Map and province improvements for 1.4

[AbsintheRed]

As some parts of it already came up, I will start the conversation a little prematurely
1.3 will be released on friday, according to my current plans, so it's not that bad

So, for 1.4 I planned to have a couple map improvements.
Don't want to do huge overhauls to the general shape, I'm more or less statisfied with most areas, but minor/medium changes will be made.
Apart from some balance reasons, the city name maps are tedious to update, so the map mustn't change constantly if we want to have a well-working mod.

The only exceptions are around Tunesia (don't really like the current shape of the African coast there), and the map in Russia (it was never properly made before)
We can revise some of the swamp areas around Kiev for example, I consider stuff like that minor

Islands and semidesert will also make they way to the mod, thus the coastline will have some minor changes, especially in the Mediterranean and near the British Islands
Resource placement suggestions are also welcome, if they have a valid reason other than personal preference.

About province updates, I have a couple I'm already sure about, while some others are still up to debate.
Sahara will get it's own province from the unassigned plots in Africa, for gameplay reasons
Norway might be split into Trondelag and Bergenhus
Languedoc as a new province in southern France
Lusitania split into half, new Algarve province
revised Hungarian provinces (Partium, Vajdasag, etc)
Courland as a separate province
Pskov as a separate province
Sous province south of Morocco
Arkhangelsk province

I would love to hear as many opinions and suggestions as possible about all these things.
We can start with discussing the exact islands placements and the connected coast changes for example
But feel free to post on everything else too

 

[merijn_v1]

Please don't start any updates until I uploaded the initial 1200 AD map, so the maps will be keep in sync. The scenario file is almost done and I don't want to do everything over because the map is severely changed.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Please don't start any updates until I uploaded the initial 1200 AD map, so the maps will be keep in sync. The scenario file is almost done and I don't want to do everything over because the map is severely changed.

Don't worry, this is a brainstorming thread, I didn't forget about the scenario

 

[Baron03]

I never like to pass up a civ suggestion... But this discussion should wait after your planned changes.

I'm surprised to here about the island and semi desert, but I like both additions. The Aegean, Baltic, Adriatic, and Scotland will look different. How would you change Tunisia? The land placement seems ok to me.

As far as other map changes: I didn't know there was honey, dye, and iron in Ireland... Then again my resource is an encyclopedia from the seventies. Maybe Remove dye and iron? Add copper 1 west of iron, add cow two north and one west of dye, add one coal west of new copper resource, add one cow south of wheat? I am Not sure if they were big on using cattle like today on those plots.

 

[AbsintheRed]

I would like to keep this thread to map-related stuff.
But yeah, I remember that there were a couple suggestions for those civs too. See other thread, just posted about potential civs today.

On Tunesia: It's not really the shape of the land, rather that it's far too north, leaving the western part of the Mediterranean Sea too narrow. I guess that's what I dislike the most.
The point is that this is something we could easily improve, and with little effort.

A little rant about the map:

Spoiler :

Sure, the RFCE map is not perfect. British Islands too big (intentionally, to be able to hold 2 civs), the size of Scandinavia, Finland and northern Russia is inaccurate (because of the map projection I used, but I don't think it can be made much better in Civ IV terms. and it's still much better than the map in EU4 for example with their giant Scandinavia and other northernmost parts).

Projection is always an important question when making maps. Even if it is for Europe only, not the whole world, either the size or the shape will be strange. Not to even mention the longitudes, which everyone would like to naturally use as parallel lines with the north-south direction across all parts of the map.
I modified the projection I used wherever I felt it was necessary, so the map in RFCE is already specifically made for Civ IV and the mod itself.

Nevertheless I'm quite statisfied with the general shape of the map we use other than those 2 things above. Actually I'm quite statisfied with it even with those 2 things included
I think I made an overhaul for all parts of the map during the past years, apart from Russia. I don't even want to know how much time it took in total, especially if we include all the consequences of those map changes too

On Ireland: Yeah, it's too fertile at the moment, with a big variety of resources.
It shouldn't become this fertile until the potatoes appear there.

 

[Publicola]

Did you see my map suggestion in the 'RFCEurope 1.3' thread?

Another suggestion for the map:

I understand there's been much controversy over how to deal with northern Russia. Makes sense, given that it's a large, heavily forested inland region that doesn't contribute much to the regional focus of the mod.

However, for all that, I can't understand why we're apparently content to let a full quarter of the map be taken up by open oceans with only Iceland and a few sparse island chains to show for it. Nor are those island chains particularly relevant: the first European settlement in the Canary Islands was built around 1336, and the islands were actually colonized in 1402. Likewise for the Azores, which were only settled after 1436.

