[Development] Map Suggestions

[TJDowling]

I'd shift the Pilcomayo river down a bit, so Paraguay includes the tile immediately south of the cow. If the Chaco is going to have a swamp, it should be this tile, rather than the tile north of the cow (there's a very small sliver of the Pantanal wetlands within Paraguay's border, but so small it's hardly worth the mention). The other tiles, including the cow and at least one tile east of the central Paraguay) should be floodplains. (Don't forget to add a wheat tile as well, perhaps on the floodplain east of the river).

Moved the Pilcomayo, still good I think. Shape is different but reflects that West is larger than the East. Added the wheat (W) on the eastern floodplain, moved the corn one up because Asuncion (the assumed canonical city in Paraguay) would be crazy populated otherwise, also I just prefer not to represent 4 resources in a straight line ... but maybe the tobacco will be moved as well, not sure if I put that there or someone else but I don't know the justification.

I'm not able to get a good depth perception, so I can't tell if you raised any of the Paranena region as hills. There should be a entire range of hills connecting to the those mountains in southern Brazil. (...Checking the map of Brazil, I don't see any mountains or mountain ranges supposed to be on that tile. Are they supposed to represent the Mantiquiera Mountains? If so, they should be closer to Sao Paolo/Rio de Janeiro).

Hills under all the forests in Paraguay but not the eastern floodplain where wheat is. Changed the mountains in Brazil to hills.

As far as mining resources, the mineral industry of Paraguay is so minor I don't think it deserves much of one. There is a uranium deposit in Yuty, which could go on the far southeastern corner tile of the country. That would add a bit of commerce without much extra production, which should be fine.

Added uranium (U) which would likely end up being used by Brazil anyway.

Unrelated to Paraguay, but I did a bit of research on the Parana river in Argentina, and I really don't think there should be nearly as many floodplains as currently represented. There is one major wetland near the border with Paraguay -- that's the Ibera Wetlands in Corrientes, which can be represented by a two-tile swamp centered on the current tobacco tile + the current swamp tile immediately to its west. Everything else should be plains or grasslands (inland plains in the west, grasslands along the river), with the exception of one or two tiles at the Parana Delta (the mouth of the Rio de la Plata) which should be a grassland/floodplain.

I went ahead and assumed you meant marshes not floodplains. And interpreted that to mean take out all the marshes in Northern Argentina except the two you suggested on the border with Paraguay. I added two flood plains (FP) and changed one tile to grasslands (G) and a couple of tiles I'd marked as steppe back to plains.


Oh and whoever knows, I've been meaning to ask. Is there a way to get rid of the artefacts from the map when you remove marshes or you change from mountains/hills/plains/ocean?

 

[Leoreth]

That's a significant improvement, exactly what should be coming out of this thread. Great work everyone!

I'm a bit confused by the banana on jungle on the map, it seems kind of left over. Does it represent anything in particular?

 

[Leoreth]

Also, not to distract from the productive South America discussion: I still think North America is very neglected (besides Mexico where a lot of suggestions have already been worked in). Maybe it's a good idea if someone tried to do the borders approach there too, using US states and Canadian provinces (or in the case of smaller US states, use US regions instead). As the Paraguay discussion proved, it's much easier to get a handle on how things are actually arranged once you have the borders to hold on to. And we can start thinking about if the rivers and terrain match and if the states have resources reflecting their traditional industries.

 

[trevor]

I made these a while back albeit with the extra two tiles for New England that got shot down.

 

[Oblivionyx]

There should be a list on which areas still need more work. I would like to contribute something, but I'm not really sure what I can do...

 

[merijn_v1]

There should be a list on which areas still need more work. I would like to contribute something, but I'm not really sure what I can do...

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/development-map-suggestions.632861/page-16#post-15344499
It decently lists what areas still need attention.

 

[TJDowling]

I continued to make slight adjustments to the map. I moved two lakes that appeared to be in the wrong position. One which I think is Lake Popoo which should be roughly West of Sucre and the other I think is Laguna Mar should be further from the mountains. Also a few minor topographical changes but still in the beginning stages.

I'm opening the doors for suggestions on Bolivia, Northern Chile and Northern Argentina topography, terrain and resources (which are pretty arbitrarily placed at this point). Some previous suggestions have already been included such as Steppe on the Western part of Argentina towards the Andes but still awaiting more suggestions.

