Today I jump from cold Scandinavia to... the deserts of Afghanistan and Balochistan!
Marked some cities in the area for easier orientation, not completely sure if all locations are as accurate as possible.
First Afghanistan (and a little Iran and Turkmenistan):
Blue tiles are changed to semidesert, yellow tiles changed to desert. Herat tile changed to plains. Inaccurate forests removed from western parts of country, coniferous forest added to Kabul tile and to the deer tile 2S of Kandahar. The Quetta and Kandahar tiles are changed to hills, as is the cotton tile 1N of Herat. Quetta forest changed to coniferous (known for Juniperus macropoda and Chilghoza pine). Oasis added to Kandahar.
I also made some terrain changes in Iran and Turkmenistan. Replaced a coast tile with a salt lake in the Caspian Sea, representing Garabogazköl (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garabogazköl), and added two salt flats in Dasht-e Kavir in Iran (red area). Also slightly rearranged the mountains between Iran and Turkmenistan. The added mountain north of Mashhad can be considered as part of the Kopet Dag range (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopet_Dag).
Resources:
Gems (2N1E of Kabul): moved to represent lapis-lazuli from Badakhshan (could alternatively represent spinel, with the new ruby art).
Silver: primarily represents the silver mines of Panjshir valley. Central Asia was a very important center for silver mining during the middle ages (particularly the Samanid period), stimulating trade with northern Europe (
https://journals.openedition.org/histoiremesure/892#text). I propose to also/alternatively add a silver resource to Tashkent, famous for silver mining in that era. These resources could then expire by 1000-1100 AD or so, when the flow of silver stopped.
Opium (1SW of Kandahar): moved one towards the notorious provinces in the south (Helmand and Kandahar)
Gems (1W of Mashhad, Iran): represents turquoise from Ali-mersai mountain
Other than that, I made some small rearrangements (e.g. moved a sheep 1S from Peshawar) and gave Turkmenistan a sheep and a salt.
Now Balochistan:
The main change is to replace two hills with peaks, mostly representing the Brahui Range marked in this picture:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Pakistan_Mountain_Ranges_BMNG.jpg. I think this makes sense considering gameplay, as being able to easily pass from Persia to India or vice versa through these tiles seems quite unrealistic IMO. Also, I think it looks nice. The marked tiles are changed to hills (Balochistan is very rugged, with the Makran mountain ranges running through it as shown in the picture linked above). The incense is moved here from a bit north and represents aromatic plants in the area (noted by Alexander the Great's men on their journey through the area). Not sure if the path between Persia and India in the south should be blocked by desert.