I was thinking that one solution to having an accurate, snaky, island chain looking Japan was to provide a bonus on islands. I haven’t played with the variables but either a civ ability or a unique building ability that gives Japan extra hammers, gold or food on worked island tiles. This would allow for an accurate looking, but no less effective Japan. The other cool thing is it would incentivize Japan to colonize the South Pacific islands in the late game.
I'm certainly not in favor of making it even bigger, perhaps the original is the best blend of scale and effectiveness if my island idea causes issues with game play.
Anyhow, today I took a shot at some areas in the Mediterranean.
Only tile change is highlighted, the addition of Sparta. Upon looking at a map I took issue with having Sicily extend further down than Greece. Both southern tips reach about the same line so it didn't make sense to have Italy running so much further down. now, upon making changes I noticed that Anatolia's position should actually sit further south as well but this would create all sorts of problems with scaling. I drew this red line to show that by adding one tile to Greece accurately represents its shape while also fitting the contour of the map. My only other change was adding copper to Greece, I find that too often Rome builds the Colossus and while Rhodes isn't possible, I'd like to see more of it in Greece. The production resource also helps with Greek units, wonders and ships.
Try not to mind the sea gashes, I didn't take the time to reload. First of all, I'm not suggesting that the Nile delta should be condensed, I merely made this change to see how it would look. I'm not sure one way or another quite yet. Next is the change to Cyprus. I just don't feel its a big enough island to merit two tiles, It's about the same size as Crete but quite a bit chunkier. The shape from before essentially meant that one tile represented the western portion of the island while the upper tile to the east represented the very thin jutting peninsula.
Next, Aleppo. Very important city historically, while it doesn't need to be on the map, I removed the dye so that it might be placed. I don't know enough about Levant resources to place it so I'll leave that to others. I also moved the olives from 2s to 1s so that there would be room for Damascus.
Damascus is another city that was very important historically but it lacks production in this map--actually, this whole region has always played a big role through various chapters in history. "Damascus Steel" is not actually from there but was named after the city for its historical role as a swordsmithing city. Therefore, iron 1s and sheep moved to 1sw.
Next, Acre and Tyr. Now Akko, this was a city that was important for a number of empires. It crowds the more important Damascus and Jerusalem so I don't see it being settled very often. Tyr is the starting city for Phoenicia. I'm not sure if there's a way to script its destruction in favor of Damascus in the medieval era. Otherwise Tyr and Damascus will vary from the 3000BC or 600AD.
Finally Jerusalem. I suppose it could also be placed 1s. Israel has a very rocky terrain and is rich in stone so I have added stone as an additional production resource. Salt and citrus are both accurate, wheat could also be added if we want an additional food resource.
I don't know much about resources for this region, these all seem about right based upon city and empire needs. I cross referenced a couple of biome maps and the mix of desert and Mediterranean plains was about right everywhere but here. Its worth noting that the biome map I've attached is not gospel, its just one example. I looked at a handful before making changes. I've added a band of semi-desert. Now you might notice that Iraq is also classified as semi-desert so I played around with it a bit and found that the full desert with floodplains seems to look aesthetically better. In the case of north Africa, the semi desert looks better as a nice transition. Only problem is now the wheat looks a bit weird.
