Hi all!
I'm glad to see that my river suggestions were liked! I don't want to distract from the Balkans discussion, but I've been working on my recommended changes to the resources and terrain of the Lower 48 US states, so here's what I've come up with (long post again!):
Disclaimer: I am American so personal bias might be unintentionally reflected.
I'll start with changes to the terrain and features. Firstly, I reverted my Great Lakes changes from my rivers post due to game-play reasons. I kept the coastline and mountains all the same, as I think they are pretty good representations. My main goal with the terrain changes was either to represent some unique aspect of a region, include underutilized terrain types, or make settling choices more interesting (hopefully).
North:
-It was recommended for Detroit to be next to a river so it could have a Levee, so I added in a river North of where Detroit would be (and one for Toronto too). I don't like how it looks, but I don't know how else to do it.
-Added forests to New England
-Added marsh to the Upper Peninsula and Minnesota. In reality, these are sparsely populated areas dotted with lakes and bogs. I also tried out putting a forest on a Marsh (and I like it).
South:
-Added three hills around the Appalachians to represent the Piedmont regions of North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Also added forest to Georgia's Piedmont.
-Added two new islands tiles to represent the East Coast's barrier islands (Outer Banks and Golden Isles), which are historically significant for the shelter they provide to coastal trade.
-Moved the Florida Keys (from my previous suggestions) one tile South to better represent their location with respect to Florida.
-Represented the Mississippi River Delta with Islands.
-Added hill to Arkansas
-Moved Georgian swamp one tile South to represent the Okefenokee Swamp - this opens the possibility of settling Savannah, while still leaving the possibility of settling St. Augustine/Jacksonville.
-I decided to enlarge the 'Bayou' to extend across the southern coast. I represented the 'Bayou' with a Jungle feature on a Marsh tile. This restricts possible settling locations and adds health problems for New Orleans (if settled)
-Flood Plains added to New Orleans in order to help compensate for the two lost grassland tiles. This way, New Orleans is still an attractive city location (as it should be)
-Added Marsh base terrain in Florida to represent the Everglades. (unfortunately, there is a graphical error)
West:
-Added a lot of Semidesert tiles, one of the new base terrain types with the Large Map endeavor. The new semidesert regions are bordered in red. A large column of semidesert separates the Rockies from the Great Plains, and makes that area commerce- and food-poor region.
-Added Semidesert to central Arizona, where there is more precipitation than the surrounding desert
-Added Semidesert to southern Idaho, as Boise should not be in the desert
-Changed the Great Salt Lake to a Salt Lake
-Added Moorland Hills to southern South Dakota. This is supposed to represent the "Badlands," a harsh landscape of barren rock. While a two tile representation is an exaggeration of their actual size, I think it adds character to a mostly empty plain (Also I wanted to find something to do with the new Moorland terrain).
Now on to resources! My methodology for this section was two-fold:
-First, I went down the list of resources, and, for each resource, I looked up the ranked order of US state production. For example, for Wheat, I would look up the top wheat-growing US States. For each state that produced a large amount of wheat, I would put a wheat resource in that state. If the state produced an exceptional amount of that resource, I would put two tiles within the state (such as the case of Cattle in Texas). If I got to a resource that is not particularly common in the US (such as coffee or incense), I would skip it. If there was a resource already present on the map and I could not find evidence for why it should be there, I either moved it or removed it.
-Second, I referenced this website:
http://www.netstate.com/index.html, which has nice summaries of the economies of each state, including agriculture, ranching, and mining. I looked at each state and noted what that state was particularly good at, and gave that state that resource (if it didn't have it already).
I feel like this combination gives a pretty holistic approach to get the right resources in a close-enough geographic location. If a state had a notable mineral reserve (such as the Comstock Lode or the Eagle Ford Formation), I tried to put the appropriate resource as close to the correct geographic location as possible. For livestock or produce locations, I tried to place them in locations that help grow what would be major cities (Chicago, New York, etc.) and not block those cities.
The major flaw with this approach, as you may have realized, is that some states are pure juggernauts in resources and others are not. Minnesota, for example, ended up with Iron, Corn, Stone, Cows, and Pigs in only five tiles (California's pretty dense too). To fix this, I did a 'diffusion' pass over that map where I tried to spread out the resources I had placed, deleting some resources where it was just too dense.
Another flaw is that all the resources are placed on the assumption that modern-day's outputs were constant through history. I tried to combat this by looking at historical production of resources as well, but this was to a lesser extent.
One final note: when looking at the maps, they look very resource dense in some areas. I fully realize this (see disclaimer above), but I tried to keep the new resource mechanics in mind (where health and happiness resources can only provide benefits to so many cities), and the American player has a lot of ground to cover with cities. Hopefully the 5 copies of Cotton will come in useful!
Terminology:
-PC means "Post-Columbian" - any resource with this suffix spawns at a later date (such as 1600 CE)
-If I moved a resource that was already on the map, I labeled the location I moved it to with a suffix that specifies x tiles moved in y direction (for example: 1W means that I moved a resource one tile to the West)
North:
-New England is relatively resource-poor compared to the other regions. This is for two reasons - the resource output of other states tends to overshadow that of the geographically small New England states, and I wanted to leave plenty of tiles available for cottage spam in the North.
(I hope my methodology explanation was thorough enough that explaining each change individually is not necessary
)
South:
-While the South does produce a large portion of America's food (mostly chickens, which aren't a resource in this game anyway), I tried to stick to the theme of the South being focused on cash crops.
-I was surprised to find that Louisiana and Arkansas produces the majority of American domestic rice
Midwest:
-The Great Lakes have some of the largest Iron deposits in the world.
West:
-Unfortunately, California produces too many things to represent on the map, so I chose the more interesting ones, such as wine and olive oil. Even still, I don't like how there's no room for cottages around San Francisco.
-The Fur in Oregon is to represent the 'Fur Trade Market.' While trappers didn't really operate much in Oregon itself, many shipped all their furs down the Columbia River, making the mouth of that river a major center for the fur trade.
Well, I think that's it! Thanks for reading and I hope this is helpful!
