[Development] Map Suggestions

[Publicola]

I decided to try my hand at the Mediterranean. I used this map as a reference guide.

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

Given how both of your reference maps clearly show a continuous slope down the Adriatic to the end of the Peloponnese, I'm wondering why that isn't reflected in the civ maps you've shown, and why Greece is 'flattened' to the same coast line as Albania.

My suggestion would be to take the original map you posted, and shift the five tiles representing Athens + the Peloponnese one space east. That would create a diagonal connection between the mainland -> Attica (Athens) -> the peninsula, which better reflects the real world. You'd need to shift Crete one space east as well so it doesn't connect to Greece, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue. It might also be good to cut out the bottom left corner tile from the Peloponnese (so the whole peninsula is only three tiles, representing Corinth + Olympia + Sparta).

 

[merijn_v1]

Maybe Crete should be move 1S. It is on the same heigth as the southern row of Peloponnesos, while it is clearly south of it on the reference map.

I don't know how this change will look in reference with the rest of the Mediterranean. It is possible that it will become too close to Africa because of this which is also not good.

It will move the western tile with the wine out of reach for Athens, which does have a (minor) gameplay effect. But it reduces the overlap with a city on Crete which IIRC some people really desire.

The amount of island tiles (if only all marked water tiles are islands) feels right. Not too many (that makes it overpowered) and not too few (that underrepresents the archipelago).

 

[TJDowling]

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.
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..

You're right, and I thought about that but I think population could be managed with terrain and Arctic Coast. Does anyone know if it would it make a difference if the lakes were made from "Arctic Coast" or would Arctic coast still get a food boost as a stand-alone lake?

 

[Leoreth]

Fresh water should be +1 food over its base terrain regardless.

 

[Oblivionyx]

My suggestion would be to take the original map you posted, and shift the five tiles representing Athens + the Peloponnese one space east. That would create a diagonal connection between the mainland -> Attica (Athens) -> the peninsula, which better reflects the real world. You'd need to shift Crete one space east as well so it doesn't connect to Greece, but that shouldn't be too much of an issue. It might also be good to cut out the bottom left corner tile from the Peloponnese (so the whole peninsula is only three tiles, representing Corinth + Olympia + Sparta).

Like this?

Spoiler Greece 1 :

Here's another version with Crete shifted 1S.

Spoiler Greece 2 :

Here's one with Merijn's suggestions and a three-tile Peloponnese.

Spoiler Greece 3 :

I'm not sure which of the Greeces I like best. To be honest, I was aiming to make Sparta a more desirable place to settle, rather than have a mega-Athens hogging all Greece.

(Unrelated) While I was editing, I thought it would be good to enlarge the Sea of Azov and reroute some rivers that were flowing into it.

Spoiler :

The amount of island tiles (if only all marked water tiles are islands) feels right. Not too many (that makes it overpowered) and not too few (that underrepresents the archipelago).

At least I did something right.

 

[Publicola]

Like this?

Exactly what I imagined. Thank you!

Here's another version with Crete shifted 1S.

Hmm, I agree that the 'Greece 1' version has Crete and the Peloponnese too close to each other, but the problem with shifting Crete 1S is that it makes the island far too close to mainland Egypt for my comfort.

Checking your source-map again, it looks like the island of Crete is almost equidistant between Athens to the north and the Nile delta to the south. Unfortunately, the Eastern Mediterranean has four water tiles between them, so Crete could go on either. I almost wish we could add another row of water to the Eastern Med (adding a bit of space to the Levant, probably around Antioch or Tyre) so Crete has enough space. We might either shift the rest of Africa south by one (or shrink the Sahara or the Congo jungle), or Europe north by one (or reduce the arctic land available to Scandanavia/Russia) to keep everything in line. Lot of work for small benefit though.

If we don't expand the Eastern Med, I'd definitely prefer 'Greece 1' -- better to have Crete too close to the rest of Greece, than to tie it to Egypt.

I'm not sure which of the Greeces I like best. To be honest, I was aiming to make Sparta a more desirable place to settle, rather than have a mega-Athens hogging all Greece.

Perhaps the answer is to shuffle some of the resources so Greece becomes a better spot for production. The islands certainly help, but not enough.

Question for @Leoreth: are 'islands' considered a feature like floodplains? I'm wondering if it'd be possible to add a resource to an island tile, specifically a marble to represent the incredibly important quarries on Paros and Naxos. They're small islands in the Aegean (so don't deserve to have a land tile of their own) but those quarries were some of the best known in the ancient world, and were used to build many of the surviving monuments from classical Greece.

There's also a major series of marble quarries on Mount Pentelicus, that were used for the construction of the Parthenon and the Acropolis during the age of Pericles -- that would correspond to a marble resource on the same tile intended for Athens. On the other hand, the area around Athens (known as 'Attica') was much better known for their silver mines, so that might be a better fit for that tile.