 

[soul-breathing]

I continued to make slight adjustments to the map. I moved two lakes that appeared to be in the wrong position. One which I think is Lake Popoo which should be roughly West of Sucre and the other I think is Laguna Mar should be further from the mountains. Also a few minor topographical changes but still in the beginning stages.

I'm opening the doors for suggestions on Bolivia, Northern Chile and Northern Argentina topography, terrain and resources (which are pretty arbitrarily placed at this point). Some previous suggestions have already been included such as Steppe on the Western part of Argentina towards the Andes but still awaiting more suggestions.

View attachment 516204 View attachment 516205

Now there are 3 food resource, a corn, a wheat and a cow in Paraguay, is it too much? This country isn't so populated.
Also there should be a pass from Bolivia to Paraguay for military units(maybe after European enter America), now it's blocked with mountain and lake.

 

[Publicola]

I'm opening the doors for suggestions on Bolivia, Northern Chile and Northern Argentina topography, terrain and resources

I double-checked the actual extent of the Atacama Desert (per this map). It looks like the southern edge of the desert is in line with the southern border of Paraguay, while the northern edge is even with the northern border of Chile. I think we need to shift the whole desert up by one tile -- the desert bronze and the hill next to it on the southern edge should be changed to semidesert (given how ridiculously arid the area around Atacama is), while the plains bronze to the north should be turned to desert.

No idea about resources, but I also think we should add a few (very short) rivers along the Pacific coast of Chile. The Maipo and Maule rivers are particularly notable, and should help make that region south of Atacama attractive for Incan settlement. We might also consider adding the Loa, so that Atacama tiles can be used even if they provide no food.

Now there are 3 food resource, a corn, a wheat and a cow in Paraguay, is it too much? This country isn't so populated.

Paraguay is kind of remarkable for being a major agricultural exporter in the world economy. It doesn't have the biggest population, but that whole region (Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina) can be favorably compared to the Ukraine and the American Great Plains as being some of the most productive breadbaskets in the world.

 

[Civ4Psychomaniac]

You should expand the Sakhalin Island and amplify Italy

 

[TJDowling]

there should be a pass from Bolivia to Paraguay for military units(maybe after European enter America), now it's blocked with mountain and lake.

I marked the tile NE of Tiwanaku as "hill on contact?" meaning it will open up when the Old World contacts the New World. There is still a rainforest in the way but it is on the silver so assuming everything goes historically the conquerors will build a mine on Potosi and open up the path to Paraguay.

It also helps with Bolivia's northern topography. Unfortunately, while Tiwanaku and Potosi are actually closer to the far edge of the mountain range, we have to box in the Inca so they are built in the center of the mountain range which means that the Andes are kind of artificially expanded into the rainforest lowlands. Having that particular mountain change to a hill will help make the map a bit more accurate past Old World contact.

 

[TJDowling]

I double-checked the actual extent of the Atacama Desert (per this map). It looks like the southern edge of the desert is in line with the southern border of Paraguay, while the northern edge is even with the northern border of Chile. I think we need to shift the whole desert up by one tile -- the desert bronze and the hill next to it on the southern edge should be changed to semidesert (given how ridiculously arid the area around Atacama is), while the plains bronze to the north should be turned to desert.

No idea about resources, but I also think we should add a few (very short) rivers along the Pacific coast of Chile. The Maipo and Maule rivers are particularly notable, and should help make that region south of Atacama attractive for Incan settlement. We might also consider adding the Loa, so that Atacama tiles can be used even if they provide no food.


Paraguay is kind of remarkable for being a major agricultural exporter in the world economy. It doesn't have the biggest population, but that whole region (Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina) can be favorably compared to the Ukraine and the American Great Plains as being some of the most productive breadbaskets in the world.

Here are some changes, including your suggestions. Moved the Atacama up, added the Loa River which gives access to the desert tiles. Added semi-desert south of the Atacama. In addition to the hill spawn in Bolivia, I added potentially two more hill spawns to the South. One opening up to the area possibly settled by a Native Mapuche settlement and the other opening up directly to Argentina.

Spoiler :

Next we have the Southern half of Chile. I haven't messed with the terrain too much but I've adjusted the topography, added on tile of land in the place of islands, added more islands in the Strait of Magellan and moved a mountain to make more land by the coast. I got rid of some mountains in the South based on this map http://www.globalcitymap.com/argentina/argentina-topography-map.html. Basically if it's white I gave it peaks. I understand that the red is still VERY high, but I think we have to consider this relatively. Relative to the white peaks, the red are pretty much just hills. Between the plains of Argentina and the tundra I added some Moorland where I think grassland had been suggested before. Maybe the Moorland could be expanded. Oh, I also added two lakes, they aren't big but I think it represents the Lake-iness of Patagonia well.

