[Development] Map Suggestions

[ozqar]

Now to northern and Eastern Europe!

I mentioned yesterday that Poland was lacking tiles and I had also thoughts that Germany was too wide in proportion to its height (although its area was correct), Poland also looked initially a bit too flat. I looked at the political borders again to see where was the problem or what we could do about it. First of, I moved the Oder river 1W (the boundary with Poland) 1W. The river is now touching Berlin, which I don't think is a big problem. In compensation for the lost tiles, I added 3 tiles in the northern coastline. I think Germany looks much more accurate with these changes and the northern coastline is not flat anymore.

I changed the course of all the rivers a little. I made sure the Elbe was born in central Czechia and flows diagonally northwest to Hamburg (before it was wider, in line with the Oder). I made the Rhine so that it flows out of Switzerland, marks the boundary with France, and then has an eastwards-bend to keep Cologned and some of the Rhineland to its west. The Rhine touches Frankfurt, but let's assume that's the Main River (it can also be added on the south edge of the city). For the Danube, I moved it north so that Munich can be its south - it could be expanded 1W, but I thought it also worked well like this (I'm not sure how much water flows that far north in its course, and the Rhine is just next to it, so it looked a bit too much). I didn't mark it in the map yet (need to look it up), but I think the Hamburg tile and 1N should be marshes. Can someone confirm that? I believe Hamburg was settled only "late" (for the Middle Ages) and only due to favorable incentives, because the terrain was too marshy there.

By the way, we have space for Switzerland! In marking the borders, I left most of the Alps on the Italian side (because in general, there's more of them south of the border). But 4 tile Switzerland (accurate proportions) has room for Zurich or Bern. There's room in Austria for something like Innsbruck or Salzburg, but only at the expense of Munich. I think it's better to leave Munich.

Continuing with the northern coastline, I looked at Poland. I added two tiles for Gdansk (this had also been proposed by Tab911) and actually moved the Baltic countries 1 NW (Poland was too wide otherwise). I made some changes to both rivers, for the Oder, I marked a source out of the Czech Republic and west to the (new) border with Germany. I wanted to place Wroclaw there instead of Poznan (Wroclaw would be 1S of Poznan), but there's no room for it with Prague there (which I think should take preference). I moved the Vistula west and moved Warsaw west accordingly (compared to where I had placed it before moving the German border). As well as the two tiles in the north, Poland gained one additional tile south of Krakow. Poland has enough room for 4 good cities, but with Lviv (polish Lwow), Brest, and Vilnius, the commonwealth can be quite powerful. I made changes to the mountains in the south (will get to that later). As everywhere else, I ignored resource placement. I have a feeling the northern polish coast must also have some wetlands, so maybe we can add marshes if someone can look that up.

Spoiler Rearranged Germany and Poland: :

For relief, I added hills to mark a transition north of the Alps, some in western Germany (on the border with Belgium and France), on the East (the border with Czech Republic), and in the center (NE of Frankfurt). From relief maps, I think these are all accurate and they add texture, but the one in central Germany could be removed (altitude is not so high). There are some changes to the Carpathians (seen here in Poland), but explain that afterwards, and I added hills along the Carpathian northern slope as you can see here:

Spoiler Germany and Poland relief: :

I continue to the Baltic states... I'm sure those Konigsberg fans must have seen it already. It's there. As a disclaimer: I didn't add it intentionally nor expanded and moved everything to make room for it (this was not a Konigsberg case), but I think with the changes around it, there's room for Konigsberg/Kaliningrad. Space is tight, so I see how some players could want to skip it, but in my opinion, now that there's space for it, it's important enough to serve as the Prussian capital and be in the game.

Getting back to geography, as I said earlier, I moved the Baltic states 1NW. The only other change in there is in Latvia, I love the shape of the Gulf of Livonia. This is an aesthetic choice (ie, it's either having the tile NW of Riga (as I do here) or the tile W of Tallinn (as in the original map). I added the Nema river in Lithuania and expanded the Daugava in Estonia a little bit in accordance to its real life flow. For the Daugava, it's flowing out of Russia and through Belarus as it should, while the Nema is a bit shorter than the original map. The lake 1SE of Tallinn was originally a bit further east, but I changed it there to help mark Estonia's boundary (this is Lake Peipus). I didn't look at resources here either.