Historically, there was another set of marble quarries at Tripoli (a minor Greek city located within the 'Sparta' tile) as well as quarries at Argos (on the Corinth tile). Either of those tiles would qualify for a marble resource as well.

 

[DC123456789]

If Greece is going to be expanded so far south - maybe Anatolia can be expanded a bit southwards as well, at least the westernmost columns (specifically, adding 1 tile each to the Rhodes column and the one east of that)? The southern edge of Anatolia and Greece are supposed to be on about the same latitude - your plan would have them 3 tiles apart, adding a few tiles could at least reduce it somewhat to two. That would make Cyprus diagonally connected to the mainland though, so its western tile could be pushed 1S (that would give a more accurate shape of the island anyway).

 

[merijn_v1]

Comparing the 3 versions of Greece, I prefer version 1. Although Greece 3 has more tile available for Sparta. Personally I don’t care that much about Sparta, but I can understand the reasons why having a better Sparta is preferable.

Now I also see Crete with referrence to Africa, I agree that Crete 1S makes it too far to the south.

 

[TJDowling]

Like this?

Spoiler Greece 1 :

Here's another version with Crete shifted 1S.

Spoiler Greece 2 :

Here's one with Merijn's suggestions and a three-tile Peloponnese.

Spoiler Greece 3 :

I'm not sure which of the Greeces I like best. To be honest, I was aiming to make Sparta a more desirable place to settle, rather than have a mega-Athens hogging all Greece.

(Unrelated) While I was editing, I thought it would be good to enlarge the Sea of Azov and reroute some rivers that were flowing into it.

Spoiler :

At least I did something right.

I like V.1 but if Crete is moved 1 N.

Edit: Lol, ignore me, for some reason I thought V.1 had Crete moved South... I like V.1 full stop. "I like V.1 but only if Crete is raised up by Zeus and placed directly on top of Athens."

 

[TJDowling]

Started looking at Peru and Gran Colombia. I don't have many thoughts on Peru, it seems good to me. I shifted some of the borders around because it seemed that Ecuador was a bit and should have access to more flat tiles east of the Andes. Colombia also looks mostly good. The geography is a bit hard to represent because the mountains fork into two ranges and I'm not sure if there is a better way to represent that than is already there with the space available. I changed one mountain to grassland for Ecuador's NE corner. This reflects the topography better I think.

Most of my changes come in Venezuela and the Guyanas. I made a few changes to hills along the Venezuelan coast according to a topographical map. I also deleted the mountain range that spans the border region between Venezuela, Brazil, Guyana and Suriname in favour of hills. The range is significantly smaller than that on the Colombia and Venezuela border so I kept Pico Bolivar in the west.

Also, inexplicably there is three tiles of grassland with no forest in Guyana when basically the entire region east of Venezuela and West of Brazil should be rainforest except the very edge of the coastal area. I removed one rainforest on the Aluminum resource to reflect the highland savannah of West-Central Guyana and added rainforests to Suriname.

One question: Does anyone know of any reason for having the large area of marshland that spans the Colombia-Venezuela border? I can't seem to find justification as the areas are mostly savannah and rainforest. Perhaps it's just to make the region sufficiently unproductive to reflect reality and break up the large swathes of rainforest.

Spoiler :

 

[Leoreth]

Question for @Leoreth: are 'islands' considered a feature like floodplains? I'm wondering if it'd be possible to add a resource to an island tile, specifically a marble to represent the incredibly important quarries on Paros and Naxos. They're small islands in the Aegean (so don't deserve to have a land tile of their own) but those quarries were some of the best known in the ancient world, and were used to build many of the surviving monuments from classical Greece.

There's also a major series of marble quarries on Mount Pentelicus, that were used for the construction of the Parthenon and the Acropolis during the age of Pericles -- that would correspond to a marble resource on the same tile intended for Athens. On the other hand, the area around Athens (known as 'Attica') was much better known for their silver mines, so that might be a better fit for that tile.

Historically, there was another set of marble quarries at Tripoli (a minor Greek city located within the 'Sparta' tile) as well as quarries at Argos (on the Corinth tile). Either of those tiles would qualify for a marble resource as well.

Islands are a terrain feature so resources are possible. I avoided doing that so far because the islands can often look weird combined with fishing boats. I don't think Marble on water would work though, because its graphics aren't really designed to be placed on water, and it's not possible to build quarries there.

What is wrong with the current marble location though? It's close enough to Athens.

If Greece is going to be expanded so far south - maybe Anatolia can be expanded a bit southwards as well, at least the westernmost columns (specifically, adding 1 tile each to the Rhodes column and the one east of that)? The southern edge of Anatolia and Greece are supposed to be on about the same latitude - your plan would have them 3 tiles apart, adding a few tiles could at least reduce it somewhat to two. That would make Cyprus diagonally connected to the mainland though, so its western tile could be pushed 1S (that would give a more accurate shape of the island anyway).

