NK Europa (100x92)

[Nikas Kunitz]

Download: https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/nk-europa.32411/

This map of Europe is culmination of years of my mapmaking hobby, particularly regarding maps of Europe. Started in 2021 and finished around two years ago, it took some time to make it ready to be made public.
This map is 100 tiles wide and 92 tiles high, covering most of Europe and all of Mediterranean. It is as accurate as possible with such dimensions (some inaccuracies exist of course). It is based on many regional maps and Mercator projection in general, but it isn't really in Mercator projection, as due to some alterations here and there northern half is not as big as in Mercator projection. In the eastern part of the map, territory of central Russia is somewhat "compressed" to fit in the map properly, through still looks good.

The map was created with gameplay in mind, so it allows great space and variation for real city placement.

There are two variants of this map in the download package: one is unplayable development version and another is 18 civ vanilla BtS map, with some civs repurposed to more evenly cover Europe. Additional information is available with text files together with the maps. Also, map plan image file is included with its own information.

I made couple of test plays with slightly different version (mostly regarding some resources) and it seems to work fine. All civs led by AI settle territory generally realistically, and major mountain ranges actually serve as buffer zones. In one test play as Portugal I've seen that French civ settled all of France and was effectively waging wars against of whole coalition of other major civs. I think that's the most realistic result of realistic Europe map.

There's also finished expanded version of this map that includes all of Scandinavia in the north and goes as east as Urals and Iran, that I will finalise and post sometime later.

I hope there would be people to try it and leave feedback. Also, if you have any suggestion based on real geography, economy or history, like regarding resource placement, I would be glad to hear and consider it.

If anyone wants this map be adapted to their mod, I'll happily consider that. Currently, I'm testing version of this map for Realism Invictus.

 

[Gen1_]

Why is there tundra in France and in Transylvania?

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Why is there tundra in France and in Transylvania?

That's where swamp/marsh/wetland should be, tundra kinda represent that. I suppose I needed to write that in the post, not just in the text files accompanying map files.
Also, there's no swamp/tundra in Transylvania, that's eastern part of the Hungarian plain, swamps are on Tisza river.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Made (RFCEurope-style) province map with names.
P.S. if you hadn't checked, you can play with province and other maps in image editor using map plan included in the package with maps.

 

[<Nexus>]

Also, there's no swamp/tundra in Transylvania, that's eastern part of the Hungarian plain, swamps are on Tisza river.

As a native Hungarian living in that area, in Debrecen - or maybe the next tile - I'd rather suggest to put a desert tile there to represent the plains of Hortobágy. More realistic.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

As a native Hungarian living in that area, in Debrecen - or maybe the next tile - I'd rather suggest to put a desert tile there to represent the plains of Hortobágy. More realistic.

Checked the maps - geographically, Hortobágy is just one tile south of this tundra/swamp tile, that represents notable wetlands in this part of Tisza river. Meanwhile, Hortobágy is still a steppe, even if a dry one. Making it a desert will both make the tile unproductive and not very good looking.
By the way, Debrecen is on the horse tile one tile east, or also intended to be one tile east, on this "Hortobágy tile", to place it near river for better city placement.
Here is city map for historical Hungary. As I noted in text files in the package with the maps, I made such city maps for most of the map, but they are a bit chaotic sometimes so I need to remake them to publish. Hortobágy city tile (not really intended to be found) is one tile to west to give the better second tile for Debrecen as noted above. Also, north-western border of Kingdom of Hungary here follows province map to give few more tiles to Austria and Moravia, and also because Morava river course is a bit off due to limitations of this size of the map.
By the way, what do you think about Hungary in my map, and the map in general?
P.S. I for some reason thought you are a German, but it seems there are quite a lot of Hungarian fans of Civ

 

[<Nexus>]

By the way, what do you think about Hungary in my map, and the map in general?

Taking a quick look at your pics... It looks quite good and mostly right. Of course it will never be perfect. You just can't align google maps with game maps in every detail
Just the tundra seems strange here. You can explain it in Readme.txt or whatever, just usually most people don't read those and get confused when seeing such stuff in the game.

