[Development] Canonical City Location Suggestions

[Leoreth]

You can suggest canonical city locations here. I consider the "canonical" city locations the cities you would like to see appear in most games, and encourage the AI to found. For example, in the old map the canonical French cities are Paris, Bordeaux and Marseille. This does not mean that it has to be deterministic in the game.

This is part of Phase I of developing the new map, see here for a general overview.

Generally, canonical locations should not be adjacent to each other, but sometimes it makes sense to denote things that way. For example, Hangzhou and Shanghai border each other and cannot coexist, they are both important cities whose canonical locations are relevant for resource placement and one of them should be founded in every game. Use your judgment for this.

To make a suggestion, either place a marker with the city name on the tile, or found a city there with WB and give it the appropriate name. It's not too important which of the names of a given city you use (e.g. Constantinople vs. Istanbul or any of their various translations) as long as things are clear.

Don't let resources on the tile stop you from suggesting it as a canonical location. The goal of this exercise is to find out which resources are on the wrong tiles and need to be moved.

 

[merijn_v1]

I started by placing the capitals/spawn locations. These are the locations.

EDIT:
Canadian capital should be Montreal, 1 E of Ottawa.
Mali capital should be 1 SW
Cordoba could be place 1 S for gameplay. (Although I think this location is geographically more accurate)
Madrid could be placed 1 W.

 

[merijn_v1]

And the last ones.

EDIT:
I don't have any clue if Ordoqent is on the correct position. I couldn't find anything on google or any other source.

 

[mysterious_stalker]

I started by placing the capitals. These are the locations.

Just a few thoughts. It's pretty weird to still see Sogut as your capital spot for Turkey. Doesn't it work differently now and simply flip cities in Anatolia?
I'd also place Krakow 1NW of where you did. It seems a bit better as location given that it's not that mountaineous around it. Surely enough, your tile should be an alternate one for that city, but I don't think the main one.
Also, I noticed Aksum is now coastal. It looks like it's the best placement you can have for it, I guess, but it simply seems odd.

 

[merijn_v1]

I meant spawn plot instead of capital. The Ottomans will still have the spawning units on that spot, which I think it accurate. I do not intend that tile to be the capital.
I put Krakow on the spot I think is geographically the most accurate. I used the mountains and the baltic sea coast as a reference. I was contemplating between this location and 1 tile west, but IMO this tile is the most accurate one. Of course the tile 1 NW is better gameplaywise, but I did not take that into account.
I thought the Aksum location was weird to initially, but when I looked at the maps, this is the accurate location for Aksum.

 

[Leoreth]

- Canada should still spawn at Montreal. Ottawa doesn't work as a canonical location because it pre-empts having Toronto, Montreal and Quebec.
- Djenne should still be 1S1W to reduce overlap and for access to the gold fields.
- I guess Swahili is Kilwa?
- Egypt is probably better off starting as the lower Kingdom at Memphis.
- Cracow is intended to be 1W because that probably creates less overlap, but let's see how that works out with a more complete proposal.

 

[merijn_v1]

- Canada should still spawn at Montreal. Ottawa doesn't work as a canonical location because it pre-empts having Toronto, Montreal and Quebec.
- Djenne should still be 1S1W to reduce overlap and for access to the gold fields.
- I guess Swahili is Kilwa?
- Egypt is probably better off starting as the lower Kingdom at Memphis.
- Cracow is intended to be 1W because that probably creates less overlap, but let's see how that works out with a more complete proposal.

- I used Ottowa because I saw that name in Areas.py. I assummed you changed that from Montreal.
- I was contemplating that tile for Djenne as well. For gameplay that one is much better. I decided to chose for this one because it is (IMO) more geographically accurate.
- Yes. I included some some of my new civs for my own reference when I add them to the new map. Or in case you want to add them. (And of course plugging my ow
- I copied the coordinates of the tile the units currently spawn on.
- Krakau is the same story as Djenne.

The Axum tile could cause some issues with future Meroë.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, the current spawn locations don't really mean much.

About Aksum (forgot to comment on it) I always assumed it would be 1E of the lake for some reason. Looks like the region needs some reworking to allow a more realistic Aksum.

 

[mysterious_stalker]

I meant spawn plot instead of capital. The Ottomans will still have the spawning units on that spot, which I think it accurate. I do not intend that tile to be the capital.
I put Krakow on the spot I think is geographically the most accurate. I used the mountains and the baltic sea coast as a reference. I was contemplating between this location and 1 tile west, but IMO this tile is the most accurate one. Of course the tile 1 NW is better gameplaywise, but I did not take that into account.
I thought the Aksum location was weird to initially, but when I looked at the maps, this is the accurate location for Aksum.

Fair enough. All of those are good points. As I said with Krakow, it's an important city, so it should probably span over the tile you marked, 1W and 1NW.
Also, you didn't include the respawn capitals, eg. Iran or Peru. I guess it's because they don't have a pre-defined spawning spot and thus only get the cities that have already been founded there.

 

[iMuffin]

I tried my hand at France, Italy and Iberia:

Spoiler :

 

[merijn_v1]

Fair enough. All of those are good points. As I said with Krakow, it's an important city, so it should probably span over the tile you marked, 1W and 1NW.
Also, you didn't include the respawn capitals, eg. Iran or Peru. I guess it's because they don't have a pre-defined spawning spot and thus only get the cities that have already been founded there.

