AtlantaMarty
No longer active
Lyons is more historically important, although Dijon might be better from a city spacing perspective.
Alternative Map for DOC
- Thread starter Bautos42
- Start date
AtlantaMarty
No longer active
Also, looking at the cities in Asia Minor, they line up with each other too much, it looks odd. I'm not sure how to rectify the situation, thoughBy the way, I've already made an initial version of the city placements. The screenshots gallery, as well as the savefile, can be found here.
This savegame is based on yesterday's latest commit (most recent commit in link) rather than today. Not sure if still compatible, haven't tested yet, but since Leo modified C++ header files in the DLL, I doubt it's still compatible.
Temujin8k
Fluyts, Grand Vizier of Your Mind
I concede, then.
Ah yes, I noticed that too. It also looks a bit weird to me. Not sure about the overlap but it looks fine, I guess. The map still is relatively small, after all.
AtlantaMarty
No longer active
Given that this map will need a new City Name Manager, it might be a good time to revisit the topic of Russian Romanization that I brought up a couple months ago.
I just saw this, and I wanted to thank whoever is responsible for this larger map. I can't thank you enough. This opens up so many possibilities. This is my favorite potential change to this mod EVER. (And there have been some excellent updates to this mod.)
that is very historically accurate
that would be best. northern china had essentially no naval tradition before it expanded south.
Publicola
King
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2014
- Messages
- 759
Great map, and great discussion. My thanks to @Bautos42 for his remarkable work.
I have two primary objections to the original map:
1) Italy needs to be bigger -- at least a single column wider. It should be easy enough to shift North Africa to compensate, to preserve the passage between Sicily and Carthage. But given how central it is and how many essential cities we want (need) to fit on the peninsula, an extra column just makes sense. This would also help represent the Apennines running down the center.
Alternately: if you don't want to give Italy too much space, you could add extra tiles only to the northern region (between the Po Valley and Rome) which contains all the most important cities, while keeping the southern part of the 'boot' as narrow as before.
2) The west coast of North America feels off. That's the area I'm most familiar with (being a native) and the flatness of it rubs me the wrong way. Specifically, the 'Pacific Northwest' region -- stretching from the Puget Sound to the region north of San Francisco (starting roughly two tiles north of the river mouth) -- should be expanded one tile further west. The curve of the coastline should be clearer south of San Francisco as well -- it 'pulls' eastward as it approaches Mexico, so that the coast from San Francisco to San Diego is roughly parallel to the western coastline of Mexico itself. I'd also suggest cleaning up Puget Sound area -- you could pretty easily represent the Sound as a one-tile river running north south, but there should be a water tile with islands north of it (representing the San Juans). From there, the coast follows a pretty straight line to Alaska, though it runs much more north-westerly, rather than the current 'north by northwest' direction that's represented by the map.
EDIT: a few more random notes:
I have two primary objections to the original map:
1) Italy needs to be bigger -- at least a single column wider. It should be easy enough to shift North Africa to compensate, to preserve the passage between Sicily and Carthage. But given how central it is and how many essential cities we want (need) to fit on the peninsula, an extra column just makes sense. This would also help represent the Apennines running down the center.
Alternately: if you don't want to give Italy too much space, you could add extra tiles only to the northern region (between the Po Valley and Rome) which contains all the most important cities, while keeping the southern part of the 'boot' as narrow as before.
2) The west coast of North America feels off. That's the area I'm most familiar with (being a native) and the flatness of it rubs me the wrong way. Specifically, the 'Pacific Northwest' region -- stretching from the Puget Sound to the region north of San Francisco (starting roughly two tiles north of the river mouth) -- should be expanded one tile further west. The curve of the coastline should be clearer south of San Francisco as well -- it 'pulls' eastward as it approaches Mexico, so that the coast from San Francisco to San Diego is roughly parallel to the western coastline of Mexico itself. I'd also suggest cleaning up Puget Sound area -- you could pretty easily represent the Sound as a one-tile river running north south, but there should be a water tile with islands north of it (representing the San Juans). From there, the coast follows a pretty straight line to Alaska, though it runs much more north-westerly, rather than the current 'north by northwest' direction that's represented by the map.
EDIT: a few more random notes:
- There needs to be an 'oil' resource near Baku (by the Caspian Sea) -- the oil fields there are one of the 'birthplaces' of the oil industry, had a significant religious effect (the 'eternal flame' of Zoroastrianism), and even more significant geopolitical effects (Hitler wanted to shut off the Soviet oil production in the region, which is why the Battle of Stalingrad turned into such a bloodbath).