P.S. I for some reason thought you are a German, but it seems there are quite a lot of Hungarian fans of Civ

I meet others sometimes, yes

 

[gilgames]

I would change Visegrád to Esztergom and rename Eszergom to Komárom.
Keszthely is fine, it doeasnt need Zalavár
Cegléd must go! Put Szolnok there
Pécs on the hill tile, Harkány below that
Tamási or Simontornya instead of Tab (its so tiny)
But good job overall

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

I would change Visegrád to Esztergom and rename Eszergom to Komárom.
Keszthely is fine, it doeasnt need Zalavár
Cegléd must go! Put Szolnok there
Pécs on the hill tile, Harkány below that
Tamási or Simontornya instead of Tab (its so tiny)
But good job overall

Hehe, thank you for engagement with the city map! Though I have "answers" to most of your notes.
Both Esztergom and Visegrád are historically important (Esztergom was the first capital, while Visegrád was royal residence and briefly also capital), so I wanted to include both even if they are located rather close. But most importantly, and, I guess, sadly for modern Hungarians, Komárom historically was on northern bank of Danube and was expanded to the south only in late XIXth century, so historical Komárom is now Slovakian Komárno.
Yeah, Keszthely is more "default" city here, but Zalavár was very important in early history of Hungary, dating back to times of Great Moravia (Blatnograd, Slavic for "Wetland-fortress". Root "blatno" likely is also the origin of the name of Lake Balaton) and East Francia (Moosburg), and it seems to be main regional center here before eventual demise (Mongols? Turks?), sharing names with both the river and county Zala, so in one way or another it should be represented atleast in early centuries of the Kingdom. Also, name Zalavár sounds and looks cool (for me as non-Hungarian).
Checked the map - yeah, Szolnok is one the western bank of Tisza. However, this tile is too close to Buda, so in order to see this historically important city (with also cool name, which sounds like "salty-thing" to Slavic ear) I moved it's tile to east bank to see it founded in game, while giving it's proper tile to Cegléd, city of medium historical importance, just to represent it in city list (it won't be founded, I even put wheat on this tile as it's not intended to have a city). This illustrates one of principles I have in determining city placement - if a city is on a bank of river, it can be moved to other bank, if there's not enough space but the city is important and needs to be represented. But if a city is near, but off the river (west of it, for example), then it cannot be moved to another bank. Because NK Europa map is big enough, there's very few instances of cities moved to another bank of river like that.
Yeah, I now remember how I overlooked this area when was making this city map. Yeah, Pécs is on the hill and is intended to be founded as one of historically most important cities in Hungary, while tile to south of it shoud be Harkány. Thank you for pointing and reminding!
Last one is tricky. Simontornya seems to be rather modern and unimportant, while Tamási is better option, it seems to be old, but still not very important. I chose Tab as it clearly was founded and a local town in Middle Ages. But honestly this spot in Hungary doesn't seem to have a definitely important city through all of history. It also can be Siófok, important, even if modern, city.

 

[<Nexus>]

Last one is tricky. Simontornya seems to be rather modern and unimportant, while Tamási is better option, it seems to be old, but still not very important.

Both are very old though not overly significant nowdays.

Simontornya – Wikipédia

hu.wikipedia.org

Tamási – Wikipédia

hu.wikipedia.org

Simontornya nevét attól a lakótoronytól kapta, amelyet a Tolna vármegyei Döröcske nemzetségből származó Salamon fia Simon itt épített 1272 körül, és amely később erősséggé, végvárrá fejlődött.

Simontornya got its name from the residential tower that was built here around 1272 by Solomon's son Simon, from the Döröcske clan of Tolna County, and which later developed into a fortress and border castle.

Simontornya means "Tower of Simon". Since it had a castle, I'd pick Simontornya over Tamási if I had to choose just one. Tab is also a medieval village/town but even less significant than the previous two.

And maybe replace Marcali with Fonyód, that is older. But neither is overly significant.

