[Development] Alternative Map during 1.17

[netadvocat]

I have only one request concerning Austria:

This is Carinthia / Western Styria on the new map:

Spoiler Map :

This is Carinthia / Western Styria in reality

Spoiler Reality :

Please, please exchange the

inaccurate plains for a much more accurate​

forrested hill, thank you

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

I don't know, I was in Carinthia twice and it seemed pretty brown to me.

 

[Leoreth]

 

[merijn_v1]

I having some troubles with the bamboo forests interacting with the map, especially resources and improvements. I don't really how it currently looks like.

Spoiler :

I think I know a way to fix this though. In the current implementation, I placed the bamboo between the trees. Today, I created a hybrid forest, in which I replaced some deciduous trees with evergreen trees. The evergreen trees are placed on the same location as the (removed) deciduous trees. Because of this, the interaction between the forest and the resource/improvement did not change.

I will try to apply this strategy to the bamboo as well. I'm not sure if it will work, because the evergreen and decidouos trees share some properties which the bamboo doesn't have. But I can try it at least.

I'm really pleased how the hybird forest looks like.

Spoiler :

 

[Leoreth]

Yes, that looks really good, and could probably come in handy in many places in the world. It currently looks kind of monotonous to only have evergreen or leafy forests in some regions.

I guess you will adapt your approach from the hybrid forest to improve the bamboo forest placement as well?

 

[Steb]

Nice work on the mixed forests! For the bamboo, my feeling is that it looks too sparse. I would prefer to see small compact groves, about the same size as the other trees, perhaps containing 5-6 stalks. Bamboo forests have this feeling of density that we don’t see at all yet. Also, I think each stalk should be more leafy at the top. I don’t know if these things are at all possible, but that’s how I would see it.

 

[merijn_v1]

Yes, that looks really good, and could probably come in handy in many places in the world. It currently looks kind of monotonous to only have evergreen or leafy forests in some regions.

I guess you will adapt your approach from the hybrid forest to improve the bamboo forest placement as well?

Indeed.

Nice work on the mixed forests! For the bamboo, my feeling is that it looks too sparse. I would prefer to see small compact groves, about the same size as the other trees, perhaps containing 5-6 stalks. Bamboo forests have this feeling of density that we don’t see at all yet. Also, I think each stalk should be more leafy at the top. I don’t know if these things are at all possible, but that’s how I would see it.

I agree that is looks too sparse. I think that the sparseness is partially a result from the interaction issues. I think that my new approach will also make clustering easier and also look nicer.

My new approach will be removing a tree in the leafy forest model and replace it with small cluster of bamboo stalks on the same location. I hope that this way the interaction with the resource mechanics do not change, like it didn't change in the hybrid model.

 

[Leoreth]

Sounds promising.

 

[Leoreth]

New update:
- slight terrain adjustments in the United States
- added Savanna terrain: 1 food, +1 commerce next to rivers
- added Savanna feature: +1 food
- adjusted terrain in Africa (see below)

Spoiler :

This is mostly terrain changes, making use of a lot of semidesert and the new savanna, I can't and won't list everything explicitly. Other significant changes:
- reshaped the Nile a bit, this time compressing Egypt a bit by moving the intended Thebes spot 1N, while also removing the coastal peak. The idea is that a Nubian city is not only feasible but actually required to get access to gold, incense and ivory, resources Egypt traded with Nubia for.
- tried to arrange resources to dissuade a supercity (flood plains do that too to some extent) so it is desirable to have both Memphis and Thebes
- moved the cows in upper Kenya to keep the Nairobi tile open
- moved Lake Rukwa 1NE
- extended Lake Tanganyika 1S to have it of comparable size to Lake Malawi
- placed gold between Lake Rukwa and Lake Malawi
- extended southeast and south Africa as suggested by @ozqar and @TJDowling
- adjusted the Limpopo and Zambezi accordingly
- reshaped the Okavango so the inland delta points southwards, added flood plains
- it's hard to see but I placed savanna under the jungle/rainforest in the Congo basin in less fertile areas
- extended Lake Chad to its historical size, using lagoon + marsh to represent its brackish water
- added ivory in the CAR
- added cow in Darfur
- added deer in the Tibesti mountains
- reshaped the Senegal river, moving its mouth 1N
- added the Gambia river

 

[soul-breathing]

I having some troubles with the bamboo forests interacting with the map, especially resources and improvements. I don't really how it currently looks like.

