Uncle Paul
Bittereinder
I just read through this entire thread, since I'm relatively new here.Hi, I looked a bit more into the European map and I marked political borders with culture, to check the real life territory to number of land tiles for European countries. I separated Western Europe (incl. Denmark, Greece, European Turkey, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia), Northern Europe (Norway, Sweden, Finland), and Eastern Europe (incl. Ukraine and Belarus, excl. Russia). Separated like that, they're pretty consistent in that countries don't deviate much in ratio to each other (within in each group). The average ratio for Western Europe is 10.5 (thousand km2 / tile), for Northern Europe its 11.8, and for Eastern Europe 17.6.
Looking at each country in comparison to their group, I noticed that Spain is missing 9 tiles (to be in the same proportion), Italy is 5 tiles too big, Great Britain and Ireland are 4 tiles too big (altogether), Germany and Denmark 2 tile too big (combined), and Poland 4 tiles too small. I think of all this, only Spain and Poland are things to address. The larger size of the other countries is in part due to their long shapes/coastlines, which makes it sometimes necessary to use more tiles to represent their shape properly. Also, given Rome's importance, I thought that was alright for Italy. However, Spain is seriously shrinked (Portugal isn't), so I made some edits. Basically, I extended the whole "square" of the peninsula 1 tile westwards (pushed 1W everything west of the Pyrenees) and 1 tile southwards (extended the southern coastline without touching Morocco, and moved the Gibraltar bump 1 west). I tried minor modifications to the mediterranean coast, but I think in the end I just kept to the original.
With these changes, continental Spain gains 9 tiles and is now perfectly in proportion to Western Europe. I'll look at Poland later, because it's a much trickier arrangement. Here's a picture of how bigger Spain looks in the context of the rest of Europe and north Africa. I think this is more aligned (West-East) with the coast of Ireland and the southern tip of Italy (north-south) as in real life. I also added a (plains+savanna) land tile for the Balearic Islands and placed Palma (de Mallorca) there. Perhaps this requires some changes in Morocco, but we can discuss later.
Spoiler Iberia in relation to Europe :
I replaced the cities from scratch for the whole peninsula, as you can see in the map below, because I wasn't sure what part of the country should benefit from the expansion, and with this city arrangement, the added tiles are mostly in benefit for the Castilian regions (central Spain) - which I think is perfect. The main change I'm proposing from what Tab911 has in his map is adding Leon - although it's at the expense of Gijon, so I'm still hesitating. Either city would represent the Kingdom of Asturias, which in any case eventually moved its capital to Leon (if I recall correctly) and then became the Kingdom of Leon and later of Castille. I think from that longer-term perspective, Leon makes more sense.
I also left Bilbao there, because it fits better with Leon and Zaragoza, but that's all to be discussed - Santander also has a good case of being the canonical city. I like that Bilbao can represent the independent Basque kingdoms in the Middle Ages, though, while Santander has generally been part of the kingdoms of Asturias/Leon. Santiago's location could arguably 1S of where I have it, but I thought the northern tip made more sense to not squeeze out Portugal, and also to leave it as a more maritime city which is nice for Galicia. Portugal, in this arrangement, perfectly can hold two cities, which I think is preferable. A super city Lisbon could happen, but that's inaccurate, so I don't think it should be the de facto for the AI.
For Andalucia and the mediterranean coast, I stuck to the last proposals we discussed, leaving Cordoba 1E of real life, but allowing for better placement with Seville. I left Barcelona on the southern-more tile of the three possible, which is most accurate and because moving north is unnecessary with the additional space.
Spoiler Iberia, cities and terrain :
For features, I was careful to look at ecorregions in the country. See in the map above, I extended Savannas in the south, to represent the mediterranean and sclerophylous woodlands and scrublands. In the southern plateaus and in the northern mediterranean coast, I used deciduous forests, in the northern plateaus I used coniferous, and I used mixed forests for the northern coast (as in real life). I changed the Murcia tile (1SW of Valencia) to plains (instead of semidesert) because Murcia is a very fertile region, but extended the semidesert in the highlands of Castille (under the wheat and the sheep).
I made slight modifications to the rivers, all three of the Douro/Duero, Tajo/Tagus, and Guadalquivir define parts of the Portuguese-Spanish border, so I used southwards bends for that. I also moved the Ebro a bit so it can touch Zaragoza (and Barcelona, in this arrangement). Madrid is in real life not next to the Tajo, but it's next to the Manzanares river, and if that's also Toledo's location early on, then that's perfect because Toledo is on the Tajo. I think I shortened the Tajo here (originally it was born a 1E of there, but that was unintentional.