Yeah, Keszthely is more "default" city here, but Zalavár was very important in early history of Hungary,

Both were important and old, inhabited even in Roman times.
I have two reasons to pick Keszthely:
1) Archeology has revealed more about its past, we know more about its history.
2) Is far more prominent nowadays.


Jééé! Cső, Gilgames!

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Both are very old though not overly significant nowdays.

Simontornya – Wikipédia

hu.wikipedia.org

Tamási – Wikipédia

hu.wikipedia.org

Simontornya means "Tower of Simon". Since it had a castle, I'd pick Simontornya over Tamási if I had to choose just one. Tab is also a medieval village/town but even less significant than the previous two.

And maybe replace Marcali with Fonyód, that is older. But neither is overly significant.


Both were important and old, inhabited even in Roman times.
I have two reasons to pick Keszthely:
1) Archeology has revealed more about its past, we know more about its history.
2) Is far more prominent nowadays.


Jééé! Cső, Gilgames!

Thank you for attention and suggestions! I'll consider replacing Tab with Simontornya and Marcali with Fonyód in city list in actual mod. Though both aren't really intended to be founded ingame so it's more about what city names will be represented by hovering cursor over the tiles. With Zalavár/Keszthely it's more important as this city pretty much should be the city west of Balaton. I think one way or another, Zalavár can be represented, likely by independent city Blatengrad spawning here before Hungary to represent local Slavic principality, vassal of Great Moravia. But Keszthely should be the city in the Hungarian city map, so if there's no Blatengrad->Zalavár, Hungary will found Keszthely in the spot.

Since there's a bit of discussion on Hungarian cities now, I would ask not about names of some cities not intended to be found, but about major cities that intended to be found. Do you see possible options of intended city placement, and are they good?
Sadly, Györ is too close to Buda and Pozsony is too close to Vienna (but both are still possible), along with other important cities, like Szombathely, in Western Hungary, so I see generally restricted optimal city placement west of Danube, with Pécs (if I understand correctly this city is very important historically) south of Balaton and Zalavár/Keszthely west of it, representing all of Western Hungary in its city cross. But if less restricted, Kanizsa, Kaposvár and Szekszárd seem to be possible alternatives, not conflicting with intended Austrian cities.
North of Buda, in Western Slovakia either Nyitra or Zólyom are intended as optimal, while Trencsén and Zsolna are also possible, while Komárom, sadly, is too close to Buda. East of the Danube bend, city placement seems to be less restricted, but dependent on what other cities are founded. I see Eger, Debrecen, Szolnok or Nagyvárad in middle of Alföld; Kassa (the main one), Eperjes, Miskolc, Tokaj (on wine) or Ungvár in the Upper Hungary/Eastern Slovakia; Szeged, Szabadka, Arad or Temesvár (it's possible to found both Szeged and Temesvár diagonally) in southern Alföld, even maybe Baja or Zombor if Pécs is not present, while Bács or Újvidék are possible but too close to Belgrade; Csongrád, Szentes, Békés, Szarvas and Szalonta are "second line" or "reserve" of possible cities in central Alföld, while Kalocsa is possible, but too close to Buda and Pécs. Finally, in Transylvania either Kolozsvár or Gyulafehérvár should be present as principal city, while practically any other tile without resource can serve as a second or third city: Szatmár (easternmost city in Alfold province), Nagybánya (on gold or silver), Dés or Beszterce (on silver or gold) in the north, if Kolozsvár is not present; Marosvásárhely, Torda or Régen as alternatives to Kolozsvár or Gyulafehérvár in the middle; Szebes, Szeben, Segesvár or Fogaras in the south, if no Gyulafehérvár; and Brassó, Szentgyörgy or Csikszereda in easternmost corner of Transylvania. Also, in Croatia, it's generally either Zágráb or Sziszek.
These are main cities that are intended, or atleast possible, to found. Didn't I miss anything, are all historically important cities of old Hungary represented as possible?
P.S. as an example, perhaps the most "default" city placement to cover every tile in Kingdom of Hungary is Buda, Pécs, Keszthely, Zólyom, Szeged, Debrecen, (western) Kassa, Ungvár, Kolozsvár, Temesvár, Szebes, Brassó, Zágráb.