A modest proposal: cut that part of the map out. Turn 'Canary Islands' and 'Azore Islands' into minor colonial projects, if we retain them at all. (Perhaps one or both of these islands might provide an 'Atlantic Access' resource, allowing for the construction of all other colonial projects even if a civ loses control of the physical resource at some point in the future).

The only real requirement is Iceland, and there are two possible ways of dealing with that. The first option is the move Iceland eastward, closer to its actual longitude (though far south of its actual latitude). You'd still need to keep a line of ocean tiles to separate it from England (so only the Norse can settle), but that's easily possible without much difficulty. The other possibility is to make Iceland itself a colonial project, with the same tech prerequisite as the 'Vinland' project but with a required resource of 'North Atlantic Access' (presumably available in the BFC of the Norse starting city). This would mean that the Viking UHV would require control of that 'North Atlantic Access' resource, which allows the 'Iceland' project, which provides a 'North American Access' resource, which in turn enables the 'Vinland' project.

With Azores, Canaries and Iceland taken care of... voila! That quarter of the map is no more.

This can either be a self-standing change (just make the whole map smaller), or can be tied to another proposal I've made, to expand the map eastward.

The primary reason for this would be to provide Arabia a broader base of support in the Middle East. Baghdad was the crown jewel of the Muslim Golden Age, and providing every a fraction of Mesopotamia would make it much more feasible to play a full game as Arabia -- they wouldn't lose their core to the Crusades, but would be in a position to eventually recapture those cities. A scripted Mongol razing of Baghdad and conquest of the Middle East would ensure Arabia's collapse, making the Middle East a frontier region for later Muslim civs that would divert some of their resources away from the conquest of Christian Europe.

An additional benefit of expanding the map eastward would be that it'd provide space for including the Volga river and potentially even the coastline of the Caspian Sea. This would allow a base of support for a potential Golden Horde civ (not to mention a possible Caucasus civ, like Georgia), and give additional opportunities and challenges to the Russian civs.

Finally, even a small eastward expansion would still leave the map smaller than it currently is. Cutting out the Atlantic would remove between 19-21 columns of tiles -- I doubt expanding the map east to Baghdad + Sarai would require more than 10 columns, and most likely less than that.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Yes, I saw your post.
While I cannot say that I don't agree with the idea behind it, this is absolutely out of the question, sry
Map size is not something you can just change in most RFC-style mods (or in most scenario based mods)
Lots of important values depend on map coordinates both in the .dll and in python (and by lots I really mean a big number which was built up during the long life of the mod, in way more places that I can keep track of), not to mention various tedious text stuff like city name maps and similar things, which would all have to be redone if the map's western borders were changed.

Adding some columns in the east is a much more friendly thing, as all previous coordinates would remain the same. Still a huge amount work, even without messing with coordinates, which I don't think would worth the modding time spent on it for the inclusion of Baghdad and a somewhat better representation of the Arabs.
There are probably much less time-consuming options to make the Arab gameplay better both when playing with and when playing against them.
Also, the biggest reason against it is that since cutting the western part is out of the question, every column we add would result in a bigger map, which I want to avoid for the RFCE 1.x series.

 

[Publicola]

Yes, I saw your post.
While I cannot say that I don't agree with the idea behind it, this is absolutely out of the question, sry
Map size is not something you can just change in most RFC-style mods (or in most scenario based mods)
Lots of important values depend on map coordinates both in the .dll and in python (and by lots I really mean a big number which was built up during the long life of the mod, in way more places that I can keep track of), not to mention various tedious text stuff like city name maps and similar things, which would all have to be redone if the map's western borders were changed.

Huh. Darn, I hadn't considered that sort of difficulty. Two follow-up questions:

1) Since we're apparently keeping the ocean, would it be possible to add an 'Atlantic Access' resource to the Canaries? This would allow a human playing a Mediterranean civ to potentially access the various overseas colonial projects, if they're willing to put in the effort. Considering that the Canaries were the last port of call for all four of Columbus' voyages, it seems reasonable to give them Atlantic access.

2) For a more long-term project, would it be possible to describe the sort of entries (dll, python scripts, all the rest) that would need to be changed in order to remove the leftmost portion of the map? It seems like far too big a project for a single developer, or at least for one person to do in a short time, but it might be workable if done collaboratively. Project management is not my specialty, but it might be a long-term group effort to prepare the way for RFCE 2.0....