- There should be an 'islands' tile south of Guangzhou (southern China) to represent Hong Kong/Macau
- Given the increased scale of the map, we can probably add a few more 'minor' rivers that didn't deserve the space in the original. Specifically: I'd suggest adding the Hai river around the Beijing tile, since it does sit in a river valley.
- Gambia/Senegal should be represented as a 'plains' tile (or, at most, a semidesert) rather than straight desert.
- Kenya/Tanzania should be a bit more 'lush' -- either a resource or two, or one-tile rivers, or even a grassland tile or two.
- On the city map, 'Washington DC' should be a few tiles further south. Frankly, if we're going to make room in Canada for Quebec/Montreal/Ottawa/Toronto, we need to have enough room for Boston/New York/Philadelphia/Washington DC
- Maybe add an 'islands' feature off North Carolina, to indicate those sand beaches' significance w/r/t the first airplanes?
- In the city map, 'San Francisco' should be on the tile immediately south of the river (representing the Bay). The river mouth may need to be moved one tile north, to make everything fit.
- In the Pacific Northwest, there needs to be a clearer demarcation between 'Cascadia' (lush grassland tiles along the coast) and the more inland parts beyond the Cascade mountains (plain tiles to represent Eastern Washington/Idaho). Also: there should not be a mountain barrier between Seattle and Vancouver.
- In the city map, 'Montreal' should be further northeast -- it does not lie on Lake Ontario.
Last edited:
AtlantaMarty
No longer active
Here's my changes to Europe. I can't actually open this file in the game cause it's a save, I would appreciate it if someone could either convert it to a scenario or open it themselves and take screenshots.
I had similar objections to the current Italy, but one tile wider throughout definitely would make it look wrong. I played around with WB a bit an here is the best I could come up with:
Spoiler :
Changelog:
- one additional land tile in the Po valley at the expense of the Adriatic
- two additional tiles at the middle west coast of the boot at the expense of the Tyrrhenic Sea
- moved Corsica to be disconnected from the continent again
- increased size of Sicily by adding a tile to its southeast
- (ignore removed resources, those result from my experimentation, I did not bother to restore them)
Alternatively, the Corsica tile can be moved 1W so it looks more like a separate island and is available from Marseille's big cross, increasing the chances of it becoming French.
Overall I think Italy looks much less cramped while still maintaining a recognisable shape.
For reference, my envisioned city locations:
Spoiler :
The only thing I don't like about this is Rome being west of the Tiber, but the previous situation had the same problem. And with the shape of Italy being as it is, I don't think that is possible while also having it (accurately) flow north-south.
Have you seen this post? I think it handles the US west coast pretty well. At least I would like to encourage you to base further suggestions on that version.[/QUOTE]
Publicola
King
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2014
- Messages
- 759
I like these changes. I'm not sure Sicily needs to be bigger, and I do like the idea of moving Corsica so it fits in a French BFC, but everything else seems spot on. I did disagree with your name placement in the city map. I'd argue that Torino should be on the wheat tile, with Milano 1N of the spot for Genova, then Verona/Mantua where you currently have 'Milano', then Venice. (Milan is much closer to 'due north' of Genoa than Turin is...).
More cities:
Next row down, left to right: Nice/Savony, Genova, Parma/Mantua (?), Bologna, then Ravenna.
Next row down, left to right: Pisa, Firenze, San Marino
Next row down: Siena, Perugia (?)
Next row down: Roma...
It's really not that much better. For California, it treats the coast as essentially flat north-south from Monterey CA to Portland OR, when the actual coast runs northwest even after San Francisco (at least to Mendicino CA).So something more like this?
Spoiler :
From the perspective of the Pacific Northwest, it's honestly quite a bit worse. Look at Google Maps, or any map that follows longitude/latitude: Oregon and Washington do not 'curve back' to the east, there is no 'jump back' at the Columbia River, and the Puget Sound does not connect directly to the Pacific. The actual coast runs pretty much straight north from Mendicino CA to the Olympic Peninsula.
Yeah, both of these are pretty much optional, I just wanted to try them out. I'll post a map with moved Corsica later too, for comparison. Larger Sicily would enable Syracuse there without too much interference with either Carthage or Naples/Pompeii, also with three tiles it would be the largest island in the Mediterranean like in reality.
