[Development] Alternative Map during 1.17

[Leoreth]

New update:
- removed gold in Shandong, to spawn later, probably around Qin period (immediate access to gold is just too powerful)
- moved silk in Shandong south
- added a river near Sydney
- adjusted terrain in the United States, see below

Spoiler :

- added Charles River for Boston
- added Potomac River for Washington
- added Savannah River
- added mable in New England
- removed deer in the Carolinas
- added tobacco in Virginia
- added tobacco in Kentucky
- added corn in Ohio
- added Maumee River for Detroit
- added fish in Lake Erie
- added copper in Upper Michigan
- added marsh in Upper Michigan
- added iron south of Lake Michigan
- removed aluminium south of Lake Michigan
- added marsh west of Lake Superior
- moved corn west of Lake Michigan to open the Chicago tile
- reshaped the Ohio River
- reshaped the Tennessee River
- removed the Wabash River
- added hills in Piedmont / southern Appalachia
- changed one Florida rainforest to jungle to represent the Everglades
- reshaped the Alabama River
- added rainforests around Mississippi delta
- added salt at the Mississippi delta
- added islands at the Mississippi delta
- added another hill in the Ozarks
- changed jungle at the Texan coast to rainforest
- moved oil in the Gulf of Mexico north to be within reach of Houston
- reshaped the Rio Grande a bit to approximate US-Mexican border better
- added oil and salt in Texas
- added aluminium at the lower Mississippi
- removed coal along the Mississippi
- added the Platte River
- moved rare earths near Denver further into the Rocky Mountains
- added marble and coal in Wyoming
- moved gold south of Denver and oil north of Denver for more accurate locations
- adjusted the course of the upper Missouri somewhat
- added iron in Minnesota
- added semidesert hills to represent the Montana badlands
- changed the entire plains region to steppe terrain
- added forests to the Rocky Mountain foothills in Colorado
- reshaped Sierra Nevada mountain range to be more open in the south
- added two gold resources within reach of California
- changed coastal terrain south of San Francisco to plains
- added forests north of San Francisco
- moved silver closer to Nevada
- added fish near Los Angeles
- moved clam near Los Angeles to be in reach of San Diego
- added whale near San Francisco (not shown)
- added semidesert around the edges of the Great Basin
- added semidesert in Baja California
- removed gold in Oregon
- added fish near Seattle
- moved fish north of Vancouver island north to encourage Vancouver

Phew, I hope I covered everything. Unlike China, the US is still subject to resource spawns after the Columbian exchange, I expect some existing resources to be adjusted along the way so the locations here aren't necessarily final.

 

[Publicola]

Well you could make similar points about multiple civilisations, especially early ones. The "Babylonians" represent different incarnations of Mesopotamian polities. We can make that more apparent through dynamic names but if we go overboard and the name changes constantly we also don't really gain anything.

With the bigger map and the ability to decouple civs from 'slots', I would be strongly in favor of having two separate Mesopotamian civs, one based around Sumeria (southern Mesopotamia) and another based around Assyria (northern Mesopotamia). We could also turn the Hittite barbarians into a proper Asia Minor civ, given its importance and historical conflicts with Assyria and Egypt.

No but I would love to have this. Maybe it's not that hard to create something based on the sugar art.

Doesn't Cavemen2Cosmos have a 'bamboo forest' tile feature? I've played that game quite a few times, and the bamboo looks great.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

Leo, would you also consider including the Palm Forest feature in RFCEurope? Could be useful for some Mediterranean forests, and maybe some other places.

 

[merijn_v1]

Would it be a nice idea to include Natural Wonders? I don't know if the effects for discovering/controlling them will suite the mod, but we could add them for flavour. Or just very minor, like a small commerce bonus with the Hotel building.

I can confirm that C2C has a bamboo feature. Should I make a PR, making bamboo a feature variety of the forest? Or a complete new feature?

