkey: Moved to North of Apple bonus (Apple bonus tile also changed Grassland --> Plain, see note below). Additional Donkey resource added on Desert tile in the far southeast of Iberia (to cover city tiles no longer in range- as well as compensate for the movement of the Barley bonus out of the range of the southwest part of Iberia, and reflect the wild asses once found in the far southeast)


Note: Further reading of the sources I referred to earlier, particularly the archaeologist' personal account (http://barryyeoman.com/2010/09/the-mines-that-built-empires/) of his growing up in the Riontinto region and Spain's own tourist information on the region described it as alien, hostile (although the tourism information predictably tried to put a positive spin on this- "come visit Mars on Earth!"), and "like Mars" (http://www.spain.info/en_US/reportajes/riotinto_marte_en_la_tierra.html).

These, as well as other accounts about the region marking on how dry and infertile it is, quickly convinced me that the fertility of the tile to the SE of the Cow bonus, which is actually where some of the richest silver deposits are located (the seam extend far to the east of this, however- so the actual Silver bonus was placed one to the southeast), is very low- and was even before heavy mining greatly exasperated the problem...

So much so that I felt the need to change the tile to the southeast of the Cow bonus from Grassland to Plains, and compensate by changing the Plains tile underneath the Apple to grassland- as the fertility is significantly greater further to the northwest along the coast- comparable with areas further to the north in Spain.



Regards,
Northstar


P.S. I was strongly tempted to change the terrain in that part of southwest Iberia all the way to "Barren" or "Rocky", after taking a look at aerial photographs of the terrain. See for yourself:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/p...o-Tinto-in-Spain-by-Francisco-Mingorance.html

As cited and show in the second photograph in that album, the river here is actually made of concentrated sulfuric acid in some places! (thanks to all the sulfur in the region- though this problem was made much worse by mining bringing much more of it to the surface) Nasty stuff!
 
Oh yeah, and one last set of changes I worked out- and almost forgot to mention I got so caught up in describing my additions to the mineral resources of southern Spain...


I gave the Greeks wine. And lot of it. :)

Well, actually, a grapes bonus on their start tile (Athens) in my current working version of GEM revision, to be precise. This will allow the Greeks to (eventually) build Vineyards in Athens- reflecting Attica's role as one of early centers of origin for viticulture, and the great importance of wine production to the ancient Greek economy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece_and_wine

I'll try and get a version with all these changes added to Red's last version up soon enough- though Red you can of course feel free to stick these changes in yourself first, if you're confident you can sort through my convoluted account of how I juggled all the bonuses around in southern Spain.


Regards,
Northstar
 
Red, I'll get that updated map version to you a bit later- but right now I've been more focused finding additional things that need to be improved.


My latest cause: seals in Scotland.


After realizing that the Scottish culture required the "Seals and Sealions" bonus in the city radius in order to be built (as well as a hill tile), and that there was no seal resource *anywhere in the British Isles*, I decided to go about fixing this...


A little research revealed that northern Scotland does indeed have a HUGE seal population, and the largest breeding populations are found on the island of Orkney (in fact the island's name once meant "seal island") just off the coast of northern Scotland.

Take a look at these links- the first is about recent decisions to re-allow seal hunting in northern Scotland, the second is the Wikipedia article on Orkney.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3634621.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkney


As such, I've decided to add a seal resource to northern Scotland as well.


Also, in looking at the British Isles, I couldn't help but repeatedly notice the presence of large amounts of open, lush terrain in the southern part of the main island (around the English start location).

This is wholly inaccurate- not only is the "Lush" terrain type meant to reflect significantly warmer and more fertile climates in the game (a more accurate terrain type would be Grassland), but more inaccurately, most of Britain was heavily forested throughout the early human era.

The modern open expanses of grassland we see today are in large part the result of extensive deforestation and semi-permanent human-induced alterations to the environment- with the maintenance of large animal herds (particularly sheep) helping to prevent reforestation in modern times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_British_Isles

As such, I feel the need to add at least a couple forest tiles to southern Britain as well. Perhaps over food resources, to encourage deforestation to access them, as according to the Wikipedia article on Neolithic Britain:

"early agricultural communities undertook mass deforestation across the islands, dramatically and permanently transforming the landscape."


Regards,
Northstar
 
Red, I'll get that updated map version to you a bit later- but right now I've been more focused finding additional things that need to be improved.


