[Development] Map Suggestions

[GoneFishingX]

I decided to give the central Sahara region around lake Chad a bit of love. Historically decently powerful kingdoms arose in this area and right now the map makes that almost impossible.

Original:


New:


Blue denotes areas that are changed to Semi-Desert.

Red Denotes areas changed to Plains.

Green denotes an added Forest.



A: The Ahaggar Mountains are filled with local game and Fauna that the local Berbers used to survive and thrive in the mountains. Deer and an extra Hammer seems pretty reasonable to allow for a moderately sized city for the Taureg.

B: Added the Yobe River to connect to the west side of Lake Chad. Also added two Semi Desert tiles to the north to represent the Arable land along that river.

C: The Air Mountains are a decent place to raise livestock and the semi desert looks nicer than a normal desert.

D: Expanded lake Chad. The lake was once the 4th largest in Africa and with these changes it now is. I also wanted to give it the iconic shape of the lake. I expanded the lake with Lagoons covered in marshes to keep the cities off. It keeps it looking shallow and marshy like the lake looks now.

E: Shifted the Millet to allow for a decent city to be placed just north of the ivory. The Tunjur or Wadai Kingdom was roughly in this area and could become a decent city state if you wanted it.

F: Added a bunch of semi desert to lake Chad. This more accurately reflects the Sahel nature in the region. It also allows for a city to be placed along Lake Chad where the Kanem Empire’s original capital might have been.

G: The Tibesti Mountains are full of life that helped local residents carve out a living. The Deer represent the herding animals and local game. The semi deserts make the mountains look nicer and the extra hammer helps the oasis be a decent city.

H: The Ivory is here to represent rhinos. They were hunted for their horns and served as a big export for the region. It isn’t ideal, but nothing else seemed appropriate. I also expanded the Chari river to make the semi desert become the same as Plains. It also represents the various Wadis that feed into the river.

I: Shifted the Oasis down to represent lake Fitri. It could even be one square west, but it is sort of filling in for some of the mild grazing and farm land around that area.

J: The Marra Mountains are actually quite wooded, so I added the forest and hills to represent this.

K: Darfur has a huge chunk of the Sudanese livestock industry. So the Cows are added to give the region some actual resources and growth potential.

L: I added a plains tile and a semi desert above it to make the Darfur region an okay place for a city. The Darfur Kingdom sprung up around this area centered on the plains tile in the city of El-Fasher.

 

[JHLee]

decently powerful kingdoms arose in this area and right now the map makes that almost impossible.

Oh I dont know, that uranium certainly looks promising...

 

[1SDANi]

Would it be possible to give Ivory a similar setup to forests where it's one tile but has two different texture types? Then we could add Rhinos as an alternate model for Ivory and the resource icon to be a tusk/horn instead of an Elephant.

A similar method could be used to change the South American sheeps into llamas and the sheep resource to wool, though that'd require the assumption that the wool resource also includes the meat of the animal that produces the wool. Perhaps the image could show both wool and meat to give the hint.

EDIT: Speaking of wool, I've always wondered why Camels were treated as a Strategic resource when the only strategic use they serve is for Arabia. They've been used for wool, milk, and meat throughout history, which makes me wonder why they're not given bonus health like Sheep are.

 

[Leoreth]

Would it be possible to give Ivory a similar setup to forests where it's one tile but has two different texture types? Then we could add Rhinos as an alternate model for Ivory and the resource icon to be a tusk/horn instead of an Elephant.

A similar method could be used to change the South American sheeps into llamas and the sheep resource to wool, though that'd require the assumption that the wool resource also includes the meat of the animal that produces the wool. Perhaps the image could show both wool and meat to give the hint.

I would love to do that, but it's currently not possible. Not sure if I can mod this in, because it may be hardcoded into the engine.

There's a lot of resources this could apply to, like region appropriate livestock, different sources for dye (e.g. cochineal instead of indigo), different spices (like cinnamon or cloves). There's a lot of art here in that direction that's not justified as a separate resource but would be nice as a graphical variant.

EDIT: Speaking of wool, I've always wondered why Camels were treated as a Strategic resource when the only strategic use they serve is for Arabia. They've been used for wool, milk, and meat throughout history, which makes me wonder why they're not given bonus health like Sheep are.

Because I did not want to introduce another source of health into the game. Camels also contribute to the Silk Route though.

 

[Orbii]

Because I did not want to introduce another source of health into the game. Camels also contribute to the Silk Route though.

Weren't camels added prior to the Limited Resources Effects feature? I think with the feature it might be okay to have them give health.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah, that's true. Let me think about it.

 

[Finbros]

Siberia was awesome, totally recommend.

Continue. West Siberian plain.

Before:

Red - state border, blue - redrawn rivers, turquoise - approximate position of swamps.

Overview:
Rivers are mostly correct, as I say. Fixes for them mostly supposed to place towns on the correct banks of them, and sometimes - to exaggerate their bends. Only suggestion — probably Tagil-Tura river (light blue) can be added as source of fresh water for cities of middle Ural (Tagil and Yekaterinburg).

