Alternative Map for DOC

[merijn_v1]

Any tiles which has a settlervalue of 90 or above is historical. 20 is the default value.

The editor currently does not support editing the flipzone. You have to make the changes manually in Areas.py.

The export button of the other maps stores the changes to a simple text file. You can overwrite the old maps with the exported ones.

 

[Leoreth]

Flipzones etc. are specified using a rectangle delineated by the bottom left and top right tile (they are called TL and BR in the code ...). If your desired shape is not a rectangle, remove undesired tiles with the exceptions array.

 

[merijn_v1]

I'm currently working on a flipzone editor. This should make editing the flipzones easier.

It's almost finished. I was able to reuse most of my code from the other editors with some minor changes, which made it a lot easier and faster to code.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

I get your point. However, Thessalonica is near the coast and that protruding piece of land--just enough reason to place it there. Besides, it's less constricting for Thessalonica to crowned Athens and Smyrna than Belgrade, which already suffers from too much crowding.

It's still outside of Belgrade's BFC, and it's better for Salonica to conflict with Belgrade than with Athens or Smyrna, because Salonica and Belgrade will usually be owned by different civs, which means that a conflict between them will incentivize players to invest in culture in that region. Also it looks better.

Sounds okay, but I think the current one is good too. Bautos42 also plans to have that tile as Trabzon as seen on his screenshots. Also, moving it one tile east would lessen the viability of a Caucasian city due to increase in overlap.

The ideal solution would be extending Asia Minor to the West by 1 column, and shifting all of Europe 1W. (This is also good because it allows Sinope without overcrowding) This would look more realistic, and allow Trebizond to be in a more accurate place without crowding Armenia as much. @Leoreth and @Bautos42 - thoughts?

I think I get what you mean. Though I'm currently redoing the 3000 BC scenario, and one of the new changes is the Rhine River. I moved the section of the river near Frankfurt 1E and will be moving Frankfurt 1E too when doing the later scenarios. I just knew it's on the Main River, but the problem is that it the Main River does not seem to be on the map, and Frankfurt is very near the Rhine, anyway.

The Rhine shouldn't be moved IMHO. The current location is accurate, and looks better than the other permutations I've experimented with. Frankfort doesn't need the fresh water access being next to a river would bring it - there's already a lot of health-boosting resources in the area.

That suggestion has been around for some time too. So, no coexisting, Krakow and Warsaw, I guess?

Cracow and Warsaw can still coexist, and they should, given that they're both historically very important. Compared to omitting important cities or putting them in the wrong location, crowding is by far the lesser evil, especially if you don't overdo it. (i.e. don't add Posen and/or Stettin, or try to squeeze 3 cities into Ireland)

Allowing Konigsberg to coexist with Danzig will create the same crowding problem that the Krakow and Warsaw placement I did has. Especially if Vilnius needs to be placed (to represent Lithuania). They're just too near.

They're both hugely historically significant, and it can be done without too much crowding. See the above photo

 

[Orbii]

I fail to see how that Konigsberg is doing anything but crowding. It has like what, 3 tiles it might be able to work? Honestly the Baltic/Poland area in the last screenshot is just obscenely crowded, and Konigsberg is the worst offender.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

I fail to see how that Konigsberg is doing anything but crowding. It has like what, 3 tiles it might be able to work? Honestly the Baltic/Poland area in the last screenshot is just obscenely crowded, and Konigsberg is the worst offender.

The same could be said about Amsterdam in the original Rhye's map. Yes, it does crowd the region somewhat, but it is important enough to justify inclusion anyway.
If it can fit on the current map (and Koenigsberg is preplaced in the 1700 AD scenario currently), it can fit on the bigger one.

 

[Temujin8k]

It's still outside of Belgrade's BFC, and it's better for Salonica to conflict with Belgrade than with Athens or Smyrna, because Salonica and Belgrade will usually be owned by different civs, which means that a conflict between them will incentivize players to invest in culture in that region. Also it looks better.