For the Baltic region in general (3 countries + Kaliningrad) with the changes, the region gained 4 tiles in total, but now they are in the same proportion as Scandinavia and Finland (ie, 12 thousand km2/tile). I think the expansion is good because they can do with the space and now they're aligned with the neighboring regions. At the same time, in this region the map merges into Russia where the proportions are all considerably different... and where the eastern-most tiles could also be defined as Russian.

Spoiler Rearranged Baltics and Scandinavia: :

Now, the big question is how to make room for the changes above. I was worried Scandinavia would be a problem. I found a way to make room for this that also improves Scandinavia - you can also see these changes in the same map above. The key was that actually the Baltic Sea was 15 tiles too big to be in proportion to Scandinavia and the Baltic countries (46 tiles instead of 31, that's 150% of the correct size. Knowing this, I felt comfortable with moving the Baltics west as I had (this also makes room for European Russia). To accomodate the expansion in Germany, I moved the Copenhagen and Odense tiles in Denmark 1N. Jutland looks a bit different now, but I'm ok with the new shape (it's hard to get it right at this scale). Copenhagen is still connected to Denmark and not to Sweden, as intended. Across the straits, I had to remove a tile in Sweden (1 NW of Malmo) to keep the countries separate.

Now, having that oversized Baltic Sea also meant that Scandinavia was too long east-west (not great because in the map it's already pulled westwards to make it fit in the map). I removed I think 1 column of land tiles in northern Sweden/Norway as shown here, and moved everything at Oslo's latitude 1E to fill the gap (also the rest of Norway, to keep the shape; but I mean, southwest Sweden is exactly where it was). With the changes I lost one of the two lakes in southern Sweden (lol, not sure where it went missing), and Stockholm is not a bump anymore, but considering the larger shape of the peninsula, this all works well for me. Btw, The Baltic Sea is still larger than it should be, but I thought removing one more column would make it too narrow (we can discuss though).

Now, while the changes worked very nicely for Sweden, Norway, and the Baltics, Finland did suffer a little bit. It lost a row (as the Baltics moved north), so I moved everything up in compensation (this also means moving the region where the tundra starts). I also moved it West to align it with the new Baltics. Now it's a bit "fatter" but it retains its correct size. The only change I did to improve the shape is expanding the Gulf of Bothnia two tiles north to increase the coastline. I didn't look into the Scandinavian terrain (I know there were changes proposed earlier) nor to its rivers or relief (didn't have time), for lack of time. If people like this changes, then we could look into it. As everywhere else, I ignored the resources.

All in all, Finland is a bit fat and northern Fennoscandia (ie, the Lapland region) is very small in this proposal, maybe it lost 8 tiles or so? But considering that this allows improvements in Germany, Poland and the Baltics, and slightly helps Russia, and improves the shape of southern Norway and Sweden, and improves the size of the Baltic Sea... it's a good price to pay I think.

To be continued...

 

[ozqar]

Let's move south now. I'm perpetually depressed that there's no room in the Balkans for anything. In recent changes, Leoreth moved the Carpathian a bit north of their original location, making for a better Pannonian plain and Transylvanian region. Go Kingdom of Hungary! I was happy with that, but kept looking at the map. I looked into relief maps, and saw that arguably the Carpathians could be pushed 1N at places. For example, I moved them out of Romania and into Ukraine (where they get less in the way of cities), and pushed them north into Poland instead of Slovakia (this last part if inaccurate, but I think it's worth it). So look at the new mountain chain, I like the shape better, there's so much room for the historical expansion of Hungary (or the HRE, or the Ottoman Empire) with room for a city in Transylvania (which would actually serve as a 2nd Hungarian city, as historical). If people don't like losing those tiles in Poland to mountains, the start of the chain can be pushed back south, but I think it works better like this (and, looking back at the proportions, this land is more needed here than in Poland). I paid attention that there would be gaps and openings so that Vienna could take Krakow, Lviv, and Iasi, since these were all part of the Austro-Hungarian empire at some point. Finally, I changed the terrain from steppes to a mix of plains and grasslands - I think Steppes are inaccurately punishing for this region. While I didn't look at resources here, there's little food anyway, so cities won't grow too big.