I still haven't looked at the terrain for the South much, mostly topographical changes here and as usual, the resources are somewhat arbitrarily placed.

Spoiler :

 

[Oblivionyx]

I decided to try my hand at the Mediterranean. I used this map as a reference guide. (Wikipedia says it is the Mediterranean before 1000 AD, but I figured it can't have changed very much.)

I started with Greece first.

Spoiler :

The original Greece looked too small to me, while in the map it looked to be the same length as Italy + Sicily. I restored the original shape of Greece and added two more tiles to the south. I left the western part of the Peloponnese flat plains because it looked like that part was less mountainous than the rest.

I added another plain tile in the north and diverted the river that was there.

Next, the Eastern Mediterranean.

Spoiler :

As per someone's suggestion (forgot who) I enlarged Crete by a tile to the East. Now I wasn't sure if the island should be all hills, so using this map I decided that the eastern tile should be flat plains. I also moved one tile of Cyprus north + added a few more islands in the Aegean.

I placed a tile 1SW of Constantinople to represent the Dardanelles and create a proper Sea of Marmara. I think it's geographically more accurate this way, but it sacrifices gameplay as ships built in Constantinople wouldn't be able to leave port. (Technically they can, just not into the Mediterranean.)

Western Mediterranean.

Spoiler :

The only major change here was that I moved Sardinia 1W so that it's right beneath Corsica, as it should be. I was thinking of adding a river there to separate the two, buut that didn't work out so well.

The rest are minor changes like adding another island off the coast of Iberia, replaced the desert 1E of the horse with a mountain, and added an island off the coast of Carthage. As for the tile marked "Plains? Island?", I'm not sure what to do about that. In the reference map, there's a big chunk of land jutting out from that area, but it looked too small to be represented properly.

EDIT: Gibraltar Area

Spoiler :

Reshaped some rivers.

Minor Changes to Europe.

Spoiler :

Added an island off the coast of France to represent the Channel Islands. I placed another mountain East of the Alps, cuz it looked like it should be there.

I also connected the two rivers 1E of the Wheat, and diverted the Adige river so it flows north of the Venice tile. Not really for geographic reasons; I just thought it looked better that way.

 

[Publicola]

I placed a tile 1SW of Constantinople to represent the Dardanelles and create a proper Sea of Marmara. I think it s geographically more accurate this way, but it sacrifices gameplay as ships built in Constantinople wouldn't be able to leave port.

Wasn't there an earlier proposal to create 'straits' so that ships could pass between two diagonally-connected land tiles? Not sure what happened to it, but if we can possibly get that functionality included with the Big Map, that should solve a lot of problems.

 

[borhap88]

I'm against the shift to west of Sardinia because it'd take away from Rome city radius a precious tile with a sheep on It.
I'm against the new set of the Marmara Sea. Byzantium must be on a unique tile between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, Europe and Asia.
Peloponnesus looks too squared, but I'm not against with one more tile for Southern Greece.

 

[Oblivionyx]

I'm against the shift to west of Sardinia because it'd take away from Rome city radius a precious tile with a sheep on It.
I'm against the new set of the Marmara Sea. Byzantium must be on a unique tile between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, Europe and Asia.

It's just more cases of accuracy vs gameplay, I suppose.

Peloponnesus looks too squared, but I'm not against with one more tile for Southern Greece.

I thought so too, but after looking at the map I realized that the Peloponnese looking like a square is more accurate than having a piece of it taken away.

 

[Oblivionyx]

I concur with borhap88 that sea access in both directions is an absolute MUST for Constantinople which would otherwise be outright castrated. Functionality before asthetics here.

Like Publicola said, a strait feature would be really useful in representing parts of the world like this. But if there isn't, the Dardanelles could be reverted into an island tile like it was before.

Are that many lakes in Patagonia really a good idea? Yes, the area looks like Finland and yes, there are a lot of lakes...but game mechanics wise this would make any settlement down there HUGE..which is completely unrealistic. have you been to Ushuaia, San Sebastian or Rio Gallegos? Those should have max pop of 3-4 ingame. also the additional tiles make it wayyyyy too big. it's hostile, barren land and there is not a soul living that far down in real life. i say, remove it.

