Boris Gudenuf
Deity
My biggest gripe with the map - and it is not much different from my biggest gripe in Civ VI - is that the percentages of different land/terrain don't seem to match the Earth's.
Taking just the land area, because the game rightly reduces the 70% ocean to provide more real playing space, earth has its land area:
20% covered by desert - including oasis, cold (high latitude) and tropical deserts
10% covered by Tundra, again including High Mountain tundra
11.5% covered by Taiga, or coniferous, boreal forest - the largest single biome on earth
The approximately 70% not covered by desert or tundra is classified as 'habitable land area' - grasslands, shrublands, and 1/3 of this area is officially Forest (deciduous and boreal combined)
BUT that is present day.
5000 years ago it was 55% Forest, 44% grasslands/shrubland
By 1700 CE it was still 52% Forest, 38% wild grasslands/shrubland, 3% farmland and 6% grazing pasturage
By 1900 CE it was 48% Forest, 27% wild grasslands/shrubland, 8% farmland, 16% grazing pasturage
By 1950 CE it was 44% Forest, 12% wild grasslands/shrubland, 12% farmland, 31% grazing pasturage
By about 2020 71% of all agricultural land is used for grazing or growing animal feed, only 23% to grow crops directly eaten by humans.
All of which leads me to believe that the maps as generated are missing a lot of forest from the beginning, either deciduous or conifer, and might possibly have too much Tundra - but I have not seen any figures on what percentage of terrain that could be called Unvegetated Tundra is generated on the maps.
Another point that leaped out at me is that our maps since Civ 1 have always vastly underestimated the amount of land taken up to feed our animals: 2 out of every 3 acres worked seem to have always wound up feeding cows, sheep, horses, etc rather than people directly.
Taking just the land area, because the game rightly reduces the 70% ocean to provide more real playing space, earth has its land area:
20% covered by desert - including oasis, cold (high latitude) and tropical deserts
10% covered by Tundra, again including High Mountain tundra
11.5% covered by Taiga, or coniferous, boreal forest - the largest single biome on earth
The approximately 70% not covered by desert or tundra is classified as 'habitable land area' - grasslands, shrublands, and 1/3 of this area is officially Forest (deciduous and boreal combined)
BUT that is present day.
5000 years ago it was 55% Forest, 44% grasslands/shrubland
By 1700 CE it was still 52% Forest, 38% wild grasslands/shrubland, 3% farmland and 6% grazing pasturage
By 1900 CE it was 48% Forest, 27% wild grasslands/shrubland, 8% farmland, 16% grazing pasturage
By 1950 CE it was 44% Forest, 12% wild grasslands/shrubland, 12% farmland, 31% grazing pasturage
By about 2020 71% of all agricultural land is used for grazing or growing animal feed, only 23% to grow crops directly eaten by humans.
All of which leads me to believe that the maps as generated are missing a lot of forest from the beginning, either deciduous or conifer, and might possibly have too much Tundra - but I have not seen any figures on what percentage of terrain that could be called Unvegetated Tundra is generated on the maps.
Another point that leaped out at me is that our maps since Civ 1 have always vastly underestimated the amount of land taken up to feed our animals: 2 out of every 3 acres worked seem to have always wound up feeding cows, sheep, horses, etc rather than people directly.
