GigaUSA

[wellssh]

I've been playing Civ II for years and downloading great maps and scenarios from this website for sometime now. I've been trying to create a large, giga map of the USA for use with historically minded American History scenarios.

I have usually used and been happy with the map often called cmapusa.mp --it is beautiful and wonderfully accurate. But, it only has ~9,000 areas of a giga-possible ~30,000. I'm not very handy with the computer, so it took me months to figure out how to even attempt to get a map as useful and accurate as cmapusa.

I'm attaching a VERY priliminary gigausa map that I based on the cmapusa. I increased the size by a factor of 1.8. You'll notice that in, say, a civil war scenario northern Virginia has the space necessary to become a real battleground (like in history) instead of just a couple spaces to DC.

I would like to call on anyone and everyone to help--I have not been successful in carving out a detailed interior terrain and I'm not entirely sure how. Please, download the gigamap--play with it and revise it. And post it. I have long wanted a gigausa map, but I don't know if I have the cartographic/aesthetic "eye" to make this map.

I look forward to seeing the finished product(s)

Download the current version of the map below.

 

[wellssh]

I'm glad some of you have decided to download the gigausa map. This is the first time I have posted any of the ideas I have had about Civ II.

As I see it there are two major areas needing revision on the map. First, the coastlines dont seem quite right--especially the Chesapeake/Potomac River area.

Secondly, and I would like input, the rivers are all wrong. THe question I have is whether the rivers should be open to shipping in other words, ocean terrain) or should they be river tiles that people can change for a scenario?

The map has a lot of potential for scenarios. There are several terrain types not used on the map (tundra, glacier) that could be used to good advantage in scenarios. I think the size of the map will make roads and rail valuable not only for movement but as strategic targets. With this much room to move, destroying roads could seriously hamper an enemy. Fortifications will also gain strategic importance at this scale because there can be considerable distance between cities--thus opportunity for battles that are not simply siege and counter-siege of cities (though, of course, this is a key to any game).

 

[pomsa]

It depends on the river. The Missisippi should be ocean, but not the Potomac. I say that if it has major shipping on it, it should be ocean.

 

[wellssh]

GIGAUSA 2.0

Well I've had a little free time over the last few days and wated to nail down some of th major problems I had with the map as of a few days ago.

Using old National Geographic maps and close approximations, I adjusted the coastlines to make them smoother and more accurate (eg. cape hatteras and Chesapeake cleaned up). I also tried to fix the rivers, adding several significant rivers that smaller scale maps would not accomodate (Cimarron, Canadian, Pee Dee, Flint) as well as important tributaries.

I agree that major navigable rivers probably work better when they are represented by ocean tiles--however I have been playing with the map and decided to mark rivers with river tiles for a couple of reasons:

1) "Head of Navigation" is a tremendously sticky variable that changes according to year (e.g. the Arkansas river is navigable today almost to Tulsa, OK; however, this is a result of the Kerr-McClelland waterway and Keystone Dam and are thus not the native condition of the river).

and

2) "Navigable" itself struck me as difficult to define. A canoe, a man of war, and a nuclear submarine have different depth requirements.

so

I left the rivers as rivers and not oceans. I think depending on what a person wans to do with the map, then they might change as they desire to ocean terrains.

except

I made the st. lawrence "seaway" connected by ocean tiles and added ocean tiles to make transit between the great lakes possible--though the latter requires canals; the lakes are not all connected.

Please let me know what you think of the revisions and certainly feel free to change it yourself and let me know. I've traveled a lot in the South and Midwst, so I have a feel for important geography in hese regions--but I'm clueless about New England and the Pacific.

PS. I think I saw it in one scenario, but I might have been mistaken. Does anyone know if it is possible to add text to maps? I would love to label a few key features.

GIGAUSA 2.19 HERE and BELOW

 

[Arthedain]

I took a look at the first version and thought "Man, he really need to adjust the coastlines and rivers." Now when you have done that, I must say that the map turned out really nice. It sure is the biggest map of the US I've seen and it looks real nice. As I'm not from America, I can't give you so much info about the regions you wanted help with. But you made a great job with this one!

Let's hope someone will use it to make a scenario.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

Looks pretty good. A few things I noticed that are a little off though, but all in all close to being perfect.

1. The Great Salt Lake isn't quite that big. In fact it's been shrinking lately due to over use.

2. I would make the Peninsula that London Canada sits on completely land without any lakes.

3. Lake Champlain needs to be due southwest about 7 tiles, if indeed that is Lake Champlain.

4. Long Island should have the Hudson split it from the continent.

5. The Peninsula in Lake Erie isn't that big. It's only a small bird refuge anyways.

6. Give California the Sierra Nevadas and a little desert East of the mountain range. All that green land would go to their head anyhow.

7. Rope in the barrier islands by South Carolina and put them closer to the coast.

8. Give Pennsylvania some more hills. All their houses seem to be built on the sides of hills anyhow.

Besides that you seem to have gotten the rivers down and the foliage just right. May I suggest using the Jungle terrain to simulate the great pine forests of the Rocky Mountains?