My latest cause: seals in Scotland.


After realizing that the Scottish culture required the "Seals and Sealions" bonus in the city radius in order to be built (as well as a hill tile), and that there was no seal resource *anywhere in the British Isles*, I decided to go about fixing this...


A little research revealed that northern Scotland does indeed have a HUGE seal population, and the largest breeding populations are found on the island of Orkney (in fact the island's name once meant "seal island") just off the coast of northern Scotland.

Take a look at these links- the first is about recent decisions to re-allow seal hunting in northern Scotland, the second is the Wikipedia article on Orkney.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3634621.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkney


As such, I've decided to add a seal resource to northern Scotland as well.


Also, in looking at the British Isles, I couldn't help but repeatedly notice the presence of large amounts of open, lush terrain in the southern part of the main island (around the English start location).

This is wholly inaccurate- not only is the "Lush" terrain type meant to reflect significantly warmer and more fertile climates in the game (a more accurate terrain type would be Grassland), but more inaccurately, most of Britain was heavily forested throughout the early human era.

The modern open expanses of grassland we see today are in large part the result of extensive deforestation and semi-permanent human-induced alterations to the environment- with the maintenance of large animal herds (particularly sheep) helping to prevent reforestation in modern times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_British_Isles

As such, I feel the need to add at least a couple forest tiles to southern Britain as well. Perhaps over food resources, to encourage deforestation to access them, as according to the Wikipedia article on Neolithic Britain:

"early agricultural communities undertook mass deforestation across the islands, dramatically and permanently transforming the landscape."


Regards,
Northstar

The reason for lush was give the English AI a bonus in order to compete... otherwise it tends to stagnate.
It was a balance issue more than anything else.
 
Redwallyzl, it doesn't appear you cleaned the WorldBuilder file you attempted to upload before correctly.

Attempts to load the map as a Scenario (in the same manner as I would normally start a GEM game) lead to an error.

Please utilize the guide to making GEM Edits on this page, AND FOLLOW ALL STEPS CAREFULLY:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=491406

You will probably need to make your changes to an earlier version of the map all over again- but since I'm about to upload an updated version of the GEM (it will include all changes made thus far to Italy- including your Obsidian proxies- as well as additional changes I've described above and below. It will also include edits to Britain/Scotland, Greece, and southern Iberia), I suggest working off that one- which I will have cleaned and tested to make sure it loads correctly.


Regards,
Northstar
 
The reason for lush was give the English AI a bonus in order to compete... otherwise it tends to stagnate.
It was a balance issue more than anything else.

Britain *should* lag behind when starting in Britain. Historically, the heavy forestation of the land (which required labor-intensive slash-and-burn or other forms of clearing) and its isolation as an island led to the area developing slowly.

Some AI's simply don't start in as good an area- you wouldn't expect the Aztecs to conquer the Old World in a realistic Earth map, would you?


Anyways, I'll leave the Lush terrain- but I will be adding forests over much of it (as well as two additional forests in the hills of northern Italy and Cisalpine Gaul, and a single additional forest to western Spain) in order to better reflect the heavy forestation of these areas (remember, at the beginning of the human era OVER HALF of Earth's land area was forested. This averages unforested in area like the Sahara, Central Asian Steppe, and African Savannah, as well as occasional grassy areas in the midst of otherwise forested terrain!)


Regards,
Northstar
 
OK, so I've made my edits, cleaned and fixed (Red, keep in mind there are additional steps required after using WBcleaner) the WB save, and uploaded it.


I added resources to the following locations:


- Added Grapes bonus to the Greek start tile (reflects Athens, and more broadly Attica surrounding it, as one of the earliest locations for the origin of viticulture, and allows the Greeks to eventually build vineyards- which is otherwise impossible even with Great Farmers without replacing another bonus in the city radius)


- Added Grapes bonus to the island of Madeira (located southwest of Spain)- to reflect the immense importance of viticulture to the economy of this island (Madeiran Wine was famous throughout Europe), as well as the suitability of the island for viticulture (I am uncertain if the area contained native grapes, but it doesn't matter- even the ancient Greeks carried grape vines with them to many of the areas they colonized- and there is a high chance of the island being colonized long before a Great Farmer can possibly place a Grapes bonus on the island first)

- Added Lead Ore and Silver Ore to the southwest of Spain, as described previously. Moved around the Barley, Pig, Donkey, Iron, and Sulphur bonuses to make room for the new metals; and also added a second Donkey resource in the far southeast of Spain to reflect the native asses (donkeys) in this area as well as compensate for the significant weakening of the agricultural potential of southern Spain due to the relocation of the Barley resource to a less optimal location. Also, changes one Grassland tile to Plains and one Plains tile to Grassland, as described above, to reflect relative agricultural fertility in different parts of southwest Spain.


