[Development] Map Suggestions

About Japan, especially Honshu, I'd rather enlarge the south and western (including Kanto, which is in the east but anyway) part of the island and make the northern area more abstract. Most of the major cities and historically important events occurred in the western part of Japan.

 

There are more map suggestions for Russia than the rest of the world combined... Anyone passionate about the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia? South America? The Caribbean? Antarctica?

 

Okay, let's continue.

Eastern part of ex-USSR: Central Asia, Western and Eastern Siberia, Far East.

General overview.

Because NE Eurasia is huge, and screenshots will be annoying, I rendered last version of map into a colorful tilesheet and started to work on it.



It is hard to find detailed map of Siberia in cylindrical projection (other than useless Mercator's one) and even when I found one, I also found that deformation of Far East with oversized Korea and Japan makes it not so useful.

So I start drawing keypoints "freehand", implying that landmasses and lakes mostly correct by default.
To my surprise, rivers in Siberia weren't as messy that they were at European Russia (or I'm still not so familiar with this region). What a pity — all jokes about Davydov-plan now are lost.
I just fixed Selenga and slightly — Ob and Irtysh.

Next part was borders. Russian-Kazakhstan border was just continuation of previously drawn border at Urals; Russian-Chinese border drawn by Amur and city of Vladivostok in the bay of Zolotoy Rog; and southern border of Central Asia was partly drawn by Amudarya.
Any other borders was drawn very approximately, especially horrible mess in Fergana Valley: in this area I just placed major cities relatively to each other and drawn borders between them.

With this draft we can make changes to actual map, so let's go. South to north, west to east, so the first part will be Turkmenistan.

1.1. Central Asia, Turkmenistan

Before:


Reference map for resource placement (1960-70s)




After:




Most territory of Turkmenistan is occupied by Karakum desert with small belt of semideserts on the south border, near the Amudarya river and oasises of Mary (Merv) and Tejen (near Ashgabat). In the map they are merged and moved south, because of this settling-on-resource-or-feature thing.
At last, we can think that is slightly displaced Tejen oasis.

At northwest, near Karabogazgol Bay there is Usturt plateau. I placed hills here and removed them at other irrelevant places. Oil is placed 1E from it.

Cows from Ashgabat tile are removed, but sheeps placed 2W instead. They are also making this desert tile less attractive for some ahistorical settlement.

Cotton from Aral shore moved 2S to Tashaus, in BFC of Khiva/Urgench/Merv/Ashgabat and out of swampy delta of Amudarya.

 

1.2. Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzystan.

Before:




Reference map for Uzbekistan:




Fixes:



General geography:
1. added marshy delta of Amudarya and some islands in Aral Sea
2. mountain tile under Bishkek turned into hills.
3. Issyk-Kul lake moved 1S, moving Alma-ata and Bishkek from Balkhash lake.
4. Kyzylkum desert expanded, semidesert terrain added between it and areas of Fergana and Bukhara regions.
5. Khwarezm oasis added.
6. Fergana Valley turned into grasslands.

Resources:
7. added coal in central Kyrgyzia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakeche)
8. added rare earthes in southern Kyrgizia
9. cotton moved from Bukhara tile 1N, second cotton added
And other resources rearranged (camels moved from hills of Kyrgizia to plains; opium moved to Tajikistan/Afganistan border — second should be added in South Kazakhstan later, probably; horses moved north)

 

Red lines are river fixes (left to right: Tobol, Irtysh, Ob, Yenisej, Angara, Selenga, other rivers seems ok at this scale), red squares are mostly minor coastline fixes:
- Bay of Yenisey extended 1S, two lakes near Norilsk added.
- Khatanga bay on Tajmyr connected with sea
- isles at NE Siberia moved 2E
- Issyk-Kyl lake moved 1S, hills added near its new position
- Uvs lake in NW Mongolia moved 1S (not extended, forgot to mark its former position with hill or something)

 

@Finbros The tilesheet in #185 is simply great. May I ask how you make it? By some other softwares or simply by Excel? I want to use it to do some change in East Asia area.

 

It could be done with Excel.

 

I wrote a small program that converts map file into a image (just terrain and rivers)

Full image:
View attachment upload_2018-9-11_18-31-14.png

 

How are we supposed to note resources that would spawn later and when?

 

In the absence of an actual answer from Leoreth, I'd suggest putting them down in the 3000 BC map, then putting a sign (Alt-S) on them with a year. Easier than constantly having to reference a list and find coordinates on a grid.

 

Oh. damn, I forgot about silk of Uzbekistan
- Silk should spawn 1W from Bukhara (98;54) at early middle ages (600 AD?)

1.3 Central Asia, Kazakhstan and middle part of the Great Steppe.

Before




Fixes (made them too fast for my own comfort, so probably forgot something):



General geography:
1) swamps removed (they are far lower than they should be)
2) peak at Dzhungarian Gate moved 1E, opening it
3) 1 food removed from salt lakes of Alakol, Tengiz, east part of Balkhash and Aral Sea.
4) Great Steppe, part from Turgay pass to Dzhungaria region

Resources:

5) coal of Ekibastuz and Karaganda
6) aluminium of Arkalyk
7) copper moved 2N, representing copper mines of Balkhash and Karaganda
8) uranium of Northern Kazakhstan ore province moved north (Zaozernyj mine near Astana and Kokshetau), added uranium of Chu-Sarysu province and near Aktau
9) rare earthes in East Kazakhstan (Zyrjanovsk, Ridder), representing nonferrous metals industry (zinc, lead and small quantities of precious metals)

10) camels moved to trade node of Dzhungarian Gate
11) opium placed (representing, mostly, local cannabis, especially notorious Chuy Valley)
12) millet in Zhetsu region, blocking ahistorical settling on southern shore of Balkhash and helping Turks.
13) cows instead of sheeps in northern Kazakhstan, sheeps in semidesert areas

Spawns:
14) tselina movement: corn or wheat in ~1930 at (98;63), (106; 61), (105; 64)
15) rice spawn at late antiquity (e.g.: 200 AD) at (99; 58)

And I don't know, but what about rubber spawing somewhere in North Kazakhstan in 1920, representing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum_kok-saghyz? (Planting dandelions for rubber. Soviet Union was awesome)

 

There is one small problem with the Venice Lagoon. Because it is a land tile, the Po river is not connected anymore to the Adriatic Sea.

That means that the river is cannot be used for a trade route connection. Venice is also not riversided because of this.

 

The map on the latest version of the branch does not have it. But that map hasn't been updated since May 23, so it's possible that it is updated on your local version.