In Austria, I expanded the Alps north and east (ie, the tiles 1SW, and 1S2W of Vienna). I look at relief maps and noticed this shape is more accurate. There's enough room for it in any case, but they can be changed back into hills. I shortened the Sava river a little bit, but I don't feel too strongly about that shortening. In Greece, I moved the peak in northern Greece 1NW, now it's a continuation of the dynamic alps and it matches better with relief maps. I added a second peak in southern Bulgaria (north of Thessaloniki) for the Rhodopes mountains. In the dynaric alps, I think the peak north of Dubrovnik should be a hill, but didn't change that yet (as it was recently introduced by Leo).

For vegetation, this is the only region where I did look closely at ecosystem types. I added forests (of the correct graphical feature) along the hills and generally outside of canonical city locations, including some savanna features for Greece (which I'm using as mediterranean forests).

I also looked at the Black Sea, and counted that it was also bit too big - not as bad as the Baltic, but it had a larger ratio than neighboring regions (ie, the Balkans, Anatolia, and the Caucasus). This made me feel comfortable to increase the size of the Balkans: I expanded Bulgaria (1 tile), Romania (2 tiles), and Ukraine (2 tiles) and kept the original shape of the sea. In the new size, it's proportions are just smaller than the Balkans but still larger than those of Anatolia and the Caucasus countries. This makes a good transition between the proportions between Europe and Asia. With their new tiles gained from the sea and with the expansion allowed by moving the Carpathians north, Romania and Bulgaria now finally are on proportions to their neighboring countries. There's room for Sofia and for Bucharest, and possibly even a third city in Romania (Iasi or Chisinau could be there). Romania and Bulgaria were previously the two most disproportionately small countries in Europe and, while they don't have civs, their territories are important for the Austro-Hungarians, the Byzantines, and the Ottomans, so I'm particularly happy with these changes (I hope other people like them too). I didn't change the Danube, except for the delta. I aligned the Dniester to mark the Ukrainian boundary, and a left a shorter Prut to mark the Moldavian border. As everywhere else, I ignored resources.

Spoiler Rearranged Danube basin :

Spoiler Smaller Black Sea in Context: :

Here's a map of relief changes, with hills highlighted. I added them on both sides of the Carpathians, also to mark the edge of Transylvania, the Bulgarian mountains, highlands in Macedonia and Kosovo, and I might have added one or two around the Yugoslavia area.

I didn't look much at Greece, because it has received a lot of attention already. Greece can do with one more tile to keep it in proportions to everything else, and I'd add that as a hills tile south of Thessaloniki (as the Chalkidi peninsula), but arguably mainland Greece can also look a bit different. As we have it now, it's too stretched vertically and loses on it's east-west shape. Crete is the correct size, by the way, when you consider that it represents all the Greek islands.

Spoiler Balkans relief: :

Finally, I looked at Ukraine and Belarus. Ukraine benefitted from this expansion southwards, so I mostly made sure that their proportions were correct compared to Eastern Europe. I made minor edits to the Dnieper, and marked Dnipropetrovsk as a possible canonical city for Ukraine. I have Kharkiv 1 tile further east than real life to have them both there. I'm not sufficiently informed of Ukrainian history, so if there are other cities that should be there instead, I'm happy to make changes. As mentioned earlier, I did mark Lviv and Brest because they're important cities for the Polish civ. I edited the rivers in Belarus (I mentioned the Daugava in the north before), so that the Dnieper flows through its (as accurate as possible) route from Russia down to Ukraine. The tributary is the Pripyat and the marshes there (which I expanded after doing research) are the Pinkster Marshes, the largest wetland in Europe. I like that they help to mark the boundary between the two countries.