Hills and mountains are ok - West Siberian plain is very flat, and we can just add some hills for Siberian Uvals east of Nizhnevartovsk. Or not, because they are rarely over 200 m height.

Most problem in West Siberia is incorrect placement of swamps - they are, firstly, located too far too the south, and, secondly, placed mostly in the banks of the rivers, blocking most of the historical city spots.

(Reference map for swamps)

Resources of the region mostly includes oil, furs and some food resources (deers in the north part, general food - in the south).

So, fixes

A. Added oil of West Siberian petroleum province; added deers for supporting northwest Siberian towns.
B. Added millet for enriching cities of Yekaterinburg and Tyumen.
C. Horses for Siberian Tatars and millet for Omsk
D. Sheeps moved 1N, added wheat and iron, representing iron ores of Bakcharskoye mine. I'm in doubt, though - while this deposit is valuable, it was found relatively late. Probably need to see Altay region as whole.

 

[Leoreth]

Which do you think would be the most important cities in southern western Siberia that should be represented in most games? Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk? If you had to choose between Yekaterinburg and Tyumen, which would you pick?

 

[Finbros]

Which do you think would be the most important cities in southern western Siberia that should be represented in most games? Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk? If you had to choose between Yekaterinburg and Tyumen, which would you pick?

Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, Chelyabinsk (two of three is ok), Omsk.

Kazan' (scripted), Orenburg, Yekaterinburg (western), Tyumen' (southern tile), Omsk (southern), with some variations in Urals (e.g. Kazan, Ufa, eastern Yekaterinburg, southern Chelyabinsk, Tobolsk, Omsk).

But any town from old Siberian Route or modern Trans-Siberian Railway/Trans-Siberian Highway won't hurt eyes too much, I think.

Don't know about Novosibirsk region - Novosibirsk is significant now, but it was founded relatively late (1893), so it will be strange to have it at least at 1700 AD start.
Probably AI should be encouraged to settle Novosibirsk, but region should provide place for two reasonable cities (Tomsk at north and some city at Altay or NE Kazakhstan).

If you had to choose between Yekaterinburg and Tyumen, which would you pick?

Yekaterinburg. It was founded later, but in XVIII-XIX cc they were pretty equal, and in XX century Yekaterinburg became more valuable due to its proximity to the Urals industry.

 

[hnrysml]

I agree that Novosibirsk shouldn't be on the 1700 map, but it is the largest city in Russia after Moscow and St Petersburg

 

[Ani Taneen]

I would love to do that, but it's currently not possible. Not sure if I can mod this in, because it may be hardcoded into the engine.

There's a lot of resources this could apply to, like region appropriate livestock, different sources for dye (e.g. cochineal instead of indigo), different spices (like cinnamon or cloves). There's a lot of art here in that direction that's not justified as a separate resource but would be nice as a graphical variant.

Would there be a value in splitting resources up? So instead of just spices you could have the most common and important, like Vanilla & cinnamon; and things like the trading company reward you for diversity of resources. This would also encourage more trading between civs. i don't want this to apply the European civs dilema, where we are fighting to add the most obscure items to the game. On a fun, but far fetched idea, an economic victory for creating monopolies under mercantilism.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

On a fun, but far fetched idea, an economic victory for creating monopolies under mercantilism.

Unique Economic Victories depending on which Economy civic you run when?

 

[Edmund Ironside]

An economic victory, as an additional victory condition to diplomatic, cultural, space race, etc, sounds pretty neat.

 

[Ani Taneen]

An economic victory, as an additional victory condition to diplomatic, cultural, space race, etc, sounds pretty neat.

Okay. I'll start a new thread for that topic. We should keep this thread on topic. Btw if we make Congo and Brazil four tiles tall we can fit a larger Europe.

 

[TJDowling]

Btw if we make Congo and Brazil four tiles tall we can fit a larger Europe.

 

[1SDANi]

Okay. I'll start a new thread for that topic. We should keep this thread on topic. Btw if we make Congo and Brazil four tiles tall we can fit a larger Europe.

We're never going to let him live that down, are we?

hhhnnnngg Königsberg

 

[Ani Taneen]

We're never going to let him live that down, are we?

You want a strange coincidence, look up "economic victory" and see who started the thread on this topic back in 2013. It's a small forum.

 

[Publicola]

You want a strange coincidence, look up "economic victory" and see who started the thread on this topic back in 2013. It's a small forum.

There's also an earlier thread that suggested a 'Unique Ideological Victory'. That might be an interesting way to incorporate both economic victories (capitalism, socialism, mercantilism) and political victories (liberalism, fascism, imperialism). I'm inclined to say economic-based victory conditions are sufficient, but there were some interesting ideas tossed around then.

 

[Leoreth]

Hey, there already is a dedicated thread to discussing victory types, also known as not map related discussion.

 

[Ani Taneen]

What's missing on the map. What hasn't been addressed?