I agree that is would be more geographically accurate. My reasoning is this: Milan is the largest city in northern Italy, so it should get the largest big cross. Also Turin should be possible without too much overlap with France, which is what it would have on the current wheat tile.
Google maps is Mercator, our base is Robinson. Robinson does not preserve angles, so you will see curvature along lines with the same latitude. See this North America in a Robinson projection of the world map:
Spoiler :
Naturally, the curvature/distortion increases the further you get away from the null meridian (assuming the map is centered on it), so you will see it more pronounced at the American west coast.
AtlantaMarty
No longer active
Novicenoble
Prince
About overall shape of Japan, especially Honshu, I hope Tokyo/Edo comes to the southern coastline of the Honshu. Yokohama - the major seaport of Tokyo - is located in the south of Tokyo.
Can we extend the Pyrenees a little bit to create some chokepoints for when the French and Spanish go to war? I know it's not perfect geographically, but it would improve historicity if the French AI had to at least work a little to invade Spain.
I'd also like to see a few more mountains in the Caucuses and northern Greece for the same reasons. I'd like to see some chokepoints there.
I'd also like to see some mountains which are sitting inside of some civs territory get turned into hills to improve gameplay. For example, Mexico doesn't need all of those mountains in the game even if they're there in real life.
Finally, I'd like to see more separation between northern and central Vietnam and the rest of SE Asia by mountain and/or jungle. In real life, Vietnam was much more in the Chinese cultural sphere while the rest of SE Asia was more similar to India. Given that in the modern era I'd like to see 3 mainland SE civs: Thailand, Vietnam, and Burma, I think Vietnam should be better seperated from Thailand everywhere except in Cambodia. Cambodia is the only place where Thailand and Vietnam have ever really genuinely competed for influence starting in the early 1800s. (Although the Vietnamese did use their position in Cambodia to sponsor a short-lived rebellion in Laos that was crushed by the Thais.) Whereas Burma/Khmer and later Burma/Thailand were competitors for most of history in everything from direct military competition to competition for influence in Laos which you've set up perfectly.
I'd also like to see a few more mountains in the Caucuses and northern Greece for the same reasons. I'd like to see some chokepoints there.
I'd also like to see some mountains which are sitting inside of some civs territory get turned into hills to improve gameplay. For example, Mexico doesn't need all of those mountains in the game even if they're there in real life.
Finally, I'd like to see more separation between northern and central Vietnam and the rest of SE Asia by mountain and/or jungle. In real life, Vietnam was much more in the Chinese cultural sphere while the rest of SE Asia was more similar to India. Given that in the modern era I'd like to see 3 mainland SE civs: Thailand, Vietnam, and Burma, I think Vietnam should be better seperated from Thailand everywhere except in Cambodia. Cambodia is the only place where Thailand and Vietnam have ever really genuinely competed for influence starting in the early 1800s. (Although the Vietnamese did use their position in Cambodia to sponsor a short-lived rebellion in Laos that was crushed by the Thais.) Whereas Burma/Khmer and later Burma/Thailand were competitors for most of history in everything from direct military competition to competition for influence in Laos which you've set up perfectly.
Last edited:
Definitely on the side of more peaks vs less. I appreciate the idea of keeping France out of Iberia, but it seems the current Pyrenees are already quite effective at that? There are two choke points, one in Navarra and the other in Catalonia. Agreed on Vietnam as well, however if we are designing for a prospective Viet civ they should still have an option to historically conquer Champa.
I propose to extend the Pyrenees one square east. I know it's ahistorical, but it'll make an invasion by AI France harder (I hope). I'm not concerned about them settling on the wrong side of the mountains or anything, but they seem to overrun a Spain that's depleted already from fighting Cordoba in most of my games on the current map.
Die Viet would still conquer Champa. I just want the jungles and/or mountains designed so that their only expansion route into the Chao Phraya river basin (Bangkok) is through Cambodia. That's historically accurate. (Sorry for the first post, I had to edit bc I got some stuff wrong.)
Last edited:
AtlantaMarty
No longer active
That's closer to it's actual shape than the original - the southwestern part of the peninsula is pointed, not slanted like in the original.
What do you think of
1. My shifting of France, Iberia, and Britain?
2. My adjustments to the Caspian Sea to make it look more realistic?
3. My city placement?
