RFC Europe map development thread

[SadoMacho]

A small remark in the cities.xls file:
Hamburg in Dutch is Hamburg.
I know Rhye uses it to, but it should be Hamburg. Look at the name of the Dutch and Belgian provinces Limburg (not Limborg). Burg has the same origine in Dutch and German. It is derived from burcht = castle (first: fortrefied house).

Other names of cities in Belgium and the Netherlands are Leopoldsburg, Luxemburg, Middelburg,...
There are not much examples of the Borg form (only Borgt, but in Flanders there is a town called Burcht).

About the city-renaming of Fustat to Cairo: when Egypt respawns after an Arab conquest, the Arab names stay in RFC. Also, the renaming to Stalingrad in Stalin leads Russia could be used (this is in the RiseAndfall.py)

 

[jessiecat]

A small remark in the cities.xls file:
Hamburg in Dutch is Hamburg.
I know Rhye uses it to, but it should be Hamburg. Look at the name of the Dutch and Belgian provinces Limburg (not Limborg). Burg has the same origine in Dutch and German. It is derived from burcht = castle (first: fortrefied house).

Other names of cities in Belgium and the Netherlands are Leopoldsburg, Luxemburg, Middelburg,...
There are not much examples of the Borg form (only Borgt, but in Flanders there is a town called Burcht).

About the city-renaming of Fustat to Cairo: when Egypt respawns after an Arab conquest, the Arab names stay in RFC. Also, the renaming to Stalingrad in Stalin leads Russia could be used (this is in the RiseAndfall.py)

Funny, I thought I saw cities renaming themselves in RFC. Maybe not.
Still It should only effect Fustat so if it keeps that name, so be it.
As far as Ragusa goes, as st. lucifer says, it doesn't become Dubrovnik
until WW 1, so that doesn't matter anyway.

 

[Panopticon]

The only cities which change in RFC are St Petersburg and Caricyn, I think, and only when Stalin becomes the new leader of Russia. You could look at the code if you want to figure out how that's done, I suppose.

 

[Úmarth]

The Spanish CityMap is perfectly fine, I've put it into the Python. Keep up the good work.

Shall I re-use it for Portugal? I'm not sure if the names of cities would differ between Portuguese and Spanish.

 

[D. Zavoevatell]

Re. North Africa: Tangier, Fez, Meknes and Tlemcen already there. Possible
others could include Cueta, Melilla, Rabat, Marrakesh and Agadir if possible.
Further east, area around Tunis had a lot of cities in Roman times. An
important one for the Arabs should be Kairouan to the south (very major
mosque for the Fatimids).

Agree with you on North Africa. Between Tlemcen and the Tunis area there's really only Algiers and Oran that should concern us. But around Tunis there's a case for more. Hippo and Saldae to the west and Kairouan and Sousse to the south. East of there really only Tripoli and Benghazi before Egypt.

I didn't think to add Kairouan; I had thought it had only been important for too short of a time. However, that was just an impulse. If you think it's important, it must've been, right? I mean, if you've even heard of it, it must have been. You'll have to see the current ones there, I think Sousse is there already, and Sfax, maybe? I'm currently at school, so I can't look. I hope you get your computer fixed!

Great to see Jeremy on board, I'm not a modder. History's my bag. So it's good to have another techy type to lighten the load.

Ha! I don't know anything about the technological aspect of things. I think you've got Úmarth for that stuff!

As tempting as it is to fill N. Africa with cities (and as historically accurate as it would be), remember that we've already nerfed it extensively to make it less city-friendly. If we didn't, whichever independent civ controlled the area from Tunis to Marrakech would be the most powerful in the game; claiming the area from the independent (as presumably al-Andalus would do) would have a similar effect. While there are great historical arguments for the inclusion of all of the cities you've mentioned, I think that game balance requires us to weaken the Maghreb in the same way that we've got to shrink the arable part of Russia. We're getting ahead of ourselves a bit with the whole game balance issue, but if there are problems visible months before playtesting starts, it seems logical to go after them. I'm fine with adding one city west of Tunis and keeping the four independents in modern-day Morocco; I'm wary of adding more.

We could potentially add more if we put them in the hands of barbarians, but that doesn't necessarily help the historical side of things much, and would probably serve to weaken barbarian invasions (generally, when they have cities, they tend to mill around rather than invading others.)

Amen! There are so many things like this that you'd feel guilty doing but feel guilty not doing as well. I think we should try to minimize the importance of North Africa as much as possible (nothing new for anyone to hear, but true all the same). I don't know if barbarians are the way to go, I think it's wiser just to discourage city building with any and all tools available.

The Spanish CityMap is perfectly fine, I've put it into the Python. Keep up the good work.

Shall I re-use it for Portugal? I'm not sure if the names of cities would differ between Portuguese and Spanish.

I'm glad it's worked! It took surprisingly long, so I don't know how it'll be for others. I think it's fine for Portugal, as all of the cities in Portugal have their Portuguese and all of the cities in Spain have Spanish names. I think that if there is a chance that Portugal could ever conquer these areas, then maybe it might need reworking, but that probably won't happen (right?). Usually the Spanish and Portuguese names are the same...