Adding some columns in the east is a much more friendly thing, as all previous coordinates would remain the same. Still a huge amount work, even without messing with coordinates, which I don't think would worth the modding time spent on it for the inclusion of Baghdad and a somewhat better representation of the Arabs.
There are probably much less time-consuming options to make the Arab gameplay better both when playing with and when playing against them.
Also, the biggest reason against it is that since cutting the western part is out of the question, every column we add would result in a bigger map, which I want to avoid for the RFCE 1.x series.

Makes sense, and I can understand the decision to avoid expanding the map for the moment. Your mention of "RFCE 1.x series" tells me you'd be more willing to incorporate this in a future "RFCE 2.0", though?

In the meanwhile, I'd recommend adding Egypt to RFCE 1.4. The big difficulty for the Arabs is that the Crusades are chaos -- they're supposed to arrive, conquer most of the Arab core, then vanish in time to allow Arabia to reclaim Jerusalem and the other cities. That is difficult to script, especially if the Crusade mechanic is expanded as I've suggested.

The alternative would be to simply let Arabia collapse under the Crusader onslaught, then script an Egyptian (Fatimid/Abbuyid) spawn with sufficient strength to drive the Crusaders away and reconquer the Arab core from an Egyptian center of government. Much easier to script, much more historical, and less worries about imbalance if/when the Crusade mechanic is changed.

The only exceptions are around Tunesia (don't really like the current shape of the African coast there),

Re: Tunisia -- the major recommendation I'd have would be to simply flatten it. The current map has the coast of Africa curving north in a stepwise manner -- if you cut off the top two 'rows' of land, and just flatten everything out from that point until it turns a corner at Tunisia, it should fix the issue you mention.

Lusitania split into half, new Algarve province

Another suggestion for Portugal -- I really like the idea of dividing Lusitania into two provinces, north and south, but I'd also suggest pushing the Portugese spawn further north as well. Instead of a spawn date at 1139 AD (with the Kingdom of Portugal proper), I'd suggest making them similar to the Ottomans: give them an earlier spawn date as the 'County of Portugal' (ideally in 1096 AD with the second County that succeeded in Reconquista), give them enough troops to take Lisbon, and automatically make Lisbon their capital (and the province around it Core) once conquered. This would tie in to a separate change to Andalusian/Cordoban civ, to encourage them to spread and settle in the future Portugese lands, since Lisbon won't automatically be taken away from them at a later date.

We can start with discussing the exact islands placements and the connected coast changes for example

I'd like to get the islands discussion started -- I had a list in my original proposal -- but I'm not really sure where to start. The problem is that RFCEurope has sufficient granularity where some small islands (like Malta) can be added as land tiles, while other small islands are best suited as 'features' on water tiles, and I'm not sure where the dividing line is or should be. We could simply keep all the existing island tiles and add the new feature around those, but I get the sense part of the reason for including the island feature in the first place is to get rid of all those one-tile sites that never amount to much.

Another thought for the 'islands' feature -- perhaps it could be treated as a (bonus) resource instead? It wouldn't provide health or happiness, but making it a resource would allow workboats to improve those tiles and specialize them -- perhaps with a 'port/harbor' (commerce bonus) or 'fishing village' (food bonus) or, most daringly, a 'naval fortress' (increases defense) that upgrades to 'coastal artillery' (increases defense and causes damage to passing enemy ships). Lots of possibilities there.

 

[AbsintheRed]

1) Since we're apparently keeping the ocean, would it be possible to add an 'Atlantic Access' resource to the Canaries? This would allow a human playing a Mediterranean civ to potentially access the various overseas colonial projects, if they're willing to put in the effort. Considering that the Canaries were the last port of call for all four of Columbus' voyages, it seems reasonable to give them Atlantic access.

Absolutely. IIRC it was even there at some point, not sure why was it removed.
Makes sense to have at least one access resource around the Atlantic Islands.

2) For a more long-term project, would it be possible to describe the sort of entries (dll, python scripts, all the rest) that would need to be changed in order to remove the leftmost portion of the map? It seems like far too big a project for a single developer, or at least for one person to do in a short time, but it might be workable if done collaboratively. Project management is not my specialty, but it might be a long-term group effort to prepare the way for RFCE 2.0....

This is not an issue for a potential RFCE 2.0, since it would be on a totally new map anyway, made from scratch.
I even made some initial drafts for it a couple years ago.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=448645
EDIT: I just reread it, it was fun There were quite a few new good proposals.
But I see you already posted in the thread.