 

[Nikas Kunitz]

Even though almost all of the map is as accurate as possible, I noticed several minor things that I wanted to tweak earlier, but forgot before posting the map. So I'll post v. 2 of the map some time later.
Among other things, people with good knowledge of Alpine geography could had noticed that I hadn't added St. Bernard pass - one of the most historically important passes in the Alps. And also, western part of Switzerland might look weird - there's no space for city of Lausanne to the north of lake Geneva, which instead has space to the south (hill tile). This is due to complexity of balancing between accurate representation of the terrain (particularly courses of rivers), playability and general good look of the region. In case of St. Bernard pass - I missed it because I was making the map with mountains representing highest parts of Alps, and St. Bernard passes right inbetween highest mountain ranges of Alpes, right next to Mont Blanc.
So, there are three options what to do with the western Alps, shown in three screenshots below.

First screenshot shows current terrain, along with city maps of Northern Italy, Switzerland and some other Alpine cities. (Cities names) in round brackets indicate city locations that aren't possible to found (mountain or lake tile), while city names in italics indicate unprecise locations, like Lausanne south of lake Geneva (or just unnecessary cities anyway, like Davos).

Second screenshot shows easier fix - it turns two mountains into hills allowing Aosta (capital of French speaking region of Italy) and Lugano (capital of Italian speaking region of Switzerland) to be found. Aosta tile also allows to represent St. Bernard pass. Meanwhile, Lugano tile (mountain right north of Milan) is optional - there are plenty of mountains here to represent, of course, but they aren't as high or massive as main Alpine ranges to the north. This also will give Milan additional workable hill tile. However, this fix doesn't fix weird situation with lake Geneva and Lausanne, as it still is south of the lake.

Third screenshot shows harder fix - it moves lake Geneva one tile south, allowing for real location for Lausanne (and representing relatively broad and flat part of Swiss plateau here). However, lake Geneva now blocks St. Bernard pass, so instead there can be added Simplon pass (not as historically important as St. Bernard) by turning mountain tile east of lake Geneva to hill. This allows to found city of Sion - capital of canton/region of Valais/Wallis that covers upper course of Rhône river.

I think I'll implement the easier fix, even if lake Geneva and Lausanne remain weirdly placed.
What do you guys think about it? What solution seems to be better?

P.S. I also read that Mont Viso, where Po river originates, is so high that it can be seen from Milan Cathedral during clear day. Isn't that amazing?

 

[gilgames]

Even though almost all of the map is as accurate as possible, I noticed several minor things that I wanted to tweak earlier, but forgot before posting the map. So I'll post v. 2 of the map some time later.
Among other things, people with good knowledge of Alpine geography could had noticed that I hadn't added St. Bernard pass - one of the most historically important passes in the Alps. And also, western part of Switzerland might look weird - there's no space for city of Lausanne to the north of lake Geneva, which instead has space to the south (hill tile). This is due to complexity of balancing between accurate representation of the terrain (particularly courses of rivers), playability and general good look of the region. In case of St. Bernard pass - I missed it because I was making the map with mountains representing highest parts of Alps, and St. Bernard passes right inbetween highest mountain ranges of Alpes, right next to Mont Blanc.
So, there are three options what to do with the western Alps, shown in three screenshots below.

First screenshot shows current terrain, along with city maps of Northern Italy, Switzerland and some other Alpine cities. (Cities names) in round brackets indicate city locations that aren't possible to found (mountain or lake tile), while city names in italics indicate unprecise locations, like Lausanne south of lake Geneva (or just unnecessary cities anyway, like Davos).

Second screenshot shows easier fix - it turns two mountains into hills allowing Aosta (capital of French speaking region of Italy) and Lugano (capital of Italian speaking region of Switzerland) to be found. Aosta tile also allows to represent St. Bernard pass. Meanwhile, Lugano tile (mountain right north of Milan) is optional - there are plenty of mountains here to represent, of course, but they aren't as high or massive as main Alpine ranges to the north. This also will give Milan additional workable hill tile. However, this fix doesn't fix weird situation with lake Geneva and Lausanne, as it still is south of the lake.