For that, Belgrade will only have 4-5 tiles and will grow only to like size 4 or 5? It's better to crowd Thessalonica since it has more water tiles anyway. Unless you'd intend it such that population of Thessalonica >>>>> population of Belgrade. My only concern is that Belgrad cannot grow adequately with the number of tiles it has. Also, Rome, Byzantium, and the Ottomans held both Thessalonica and Belgrade at some point. If I am to play any of those civs and happen to hold both, I won't be able to see a grown Belgrade, especially. (Sorry, I really feel that Belgrade is a victim of overcrowding.)

The ideal solution would be extending Asia Minor to the West by 1 column, and shifting all of Europe 1W. (This is also good because it allows Sinope without overcrowding) This would look more realistic, and allow Trebizond to be in a more accurate place without crowding Armenia as much. @Leoreth and @Bautos42 - thoughts?

View attachment 479648

Good idea, looks actually nice. But then, as mentioned in earlier posts, this would only unnecessarily extend Russia further, which is already wider to begin with.

The Rhine shouldn't be moved IMHO. The current location is accurate, and looks better than the other permutations I've experimented with. Frankfort doesn't need the fresh water access being next to a river would bring it - there's already a lot of health-boosting resources in the area.

Spoiler :

I did something like this to the Germany area. Frankfurt still touches the Rhine, but only on an elbow, though.

Cracow and Warsaw can still coexist, and they should, given that they're both historically very important. Compared to omitting important cities or putting them in the wrong location, crowding is by far the lesser evil, especially if you don't overdo it. (i.e. don't add Posen and/or Stettin, or try to squeeze 3 cities into Ireland)

View attachment 479647

They're both hugely historically significant, and it can be done without too much crowding. See the above photo

That's already too much for me. Not enough room for the cities to grow. I understand the historical significance part, though. Also, if Konigsberg and Danzig do coexist, Danzig will take away some tiles from Berlin too, whereas without Danzig, there is little overlap between Berlin and Konigsberg. Alternatively, have Danzig instead of Konigsberg. It will have increased overlap with Berlin, but will loosen up overlap with Vilnius and Riga.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

For that, Belgrade will only have 4-5 tiles and will grow only to like size 4 or 5? It's better to crowd Thessalonica since it has more water tiles anyway. Unless you'd intend it such that population of Thessalonica >>>>> population of Belgrade. My only concern is that Belgrad cannot grow adequately with the number of tiles it has. Also, Rome, Byzantium, and the Ottomans held both Thessalonica and Belgrade at some point. If I am to play any of those civs and happen to hold both, I won't be able to see a grown Belgrade, especially. (Sorry, I really feel that Belgrade is a victim of overcrowding.)

The best solution to that is adding a few more food resources to Serbia, not crowding Greece, which is more important to DoC, given that it is the core of several civs, whereas Serbia is never more than historical area.

Good idea, looks actually nice. But then, as mentioned in earlier posts, this would only unnecessarily extend Russia further, which is already wider to begin with.

Extending Russia further isn't a big deal. It doesn't make the game run any slower, given that it doesn't add tiles to the map, and it doesn't make the Russian game easier or harder. So it has no real disadvantages. Making Anatolia bigger like I proposed will allow better city placement for Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Turks, and be more accurate. So the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages in this case in my opinion, though I'd be interested in getting some more opinions. @Leoreth @Bautos42 @merijn_v1

I did something like this to the Germany area. Frankfurt still touches the Rhine, but only on an elbow, though.

That actually looks really nice - I like it. I do think that France and Iberia should be shifted 1N for accuracy, so I'm not sure how that would effect river placement because I'm not very good with WorldBuilder.

That's already too much for me. Not enough room for the cities to grow. I understand the historical significance part, though. Also, if Konigsberg and Danzig do coexist, Danzig will take away some tiles from Berlin too, whereas without Danzig, there is little overlap between Berlin and Konigsberg. Alternatively, have Danzig instead of Konigsberg. It will have increased overlap with Berlin, but will loosen up overlap with Vilnius and Riga.

Warsaw and Cracow both need to be there, no matter how crowded it is, for the same reason that Hamburg and Amsterdam are both in the current map. Also, this will enable a more realistic Polish partition.
Danzig and Koenigsberg should both be preplaced in the 1700 scenario, but the settler map for the 600 scenario should have it so they are both likely but not certain to be built

 

[Leoreth]

I agree that the enlarged Anatolia looks better, but obviously moving all of Europe around to accomplish it has less than trivial consequences. I'll need to look at it in the game to have an opinion.

