Any interest in a comprehensive map update?

Malchar

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I've seen a few threads come and go with small updates to the world map or resource distribution. For example, someone will redo the resources and terrain in North America or Russia to make it more realistic and balanced. It's unclear to me whether or not these suggestions actually make it into the mod.

A while back I started working on a new world map from scratch. It's based on taking a world map with an equal area projection and overlaying a grid to divide it into squares. I could make it as big or as small as desired. The terrain type strives for realism and is based on aerial photos. For the resource distribution, I would like to use an objective approach based on real world resource distribution rather than worrying about civ balance. Any balance concerns can be handled by adjusting the civ's bonuses or UHV goals accordingly.

I have only just started working on the terrain types, so there would still be a lot of work to do. Is there any interest in something like this? Obviously the code related to specific map coordinates or resources would have to be changed. I would only be able to provide the map.
 
Well first off, I disagree that something like an objective approach exists when it comes to history, and prefer the "historically weighted" map distortion of the RFC map. For DoC I'd like to emphasise regions that are currently underemphasised based on their historical significance, but simply defaulting to equal area projection would run counter to this goal and not help it.

Of course I'd be glad to see this as a modmod though.
 
Well, I dislike the Eurocentric form the map, and would ideally favor an equal-area approach. However, in the real world there are many factors that contribute to power and wealth that are not represented in the game in any way. In other words, in the real world a tiny country (like Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, etc) can be super rich without many resources at home due to a bunch of institutional factors (social contracts, military discipline, business arrangements, rule of law, etc), differences in technology and knowledge (human resources, machinery, increased transformation efficiencies, etc.), and material transfers (happening through trade, capital flows, and of course through wars) - so land is not as critical.

In the game though, all these factors are very diminished, particularly the institutional factors and the material transfers. Although they are represented in the form of hidden modifiers - but these aren't at the disposal of the player! In any case, land and resource distribution becomes much more important to produce the differences in power and development that we see in the world. To name a very simple example, in real world there are huge flows of food to rich enough countries with scarce land (like Japan, and actually to China too, historically to Rome, etc.) - in the game food can be traded, but not in a "quantitative way" (not the "amount of food"), just the health/happiness bonuses.

The conclusion being that having a real-area map would be extremely cool, but would also require overhauling the other factors to keep the game balanced. If you ask me, this would all be amazing, but I'm pretty sure it's beyond near-term plans for the game.

Another point, I actually really like the gradual approach that we've had to update and correct the game. It feels very organic as people have placed their attention on this or that area, and gradually improved them. Also, with the process being decentralized it brings a lot of rich perspectives - people giving especial attention to their home regions or regions they feel affinity for. It feels great as a community effort.

So I'd be more in favor of continuing with the process as it is - proposing regional changes on the map, and eventually (although this requires much more lobbying and thinking!) including additional (economic) features (such as food trade!). Speaking of map changes, I had made a thread long ago with some proposed regional modifications (here) and had more thoughts about terrain modifications, for which I'll create a thread to collect art and so on, soon!
 
Thanks for the feedback. Maybe I will try it as a modmod. It would be my first attempt at modding, although I have done programming before.

I agree that there's no objective approach to history. I simply advocate for an objective approach to the land distribution on the map. Beyond that, the tile yields and resources can be modified to create the desired game balance. This way, the number of levers that can be pulled to tweak balance are more limited and manageable. The Earth map is more aesthetic, and you don't have problems where growing one area shrinks another area. It also allows for more plausible alternate history outcomes because we're based in the same realistic Earth.

I'll start working on it and see where it goes.
 
I think using aerial photos to determine the terrain type is not the best way to represent the terrain in a world map in-game, as the percentage of vegetation in a region does not necessarily correlate with food production, and most of these aerial photos have had colour changed or added.

I also agree with ozqar that, while a perfectly proportionate world map would be ideal, it would actually be a major limiting factor for historical gameplay, unless the total size of the map was increased so everywhere was proportionate to the currently oversized Europe and India. This would create a lot of wasted space, a much slower game speed, and necessitate a complete rework of some game mechanics, as some civs would end up having a lot more cities.
 
Well I'm not kidding when I say there are good gameplay reasons for distorting the map.
 
I could say couple of words about Russia. Siberia is a region very difficult to colonize, but it was done due to high demand for furs. It was very valuable resource in the past. Only then there were diamond of Yakutia, gold of Magadan and oil and gas now. Also Russians colonized Alaska and has settlers in California.
 
