[Development] Alternative Map during 1.17

I decided against including the Shannon river for two reasons:
- the way the island is configured makes it hard to include the river without it looking strange
- I don't want to make Ireland too commerce rich

As always, I am working on the 3000 BC state of the map, resource spawns are not part of the consideration.

Right.

I think Moorland is distinctive enough, it's just somewhat obscured by the forests on them. The tiles in question are 1N and 1W of the Cow in Scotland and 1N1W and 1S of the Sheep in Ireland.

I like the mountain in Scotland aesthetically, it provides more geographical texture to Scotland as well. Peaks must not be of a specific height but rather are relative to the surrounding topography.

Most maps I have found for the British oil industry show oil fields in the North Sea, i.e. east of Great Britain, not so much to its north. I also don't want to really force players to found another city besides Edinburgh (or more generally, more than one Scottish city). Right now, I think there is enough incentive to controlling Scotland, most importantly the iron.

 

New update:
- changed the Aral Sea into a salt lake
- added semidesert west and north of the Sahara
- changed part of the Libyan coast to desert to disconnect Egypt and Tunisia
- Semidesert: now +1 hammer, +1 commerce next to river (removed food from river)
- changed plains in central and southeastern Persia to semidesert
- moved Millet in central Persia to Khorasan
- terrain changes in India (see screenshots below)

India:

Spoiler :

- added semidesert in Rajasthan and along the northern Indus, extending its floodplains upstream
- added Horses in Rajasthan
- removed some floodplains along the Ganges
- moved Tea near Patna and Calcutta to more accurate locations (Darjeeling and Assam)
- placed another Dye near Calcutta to compensate (three indigo is not too much for India)
- instead of plain floodplains, the Ganges delta is now mostly vegetation (a mix of marsh, rainforest, jungle, forest), it was very inaccurate to have no vegetation there of all places
- placed another Rice within reach of Calcutta and Dhaka and another Fish within reach of Calcutta to compensate the food difference somewhat

There was still very little feedback on India in my notes and southern India is still completely untouched, if anyone wants to give it a look it would be highly welcome.

 

Nothing against changing Hawaii, but I need an actual proposal of what it should look like.

 

That's way too big.

 

I forgot to mention some changes in Central America in this post:
- placed Lake Nicaragua
- changed a Rainforest between Central and South America to Marsh to represent the Darién Gap

Which brings us back to this:

 

.... the relative position to the rest of the map kind of matters here.

 

New update:
- added a land tile at the southwest of Iberia
- adjusted terrain in the Balkans (Carpathians and course of the Danube, see below)

Spoiler :

It took me quite some time to figure out why I found dealing with this part of the map so difficult. Eventually I realised that the Black Sea is way up north compared to where it should be relative to the Adriatic Sea and the rest of Central/Western Europe, which caused problems for the Danube which connects the two. Also, as AbsintheRed pointed out in the suggestions thread, Europe is essentially being expanded at its edges, leaving regions in the center like the Carpathian basin disproportionally unchanged. Part of the problem as well are peaks: they take up an entire tile while the intent is often to use them as borders between the inside and outside of a mountain range, this is especially pronounced with the Carpathians that are like a half circle.

Anyway, it was impossible to completely fix this distortion without moving Anatolia south at the expense of the Levant and Mesopotamia. This is obviously not desirable, so some other region had to lose out and have diminished space compared to what they should. Before it was essentially Hungary/Romania. Here I have made the decision to instead reduce Moldova/Bessarabia. This region seemed kind of large before and isn't as important historically.

Changelog:
- moved the Dniester delta north. While feeding into the Black Sea southward would be even better, this is still more accurate.
- likewise, moved the Danube delta north
- added marsh at the Danube delta
- moved the eastern peaks of the Carpathians east
- left a gap in the southern peaks of the Carpathians, and added another 1S1W to suggest the overall shape of the range and represent the Iron Gates. This way, there is also a way from Wallachia into Transsylvania to make Romania a bit more connected
- extended the southward flow of the Danube another tile south. This is overall more accurate, even though it makes the course of the river less varied. It also expands Hungary at the expense of Serbia which was too far north before
- changed the Great Hungarian Plain into Steppe
- changed the Ukranian part of the Eurasian Steppe into ... Steppe
- removed Horses from the Danube delta (does anyone know why they were there specifically?)
- placed Horses in western Anatolia (to match the current map, not shown)
- placed Wine in Romania southwest of the Carpathians
- placed Oil on the Bucharest tile to represent the Ploiesti fields (by the way, does anyone know what the oil in Serbia is about?)
- moved Deer from 1W of Budapest to Transsylvania. This way it is still in reach of Budapest, but also alternatively Bucharest, and the triangle between Wheat, Pig and Deer is no longer as appealing

I am also considering to add peaks for the Dinaric Alps (not pushed though). It gives the western Balkans more texture, and it seems there is a little too much space there considering the historical importance of the area:

Spoiler :

Thoughts?

 

New update:
- merged a pull request by merijn_v1: fixes rubber art defines
- added Lop Nur lake in the Tarim basin
- added Santa Catalina islands in the Carribbean
- added Salt on the Bahamas (southeastern island)
- added Silver in northern Mexico
- added Marble and Olives in Spain
- added Gold and Spices in Korea
- adjusted terrain in Arabia (see below)
- adjusted terrain in the Caucasus (see below)
- added Rare Earths in Vietnam and Canada

Arabia:

Spoiler :

- moved Sheep in Yemen 1S1W (the previous sheep tile should be Sana'a which is clearly landlocked)
- changed the new Sheep tile to grassland to reflect that Yemen has the most rainfall in Arabia, and to make the area not too food poor
- added Semidesert to eastern Yemen
- added Semidesert around Hejaz
- added Semidesert around Bahrain
- changed Najd to Semidesert
- changed the Salalah tile to forested plains

(Arabia really gets a lot of value out of the addition of semidesert imo.)

Caucasus:

Spoiler :

- swapped places of Lake Van and the peak 1W of it, bringing Lake Van into a more accurate location and making the peak a good approximation of Mount Ararat
- added Lake Sevan
- removed Horses in eastern Chaldia
- changed eastern Chaldia to forested grassland
- added Wine in eastern Chaldia

 

That's correct.

Well, is there? Which source did you find?

It feels wrong by modern standards, but I'm not sure.