-Added two Seal bonuses to the northern Scotland area- one to the east of the Mushrooms bonus, and one on the island to the northeast of the Scottish coast. As shown previously, this area is home to an enormous seal population- and both areas are important seal breeding grounds and shore locations where they rest from hunting at sea. This seal population has been hunted by humans for thousands of years- since at least Neolithic times.



I also added forests and made terrain modifications in the following locations:

- Added a marsh tile north of the Aztec start location (several loadings of the map utilizing the Aztecs- the first on the civ list- reminded me that the Aztecs need a marsh tile in the radius from their start location to reflect Lake Tenochtitlan and allow the Chinampas agricultural "building" to eventually be built here- for which the Aztecs were so famous. The high movement cost of the Marsh tile also makes the position a bit more defensible- reflecting the difficulty of assaulting a city with its core on the middle of a lake, as was the historical Aztec capitol!)

http://mexicanhistory.org/aztecmap.jpg


- Added one forest tile to the west coast of Spain, on top of the Apple bonus in the more fertile Lusitania region (this tile was also the one changed from Plains to Grassland). This reflects the heavier forestation in the more fertile *western* regions of Spain/Portugal (as opposed to the extreme south- which has always been infertile and never been heavily forested) before the initiation of mining by the locals (many of the forests in southern and western Spain were clear-cut for charcoal for smelting metals, rather than for the more common in other areas cause of agriculture)


- Added FIVE forests to southern Britain- surrounding the English start tile. This reflects the *heavy* forestation that prevailed until the development of agriculture, when many of these forests were burned to provide access to the underlying farmland. At least three of these tiles will have to be burned by the player/AI to provide access to the underlying agricultural bonuses that were already there (such as Wheat). This is to reflect history- regardless of whether it is an obstacle to development (in actuality, tile production is much more important than tile food production early in the game, as large amounts of food are accessible through food "buildings"- so this actually HELPS development). It also forces the player to make some important choices about land use and when to clear forests...


- Added FOUR forests to Northern Italy (aka Cisalpine Gaul). These are mostly located on the hills in the area (although one is on the lowland tile containing stone), much in line with the actual historical geography of the area- forested hills, but grassy lowlands.

- Added two forests to France/Gaul- one on the Mushrooms bonus near the Celtic start (not only was this area originally forested, but it only makes sense- as mushrooms largely grow in the shade of forests, which prevents their drying out), and one to the north of the Horses bonus on the western coast.

- Added two forests to Ireland- one on the tile with the bonus village, and one on the tile with the Cow bonus. Both of these areas were eventually deforested for herding and agriculture, but were forested before the arrival of agriculture to the area.

- Added one forest in Northern Scotland- on the Mushrooms bonus. The forests in this area would have been relatively marginal, due to the harsh climate- it wouldn't have taken much human disturbance to clear them out, as trees in climates like this grow *very* slowly... So I was a bit iffy about this tile, as it wouldn't actually be of much use to humans for long- but more marginal/ slow-growing tiles in Russia are already forested. I think, however, if the primary utilization of this tile is for mushroom gathering, and tree cutting is very limited, that perhaps the forests could remain intact.


Another note on Italy- I forgot to add an Almonds bonus to westernmost tile of Sicily (Redwallyzl, please add it when you work back in your previous edits to this version of the map so that the map loads correctly now). This area is home to extensive almond cultivation:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/297474/Italy/26994/Forestry (see the section on "Tree Crops")

http://www.italian-connection.com/destinations/all_trips/grand_tour_sicily.html

The almonds were brought to the area in an early Pre-Columbian exchange- probably in ancient times, as part of the spread of the crop from the Near East. No evidence of large-scale almond production is found in the Near East, Sicily, or anywhere else until the Early Bronze Age, however:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond#Origin_and_history


Regards,
Northstar
 

Attachments

Red, use the versions I uploaded, and re-institute your changes into them (it'd also be appreciated if you threw in the Almonds to the westernmost tile of Sicily. See the links I posted earlier for the research backing this change).

