[Development] Map Suggestions

[IndisPC]

Here's my alternative proposal for improving the PNW. There are 5 tiles between the Salt Lake and the Pacific Ocean, which means each tile measures about 200 km. As such, Seattle could fall within the same tile as the Olympic Peninsula and still have access to the sea.

Leaving it as it is exaggerates the Straight of Juan de Fuca and puts Vancouver Island too far off the coast of Washington State.

 

[Publicola]

But in this case, it means nothing but cutting tiles from California, a region of significant economic importance and location of many resources IRL, whose importance is already insufficiently represented by its number of tiles as it is.

My earlier proposals were to either a) add 3 tiles to Oregon/Washington at the expense of the Pacific Ocean, or b) add 5 tiles to Oregon/Washington/Canada at the expense of Alaska, by shifting Vancouver and British Columbia one tile up. Neither proposal (nor the latest one by IndisPC) would affect California in any way.

 

[Leoreth]

There is still a uranium resource in metropolitan France. Does it actually make sense to be there considering the amount of uranium mined in France? I understand that France should be enabled to use nuclear weapons and nuclear power, but beside that concern, is it justified? If yes, is the current location (somewhere in Poitou?) reasonable? From the maps I have seen it seems most domestic uranium mining happens in the Massif Central.

 

[stormogulen]

According to Wikipedia, French historical output of uranium is fairly high and should be reasonable to represent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves).

The most historically important uranium district seems to be "La Crouzille" in Haute-Vienne (i.e. close to Limoges), which seems most accurate 1SE of the current position of the uranium IMO.

And regarding the previous discussion of Bretagne: if Brest or Rennes shouldn't preferably be settled to grow population from coastal tiles, maybe they could be excluded from the French core? Just a thought.

 

[DelilahFlowers]

My suggestion with regards to Brest/Rennes would be to make it an independent city. The area was ruled by the King of Amorica and later Duke of Brittany up until its official union with France in 1491 and de facto in 1547. This would force the player to settle other important cities like bordeaux and marseille. And it gives the English and the French more to fight over. By like 1550 if the French player/ai isn't at war with Brest/Rennes it should auto-integrate.

 

[phoenixfire7]

But I think Brest/Rennes isn't meant to exist and Nantes should instead

 

[Steb]

Should there be lagoons on the West African coast? In real life it is riddled with lagoons, and the two largest cities in the region — Lagos and Abidjan — are built at least partially on lagoons. I believe Lagos was mentioned at some point in this thread, but not Abidjan.

Google Maps screenshots for Lagos and Abidjan:

Spoiler :

I also suggest diverting the Volta river east for its last stretch. Though it is not very pronounced, there is a real bend east in real life, and it would better placement of Accra, which is west of the river, yet closer to Lagos than to Abidjan. Currently, the space between the Volta and the other river to the west (which I assume is the Bandama) is too narrow; it should comprise the bulk of Ghana and about half of Côte d'Ivoire.

Here's the screenshot from the map overview thread, with my proposed changes and a few (modern) city names in the area:

Spoiler :

 

[Bu77Trout]

Should there be lagoons on the West African coast? In real life it is riddled with lagoons, and the two largest cities in the region — Lagos and Abidjan — are built at least partially on lagoons. I believe Lagos was mentioned at some point in this thread, but not Abidjan.

Google Maps screenshots for Lagos and Abidjan:

Spoiler :

View attachment 587584 View attachment 587585

I also suggest diverting the Volta river east for its last stretch. Though it is not very pronounced, there is a real bend east in real life, and it would better placement of Accra, which is west of the river, yet closer to Lagos than to Abidjan. Currently, the space between the Volta and the other river to the west (which I assume is the Bandama) is too narrow; it should comprise the bulk of Ghana and about half of Côte d'Ivoire.

Here's the screenshot from the map overview thread, with my proposed changes and a few (modern) city names in the area:

Spoiler :

View attachment 587592

Big fan of the idea. Small criticism. I feel like the lagoons will look a bit odd placed inside the coast like that. Without a city it would make the coastline misshapen.

 

[Steb]

Big fan of the idea. Small criticism. I feel like the lagoons will look a bit odd placed inside the coast like that. Without a city it would make the coastline misshapen.

Yeah it'd be nice if someone could post the result in-game. I think it wouldn't be too bad, especially if the lagoons are covered with rainforest.