That is why I am reluctant to move or enlarge Greece. I think I considered that before but in the end we can't just base its size on an enlarged Italy when it's more important that it is well proportioned to Anatolia. As you can see responding to one enlarged area to enlarge everything next to it lead you down this rabbit hole where nothing can ever fit.

 

[Crimean Lord]

Like this?

Spoiler Greece 1 :

Here's another version with Crete shifted 1S.

Spoiler Greece 2 :

Here's one with Merijn's suggestions and a three-tile Peloponnese.

Spoiler Greece 3 :

I'm not sure which of the Greeces I like best. To be honest, I was aiming to make Sparta a more desirable place to settle, rather than have a mega-Athens hogging all Greece.

(Unrelated) While I was editing, I thought it would be good to enlarge the Sea of Azov and reroute some rivers that were flowing into it.

Spoiler :

At least I did something right.

Now AZOV Sea (which in reality super small) is bigger than Crimean peninsula and also its north border currently near Kursk and Char'kov
I think that 3-4 tiles is maximum for that very small sea - perhaps it's possible save even 3 tyles + it's important for implimentation of FINBROS' suggestion for Ukraine and Russia

 

[Leoreth]

I agree. Maybe one tile could be added in its east, but even that would look strange and isn't really necessary.

 

[Oblivionyx]

I like V.1 but if Crete is moved 1 N.

But then it would touch the Athens tile diagonally.

That is why I am reluctant to move or enlarge Greece. I think I considered that before but in the end we can't just base its size on an enlarged Italy when it's more important that it is well proportioned to Anatolia. As you can see responding to one enlarged area to enlarge everything next to it lead you down this rabbit hole where nothing can ever fit.

Why is it a bad idea to move/enlarge Greece? In my opinion, the previous version doesn't have enough productive power to pump out the necessary wonders and units necessary for completing the Greek UHV in time.

 

[Leoreth]

I said why it's not a good idea in the post you quoted. Most of the Greek wonders were not built in Greece proper (unless I am missing something, only the Parthenon is, and arguably the Oracle). The new map has enough space to put actual cities into Macedonia (historical originator of the Greek military that went on to conquer the Mediterranean) and Ionia (i.e. Ephesos or Halikarnassos), where many other wonders in the Greek UHV were built. Athens is mostly known for natural and political philosophy which corresponds to commerce and specialists, which it can support with many sea tiles and food resources plus silver. This seems pretty accurate to me, and in fact much more accurate than the setup in the current map where Athens is your workhorse for everything with essentially the same number of land tiles as here.

 

[FinalLegendZero]

Most of the Greek wonders were not built in Greece proper (unless I am missing something, only the Parthenon is, and arguably the Oracle).

By "Greece proper", are you referring to Greece as a whole, or just Athens? Because if the former, then the Statue of Zeus would also apply, having been built in Olympia in real life. In the current map, the closest city to that would be Sparta, and no player would found a city there unless fanatically pursuing historical accuracy because of how absolutely terrible it is as a city location given the current state of Greece in the map.

 

[Leoreth]

Oh that's right, I knew I was forgetting something. With Greece proper I meant what classical Greeks considered Greece, so excluding Macedonia or other regions with Greek colonies.

 

[ozqar]

Like this?

Spoiler Greece 1 :

Here's another version with Crete shifted 1S.

Spoiler Greece 2 :

Here's one with Merijn's suggestions and a three-tile Peloponnese.

Spoiler Greece 3 :

I'm not sure which of the Greeces I like best. To be honest, I was aiming to make Sparta a more desirable place to settle, rather than have a mega-Athens hogging all Greece.

(Unrelated) While I was editing, I thought it would be good to enlarge the Sea of Azov and reroute some rivers that were flowing into it.

Spoiler :

At least I did something right.

From all those options, I like the first one best. Greece is IRL very small and a very sea-oriented country. Hence I don't think the Peloponnese should be expanded south (nor I like how it looks as a square), nor I think the Attica region should be expanded east. Unfortunately, even with a large map, there should only be room for one city in Greece proper.

Also, no point in expanding Crete (looks completely disproportionate) nor moving it South (it becomes engulfed by Alexandria). I like Leoreth's reasoning where it's ok to have a commerce and specialist oriented city in Athens and have more production-heavy cities in the areas for colonization. I would've loved to see a one-tile Rhodes so that could be settled, but I don't think that can be implemented, right?

Would it be possible to see a pic of the area with a bit of a zoom out? I feel people are wanting to distort the area because they're only looking at Greece by itself and not in the context of the surrounding areas. I'm curious about how Macedonia looks, for example.

 

[TJDowling]

But then it would touch the Athens tile diagonally.

Sorry, I was mistaken I thought Crete was further South in V.1 but I guess I was looking at the other option when I formulated that thought. Please remove Athens entirely and replace it with Crete. Just kidding.... Actually what I was thinking is I like V.3 with Crete 1 tile North. Or V.1. I don't like where Crete has access to the Nile Delta. That's weird.

 

[Leoreth]

That's just another reason why enlarging Greece to the south is not good.