Alternative Map for DOC

[Temujin8k]

Which new regions do you want to add? Maybe we should have an open discussion about that aspect. Thought about it for some time but couldn't come up with additional regions that would be needed (main concerns are city art styles and religion spread), although I'm open to other perspectives?

• Split up Europe into France, Germany, Holland, Poland, etc.
• Split Transoxania off Persia
• Split off Levant from Mesopotamia and Hejaz from Arabia
• Split the Philippines off Indonesia
• Split Congo off South Africa

Not sure if needed:

• Split China into northern and southern?
• A Bohemia-Austria-Hungary super-region?
• Split Scandinavia into Sweden and Denmark-Norway?
• Split the non-Ethiopian part off the Ethiopia region
• A new region covering modern Afghanistan? (Herat, Kabul, Ghazna, Qandahar, etc)
• Caucasus? (Small only, though)
• Split the United States and Canada into three regions each?

Rome and Naples should be 1W, maybe Florence too. Not sure if Florence AND Milan is a good idea on this map to be honest.

I don't think so. Or maybe I just looked at Google Maps on the cities wrongly. (Yes, I use it as basis for city placement, sorry.) That was the best compromise I made to lessen overlap between Florence and Rome.

Speaking of Florence and Milan, well, they became fine cities in the run I made (screenshot). Just added food resources. The Republic civic really helped them grow, although I think Italy should have a +1 per specialist as a UP instead for them to have that benefit even after transitioning out of Republic.

Also, I don't like combining Corsica and Sardinia

I don't like it too. But I'd prefer that over moving both one tile south. Unless we shift Africa 1 tile south too? Sardinia, at least, looks like it needs a city placed on it.

 

[Leoreth]

• Split up Europe into France, Germany, Holland, Poland, etc.
• Split Transoxania off Persia
• Split off Levant from Mesopotamia and Hejaz from Arabia
• Split the Philippines off Indonesia
• Split Congo off South Africa

Not sure if needed:

• Split China into northern and southern?
• A Bohemia-Austria-Hungary super-region?
• Split Scandinavia into Sweden and Denmark-Norway?
• Split the non-Ethiopian part off the Ethiopia region
• A new region covering modern Afghanistan? (Herat, Kabul, Ghazna, Qandahar, etc)
• Caucasus? (Small only, though)
• Split the United States and Canada into three regions each?

Okay, I can see splitting Europe and creating separate Philippines and Congo reasons (for religious reasons) and also splitting the current Ethiopia into Ethiopia proper and Swahili coast (Orthodoxy vs. Islam as well as city art). Otherwise I don't see the reasoning here. More sophisticated American regions might become interesting if we include native American civs with multiple city art styles (I think HR has distinct art for Iroquois, Sioux, Mississippian and Anasazi civs). Can you explain your thoughts more?

 

[Temujin8k]

So what you said just got me rethinking what I said again, and based on the reasons you mentioned, here are my re-evaluations (not written = I concede to your opinions ):

• Transoxiana: Well, we can't really lump this up with Persia. I think this would be helpful especially if there already is the Turkic civ, and if ever we'd want to add the Islamic split (the map's larger now, so I think it can be more feasible?).
• Hejaz: I guess it can still be lumped into Arabia, after all. Oops.
• Levant: If there's gonna be some Crusade kind of UHV or mechanic, we can split off Levant from Mesopotamia so that controlling Levant does not necessitate having to go as far as Mosul or Baghdad to achieve that.
• Bohemia-Austria-Hungary: Religion purposes. The area is still predominantly Catholic, if I'm not mistaken. And we can modify the Turkish UHV3 to include this super-region instead of Vienna only, or maybe at least exclude Prague. Hungary was under Ottoman control for some time, after all. About city art, I'm thinking of another artstyle similar to RFC:Europe where Hungary and Poland had this different artstyle, Medieval art similar to the Vikings yet Renaissance art similar to the English.
• China: Buddhism spread faster in the south, right? Actually the south has a culture somewhat different from that of the north, but I'm not sure if that's the right way to represent it.
• Caucasus: Religion too. Islam should not spread readily into that region. Splitting it off of Anatolia will help. Also, its city art shouldn't be Crescent. That would be a relatively small region, though. Also, for some time I've been wishing for a new Turkish artstyle, similar to SoI--a mixture of Graeco-Roman and Crescent art, which applies for Anatolia only.
• United States: Religion reasons? Although I'm not sure if it should really matter. What you mentioned about the Native American civs are interesting, too!

 

[Temujin8k]

Also, I'm thinking of increasing the number of regions by splitting them up to somewhat simplify the stability and war maps by assigning a stability value to each region for each civ, instead? Something similar to SoI and RFCE, but with exceptions if necessary. Not sure if that would even work on DoC, though.

 

[Leoreth]

Neither of these are really convincing. Future religions should not determine current regions, and regions are irrelevant for UHVs. As far as Austria/Hungary is concerned, they can easily be lumped into a Central European region with Germany.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

I don't like it too. But I'd prefer that over moving both one tile south. Unless we shift Africa 1 tile south too? Sardinia, at least, looks like it needs a city placed on it.