It's hard to see the hills, but I marked them in the map below with culture. I looked at elevation maps. The areas around Madrid are all flat highlands, so I left flat terrain to represent that, and to increase the diversity (it also helps food production in the NW of Madrid, which is an important agricultural region). With this arrangement, there's also diagonal (SW to NE) of hills that represents the Sierra Central separating the northern and southern mesetas. I also added hills to the Andalucian coast, representing the Sierra Nevada and the Baetic mountain range. As you see, the river valleys are also flat.
Spoiler Iberian relief :
For resources, I left everything as Tab911 had it, because I didn't do more research on that. I did add pigs in western Spain (where ham is made), because how can you have Spain without ham? Those pigs would be more accurate 1SW of where I have them (in Extremadura), but I left them close to Madrid for gameplay. I also changed the cows to sheep, because that's the region of La Mancha, and you make the famous Manchego cheese with sheep milk. I left out 1 horse (the Andalucian one), because I think the Moors can do without, but have no strong feelings on it.
Spoiler Iberian resources :
Finally, I looked at the Macaronesia islands. I moved the Azores (Ponta Delgada) 1SW because with the expansion of the mainland they were now too close to Lisbon. I moved Madeira (Funchal) 2W so it doesn't overlap with the Canary Islands (Las Palmas). I added a second tile for the Canary Islands (in the picture, the one SW is the original one, the one NE is the new one). I made the Madeira and Azores into mixed forests with grassland, and the Canary Islands to plains with savannas (as in real life). I also added bananas to the Canary Islands, which is the main product, but that should only appear in the late game.
Spoiler Macaronesia :
I know that this proposal got out of hand, when ozqar started making all sorts of suggestions to expand other parts of Europe, but I really think that this suggestion for Iberia and Macaronesia should be incorporated.
Yes, I know you don't want Europe swollen to an unreasonable size, but Iberia is an important gameplay region that has to be the core of three civs (Spain, Portugal, Moors), and so this expansion (which isn't an unreasonable enlargement, rather just bringing Iberia to scale with the rest of Europe) could really improve gameplay there, especially with regards to the Reconquista, without causing trouble for other reasons (Moroccan cities won't be able to work their entire BFC with this map or with the current Iberia)
And to ozqar, this suggestion was great, but you shot yourself in the foot but spiraling from this good suggestion into all sorts of expansions for Europe. Iberia is too small on the current iteration of the bigger map, but please, take a page out of Steve Perry's book, and stop yourself before you fall, stop before you lose it all! (Great song, I highly recommend it), I've linked it here
To Leoreth, if you are really against implementing this suggestion for Iberia, I understand, it's your mod, but just to reiterate
1. It doesn't enlarge Iberia unrealistically, it merely brings it in line with the rest of Europe in terms of scale
2. Iberia is an important land in the game that has to be the core for 3 civs
3. This reworking of Iberia and Macaronesia could really improve gameplay there without causing any negative impacts on other regions
4. It allows Cordova and Seville to coexist, which is nice, since medieval games of Spain won't be missing one of its most important cities, and the Moors will have a nice port in Iberia while Cordova is rightfully landlocked
5. So essentially, this proposal has everything to gain and nothing to lose
a. It allows better city placement in Iberia, allowing Iberia to fully benefit from the bigger map the way places like China and Central/Eastern Europe have
b. It makes Iberia look better aesthetically, and restores a more familiar shape to it relative to the original map
c. It doesn't negatively impact other regions of the map, the way other expansions that have been proposed (i.e. expanding China at the expense of the Pacific Ocean, adding an extra column to South America, adding an extra row to Northern Europe - all of which I agree with you that they shouldn't happen). It will still take the same number of turns to sail from Iberia to the New World once oceans can be crossed.
d. It potentially allows a more interesting stability map for Spain - Catalonia and the Basque country could theoretically always be or become in modern times historical area instead of core, since now Spain will have both Cordova and Seville in their core area for stability.
And as far as I can tell, your objection to expanding territories is mostly/entirely to expanding territories disproportionately, whereas this just restores proportionality to Europe. Sorry if I'm not making a good case or explaining it well, I know I'm not the most persuasive man in the world.
I just really think this could lead to a better Reconquista game, and general gameplay for the Iberian civs, with no negative consequences. Iberia is the one of the two parts of the current proposed bigger map that bugs me (the other is the Pacific Northwest of the USA, where I am from, it just looks odd, but I don't have access to the map branch to make a proposal there, can you please give me access?)
But if you don't want to incorporate this for whatever reason, I fully understand, and I won't bring it up again if you say no. It's your mod, not mine, and you're the one who has invested thousands of hours of your life into making it, for free. However, I hope I did a reasonable job of making my case for this one revision to Iberia. I don't want to add more rows or columns to any other parts of Europe, but I really think that in the case of Iberia, this is important.
Thank you in advance for considering this, and once again, it's completely fine if the answer is no.