 

[stormogulen]

Now a little Mesoamerica.

Spoiler East :

-Very minor, but the obsidian in central Mexico could be moved 1S to better represent the major historical sources at Pachuca and Otumba.

-Maybe one of the two 'vanilla' spices in east-central Mexico should be the regular 'pepper' variety instead? It seems somewhat odd to have no peppers in Mexico of all places.

-Added salt near Salinas de los Nueve Cerros (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salinas_de_los_Nueve_Cerros). Compared to other major sources of salt for the Mayans (like northern Yucatán and southern Belize) it seems less awkward to add. Salt was a very important resource for the Mayans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_in_Maya_civilization#Commodities).

-Tried changing the corn in northern Yucatán to a deer as well as turning the tile into plains + forest, sacrificing some food for a little additional productivity (northern Yucatán is somewhat dry anyway, especially towards the west though). Deer were apparently the most important source of meat in the Mayan cuisine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_..._and_zooarchaeological_evidence_of_meat_usage), and also featured prominently in their art.

-I've got the impression that shrimps are more associated than crabs with the Gulf of Mexico and Mexican cuisine, but I'm not really sure.

Spoiler West :

-Added salt in the area around Michoacán/Colima/Jalisco. The Tarascans obtained salt around there.

-We could add a salt at Guerrero Negro in Baja California if we want to represent more modern salt production (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrero_Negro#Saltworks_operation).

 

[Krieger-FS]

As I've said in the thread about new American civs, I took some time to mess around in the north Peru area and see if I could improve a little more.

For reference, I've found this map:

Spoiler Peruvian Andes :

Now, here is the result after some tiles and resources switches:

Spoiler Reviewed North Peru :

• Switched some Hills to Mountains, enlarging the Andes and opening space for the highland cities of Cajamarca and Chavín (tough probably none will be settled in most games).
• Changed the tile 1S of Moche in Mountain, mostly for aesthetic reasons.
• The new Hill/Savannah tiles represent puna areas. Puna are a kind of highland (above 3200 mts) steppe/grasslands, where most of historical camelid herding was done.
• Changed some tiles in Nazca/Arequipa region to Semi-Desert, since these areas are part of coastal deserts in south Peru.
• Suggested a possible Mountain Pass that should open around the 1500s.

Resources:

• Slightly moved Potato, Dye and Oil resources (the original tiles became mountain tiles)
• Moved Clam 1NW, closer to Ecuador, to represent the more accurate sources of Spondylus shells
• Added a Cotton resouce 1S of Lima, so the resource is more accessible to Caral and near Nazca region, whose ancient culture was famous for the textiles.
• Added a Sheep (Llama) near Lima to replace the southern Potato (near Nazca) as nearby source of food. The main reasons for it are: a) Nazca is a desertic region, b) historically Potatoes were cultivated in the highlands and c) Llama herding is quite common in puna areas.

 

[Bu77Trout]

Don't know if this has been mentioned before but is there any interest in representing pollinators in-game somehow? They could be represented as a traditional resource such as HONEY with improvement APIARY. I think specifically representing the honey bee would be good as they are the most prolific pollinator and they do have a historically limited range which could produce interesting variation. They could start in greater concentration in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia and lesser concentration in Europe and then spread out through the colonial era.

Alternatively, pollinators could be represented in some more novel way such as a terrain feature/improvement/building (apiary) that increases crop yields on a tile or adjacent tiles. In this case major non-honeybee pollinators (bumblebees, butterflies, etc) that don't produce honey could be still be represented in other parts of the world.

I guess in many ways the density and spread of honey bees may be best represented by density, spread and variety of foodcrops around the world. So maybe it's moot afterall. But it's worth a thought. HONEY could even be a variant of SUGAR but seems a bit boring. Honey bees are probably the most important domesticated animal that aren't represented in game. Any thoughts?

 

[Vera]

Additional resources:
guinea pigs - they were and in rural areas still are the main protein source for Incan/Peruvian/Colombian and partially even Brazilian people. And since the 1950s they became extremely popular in Subsaharan Africa as well as food. I guess it should be represented.

The other one is poultry (sorry if it's added to the new map, I haven't checked it through all the posts). Aztecs domesticated turkey and used them as their source of meat, while other species like ducks or chicken, well, I guess I don't have to emphasize their significance. So, basically Asia, Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East plus Mexico should have poultry resources by default and via colonization it should spread the whole world in time.