Shifting Africa 1S was my idea. It would also enable us to extend the Balkans by 1 row, which would alleviate some of the crowding issues there.

 

[need my speed]

Or maybe you could compress the Sahara / Africa by removing one row of tiles there, if that is easier?

 

[Jules Auburn]

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)
-snip-

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

Here's how it would look if Europe was shifted one tile west, without further editing:

Spoiler :

Here's the original, for comparison:

Spoiler :

It, of course, further shrinks the Atlantic, but it does add some much needed room to Anatolia and Central Europe.

Now, I say "without further editing" because I took the liberty of playing around with Northern Europe, especially around the Baltic.

Spoiler :

Denmark isn't supposed to own Skania; oh well.

Some of the changes are as follows:

• I shifted the entire region north by a tile. This allowed for an increase in definition of the Baltic coast.
• Jutland is now four tiles tall, as somebody requested some time ago.
• Copenhagen can now be reached through Skania, which should help the AI control Denmark
• Islands were added to the east and west of Zealand to represent Fyn, Lolland, Borneholm, et al.
• Three tiles were removed: one at the mouth of the Oder, and two at the mouth of the Vistula. I did this mostly for aesthetics, as it defines Pomerania and Prussia rather well. It also gives modern Germany a second port, even if it is a bit fictitious.
  
• I redid the entire shape of the Baltic countries. Previously, it was wide and short. It is now taller, and a bit thinner. I was lucky that the coast shapes allowed for a surprisingly nice Bay of Riga.
• Given the extra space in the Baltic, Gotland is now represented by a land tile, rather than an island tile. Aland is also in a more correct position.
  
• Gotaland is a bit thinner, to allow the taller Denmark. Goteborg should is now placed one tile to the east of where it was.
• The shape of the rivers Oder, Vistula, Neman, and Daugava were adjusted to make better use of the newfound space.

To show how crowded it can get, I added cities in a modern configuration.

Spoiler :

While it is still quite crowded, moving Europe over a tile did free up some room; if somebody sorely wanted to have all of these cities, they could justify it.

Spoiler :

That's all for now. Any constructive criticism is welcome.

Spoiler :

As a bonus, here's a picture of Interwar central Europe:

 

[Fresol]

At the rate things are going, by 2020 Europe will be the largest of all continents on earth.

Is it really necessary to set cities that cannot fully work their first ring onto this map? Especially when their corresponding civilizations haven't been implemented.

 

[Leoreth]

Looks good. I really like the diagonally connected Zealand, it allows easier connection to continental Europe for the Vikings and gives them control over the Baltic Sea.

I assume all the cities there are only for context, no AI will ever found cities this way and I certainly won't do this placement in a scenario.

 

[borhap88]

A little objection about Sardinia. I think that southern tile should be plains and the northern one hills. Widest plain is around Cagliari (biggest city in the island), called Campidano, I've never understood why Rhye designed it in that way.

 

[Leoreth]

I assume it is because northern Sardinia is in Rome's BFC and he wanted to put a sheep there.

 

[ozqar]

That's all for now. Any constructive criticism is welcome.

[/spoiler]

I like the shift + the edits you made around the Baltic. Based on the zoomed out maps (where you can see all of Europe to Western Russia), I'd say that the area between the Odessa and Vilnius should be widened one tile northwest/southeast. The gains should be for the Balkans (Hungary-Serbia-Romania) and for Ukraine, which are all very undersized.

Scandinavia can be pushed out and bent a bit more to accommodate if needed, although perhaps that's not necessary (it's already quite bent anyway). The Black Sea can also accommodate for this by being squeezed a bit, it's disproportionately large on the Western part now in any case.

As for the whole Corse / Sardinia debate... I'd do without two separate islands or be ok with two one-tile islands there. But if (and a big IF, that is) the Sahara must be shortened, then I think we should only squeeze it in the Western side, so Egypt does not get shortened too.

 

[Leoreth]

Diagonally connected Sardinia and Corsica is fine, really.

 

[Temujin8k]

Here's how it would look if Europe was shifted one tile west, without further editing:

Spoiler :

Here's the original, for comparison:

Spoiler :

It, of course, further shrinks the Atlantic, but it does add some much needed room to Anatolia and Central Europe.

Now, I say "without further editing" because I took the liberty of playing around with Northern Europe, especially around the Baltic.

Spoiler :

Denmark isn't supposed to own Skania; oh well.

Some of the changes are as follows:

• I shifted the entire region north by a tile. This allowed for an increase in definition of the Baltic coast.
• Jutland is now four tiles tall, as somebody requested some time ago.
• Copenhagen can now be reached through Skania, which should help the AI control Denmark
• Islands were added to the east and west of Zealand to represent Fyn, Lolland, Borneholm, et al.
• Three tiles were removed: one at the mouth of the Oder, and two at the mouth of the Vistula. I did this mostly for aesthetics, as it defines Pomerania and Prussia rather well. It also gives modern Germany a second port, even if it is a bit fictitious.
  