I looked at ecoregions, and included steppe all the way onto Romania and eastwards to Kharkiv. I used plains to mark a transition to grasslands, but that's for aesthetic purposes. In Crimea, I added mixed forests and a peak representing the Crimean mountains. I did my best to keep Ukraine in adequate proportions, but it's kind of difficult due to the changes in proportions from other countries. I think that, for complete accuracy, the row of Kiev and that north of it should be pushed eastwards but... I don't think it makes any difference. As with the Baltic countries, here starts the boundary with Russia, and proportions will change a lot, so it's a weird area to represent perfectly. Disclaimer: I looked at relief, coastline, and rivers, and a little bit to terrain and ecosystems, but didn't look at all into resources or to which should be the canonical cities in the center and east.

Spoiler Rearranged Ukraine & Belarus: :

See below for relief, I marked hills in Ukraine based on relief maps, so along the Carpathians and a couple in the east (as well as a new peak representing the Donets range). I also added hills (on the Russian side though, for lack of space), to mark the boundary with Russia (accurate with relief maps, not just for convenience).

Spoiler Ukraine relief: :

So, here's the big picture, so you see how it looks altogether!

Spoiler Europe All Changes :

Spoiler Changes in Northwestern Europe :

Spoiler Changes in Southeastern Europe :

That's it for today!

 

[Leoreth]

Just fyi, I made it clear much earlier that I won't consider "extend Europe by x tiles here" proposals and since it seems like this will be cascading from there I just wanted to repeat that to make sure that you know this is just for fun and I basically can't use anything in these proposals unfortunately.

 

[SBlack]

Suggestions might not be taken in consideration, but such great effort still deserves comment.

In my opinion Iberia and France now become huge, and (at least in my opinion) we cant treat them same as densely populated Benelux, England and West Germany.
I like attention you gave to Balkan's which is usually depicted as plain and barren as are Atlas Mountains, but compared to huge Europe black sea now looks like a small lake.
Balkan heartlands should have 3 peripheral cities that 19th century powers might start minor war over, but this way Belgrade and Sofia/Bucharest become too strong, I have somewhat same opinion about Ukraine, Baltic and Belarus (don't know enough about them).

But I really like expansion of Central Europe, cities like Prague, Wien, Munich, Krakow are all usually one tile away from their closest neighbor and this finally gives them breathing space.
Also what i like is you took space from Scandinavia which is as side effect of huge Europe also enlarged (on bad side it takes ocean aces away from Murmansk).
This could open door for Prussia as Prussian state, Hungarians and even Switz (Leoreth if I remember toyed with idea of Switz civ (might be wrong though, no offense)). and make Germany battleground it was or powerhouse when united.

I still think mod is little bit too eurocentric (looking at you China and Arabia), and expanding Europe in any direction, other than rearrangement of its tile shouldn't be done.

 

[merijn_v1]

For relief, I added hills to complete the shape of the the Massif Central, the Jura, Vosges, and just a bit of the Western slope of the Alps (not too much room available) and the north slope of the Pyrenees. 1E of Brussels I changed to hills to represent the Ardennes. I'll explain changes to Germany & Switzerland below, but this pic below marks the hills terrains for all these countries:

Do note that all land tiles in the Amsterdam's BFC must be flat. Otherwise the Delta Works wonder cannot be build.

 

[1SDANi]

Just fyi, I made it clear much earlier that I won't consider "extend Europe by x tiles here" proposals and since it seems like this will be cascading from there I just wanted to repeat that to make sure that you know this is just for fun and I basically can't use anything in these proposals unfortunately.

At least this one is trying to increase proportional accuracy between regions.

 

[Temüjin VIII]

Just a random question: Are we defaulting to the Blue Marble terrain set at some point? I'm assuming that the design of the new terrain types (esp. Steppe and Savanna) are based on it.