Indeed. A realistic map would be wholly undesirable. It would also mean you'd need to code practically everything anew, from tech speed, to production costs, bonuses, and maluses, to all the civilisation-specific modifiers, to settler maps, to stability maps, and so much more.
 
Since we're going to be rebuilding/rebalancing the tech tree anyway, then we might as well take this opportunity to define a new standard map. I think that I will keep working on an equal area map for fun, but we should shift the discussion to reasonable changes that make sense. We could easily modify the terrain in certain areas without worrying about the code at all. Are there any areas in particular that seem inaccurate?
 
I think we can also reshape the map in some cases, I had a discussion about enlarging China a couple of months ago for example. There is some room for adjustment even without the equal area projection goal.
 
I think we can also reshape the map in some cases, I had a discussion about enlarging China a couple of months ago for example. There is some room for adjustment even without the equal area projection goal.
Yes, I remember it. But I still think it not so necessary to enlarge the area of China. On the other head, make the terrain and resource in China more similar to the reality, and the historical city name are more important..
 
I agree that China doesn't need to be bigger. The AI does well enough with it and in human hands it's extremely strong. I would be more inclined to increase Japan's area; it only has enough room for one productive city! You should be able to make Edo and another city productive at the same time and have better than garbage production in whatever city you place in Kyushu. I would also put a horse there; Japan should be able to build cavalry before conquering Manchuria
 
Or... we could think about increasing the production in the cities, from city population and buildings. Building on what I was saying before, Japan's productivity doesn't come from having a lot of land, and its resources are mostly imported. What they have is great industrial organization and technological capability (and a lot of imported materials). Perhaps the easiest way to add this to the game is via additional bonuses in their unique building and unique power, or through modifiers (but modifiers aren't fun).
 
One idea I had was to give Japan a new UB. Shinto Jinja, replaces Pagan Temple, +1 :), +1:) with Pantheon, +1
:hammers: from coast and ocean with (Standing Army? Autocracy?), can only be built in Japan, costs the same as the temple for an organized religion. Secularized feels wrong for Meiji Japan but having a state religion makes the UP useless because so many Christian civs won't trade with you. So this makes Pantheon viable in the Meiji period and gives Japan the hammers the AI needs to build a decent enough army and navy to invade Asia
 
Well, at the very least, that is interesting because it encourages Paganism (here Shinto) in the late game - although it would mean a second unique building, and making the spread of major religions (conf, tao, budh) not replace the pagan temple, right? And hammers from every water tile might also be too much - but it's a cool idea and definitely in line with what I was talking about the production factors!
 
India has a UB that replaces Pagan Temple and spread of organized religions doesn't destroy it (don't think it obsoletes with Divine Right either) so that wouldn't require a major change I don't think. It would replace Zaibatsu which comes too late to make a difference for the UHV and also doesn't help the AI much - its problem is that it can't get to Assembly Line fast enough, not that it's too weak once it does! +1 :hammers: from all sea tiles might indeed be too much; +3:hammers: from fishing boats could also work. Point is to do something similar to the current UB (making working coastal tiles worth it) but helping with production instead of research which is better left to the UP
 
Something that other mods have done is to modify the base tile yields for certain areas. For example, some of the hills in Japan could just have +4 extra hammers. This lets you modify the relative sizes and aesthetics of a region while still being able to balance the civs.

If you tie the bonuses to the civ, then they won't be there if someone else takes over the land. This can be good and bad. For example, Prussia could have a unique building that makes them more productive than the Holy Roman Empire who previously controlled the exact same land. On the other hand, maybe that land should be more powerful than the other land to make it worth fighting for.
 
I modded it in. The bonus isn't excessive imo; cities that could build a Samurai in 8 turns under Levy Armies can produce a Rifleman in 6-7. It's enough to keep Kagoshima about as viable as it was with Slavery/Levy Armies after you abandon those civics. Running Pantheon still isn't worth it; Fanaticism is almost as good for unit production but gives better happiness so I'm just going to make it require Education. Nationalism makes more sense but the AI is astonishingly unwilling to research that and the Japanese one needs all the help it can get.
 
I modded it in. The bonus isn't excessive imo; cities that could build a Samurai in 8 turns under Levy Armies can produce a Rifleman in 6-7. It's enough to keep Kagoshima about as viable as it was with Slavery/Levy Armies after you abandon those civics. Running Pantheon still isn't worth it; Fanaticism is almost as good for unit production but gives better happiness so I'm just going to make it require Education. Nationalism makes more sense but the AI is astonishingly unwilling to research that and the Japanese one needs all the help it can get.

Could you share the Shinto Jinja changes, I would like to try them out.
 
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