Yeah, here's the map:
Resources:
Here are sites for main prehispanic cities.
Tzintzuntzan was the Tarascan capital, a main rival of the Mexica people (they remained independent until the Spanish conquest). It's not in the right place (it should be 1S, but there's a mountain there), but it's in the future Guadalajara site, which I think is alright. Other main cities are too close together to represent properly.
And here are the main (modern) Mexican cities.
I'm posting because I have some questions about what the prehispanic vs. modern city placement does, especially thinking of maritime access.
The three main Mexican cities that should be there as a priority are Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey.
I placed Veracruz (the main port on the Gulf coast, and historical gateway into the country) 1 tile far too east that it is to allow better city placement, but that is only possible if Dani Baa is destroyed (or moved 1 tile west). In that scenario, the prehispanic city of La Venta (an Olmec city) could share Veracruz's spot.
In the Pacific coast, I placed Acapulco (the main port historically) - but Acapulco would be blocked if Dani Baa was moved west. Dani Baa is currently uninhabited, but it's super close to the city of Oaxaca, which would be colonial and modern name for it in the game, but it's not a major city (as the other two are).
Some other ideas (not in the map): the Colorado delta should be flood plains, and it would be nice if the Usumacinta/Grijalva delta (the river east of Veracruz) also had 1 tile of flood plains.
Not sure what's your long-term idea on resources (given the ongoing changes to the resource system), but one way to increase game diversity and "texture" it would be to have resources that are important regionally available in the map, even if they're only a couple of instances and will only benefit a civ or two. Specific civs could also have unique uses of resources if the effects are attached to their UBs.
- Cacao, for example, should give the same or similar benefits as coffee to any civ that has it, but for the Mayas and the Aztecs, it should provide gold (as it was used as currency) - this effect could be added to their UBs so it only benefits them.
- A really cool resource you could add in Mexico would be Agave (perhaps two or three instances, one next to Guadalajara, a second one next to Mérida, and if there's a third, that one in the Oaxaca region). 150 of the world's 200 types of agave are native to Mexico - some of them are used to make alcohol (tequila and mezcal) and some of them as textile fibers. Hence, agave could give gold and unhealthiness with the distillery (like banana, sugar, and wine), and give happiness with the weaver (like sheep, cotton, and dye).
Edit: Just checked and the main producing country is currently Colombia, with Nicaragua, Ecuador, Cuba, and the Philippines are also producing areas. Looking at this, I would advise to attach the distillery-type effect to the UBs of the Aztecs, Mayans, and Mexicans, and keep the weaver-type effects with the weaver building so that is available to everyone.
Agave is just a specific idea since it builds on the Mexico theme of the posts, the general point would be to explore civ-unique benefits of resources and to explore if having regionally-concentrated resources provide some diversity and texture to the game