 

[freethink]

I never figured out how to edit the map, but I was wondering what everyone would think adding a marsh and a lagoon (or a cape) in Eastern North America in the Mid Atlantic to represent how the Carolinas, especially by the Virginia border were inaccessible early on.

 

[Dracosolon]

At this point in development, is there really a need for more food resources? Not criticizing, just asking.

Other question: Is there some sort of rough estimation of how much the continents and various parts of the world (Sahara, etc...) have been enlarged?

 

[Bu77Trout]

Additional resources:
guinea pigs - they were and in rural areas still are the main protein source for Incan/Peruvian/Colombian and partially even Brazilian people. And since the 1950s they became extremely popular in Subsaharan Africa as well as food. I guess it should be represented.

The other one is poultry (sorry if it's added to the new map, I haven't checked it through all the posts). Aztecs domesticated turkey and used them as their source of meat, while other species like ducks or chicken, well, I guess I don't have to emphasize their significance. So, basically Asia, Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East plus Mexico should have poultry resources by default and via colonization it should spread the whole world in time.

I'm all for adding new resources. New stuff is fun to look at. To play devil's advocate, I guess one argument against poultry is that basically anywhere where "advanced civilization" has spread, poultry has spread in substantial numbers. For example the spread of poultry from Southeast Asia through the Middle East and Europe precedes the advent of all of the Ancient civilizations in those regions so all civilizations would basically start with poultry available. It wouldn't provide much variation region to region which wouldn't add a lot of value to possessing that specific resource. Good resources tend to be scarce or regionally limited which creates interesting gameplay. The same could be said to an extent about Honey I guess. Dang, here I am shooting down my own ideas.

 

[hnrysml]

I know it's all a convoluted abstraction, but the way I see it, the food bonus resources on the map represent productive areas that feed a city/cities, and/or areas where those goods were important to trade or industry, and, finally for flavour: making sure the map and game comes to life for the player. I think things like poultry and guinea pigs, for most of history, represent very small-scale and subsistence agriculture, and so would be hard to fit into this framework, but if they could be included would contribute to this flavour. On the other hand, honey is one of the oldest trade goods but, if included, would be the same resource practically everywhere, and wouldn't contribute much to the feel of the game at all.

 

[Vera]

I can accept the reasoning against poultry, it is quite general, yeah.

The importance of guinea pigs is larger than it seems since in the west they are pets. I have 15 of them and I don't keep them for food.
But they had a crucial role in South America, and as I said it is one of the most popular protein source in Subsaharan Africa. Plus, they had an important religious role in the Inca empire, so they could produce some happiness as well with the proper religion.

 

[Vera]

The other thing I forgot to mention last time might not be a map issue but something that has more to do with the game concepts.
I personally find it extremely annoying that even with advanced technologies we cannot get rid of bogs (marsh). My suggestion would be that after microbiology (I guess it's the tech that makes clearing jungles possible) they could be drained and turn into grassland or plains.

 

[hnrysml]

The other thing I forgot to mention last time might not be a map issue but something that has more to do with the game concepts.
I personally find it extremely annoying that even with advanced technologies we cannot get rid of bogs (marsh). My suggestion would be that after microbiology (I guess it's the tech that makes clearing jungles possible) they could be drained and turn into grassland or plains.

I would much prefer technology to mitigate or even improve over time currently undesirable features. In a larger map with much more swamp, rainforest and dense tropical forest (jungle), there should be a way to represent both the human encroachment on these ecosystems e.g. rainforest deforestation, and the limited draining of wetlands, without it being the only prudent decision to immediately chop all these features the moment it is possible to, with the only exceptions being planning for your one national park or playing as Congo. Even though sadly this would seem to be a realistic representation of things, in actuality habitat destruction of said ecosystems is an ongoing process that is push and pull, with massively increasing public sentiment against it. However in a recent game as Indonesia, for example, apart from my one national park city the moment i researched microbiology there is only a benefit to chopping all rainforest.

An interesting suggestion would be to give these features a benefit similar to how coast benefits the solar panels improvement: plus one food to adjacent tiles (but the rainforest tiles themselves have a heavy malus such as -2 food), with a maximum of +1 (no stacking). This would encourage the player to create a realistic model of land usage where forest ecosystems become smaller and fragmented over time, but there is obvious value in keeping them around.