• I redid the entire shape of the Baltic countries. Previously, it was wide and short. It is now taller, and a bit thinner. I was lucky that the coast shapes allowed for a surprisingly nice Bay of Riga.
• Given the extra space in the Baltic, Gotland is now represented by a land tile, rather than an island tile. Aland is also in a more correct position.
  
• Gotaland is a bit thinner, to allow the taller Denmark. Goteborg should is now placed one tile to the east of where it was.
• The shape of the rivers Oder, Vistula, Neman, and Daugava were adjusted to make better use of the newfound space.

To show how crowded it can get, I added cities in a modern configuration.

Spoiler :

While it is still quite crowded, moving Europe over a tile did free up some room; if somebody sorely wanted to have all of these cities, they could justify it.

Spoiler :

That's all for now. Any constructive criticism is welcome.

Spoiler :

As a bonus, here's a picture of Interwar central Europe:

Not too crowded! I think we can omit Talinn and Minsk, though. And, Prague moved 1S?

 

[Ani Taneen]

Can I just nitpick about one thing? The Dead Sea tiles should be desert hills.

 

[AtlantaMarty]

Here's how it would look if Europe was shifted one tile west, without further editing:

Spoiler :

Here's the original, for comparison:

Spoiler :

It, of course, further shrinks the Atlantic, but it does add some much needed room to Anatolia and Central Europe.

Now, I say "without further editing" because I took the liberty of playing around with Northern Europe, especially around the Baltic.

Spoiler :

Denmark isn't supposed to own Skania; oh well.

Some of the changes are as follows:

• I shifted the entire region north by a tile. This allowed for an increase in definition of the Baltic coast.
• Jutland is now four tiles tall, as somebody requested some time ago.
• Copenhagen can now be reached through Skania, which should help the AI control Denmark
• Islands were added to the east and west of Zealand to represent Fyn, Lolland, Borneholm, et al.
• Three tiles were removed: one at the mouth of the Oder, and two at the mouth of the Vistula. I did this mostly for aesthetics, as it defines Pomerania and Prussia rather well. It also gives modern Germany a second port, even if it is a bit fictitious.
  
• I redid the entire shape of the Baltic countries. Previously, it was wide and short. It is now taller, and a bit thinner. I was lucky that the coast shapes allowed for a surprisingly nice Bay of Riga.
• Given the extra space in the Baltic, Gotland is now represented by a land tile, rather than an island tile. Aland is also in a more correct position.
  
• Gotaland is a bit thinner, to allow the taller Denmark. Goteborg should is now placed one tile to the east of where it was.
• The shape of the rivers Oder, Vistula, Neman, and Daugava were adjusted to make better use of the newfound space.

To show how crowded it can get, I added cities in a modern configuration.

Spoiler :

While it is still quite crowded, moving Europe over a tile did free up some room; if somebody sorely wanted to have all of these cities, they could justify it.

Spoiler :

That's all for now. Any constructive criticism is welcome.

Spoiler :

As a bonus, here's a picture of Interwar central Europe:

Here is my feedback
1. Asia Minor looks better when stretched from the eastern side (i.e. 1 extra column in the Trebizond area) than on the western side like you did, but this is minor and can be easily changed - here's my proposal for Asia Minor + Byzantine city placement

2. I really don't like the land connection between Denmark and Sweden, for three reasons, some more valid/important than others.
a. It turns the Baltic into a lake and makes Atlantic access for Baltic civs dependent on good relations with or control of Copenhagen
b. It's not really geographically accurate
c. It looks rather strange
3. The new Pomeranian coastline looks nice around Stettin, but I don't like the way it gives Berlin sea access. The two tiles removed from the Danzig area sort of looks like someone took a bite out of Poland, though.
4. The way you did the shift made the Vistula 1 tile wider, which shouldn't actually happen. Just put Warsaw on the East side and leave the Vistula the way it was - Warsaw (and Cracow) are on both sides of the Vistula, so either side is equally geographically accurate.
5. Prague should be 1S

Overall, great work

 

[Darnokthemage]

Other nitpick, there should be more marshes in northern sweden.

 

[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.)

Moving Thessalonica up to where the mountain currently is doesn't overcrowd Belgrade.

Here's my proposed Austro-Hungarian city placement. Not including the city tile itself, Prague and Belgrade have 7 tiles each, and Vienna and Budapest have 9 tiles each. Dyrrhachium would be able to make use of the Dalmatian tiles and the Adriatic Sea. Putting Thessalonica in the more accurate place still allows a good Belgrade.

 

[Temujin8k]

Putting Thessalonica in the more accurate place still allows a good Belgrade.

Seven tiles seems like a choke to me, but it can be addressed with more resources. I still don't see how that is more geographically accurate, though.

Spoiler :

Edit: Both tiles would be somewhat geographically accurate, actually. But it's better to give breathing room to Austria+Hungary+Serbia; Athens has water tiles for growth, anyway.