 

[Archer 007]

Nice map. Can I use it for a project I'm working on?

 

[wellssh]

GIGAUSA 2.19

Thanks for the fantastic advice. I went through and tried to add a few geographical details that you mentioned.

"1. The Great Salt Lake isn't quite that big. In fact it's been shrinking lately due to over use. "

I found a recent Nat'l Geographic map that shows the shrinking lake shores. Incredible! On the GigaUSA map, I tucked in the northern and western shores of the lake; but someone playing a scenario on this map that is set in the late 20th or early 21st century might want to shrink the lake by another 20%-30%

"2. I would make the Peninsula that London Canada sits on completely land without any lakes."

An easy fix, though it makes the terrain in Canada even more uniform. There is a surprising amount of space on the map for Canada.

"3. Lake Champlain needs to be due southwest about 7 tiles, if indeed that is Lake Champlain."

I moved Champlain down about 4 tiles, trying to keep it in line with the Hudson. The best solution might be to adjust the course of the hudson a tile or two over its length and that would allow the placement of Champlain farther SW.

"4. Long Island should have the Hudson split it from the continent."

It should--and now it does.

"5. The Peninsula in Lake Erie isn't that big. It's only a small bird refuge anyways."

Reduced to a "nub" on the map.

"6. Give California the Sierra Nevadas and a little desert East of the mountain range. All that green land would go to their head anyhow."

I added a thin secondary mountain range in an arc roughly parallel to the mountain arc already on the map. I added a few hills, plains, and desert tiles as transition terrain. The result is that California's Central Valley--while still very productive-- now has a little variety and a narrower "green" band.

"7. Rope in the barrier islands by South Carolina and put them closer to the coast."

Made minor adjustments to the barrier islands. I had trouble making Cape Hatteras stick-out almost to the same latitude as the Delware Penninsula AND keep the islands hugging the coast (which they more-or-less should do). The problem, ultimately, is that the islands are rather small, a single tile (especially spacing it for a sea lane) represents a rather large piece of property. They are a compromise. I feel the islands are strategiacally and geographically interesting enough to merit deliberate representation, but they really aren't that big.

"8. Give Pennsylvania some more hills. All their houses seem to be built on the sides of hills anyhow."

The physical map of the entire area from the Conn. River west is very hilly, undulating terrain. Almost every tile could reasonably have a hill in the area. I added a few tiles throughout PA and a few between the Hudson and Conn. rivers. If anyone wants to play on this map, the upper middle atlantic and new england states could be considerably rougher terrain.

"May I suggest using the Jungle terrain to simulate the great pine forests of the Rocky Mountains?"

I think that's a great idea. One gripe I have about the Civ terrains is that the "wooded" tiles are not overlays like rivers. I think one should be able to have forested hills, forrested mountains, as well as clear hills and mountians. Maybe "woods" + "grassland" could = savannah. But that is idle dreaming. Here, I have opted not to use the jungle terrain as redwood forrest. I think the Rockies could be made considerably rougher, but I'm going to allow scenario designers to use the "extra" terrains (jungle, arctic, tundra) as desired.

I would love to see a variant map with jungle tile as rocky pine forests.

(9)One other fix I made to the map was a rerouting of the Cumberland river. It was flowing too far north to place Nashville in the right place and keep the city south of the KY state line.

Download 2.19 and please-if anyone sees something you would do differently, let me know. Also--if anyone wants to try their hand at the Champlain/Barrier islands, I would love to see the fixes.

 

[wellssh]

Originally posted by archer_007
Nice map. Can I use it for a project I'm working on?

Of Course! In fact, I hope you do. I would love to know more about your project.

Speaking of projects--I've been playing with adding cities. I'm refusing to take much responsibility for this, but I used a list of 1997 Metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) to place the max 255 cities on the map. MSA's work better than cities in some ways because they take into account a city centre and major suburbs. For example, mapping Georgia by population might require separate "cities" for Atlanta, Marietta, and Dahlonega. The drawback to MSA's is that sometimes cities you want as separate are not represented. For example the Washington, DC MSA *includes* Baltimore.

Anyways, the sav game below has a fair approximation of the location the 255 most populous metropolitan areas in the USA. The "American" Civ has all the northern states the "Russian" civ has all the southern states (broadly in both cases--this is not a Civil war scn). I used GigaUSA 2.0 when I was mapping the cities, so the changes listed above will not be on this map. But, I think most of the changes could be made on this map fairly easily.

Again, this is "free for all" if you want to use the CivCity utility and adjust cities and change ownership and make an anachronous civil War or other scenario or a 2000-election type scenario, go for it!