Makes sense, and I can understand the decision to avoid expanding the map for the moment. Your mention of "RFCE 1.x series" tells me you'd be more willing to incorporate this in a future "RFCE 2.0", though?

The general direction was clear, all maps had more or less the same concept.
So yeah, that was the plan all along. The question was how far would it be expanded in the east.

In the meanwhile, I'd recommend adding Egypt to RFCE 1.4. The big difficulty for the Arabs is that the Crusades are chaos -- they're supposed to arrive, conquer most of the Arab core, then vanish in time to allow Arabia to reclaim Jerusalem and the other cities. That is difficult to script, especially if the Crusade mechanic is expanded as I've suggested.

The alternative would be to simply let Arabia collapse under the Crusader onslaught, then script an Egyptian (Fatimid/Abbuyid) spawn with sufficient strength to drive the Crusaders away and reconquer the Arab core from an Egyptian center of government. Much easier to script, much more historical, and less worries about imbalance if/when the Crusade mechanic is changed.

There is a chance that they will make their way in eventually, but nothing more
Egypt has a fairly high position on my potential civ list though.

Re: Tunisia -- the major recommendation I'd have would be to simply flatten it. The current map has the coast of Africa curving north in a stepwise manner -- if you cut off the top two 'rows' of land, and just flatten everything out from that point until it turns a corner at Tunisia, it should fix the issue you mention.

I'm not really sure what you mean, probably the same:
"Moving" the problematic parts 2-3 tiles to the south is what I have in mind.

Another suggestion for Portugal -- I really like the idea of dividing Lusitania into two provinces, north and south, but I'd also suggest pushing the Portugese spawn further north as well. Instead of a spawn date at 1139 AD (with the Kingdom of Portugal proper), I'd suggest making them similar to the Ottomans: give them an earlier spawn date as the 'County of Portugal' (ideally in 1096 AD with the second County that succeeded in Reconquista), give them enough troops to take Lisbon, and automatically make Lisbon their capital (and the province around it Core) once conquered. This would tie in to a separate change to Andalusian/Cordoban civ, to encourage them to spread and settle in the future Portugese lands, since Lisbon won't automatically be taken away from them at a later date.

These are my exact plans with Portugal

I'd like to get the islands discussion started -- I had a list in my original proposal -- but I'm not really sure where to start. The problem is that RFCEurope has sufficient granularity where some small islands (like Malta) can be added as land tiles, while other small islands are best suited as 'features' on water tiles, and I'm not sure where the dividing line is or should be. We could simply keep all the existing island tiles and add the new feature around those, but I get the sense part of the reason for including the island feature in the first place is to get rid of all those one-tile sites that never amount to much.

Another thought for the 'islands' feature -- perhaps it could be treated as a (bonus) resource instead? It wouldn't provide health or happiness, but making it a resource would allow workboats to improve those tiles and specialize them -- perhaps with a 'port/harbor' (commerce bonus) or 'fishing village' (food bonus) or, most daringly, a 'naval fortress' (increases defense) that upgrades to 'coastal artillery' (increases defense and causes damage to passing enemy ships). Lots of possibilities there.

I would like to keep islands simple.
Also, why would you be able to add all those improvements with work boats, if you cannot do the same on the normal coastline?

 

[Publicola]

Absolutely. IIRC it was even there at some point, not sure why was it removed. Makes sense to have at least one access resource around the Atlantic Islands.

It's possible my memory is mistaken -- I haven't played in a while. But I don't recall seeing that access resource there last time I pulled up RFCE.

This is not an issue for a potential RFCE 2.0, since it would be on a totally new map anyway, made from scratch.
I even made some initial drafts for it a couple years ago.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=448645
EDIT: I just reread it, it was fun There were quite a few new good proposals.
But I see you already posted in the thread.

Thanks for the reminder -- that was a good thread. I'd post my question there, but I don't want to necro-post it twice in a row. Can you tell me where you got the various base projection maps (the Albers projection ones especially)? I'd like to see if I can't arrange a grid outline myself.

I did take your second attempt (the 100x150 grid map) and cut off a few rows from the bottom and a bunch of columns from the Altantic and got it down to a 98x135, which fits your desired total size. I'm still not content with the vast expanse of Russia, though, so I'd like to fiddle with it and see how much that can be cut. Specifically, if you're willing to lose Nidaros/Trondheim or accept some imprecision in the Norwegian coastline, I could probably cut another 10 rows from the top. But I'll leave that for a later discussion (and presumably a later thread).

I'm not really sure what you mean, probably the same: "Moving" the problematic parts 2-3 tiles to the south is what I have in mind.