No. I just simply forgot about them. I did include Bogota. I also thought about Mexico City, but that is the same tile as Tenochtitlan so I obviously didn't need to include that one.

 

[mysterious_stalker]

I tried my hand at France, Italy and Iberia:

Spoiler :

View attachment 496732

I would rather place Lisboa and Porto 1N and replace Santiago by La Coruna. Maybe Cordoba 1N as well, as Merijn proposed earlier? Your location of it looks more like Sevilla. The location for Firenze looks more like Pisa, but I guess it's close enough, otherwise you can't have Florence and Venice simultaneously. Otherwise it looks okay to me.

 

[iMuffin]

I would rather place Lisboa and Porto 1N and replace Santiago by La Coruna. Maybe Cordoba 1N as well, as Merijn proposed earlier? Your location of it looks more like Sevilla. The location for Firenze looks more like Pisa, but I guess it's close enough, otherwise you can't have Florence and Venice simultaneously. Otherwise it looks okay to me.

For Firenze and Cordoba I chose my locations over the ones you mention because of gameplay reasons; I think in these cases it is better to have a coastal access instead of perfect placement.
I chose the location for Lisboa because this way there is coast south of the city, as there should be.
Bilbao could probably go 1E so that the area isn't as rectangular

EDIT: When I say there should be coast south of Lisboa, I mean I do not think the peninsula south of it is large enough to have it's own tile

 

[Leoreth]

I agree with Lisbon 1N. One mainland city for Portugal will probably remain the rule. I think it'd be nice to have Cordoba inland, but how the map is arranged there is little reason to found there. Maybe the wheat should move 1N as well? I also think that the best Sevilla tile is the current Olives tile, maybe they should be moved (e.g. 1E to discourage that tile).

This also brings up the question how Spain should be modeled on this map. There is a little more space now, maybe Spain should not spawn in Madrid but rather in Asturias, e.g. Santiago or Oviedo? It's even worth to think about moving their spawn a bit back (Kingdoms of Leon and Castile) to give more time to the Moors to expand in Iberia and have a proper reconquista.

Something else I forgot to address, I like that the above map uses Cologne as the Holy Roman start. With the new map something like Hamburg/Cologne/Munich would be a better configuration than something with Frankfurt in the mix, because Cologne has been the larger city at all times and was the largest German city for much of history, especially in the Middle Ages. However I think it is better to place the city east of the Rhine (even though it is the wrong side) to reduce overlap with the Netherlands and France.

 

[merijn_v1]

For Firenze and Cordoba I chose my locations over the ones you mention because of gameplay reasons; I think in these cases it is better to have a coastal access instead of perfect placement.
I chose the location for Lisboa because this way there is coast south of the city, as there should be.
Bilbao could probably go 1E so that the area isn't as rectangular

I agree that having a city on the coast is good for gameplay, but I don't think that Cordoba and Firenze should be the cities that give sea access for their intended owners. Italy has Venice for sea access. Not giving Firenze coastal access doesn't hurt them bad enough that I think it should be coastal.
For Cordoba, I think that the Moors should have sea access by via a city in Morocco, like Tanger or Rabat. For me, that removes the need for a coastal Cordoba. I agree that it makes transporting troops from Africa to Iberia a bit harder, but I don't think that is really a bad thing.

Lisboa should be north of the Tagus in my suggestion. (as it should be ) I think that is more accurate than having a coastal tile south of it. And I think that it is also the more geographically accurate location.



My suggestions for the cities in Great Brittain, Scandinavia and North-West Europe.
- I think that Liverpool and York are equally important, so I included both.
- Edinburgh could also be 1N. (And move the river 1N as well)
- I considered Plymouth/Southampton, but I don't think those are canonical enough.
- 1S of Bergen could be Stavanger, but I think Bergen is more canonical.
- Nidaros/Trondheim could also be 1E. That might be slightly more accurate, but I think this tile is the best for gameplay.

 

[Leoreth]

I don't get the Florence discussion. Where else would it be?

I think Edinburgh should be 1N.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

I started by placing the capitals/spawn locations. These are the locations.

EDIT:
Canadian capital should be Montreal, 2 E of Ottawa.

Ottawa's on the wrong side of the river, and Montréal really ought to be 1E, not 2E—it's right where the rivers meet.

I think moving Ottawa 1SW could work.

 

[DC123456789]

What's the policy/convention on preference between cities that were historically important but were eclipsed in the Industrial/Modern era, and those that for most of their history were fairly small but grew to become large in the 18th/19th/20th centuries? I.e. for northern England, is it better to prefer York (historical), Liverpool/Manchester (industrial/modern), or just have both equally preferred?

 

[Leoreth]

Well first of all we need to know where they are, so note their locations. Something like this is obviously hard to model in Civ4, if a city exists it exists. But it's still relevant for example for the different scenarios.

 

[Genghis Khaiser]

How do I open the scenario? I downloaded it as a separate branch, Dawn-of-Civilization-map, renamed the RFC 3000 BC scenario to RFC 3000 BC Large, it only allows me to run it with the RFC DoC mod so I can't choose the Custom Scenario, so I try to open it regularly but it forces me to choose a civ, and then the game crashes.