 

[Sarsstock]

Hello, I'm new to this forum but have been an avid poster at other Civ II forums. I'm currently in development of a scenario which will deal with a bloody Spanish Civil War style conflict in North America just after their defeat in World War 2. (This is hypothetical of course)

Now the storyline also involves Mexico and Canada, and I have been unsucsessfull in making my own gigamap. My friend, YOURS WOULD BE PERFECT!! I may tweak afew rivers into oceans but all and all this is just what I need for the scenario. If you'd like further details I'd be glad to give them to you.

I look forward to hearing back from you!

 

[Archer 007]

This map will be prefect the Civil War Today scenario I've wanted to make for years.

 

[wellssh]

Originally posted by Sarsstock
I'm currently in development of a scenario which will deal with a bloody Spanish Civil War style conflict in North America just after their defeat in World War 2. (This is hypothetical of course)
Now the storyline also involves Mexico and Canada, and I have been unsucsessfull in making my own gigamap. My friend, YOURS WOULD BE PERFECT!! I may tweak afew rivers into oceans but all and all this is just what I need for the scenario. If you'd like further details I'd be glad to give them to you.
I look forward to hearing back from you!

Sounds like an interesting scenario--you might read (last name) Turtledove's what-if novels about the American Civil war ending in a house divided and playing out world politics with both the CSA and USA as political players.

I would be interested in earing what kind of parameters you are thinking about for your scenario....

 

[wellssh]

Originally posted by archer_007
This map will be prefect the Civil War Today scenario I've wanted to make for years.

I'm excited that you are going to undertake the project of a Giga Civil War scenario--I too have wanted one for a long time. There are some interesting game concepts in other Civil War scenarios that I like very much. "Special units" for R. E. Lee and U. S. Grant. I also saw one where Union forces destroying a Confed "slave" unit (a settler) produced "Black Soldiers" and Rebels destroying Yankee ships gave the rebels "blockade runner" bonuses of $100.

At this scale I would love to see maybe "plantations" that are non moving pre-placed units for Union forces to destroy.

Also, a "historical" events file might be interesting. Or more use of wonders.

I would say that the main drawback to this scale is the lack of units. If the war parties aren't slugging it out regularly, it is very easy to reach the unit maximum--that is frustrating. Ways around this might include no negotiations, no foreign powers, and higher unit costs. No city walls (?) might make players less like to hole-up inside a city; or at least the city will pay the price (ie Atlanta).

Let me know how its going or if I can help-- I am very interested in this project.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

Hey, glad I could help.

 

[Ramsses]

Wellssh: I love the map!
I'm playing the French now who are located on the Carribean Islands .

 

[ilikeverin]

Excellent excellent map! *mouth waters*

Now all I have to do is find some sort of scenario to incorperate this in...

Random Thought: Maybe put some desert in the far southeast corner of Lake Michigan to represent the Indiana Dunes? But that's a random thought and I'm not even sure the dunes are big enough to warrant the change

 

[wellssh]

Originally posted by ilikeverin
Excellent excellent map! *mouth waters*

Now all I have to do is find some sort of scenario to incorperate this in...

Thank you so much! I am very happy with the map and have played on it a some. But I am waiting for someone who knows more about making really good scenarios to put one together (you know: special units, tech trees and units for different civs, events, etc).

I want to encurage everyone to give scenario making a try. Feel free to use this map and/or the savs (see the GigaCivil thread) that have cities, roads, and populations in place to build a working scenario.

Scenario I would love to see:
1) Indian wars-- Conquering the Western tribes will be logistically and technically more difficult across a vast continent. Especially if the sceario is designed so that the US player does not know where Sioux, Apache, and Comanche villages are located.

Also smaller Indian War scenarios have potential. For example, the Nez Perce War could be played with a scenario designed around relatively short number of turns. The US player would have to aggressively use the limited nearby cities to persue the Nez Perce because building in NYC and movng them west would take too long in the course of the game. The Nez Perce, on the other hand, could hold out in the rough terrain, especially if they disable Federal roads. (this could be remade for the Creek and Seminole Wars too).

2) French-Indian war would have a long and rough hinterland to fight over, including enough of Canada to play.

3) 1812 and the Revolutionary War have potential as well--though I think a lot of the map woud have to uninhabited.

4) The Civil War--I think this map could finally allow for a specatular Civil War scenario that encompasses the full range of the conflict, including the oft-overlooked far west (NM, AZ) theater. I would willingly volunteer my services to help create such a scenario (I am good at the research-end of scenario making--how big should NYC be in 1860? How much industry should Atlanta have relative to, say, Pittsburg?). But I am horrible at things like making interesting tech trees. And I am totally in the dark about most of the events and unique units thatI find so interesting in better scenarios.

5) I think there should be a "Civil Rights" scenario that takes place between 1954-1970(?) that has units like Freedom Riders, Student Protesters, FBI and the like vs. Deputies, Klansmen, and Citizens Councilmen. Special Units could include Orval Faubus (little rock), George Wallace (alabama) and JFK and LBJ. This is an other scenario I would willingly volunteer to help with--but again I am not a very advanced scenario builder myself. I would be able to help with some of the research.

How do these ideas sound? Is anyone willing to "bite" and try to design one?