Spoiler :

I think I know a way to fix this though. In the current implementation, I placed the bamboo between the trees. Today, I created a hybrid forest, in which I replaced some deciduous trees with evergreen trees. The evergreen trees are placed on the same location as the (removed) deciduous trees. Because of this, the interaction between the forest and the resource/improvement did not change.

I will try to apply this strategy to the bamboo as well. I'm not sure if it will work, because the evergreen and decidouos trees share some properties which the bamboo doesn't have. But I can try it at least.

I'm really pleased how the hybird forest looks like.

Spoiler :

Bamboo forests are mainly distributed in the south of the Yangtze River in China, and rarely in the north.
Among them, the bamboo forests in the southwestern region are the most, and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are also more distributed.

 

[Steb]

I really like the new savanna. My only concern is that the feature and terrain share the name, but I can’t find a good alternative name for either so I guess you ran into the same problem.

I also think the wetlands of Congo are probably oversized. Can the area be inhospitable in another way?

 

[FraggleJock]

Aesthetically have you tried having the Okovango flow north out of the salt flats instead of placing a delta.

 

[ozqar]

Africa looks really good.

I think that a swamp feature (ie, a flooded forest) - something with trees and the marshy background there, would be perfect, and could also help the Amazon. Perhaps it's something for @merijn_v1?

For the savanna naming thing, there's no alternative in English, but perhaps a local variant can help? The term llanos is used in South America to describe tropical grasslands, humid or dry, and could serve as the name for the terrain type, with savanna being the name for the feature over it.

 

[1SDANi]

Africa looks really good.

I think that a swamp feature (ie, a flooded forest) - something with trees and the marshy background there, would be perfect, and could also help the Amazon. Perhaps it's something for @merijn_v1?

For the savanna naming thing, there's no alternative in English, but perhaps a local variant can help? The term llanos is used in South America to describe tropical grasslands, humid or dry, and could serve as the name for the terrain type, with savanna being the name for the feature over it.

English is no stranger to adopting words from other languages, so I don't see why calling it Ilanos would be a problem

 

[merijn_v1]

Bamboo forests are mainly distributed in the south of the Yangtze River in China, and rarely in the north.
Among them, the bamboo forests in the southwestern region are the most, and the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are also more distributed.

Don’t look at the location. This was only a test to see how it looks like ingame in a more representative setting than just a big connected patch of bamboo + forest. I don’t intend that bamboo should be placed on those tiles on the new map.

 

[Leoreth]

Africa looks really good.

I think that a swamp feature (ie, a flooded forest) - something with trees and the marshy background there, would be perfect, and could also help the Amazon. Perhaps it's something for @merijn_v1

What would the difference of such a feature be? Or is it just aesthetics?

For the savanna naming thing, there's no alternative in English, but perhaps a local variant can help? The term llanos is used in South America to describe tropical grasslands, humid or dry, and could serve as the name for the terrain type, with savanna being the name for the feature over it.

I don't know, savanna is used for biomes across the globe, using a regional name seems wrong.

 

[ozqar]

What would the difference of such a feature be? Or is it just aesthetics?

Yes, the main reason is aesthetics. Although thinking more about it, perhaps draining it should lead it become forests, instead of plains. Or it could be chopped down and become a simple marsh.

 

[Leoreth]

Aesthetically have you tried having the Okovango flow north out of the salt flats instead of placing a delta.

Why out of the salt flats? You mean moving the course 1E? From a map the Okavango delta looks clearly separate from the salt flats.

 

[1SDANi]

I don't know, savanna is used for biomes across the globe, using a regional name seems wrong.

Do you know of any non-regional words for the savanna terrain that doesn't have the same name as the savanna feature, or vice versa?

 

[Leoreth]

No, if I did I would have used them.