 

[ozqar]

If you guys are thinking of adding new terrain types / graphic variants, here are some suggestions:
- Savannas and/or woods (both are semi-open wooded areas, the difference is you'd expect palm and acacia-like trees (some normal trees too) in savannas, and only deciduous / conifers in the woods)
- Shrub, which can also be combined with some trees to give the look of the mediterranean forests

And for water tiles (only for the continental shelf)
- Coral reefs, seagrass beds, and kelp forests; they can give higher food yields; for coral reefs also commerce.

As for the idea of fine timber, it could work just like stones and marble do. The game already has hammers from clay and gravel and other materials considered in the hammers from hills and plains, and what stone and marble do is represent higher quality materials of the same type. So prime timbers can give this extra hammers and boost construction time of some timber-made wonders.

The entire world was affected by the columbian exchange, not just the Americas, so it would be ok to change the resource profile everywhere during the 1500-1600. From the resources we have in the game, at least maize, potatoes, and cacao spread in this time to the Old World. See for example this map of maize production; in some harsh environments, like drought-prone and dry areas, maize is more productive than wheat and rice, so it really improved food production in Africa; while it serves as a supporting crop in Asia (I believe it's mostly used for animal consumption).

And as a request, could you consider adding soybeans and palm oil as resources? They are both massive in the 20th-21st Centuries, but also regionally important before that. Soybeans and oil palm are the 6th and 7th most important crops in the world by tonnage. Oil palms are the most productive oil crops, their oil yield is twice that of olives (which are the 2nd best), but we produce 17x as much palm oil as olive oil. I think it's especially interesting because it's a tropical crop, and it can give food in rainforest/jungle tiles in the late game, sustaining the fast population growth that happened in developing countries in the 20th Century. Soybeans are a temperate crop suitable for the weather in places like the US, China and Argentina. But it's also now grown in the arid region of the Cerrado in Brazil. Because it's mostly used as animal feed (except in China, were it goes more into human consumption), I would propose that it gives not so much food but rather hammers and health.

 

[Leoreth]

Leo, would you also consider including the Palm Forest feature in RFCEurope? Could be useful for some Mediterranean forests, and maybe some other places.

What does it look like? The mediterranean doesn't really have palm forests though.

Would it be a nice idea to include Natural Wonders? I don't know if the effects for discovering/controlling them will suite the mod, but we could add them for flavour. Or just very minor, like a small commerce bonus with the Hotel building.

I have seen this in a few mods and in general it's a cool idea, but right now I don't know exactly what they would do. Would be cool to give bonuses to the first to discover, especially with a scout or explorer unit.

I can confirm that C2C has a bamboo feature. Should I make a PR, making bamboo a feature variety of the forest? Or a complete new feature?

I looked it up, I don't think it can be used as is, the scale is wrong and I would prefer a feature that combines bamboo with normal trees so it doesn't look as strange on the map.

 

[merijn_v1]

What does it look like? The mediterranean doesn't really have palm forests though.

I think it could be used for savannas or something.

Spoiler :

I have seen this in a few mods and in general it's a cool idea, but right now I don't know exactly what they would do. Would be cool to give bonuses to the first to discover, especially with a scout or explorer unit.

I think a raw culture discovery bonus would be appropriate.

Do you also want a bonus for controlling the natural wonder? In most mods the natural wonders provide a yield or commercetype bonus. Or happiness/health. In HR, some natural wonders provide resources.

I looked it up, I don't think it can be used as is, the scale is wrong and I would prefer a feature that combines bamboo with normal trees so it doesn't look as strange on the map.

I will try something.

 

[Leoreth]

Actually I already had a purpose for that feature art in mind:

Spoiler :

Both the terrain and the feature are currently called Savanna, the terrain is 1 food, +1 commerce next to rivers, the feature is +1 food but needs to be removed for improvements. If both are combined they equal a grass tile, but if you want an improvement they are less valuable. I think this is a good way to make areas of e.g. Africa more food rich but still keep them difficult to develop. Obviously the feature does not require the terrain but should be kept away from other types, especially grass so it is not too powerful. I am also considering to put the terrain below jungle/rainforest so the terrain isn't as fertile when the its cleared, so Congo and Amazon do not need to rely on marshes as much.