Third screenshot shows harder fix - it moves lake Geneva one tile south, allowing for real location for Lausanne (and representing relatively broad and flat part of Swiss plateau here). However, lake Geneva now blocks St. Bernard pass, so instead there can be added Simplon pass (not as historically important as St. Bernard) by turning mountain tile east of lake Geneva to hill. This allows to found city of Sion - capital of canton/region of Valais/Wallis that covers upper course of Rhône river.

I think I'll implement the easier fix, even if lake Geneva and Lausanne remain weirdly placed.
What do you guys think about it? What solution seems to be better?

P.S. I also read that Mont Viso, where Po river originates, is so high that it can be seen from Milan Cathedral during clear day. Isn't that amazing?

Honestly idk. My only concern with current one, is how France can push into the Po valley from the north. Your 2 fixes I feel like offering too much options to pass the Alps. Purely from gameplay perspective, an east, a West and a North pass is enough.

 

[gilgames]

Thank you for attention and suggestions! I'll consider replacing Tab with Simontornya and Marcali with Fonyód in city list in actual mod. Though both aren't really intended to be founded ingame so it's more about what city names will be represented by hovering cursor over the tiles. With Zalavár/Keszthely it's more important as this city pretty much should be the city west of Balaton. I think one way or another, Zalavár can be represented, likely by independent city Blatengrad spawning here before Hungary to represent local Slavic principality, vassal of Great Moravia. But Keszthely should be the city in the Hungarian city map, so if there's no Blatengrad->Zalavár, Hungary will found Keszthely in the spot.

Since there's a bit of discussion on Hungarian cities now, I would ask not about names of some cities not intended to be found, but about major cities that intended to be found. Do you see possible options of intended city placement, and are they good?
Sadly, Györ is too close to Buda and Pozsony is too close to Vienna (but both are still possible), along with other important cities, like Szombathely, in Western Hungary, so I see generally restricted optimal city placement west of Danube, with Pécs (if I understand correctly this city is very important historically) south of Balaton and Zalavár/Keszthely west of it, representing all of Western Hungary in its city cross. But if less restricted, Kanizsa, Kaposvár and Szekszárd seem to be possible alternatives, not conflicting with intended Austrian cities.
North of Buda, in Western Slovakia either Nyitra or Zólyom are intended as optimal, while Trencsén and Zsolna are also possible, while Komárom, sadly, is too close to Buda. East of the Danube bend, city placement seems to be less restricted, but dependent on what other cities are founded. I see Eger, Debrecen, Szolnok or Nagyvárad in middle of Alföld; Kassa (the main one), Eperjes, Miskolc, Tokaj (on wine) or Ungvár in the Upper Hungary/Eastern Slovakia; Szeged, Szabadka, Arad or Temesvár (it's possible to found both Szeged and Temesvár diagonally) in southern Alföld, even maybe Baja or Zombor if Pécs is not present, while Bács or Újvidék are possible but too close to Belgrade; Csongrád, Szentes, Békés, Szarvas and Szalonta are "second line" or "reserve" of possible cities in central Alföld, while Kalocsa is possible, but too close to Buda and Pécs. Finally, in Transylvania either Kolozsvár or Gyulafehérvár should be present as principal city, while practically any other tile without resource can serve as a second or third city: Szatmár (easternmost city in Alfold province), Nagybánya (on gold or silver), Dés or Beszterce (on silver or gold) in the north, if Kolozsvár is not present; Marosvásárhely, Torda or Régen as alternatives to Kolozsvár or Gyulafehérvár in the middle; Szebes, Szeben, Segesvár or Fogaras in the south, if no Gyulafehérvár; and Brassó, Szentgyörgy or Csikszereda in easternmost corner of Transylvania. Also, in Croatia, it's generally either Zágráb or Sziszek.
These are main cities that are intended, or atleast possible, to found. Didn't I miss anything, are all historically important cities of old Hungary represented as possible?
P.S. as an example, perhaps the most "default" city placement to cover every tile in Kingdom of Hungary is Buda, Pécs, Keszthely, Zólyom, Szeged, Debrecen, (western) Kassa, Ungvár, Kolozsvár, Temesvár, Szebes, Brassó, Zágráb.

