Psyringe
Scout
Hi 
I'm having a look at the RtW scenario. While it's clear that an impressive amount of work has gone into this scenario, I couldn't help being a bit disappointed how different the game map is from a real map. I understand that some things have to be cut and/or changed to make the scenario work as a game, but I don't understand some of the choices. So I thought I'd ask a couple of questions which may lead to a better understanding on my part, or perhaps even to an improvement of the map. (So please don't go into defense mode, Dale, this is not an attack, but a request for an explanation for things I found odd.)
Here we go:
1) Is there a good reason why Germany doesn't have any harbor at the North Sea?
In the real world, Germany has two very important harbors (Hamburg and Bremen). More than 200 ships were crafted there during WW2, much more than (for example) in Kiel. Bremen is placed on the map, but landlocked, which seems very odd for a city which always depended on its harbor to thrive. In any case it seems very strange that Germany has to capture Amsterdam in order to get direct access to the North Sea.
2) Why has Bremen been chosen over Hamburg?
If the map is too small to support both cities, Hamburg would have been the more obvious choice: It's Germany's second largest city (the only city apart from Berlin that had more than one million citizens in 1936, it was about three to four times larger than Bremen), it arguably had the more import harbor (at least it produced more ships), and it was a more important war objective in WW2 (there were more bombing runs over Hamburg, including one of the heaviest bombings of the war, operation Gomorrah). Lastly, in RtW Bremen is placed near the river Elbe, which is the location of Hamburg in the real world (the real Bremen is situated on a smaller river further westward).
Combining 1) and 2), I'd suggest moving Kiel and Bremen one tile to the north and renaming Bremen into Hamburg. This would give Germany a North Sea harbor, and bring Germany's second largest city (and largest harbor) into the game. (The real Hamburg is further inland though, but the Elbe is navigable. Since rivers aren't navigable in Civ4, but Hamburg is such an important harbor, moving the city to a coast tile seems reasonable to me.)
3) Was it really necessary to remove Austria and Czechoslovakia?
A European map without Vienna and without Prague looks very strange to me. I'd guess that you had to squeeze the map into a size that was too small to do it better, but then again, there are stretches of desert and water in the far south and north of the map that don't seem *that* important. Wouldn't it have been better to reduce these stretches to make room for at least Vienna and Prague in central Europe?
4) What city is "Rhine" supposed to be?
It looks a bit as if it could be Switzerland, but in any case, placing a non-existing city next to an area where existing cities didn't find room seems odd. I'd like to understand this decision better. What were the reasons for doing it this way?
5) What happened to Corsica?
The Mediterranean Sea between France and Italy is large enough to support a 6-tile Sardinia with two cities on it, but Corsica doesn't appear. But there *seems* to be enough space to bring in Corsica if both islands were made a bit smaller. So I don't really see the reason why Corsica was deleted?
6) Why does Germany have two oil sources?
Oil was an important objective for the Nazis in WW2 because Germany didn't have any narural oil sources. There were attempts to refine oil out of coal, which were partly successful, but couldn't have ever produced enough oil to fuel the Nazi war machine. The Romanian oil fields appear as a very early target in the Nazi war plans. In the campaign against Russia, the caucasus oil was seen as important a target as Moscow herself (actually, Hitler and his generals debated a lot which of these two goals was more important, and differed in opinions). Civ4 seems to offer the mechanics to model such a war for resources - couldn't this be made working for RtW? Or is a war for resources it simply out of scope for this mod?
There are some more inconsistencies that I stumbled upon, but I can understand these ... obviously compromises *have* to be made when converting a real-world map and city layout into a playing field for a game. However, for the inconsistencies listed above I'm unsure whether the choice that has been taken was really the best one. There might be room for improvements, so I'm asking for the reasons behind the choices.
I'm having a look at the RtW scenario. While it's clear that an impressive amount of work has gone into this scenario, I couldn't help being a bit disappointed how different the game map is from a real map. I understand that some things have to be cut and/or changed to make the scenario work as a game, but I don't understand some of the choices. So I thought I'd ask a couple of questions which may lead to a better understanding on my part, or perhaps even to an improvement of the map. (So please don't go into defense mode, Dale, this is not an attack, but a request for an explanation for things I found odd.)
Here we go:
1) Is there a good reason why Germany doesn't have any harbor at the North Sea?
In the real world, Germany has two very important harbors (Hamburg and Bremen). More than 200 ships were crafted there during WW2, much more than (for example) in Kiel. Bremen is placed on the map, but landlocked, which seems very odd for a city which always depended on its harbor to thrive. In any case it seems very strange that Germany has to capture Amsterdam in order to get direct access to the North Sea.
2) Why has Bremen been chosen over Hamburg?
If the map is too small to support both cities, Hamburg would have been the more obvious choice: It's Germany's second largest city (the only city apart from Berlin that had more than one million citizens in 1936, it was about three to four times larger than Bremen), it arguably had the more import harbor (at least it produced more ships), and it was a more important war objective in WW2 (there were more bombing runs over Hamburg, including one of the heaviest bombings of the war, operation Gomorrah). Lastly, in RtW Bremen is placed near the river Elbe, which is the location of Hamburg in the real world (the real Bremen is situated on a smaller river further westward).
Combining 1) and 2), I'd suggest moving Kiel and Bremen one tile to the north and renaming Bremen into Hamburg. This would give Germany a North Sea harbor, and bring Germany's second largest city (and largest harbor) into the game. (The real Hamburg is further inland though, but the Elbe is navigable. Since rivers aren't navigable in Civ4, but Hamburg is such an important harbor, moving the city to a coast tile seems reasonable to me.)
3) Was it really necessary to remove Austria and Czechoslovakia?
A European map without Vienna and without Prague looks very strange to me. I'd guess that you had to squeeze the map into a size that was too small to do it better, but then again, there are stretches of desert and water in the far south and north of the map that don't seem *that* important. Wouldn't it have been better to reduce these stretches to make room for at least Vienna and Prague in central Europe?
4) What city is "Rhine" supposed to be?
It looks a bit as if it could be Switzerland, but in any case, placing a non-existing city next to an area where existing cities didn't find room seems odd. I'd like to understand this decision better. What were the reasons for doing it this way?
5) What happened to Corsica?
The Mediterranean Sea between France and Italy is large enough to support a 6-tile Sardinia with two cities on it, but Corsica doesn't appear. But there *seems* to be enough space to bring in Corsica if both islands were made a bit smaller. So I don't really see the reason why Corsica was deleted?
6) Why does Germany have two oil sources?
Oil was an important objective for the Nazis in WW2 because Germany didn't have any narural oil sources. There were attempts to refine oil out of coal, which were partly successful, but couldn't have ever produced enough oil to fuel the Nazi war machine. The Romanian oil fields appear as a very early target in the Nazi war plans. In the campaign against Russia, the caucasus oil was seen as important a target as Moscow herself (actually, Hitler and his generals debated a lot which of these two goals was more important, and differed in opinions). Civ4 seems to offer the mechanics to model such a war for resources - couldn't this be made working for RtW? Or is a war for resources it simply out of scope for this mod?
There are some more inconsistencies that I stumbled upon, but I can understand these ... obviously compromises *have* to be made when converting a real-world map and city layout into a playing field for a game. However, for the inconsistencies listed above I'm unsure whether the choice that has been taken was really the best one. There might be room for improvements, so I'm asking for the reasons behind the choices.
Well, I guess he's busy working on the addition pack and doesn't have the time to answer to every single bloke coming up with a slew of questions. 