Of course, the screenshots just show off the terrain/feature art and are not the final placement of this type, but I expect it to be used mainly in Africa and South America.

 

[merijn_v1]

Bamboo + forest v1
The bamboo are the same size as the trees. (Although it seems that I forgot to shrink some bamboo stalks) The colors can be changed.

Spoiler :

 

[Leoreth]

That looks good already, I would increase the bamboo to leafy tree ratio (spacing the trees out more) and maybe give the trees a somewhat lighter green colour.

 

[Vectors]

West Africa could really use some rice along the Niger River Delta, historically West Africa was one of two places that independently domesticated rice, and it substantially used it as a food source. As such, a couple resources could go a long way.

 

[need my speed]

I'm really liking the looks of this map, with all the new terrains and features, all the nice colours and details.

 

[Alexius08]

Would adding oil to California and Pennsylvania give America too much oil?

 

[Tab911]

Thought Japan looked a bit odd so I took a stab at it.

Spoiler Kansai :

Spoiler Kanto :

I rebuilt it completely from scratch and came up with something similar to what we had before but also a bit more faithful to how the islands look. I'm really pleased with the new shape. There are issues with city placement, I haven't come up with anything to prevent players from putting Osaka 1w or Sendai 1n. Additionally, I wanted to have a proper Osaka bay but the shrinking of Shikoku may be a bit controversial. If I were to put it back, I'd add it 1sw of Osaka and extend the river around to represent the Bay. I think having the northern half of Shikoku sit southwest of Wakayama (1s of Osaka) was one of the main things that made Japan look a bit too thicc.
I placed most resources from how I remember them being from the previous Japan build. I added northern crabs that can be worked by Sendai and post 1800 cows for Sapporo as it is a leading meat and milk producer today.

In a couple days I'll take a stab at the Mediterranean/Levant/North Africa

 

[Leoreth]

I like it aesthetically, but in consequence Japan just loses a lot of tiles and the same problems with northern Honshu are reintroduced.

 

[merijn_v1]

Bamboo + forest v2

I made the tree less dense by removing many trees. (I think it has 20-30 fewer trees) I also move the bamboo stalks a bit, so they do not hide behind the trees.

I didn't touch the colors yet.

The trees on the plains in the left are the current leafy variety for comparison.

Spoiler :

EDIT:
I never noticed it before, but there are also feature variety of marshes. Maybe we could use them all instead of one for a little flavour. (Only if appropriate ofcourse)

Spoiler :

EDIT2:
Currently the Taiga uses the same are as snowy forests. I I think it would be nice if the taiga has it's own art style for a better distinction between taiga and snowy forests. Any ideas what would be the best way to achieve this? (Darker green for taiga perhaps?)

 

[Leoreth]

Great!

 

[Bautos42]

Since there seems to be some unhappiness with my original take on Japan, I've created two new ones. The second one has the drawback that Hokkaido is a little bit misaligned compared to Sakhalin, though still acceptable, but allows to enlarge Japan by an additional column. The river next to Kyoto ending inland is supposed to represent lake Biwa. Sadly, there just isn't enough space for an better Hokkaido, but it's more important to get the rest of Japan right, Hokkaido really not being all that important. If you imagine Hokkaido being slightly twisted, it actually fits quite well. The distribution of resources still has to be redone, they are rather arbitrary in this map, but I leave that to someone who knows more about local production in Japan.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[TJDowling]

Radical rethink, probably bad, but here's a shot. Please ignore all terrain, resources, rivers and elevations, I'm just looking at the shape. IIRC the biggest issue with Japan was too much space North compared to South. Here I've given a lot more space to the South, which makes it distorted (I stretched Honshuu laterally a bit and fattened the bit West of Kyoto) but historically important regions have much more room. The North is comparatively small. Hokkaido might be a bit big but with the proper terrain and limited resources it can be limited until the Industrial era when it seems to me Hokkaido has taken greater importance even over Northern Honshuu.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[Leoreth]

I'm actually quite satisfied with how the current Japan turned out to be.