Make sure to create both NoPreset and PreColumbian versions when you're done (the difference is which original map you copy the header from after using WBCleaner. If you don't know what I'm talking about here, then you *REALLY* need to read the map-making tutorial I posted a link to more carefully... It's Step 8 of the 10-step process they post there.)

The map-making tutorial, once again:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=491406


Regards,
Northstar
 
Basically just from this list. so many this is going to take hours.:cringe:

4tvpm9.png


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bogs

These are the things I've worked on so far.

2 in Estonia
2 in the Czech republic
4 in north Germany(they seem heavily concentrated there)
1 in the center of Ireland
1 in Denmark:viking:
3 in Sweden
1 in Finland
1 in Switzerland though apparently they have a ton everywhere. the list is several feet long.:confused:
2 in England
1 in Scotland (these two generally represent all the various bogs in the area)
1 in Wisconsin
1 in Michigan :) (ill place it there even though i have to remove forest)
1 in North Carolina
1 in east Ottawa (literally next to Ottawa)
1 on by the coast of New Hampshire
1 in Pennsylvania
1 in Ohio
also apparently a forth of Russia east of the Urals. so i mixed them in with the swamps

i really think they should make a wooded bog as well as a bog and make the tile look decent on hills. also change them to base terrain tiles and let you build on them its not like they covered the whole area fore the most part. also mangroves that can be placed on costs like trees.

I've had to put a few on tiles with resources. i hope that ok.

Someone should look into forest cover before people began deforestation i have a feeling there should be less open space in Europe and North America

Also i cant find any evidence for all those salt flats around the Caspian and Aral. rock desert seems to fit more.

n5j50x.png


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ustyurt_Plateau
 
This should be good. I will work on some research and additions tomorrow probably bogs and mangroves seeing as there are none on the map.

Sounds good- I'm going to try and restrain myself from making any more additions to the map in the meantime (especially as I've got real-life stuff to worry about), although I might suggest one or two additional features I think need addition...


Regards,
Northstar
 
oh? what things would those be?

Well, I would like to point you to some improvements to the area east of the Caspian Sea. The reason you can find no evidence for the salt flats is because there are no salt flats there...

The area due east of the Caspian Sea (the "Turan Depression") can best be characterized as "Dunes". See the first link for an image:

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/...22BDzpF-0R9qOWd7PYrXk1ZJO7jnA3AG3xE_seSNv_xFQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turan_Depression


The area to the immediate north and northeast of the Caspian Sea (the "Caspian Depression") is actually much more fertile- it includes large areas of marshland and shrubland (both terrain types already exist in-game, and we can easily replace some of the salt flats with them) in the eastern part:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Depression

The western part of the Caspian Depression (the "Ryn Desert") is a semi-arid desert ("Desert" rather than "Dunes" or "Salt Flat" terrain), and is remarkably contrasted with the much wetter marshland terrain immediately to its east...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryn_Desert

The wetter marshland region east of the Ryn Desert also includes large oil (these area already implemented- although the underlying terrain should be Marshs, not Salt Flats) and natural gas deposits. So I would suggest adding a Natural Gas bonus as well as changing the underlying terrain type...


If you want more detailed information, and want to "fix" the region to be more realistic (I have neither the time nor the willpower for such a monumental undertaking), then see this book on Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fv...Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=caspian marshland&f=false


Regards,
Northstar
 
This book also outlines the historical resources of the Capsian Sea and eastern Black Sea coastal regions better:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ad...BA#v=onepage&q=Caspian "salt marshes"&f=false


Per the book above, the salt marshes north of the Caspian Sea should have a "Salt" bonus resource (in addition to Oil and Natural Gas bonuses I mentioned earlier), as they were an important source of salt exports to the rest of Russia and the world. This region traded heavily in salt with caravans traveling the Silk Road, one branch of which passed through this region (although the route of the Silk Road could of course end up playing out differently in-game).

There should also be a *LOT* of fish resources (and perhaps also some Clams- for the "Cod" bonus buildings and to reflect less important shellfish harvesting) in the Caspian Sea and (to a lesser degree) eastern Black Sea- these regions were extremely important fisheries.


Please implement as many of these changes as possible. I really don't have the willpower left right now to do them myself.


Regards,
Northstar
 
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