We probably mean the same thing. If the "problematic parts" are the portion of the African coast that seems to drift northward into the Mediterranean, then moving those 2 tiles to the south should fix the issue. (This would be much easier with world builder or a map in hand, but oh well).

These are my exact plans with Portugal

I would like to keep islands simple.
Also, why would you be able to add all those improvements with work boats, if you cannot do the same on the normal coastline?

Fair enough, but especially with the bigger map I like extra functionality.

As for normal coastline, I'd argue that 'coastal' tiles are really predominantly land, and while the coastline itself would have (for example) a few scattered fishing villages, their significance would pale in comparison to how the rest of the land is utilized. Islands, on the other hand, are too small to count as land tiles, so a small fishing village would take up proportionately much more of the space and are the more significant feature. But frankly, if we're going with the RI concept of 'islands' (with +1 , +1 and +10% defense) I doubt that island-specific improvements to specialize further would be necessary.

 

[gilgames]

Two small thing.

South west france, provance and aquitania are also way too big, needs to be cut in 3-4 new provinces

Islands in mediterran should be a lot more forested. I.e. mallorca is fully forested even today, sardinia is less bit was.

Ps: andalusia needs to be cut too. It is historical for aragon but too big and powerful if player take it all!

 

[SanJose]

I can take part in the refinement of "Dynamic Civ Names" for Russia, the Crimea and North Caucasus

 

[AbsintheRed]

I can take part in the refinement of "Dynamic Civ Names" for Russia, the Crimea and North Caucasus

Great, thank you
(I presume you meant city name maps in those areas)
This is the thread for it: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=429472
Wait for the map updates though, there is no point to do them twice in a short amount of time.

 

[El Bogus]

A few suggestions for Iceland:
First off, I'd love if Iceland would be on the map as a whole (although it is half American geologically). Wouldn't it be more fun to choose where to settle the island? I suggest the following:
Size: Iceland is bigger than Ireland (103.125 km² and 84.421 km² respectivley), but for the gameplay Iceland is more insignificant. So, although Ireland has 38 tiles in game (I guess it's enlarged) while the part of Iceland only has 11 tiles, I suggest leaving the size and just move one tile. Like that it could be depicted more accurately, like that: (caution: crappy image. )

Spoiler :

Grey represents tundra, black mountains and green plains or something like that.

Ressources: I leave this up for consideration: 20% of Iceland were wooded when the Vikings began to settle the island. Later most of the forests were cut down to make place for sheep and horses or to use the wood for charcoal. So you could give Iceland 2 or 3 tiles of forest and maybe even sheep (on a forest tile, so it has to be chopped to be used).
Also Iceland has a lot of rivers and lakes. One could add one or two tiny rivers.
Fish and whale ressources are possibilities that already exist in RFC and RFCE respectively. But I get that the cities should not get too big.

 

[AbsintheRed]

Iceland is technically outside the map borders.
We wanted it to be represented somehow, as a compromise only parts of it were added.

If we decide to include it fully, it should have much more than 11 tiles.
On the other hand, it shouldn't become too significant.

EDIT: And yeah, the British Isles are intentionally enlarged, to be able to fit 2 civs there

 

[gilgames]

i like this Iceland idea, and to have a city there that can grow to size 5 rapidly and maybe later to 10 (later means ~1400) is welcome! Currently its growth is very poor.

 

[SanJose]

I would choose the transformation of the island into a colony, which would have been a triad (with Grenladiey and Wineland) to Vikings
Similarly for Madeira, the Azores and the Canary Islands(but it certainly would require too much processing the entire map)

 

[El Bogus]

It depends on how you like your gameplay. If Iceland actually exists on the map you have to build a settler, send him on a boat to Iceland and found a city there, which you then can improve and work with. To me, that is much more Viking-like than clicking on a button in your city and wait until the production (i.e. the colony) is finished.

 

[SanJose]

It depends on how you like your gameplay. If Iceland actually exists on the map you have to build a settler, send him on a boat to Iceland and found a city there, which you then can improve and work with. To me, that is much more Viking-like than clicking on a button in your city and wait until the production (i.e. the colony) is finished.

i dont city like Reykjavik

 

[LAF1994]

If/when a new map is developed, it might work to rotate the map by 45 degrees clockwise, so that the upwards direction on the map points north-east. That way, you could chop off most of the Sahara and Siberia and remove most of the unneeded ocean tiles in the west while keeping Iceland. You could then stretch the map to include Mesopotamia and the Caucasus.