I think Gdansk/Königsberg are still mutually exclusive on this map. Same with Vilnius and Minsk, unless we gain more space.

 

[ok-ck]

They're both hugely historically significant, and it can be done without too much crowding. See the above photo

I think you are missing the point of this mod somewhat, I don't think its aim is to place significant cities at exactly the exact spot it should to be "most accurate", the game is aimed more at the civilizations than the cities in such civilization, so obviously the tiles made historical and core should be justifiable as long as it doesn't ruin gameplay (gameplay not being king but them working in concert)

As of such it shouldn't be an aim to add a city for each country in Europe if it isn't even a civilization but just a province with lesser significance in another civ (balcans would be a good example)

Europe is already much larger than the rest of the world compared to real life size, should we downsize it for historical accuracy? to me having a city placed 1-2 tiles from its "accurate" spot would be ok, because it represents that city instead of a less significant one but still allows said city to be relevant in terms of gameplay and not purely a roleplaying option, you have to remember Civ 4 is not build as a real world simulator and has alot of abstractions that we have to work around to get "realistic" results.

Should Hamburg be placed inland because in real life it sits at a river rather than the ocean, even though Hamburg is a major port and trading hub, we would not be able to represent that by moving it inland

 

[AtlantaMarty]

I agree that the enlarged Anatolia looks better, but obviously moving all of Europe around to accomplish it has less than trivial consequences. I'll need to look at it in the game to have an opinion.

I think Gdansk/Königsberg are still mutually exclusive on this map. Same with Vilnius and Minsk, unless we gain more space.

How about this? (please forgive my terrible pixlr skills - I'm at college, and only have access to a Mac, thus can't use mapview to create a real map)

Asia Minor extended 1 column west, and the Balkans and Western Europe are moved 1W to compensate, whereas Central and Northeast Europe stay in place - the moving of West Europe 1W enables the insertion of another column of tiles into Central Europe, which helps alleviate spacing issues involving Cracow/Warsaw, Danzig/Koenigsberg, and possibly Vilna/Minsk.
The part of Europe that I moved 1W has been circled in black

Obviously, some regions on the border of where things were cut and paste (i.e. Scandinavia) will need some tweaking, but overall I think this is a good way to improve the representation of Germany/Poland and Asia Minor, and it also avoids expanding Russia.

@Leoreth what do you think?

 

[ok-ck]

Any tiles which has a settlervalue of 90 or above is historical. 20 is the default value.

The editor currently does not support editing the flipzone. You have to make the changes manually in Areas.py.

The export button of the other maps stores the changes to a simple text file. You can overwrite the old maps with the exported ones.

Ah I suspected it was 90 and above not more than 20, couldn't tell from the editor.

I hope to have a working file within a few days, if I have the drive maybe later today.

 

[ok-ck]

I think I found an issue with the editor, it is made for the old map size, so when you go beyond the old size it doesnt save the info properly, I was trying to work on Chinas settler values and I assume the old map ended around where their spawn is located on the new map, since a few tiles to the east I struggle giving values and I checked the export file and sure enough it seems to be right at the edge on what info it stores, I assume this can easily be fixed?

 

[merijn_v1]

The editor uses values for the maps size which are defined in Consts.py. (iWorldX and iWolrdY) You should change those values. (It might lead to some other errors IIRC though)

 

[ok-ck]

Just changing that value have basically broken everything, the overlay etc does not show up anymore

 

[Leoreth]

@Leoreth what do you think?

I don't really want to look at it, can you do your proposal in WB and then upload a screenshot here?

 

[AtlantaMarty]

I don't really want to look at it, can you do your proposal in WB and then upload a screenshot here?

How do you move large chunks of the map around in WB on Mac?

 

[Leoreth]

I don't think you can.

 

[1SDANi]

You should be able to using notepad++ though, or if you want to take the time you could automate the process with programming

 

[merijn_v1]

I may be able to write a WB editor that can move large portions of map at once. I'll give it a shot soon.