 

[TJDowling]

Just fyi, I made it clear much earlier that I won't consider "extend Europe by x tiles here" proposals and since it seems like this will be cascading from there I just wanted to repeat that to make sure that you know this is just for fun and I basically can't use anything in these proposals unfortunately.

Yeah, I dunno, seems like rather than extending things to try to create all 10000 million countries of the HRE this is actually trying to improve on the proportion and design of the current map. To be very honest I didn't even notice there was any distortion without reading it because it's not a dramatic change (albeit a good one). I think they are pretty solid recommendations worth real consideration. But I'm just a peasant.

 

[Xyth]

So, here's the big picture, so you see how it looks altogether!

Changes within the continent look good, but this makes Europe way too large. It's now wider than Africa! I know that some European exaggeration is intended for this map, but I think this is too much.

 

[Leoreth]

Just a random question: Are we defaulting to the Blue Marble terrain set at some point? I'm assuming that the design of the new terrain types (esp. Steppe and Savanna) are based on it.

Yes, I created the new terrain types by manipulating existing textures from Blue Marble, so they naturally look better together. It's not really possible to maintain new terrain types for both texture sets, so it makes more sense to make Blue Marble official. I asked around about this before and there weren't many concerns about that.

 

[1SDANi]

Just fyi, I made it clear much earlier that I won't consider "extend Europe by x tiles here" proposals and since it seems like this will be cascading from there I just wanted to repeat that to make sure that you know this is just for fun and I basically can't use anything in these proposals unfortunately.

Does this include the proposed changes to the french and spanish coastline, or only everything that spiraled out of control after that?

 

[Leoreth]

Not sure what you are asking, if I say I don't want to extend Europe that includes France and Spain. It's hard to use anything from these suggestions in that context because all other changes are obviously conditional on the landmass changes.

 

[1SDANi]

Not sure what you are asking, if I say I don't want to extend Europe that includes France and Spain. It's hard to use anything from these suggestions in that context because all other changes are obviously conditional on the landmass changes.

My bad. I thought "Extend Europe by x tiles" was referring solely to the moving of one landmass to make room for another and not both that and the extension of a coastline.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah I am basically against every attempt to increase the size of the European land area at this point. If you want to add/subtract a few tiles to make the shape look more realistic that's alright but also where it ends for me.

 

[1SDANi]

Yeah I am basically against every attempt to increase the size of the European land area at this point. If you want to add/subtract a few tiles to make the shape look more realistic that's alright but also where it ends for me.

Makes sense. It's already really big.

 

[merijn_v1]

Not really a suggestion for the map itself, but some that are related to the new resources it brings. Right now, most of the new resource do nothing other than improving tile yield and (limited resource) happiness and health. I think some should get additional benefits.

Millet - 1 health with Granary, consumable resource for Cereal Industry
Potato - 1 health with Granary (it already is a resource for Cereal Industry)

Rare Earths - consumable resource for Computer Industry and/or Steel Industry
Obsidian - 1 happiness with forge, consumable resource for Luxury Industry (not sure about this one), allows spearman and light swordsman

Olives - 1 health with Pharmacy

Cocao - 1 happiness with Coffee House, 1 happiness with Trading Company NW
Opium - 1 happiness with Coffee House, 1 happiness with Trading Company NW, consumable resource for Trading Company

Jade - 1 happiness with Forge, consumable resource for Luxury industry
Salt - 1 health with Smokehouse

Amber - 1 happiness with Market, consumable resource for Luxury Industry
EDIT: Required to build Amber Room

With these changes, rubber the only (new) resource without a secondary effect. I couldn't find any suitable secondary effect. I'm not saying that is necessarily should get one. It just happens that this is the only one left and all others do have a suitable secondary effect.


Another thing. In many suggestions, crabs were placed on spots where shrimp fishing is a big thing. Maybe it could be an unique resource. I don't know if I fully support this idea myself, but I put it up for debate.