You are right, most of these names are theoretical only.
I would still stick to my version of the Danube cities, addig up locations and sizes and historical importance.
About the others: Fogaras and szebes weren't really important ever, they just existed, but not much happened there. Same with Dés, it's tiny.
On the Alföld: Szentes, Békés, Csongrád, while somewhat important, were never big as a French city that we represent in the mod. You can't compare a Leon(size 5) with Szentes (size 5), that's nonsense in my mind. I know, it's hard to compare these things or even shouldn't be. But these are really minor issues, we can fix all this after the mod works. We went ahead too much.

 

[gilgames]

Both are very old though not overly significant nowdays.

Simontornya – Wikipédia

hu.wikipedia.org

Tamási – Wikipédia

hu.wikipedia.org

Simontornya means "Tower of Simon". Since it had a castle, I'd pick Simontornya over Tamási if I had to choose just one. Tab is also a medieval village/town but even less significant than the previous two.

And maybe replace Marcali with Fonyód, that is older. But neither is overly significant.


Both were important and old, inhabited even in Roman times.
I have two reasons to pick Keszthely:
1) Archeology has revealed more about its past, we know more about its history.
2) Is far more prominent nowadays.


Jééé! Cső, Gilgames!

Cső! Ismerjük egymást?

 

[<Nexus>]

Cső! Ismerjük egymást?

No, just realized that you are Hungarian as well and wanted to greet you Hungarianish

 

[Gen1_]

No, just realized that you are Hungarian as well and wanted to greet you Hungarianish

So it means that your name,Gilgames, is not a wordplay with "Gilgamesh" and "games"! It is the spelling of "Gilgamesh" in Hungarian!

 

[<Nexus>]

So it means that your name,Gilgames, is not a wordplay with "Gilgamesh" and "games"! It is the spelling of "Gilgamesh" in Hungarian!

Actually yes, that's exactly how it is written in Hungarian history books.

In Hungarian
'S' is pronounced 'sh', like shirt.
'Sz' is 's', like skill.
'C' is 'ts', like cats.
'Cs' is 'tsh, like catch
'Z' is... errr... oh, well, that's 'z', like zealot, but...
'Zs' is 'zh', like 'Bon jour' in French.
And we also have 'dz', 'dzs', 'gy', 'ly', 'ty' and 'ny'.
And than there are the vowels too:
a, á, e, é, i, í, o, ó, ö, ő, u, ú, ü, ű.

It may look complicated, but Hungarian writing is much easier than English
Grammar on the other hand is sort of a nightmare

 

[gilgames]

So it means that your name,Gilgames, is not a wordplay with "Gilgamesh" and "games"! It is the spelling of "Gilgamesh" in Hungarian!

Exactly. Gil-games is just an accidental wordplay.

 

[Gen1_]

Actually yes, that's exactly how it is written in Hungarian history books.

In Hungarian
'S' is pronounced 'sh', like shirt.
'Sz' is 's', like skill.
'C' is 'ts', like cats.
'Cs' is 'tsh, like catch
'Z' is... errr... oh, well, that's 'z', like zealot, but...
'Zs' is 'zh', like 'Bon jour' in French.
And we also have 'dz', 'dzs', 'gy', 'ly', 'ty' and 'ny'.
And than there are the vowels too:
a, á, e, é, i, í, o, ó, ö, ő, u, ú, ü, ű.

It may look complicated, but Hungarian writing is much easier than English
Grammar on the other hand is sort of a nightmare

Not Hungarian, but I actually sometimes look at how languages work, so I've learnt myself how to pronounce words in Hungarian. So yes, I knew that "s" pronounces "sh", hence "Gilgames". (never tried to understand vowels though. I simply supposed that ¨ works like in German)