Or turn those lakes into arctic coasts, which give no food.

 

[merijn_v1]

I decided to try my hand at the Mediterranean. I used this map as a reference guide. (Wikipedia says it is the Mediterranean before 1000 AD, but I figured it can't have changed very much.)

I started with Greece first.

Spoiler :

The original Greece looked too small to me, while in the map it looked to be the same length as Italy + Sicily. I restored the original shape of Greece and added two more tiles to the south. I left the western part of the Peloponnese flat plains because it looked like that part was less mountainous than the rest.

I added another plain tile in the north and diverted the river that was there.

I do understand your reasoning about the shape of Peloponnesos, but it isn't really pleasing to the eye. I suggest removing the southwestern tile.

Another suggestion, place a land tile 2N of the Cretan wine tile. If so, then that tile would be the accurate spot for Athens.

Next, the Eastern Mediterranean.

Spoiler :

As per someone's suggestion (forgot who) I enlarged Crete by a tile to the East. Now I wasn't sure if the island should be all hills, so using this map I decided that the eastern tile should be flat plains. I also moved one tile of Cyprus north + added a few more islands in the Aegean.

I placed a tile 1SW of Constantinople to represent the Dardanelles and create a proper Sea of Marmara. I think it's geographically more accurate this way, but it sacrifices gameplay as ships built in Constantinople wouldn't be able to leave port. (Technically they can, just not into the Mediterranean.)

I really don't think that Crete should be enlarged. IRL, Sicily has 3x times the area while on the map it is the same size. Corsica has about the same area IRL and is only 1 tile. The projections make it appear way too large compared to reality. I think it overemphasizes Crete.

I dislike the Sea of Marmara. While I agree that it more accurately represents the distance between the landmasses, I think that the gameplay effects it has on Constantinople are too big. And it is also not aesthetically appleasing.

Western Mediterranean.

Spoiler :

The only major change here was that I moved Sardinia 1W so that it's right beneath Corsica, as it should be. I was thinking of adding a river there to separate the two, buut that didn't work out so well.

The rest are minor changes like adding another island off the coast of Iberia, replaced the desert 1E of the horse with a mountain, and added an island off the coast of Carthage. As for the tile marked "Plains? Island?", I'm not sure what to do about that. In the reference map, there's a big chunk of land jutting out from that area, but it looked too small to be represented properly.

I agree with Borhap that Sardinia shouldn't be moved for the same reasons he gave.

EDIT: Gibraltar Area

Spoiler :

Reshaped some rivers.

Minor Changes to Europe.

Spoiler :

Added an island off the coast of France to represent the Channel Islands. I placed another mountain East of the Alps, cuz it looked like it should be there.

I also connected the two rivers 1E of the Wheat, and diverted the Adige river so it flows north of the Venice tile. Not really for geographic reasons; I just thought it looked better that way.

I don't like the connected rivers. Now it looks like it is all one and the same river.

Wasn't there an earlier proposal to create 'straits' so that ships could pass between two diagonally-connected land tiles? Not sure what happened to it, but if we can possibly get that functionality included with the Big Map, that should solve a lot of problems.

I did some experiments to see if it is possible to visually represent them. It is certainly possible and if you put some time in it and it can be aesthetically be really nice as well if you put some time in it. The major downside is, is that all diagonally linked land tiles would become straits. (Like Panama) There is no way of controlling that.

However, it is possible to give ships the ability to travel trough the straits. (RFCE does have this) It is even possible to limit this ability (albeit by hardcoding it) to certain straits only. And it shouldn't even effect the AI.

 

[Leoreth]

Maybe leo should be given a list of instances on the map where there is a conflict of asthetics vs. functionality. it's his mod, so let him have the last word on it.

I will go through this entire thread anyway, and then decide where applicable. But generally functionality always trumps aesthetics.

 

[Oblivionyx]

I reversed the aesthetic changes I made as suggested, except the Peloponnese one. If Athens will be placed 2N of the Cretan wine, keeping Greece as it is will make Sparta (2W of Cretan wine) a better city to settle.

I reorganized the Aegean Islands based on this new reference map from Wikipedia.

Spoiler Reference Map :

Spoiler New Greece :

The islands north of the suggested Athens tile represents where Chalcis would be + the small islands north of it.

EDIT: Would turning all the Mediterranean water tiles into coast be a good idea?