 

[Leoreth]

I guess Rubber could also improve production with Industrial Park like Oil and Aluminum do, enable Highways and maybe also Public Transportation and Airports, maybe accelerate Tank and Airplane production, and of course more happiness with Ball Court.

For Opium, I think it makes more sense to give health with Pharmacy considering its use as a painkiller. Actually it could even swap places with olives, moving them to Coffeehouse. Olive health comes more in culinary form than as medicine and Coffeehouse is the closest building to reflect that.

Building health and happiness need to be handled a bit more carefully as the new resources increase the maximum available value here. I think the best way to compensate for this is with additional cost, likely through extra buildings. For example, a Jeweler building could absorb extra happiness from Gems, Pearls, Amber and Jade.

 

[1SDANi]

With these changes, rubber the only (new) resource without a secondary effect. I couldn't find any suitable secondary effect. I'm not saying that is necessarily should get one. It just happens that this is the only one left and all others do have a suitable secondary effect.

Computer industry (vulcanized rubber wire insulation)

Building health and happiness need to be handled a bit more carefully as the new resources increase the maximum available value here. I think the best way to compensate for this is with additional cost, likely through extra buildings. For example, a Jeweler building could absorb extra happiness from Gems, Pearls, Amber and Jade.

More sources of unhappiness esp lategame?

Perhaps increased war weariness after the discovery of technologies that historically lead to things like 24/7 warfare, trench warfare, frequent deaths at the hands of unseen assailants, extremely loud unpredictable/frequent noises, and other things that led to increased stress during wartime and the resulting drastic increase of soldiers suffering from PTSD.

Some suggestions: Flight (Aerial Bombardment), Pnuematics (Trench Warfare), Electricity (24/7 light), Artificial Intelligence could lower it a little

EDIT: I forgot to mention this, but I specifically chose Flight, Pnuematics, and Electricity not only because of their logical historical relevance but also because none of them require any of the other two and are each on a different tech level.

 

[merijn_v1]

I think that just having power (both clean and dirty) in a city provides 2 unhealth. But only dirty power contributes to unhealth for consumed power by buildings.

The mechanic is already present, but currently unused.

 

[Crimean Lord]

Some ideas and propositions about RUSSIAN FAR EAST

HISTORICAL and ECONOMIC BACKGROUND

First Russians appeared in this area in XVII century but strong Chinese Empire (Qin Dynasty) succesfully stop potential of early russian expansion
Only Yakutsk appeared it the same time
Yakutsk: unnesessary city before Soviet Era (when a lot of gems opened by geological expeditions)

SO - only in the mod of XIX century (after Opium's Wars between CHINA and UK) Russian Tsar Alexander II built here permanent civilian cities:
Blagoveshensk: city-border between CHINA and RUSSIA - by the way, one of the most poor cities in modern Russia;
Habarovsk: "capital" of Russian Far East + important center of Soviet and Russian wood industry;
Vladivostok: main commercial port of the Russia on the East - and importnat harbor of Russian Pacific Naval;
Magadan: Sity-Symbol of gold-industry on the one hand and Totalitarism's Legacy on the other hand (first of all - it built by prisoners in Stalin's Period);

NEW TERRAINS

Moorlans, forests, taiga and marshes represent all types of Far East area: I think it will be correct - decrease marches if we want to make local cities a bit more productive
Islands near Vladivostok which represent so called "Russian Island" near Vladivostok

EXTRA RESOURCES


Rare Earth which pepresents powefull source of titanium near river Amur;
Coal neer Yakutsk represents local coal mines in river Lena's area;
One or even two Gold in Colyma's provinse (area near MAGADAN);
OIL near Sahalin which represents so called Sahalin One/Two - huge souces of OIL/GAS near the island;

One extra FUR - technically it's not so important but FUR give more commerce to HABAROVSK;
Ome extra GEMS to Yakutsk - the same story as previous one;
Whales near Vladivostok (not current FISH) - not so important too, but may be they give extra luxury to RUSSIA;


P.S. What about proposition - transform some sea tiles to ocean in SEA of OKHOTSK. Perhaps it would block big sity-ports in this area?