 

[D. Zavoevatell]

A small remark in the cities.xls file: Hamburg in Dutch is Hamburg. I know Rhye uses it to, but it should be Hamburg.

I think the reason for both of our plights is wikipedia. It explicitly states the contrary. I'd be glad to believe you, but keep one thing in mind: oftentimes there have been ancient names that nobody knows anymore for places that we now call by their normal names. Even in English, there are old names like Gothenburg (Göteborg) that most people have never heard and are not in use anymore. Yet during the time period of this mod, it was consciously called Gothenburg. I don't know if this is the case with Hamburg, but just thought I'd mention it just in case.

 

[Úmarth]

Great to see Jeremy on board, I'm not a modder. History's my bag. So it's good to have another techy type to lighten the load.

Outside of the python, which takes a bit of scripting knowledge, (and I should add for Jeremy, Zipzapzup has done the vast majority of that so far not me), the designing and the art everything is just a case of processing information into the right form - be it maps, xml, whatever - and that's something anybody can do. And if it does involve some coding then I can always make more utilities like the CityMap generator.

 

[D. Zavoevatell]

I should add for Jeremy, Zipzapzup has done the vast majority of that so far not me

Sorry 'bout that. I guess I was so impressed by that 'simple' utility that I just assumed (and you know what happens when you assume). What I should've said is:

Ha! I think you have Úmarth and Zipzapzup for that!

 

[jessiecat]

Outside of the python, which takes a bit of scripting knowledge, (and I should add for Jeremy, Zipzapzup has done the vast majority of that so far not me), the designing and the art everything is just a case of processing information into the right form - be it maps, xml, whatever - and that's something anybody can do. And if it does involve some coding then I can always make more utilities like the CityMap generator.

Which is a lot more than I can currently do, esp. with my recent computer
crash, as I expect you've heard about. Anyway, keep up the good work!

 

[st.lucifer]

bumping this thread for easy reference.

 

[jessiecat]

bumping this thread for easy reference.

Have started doing a settler map of SE Europe starting with Bulgaria but where would their capitol be?
We have them spawning North of the Danube but both Pliska and Sofia lie well to the SW. Their
settler would found the first city on the south bank of the Danube where I've got Varna. Would that be OK?
I'll try to cover everything south of the Danube, on the basis that Hungary will spawn to the north of that. One initial question though. Where the Byzantine spawn area overlaps the Bulgaria one, which city name should take priority? The rest should be obvious I think, with Serbian names to the west of Bulgaria I guess, where neither overlap? Do you agree?

 

[jessiecat]

OK Just finished a settler map for SE Europe. I'le try to post the Worlbuilder save
but don't know to post a screenshot from Worldbuilder yet. Hope this helps.
Whoops! Too big to attach. What do I do know?

Also tried to link the excel map on the Wiki. Got a "genera error input/output"?

 

[st.lucifer]

Have started doing a settler map of SE Europe starting with Bulgaria but where would their capitol be?
We have them spawning North of the Danube but both Pliska and Sofia lie well to the SW. Their
settler would found the first city on the south bank of the Danube where I've got Varna. Would that be OK?
I'll try to cover everything south of the Danube, on the basis that Hungary will spawn to the north of that. One initial question though. Where the Byzantine spawn area overlaps the Bulgaria one, which city name should take priority? The rest should be obvious I think, with Serbian names to the west of Bulgaria I guess, where neither overlap? Do you agree?

I put them N of the Danube for spatial reasons only; Varna would be a good starting point. In places where the Byzantine and Bulgarian maps overlap, go ahead and rename those Byzantine cities that were captured and renamed - leave those that retained their original name. Similarly, the Byzantine settler map would be coded as though the Bulgars never existed - if they lose cities to the Bulgars, they'll take the Bulgarian name; if they found cities in Bulgar territory, they'll have the Byzantine name; if they capture Bulgarian cities, they'll rename them to the Byzantine version.
That's a mouthful, but I think it makes sense.

Some of those Serbian regions were at one point part of the Bulgar empire, weren't they? If there's a dual name for a town, go ahead and use the Bulgarian name; if there isn't or you can't find one, the Serbian name is fine. We'll probably only have 1 (at most 2) independent towns in that area, anyway.

Thanks!

Oh, and to post WBsaves, I usually have to compress them into .zip files with WINRAR, which is free and quite simple. Good luck.

 

[jessiecat]

OK thanks for that. I'll try to compress the whole map to win.rar and post
that if it let's me. Have you noticed the wiki excel link may be broken as I've said?

Also please check the discussion thread (posts 309 to 313)where I'm trying to flesh out the
Bulgaria civ. Your comments will be appreciated.

 

[Úmarth]

Err there's only a shortcut to the file in the archive not the file itself.

 

[jessiecat]

Err there's only a shortcut to the file in the archive not the file itself.

Reposted link. See other thread.

 

[Akhera]

I am doing city names map for Poland, but it is really difficult because of some errors in geography. For example the Dniester river is completely wrong. This is how it is:


And how it should be:


And the Pinsk Marshes are too large too. They shouldn't span to Warszawa or L'viv

 

[st.lucifer]

I am doing city names map for Poland, but it is really difficult because of some errors in geography. For example the Dniester river is completely wrong. This is how it is:


And how it should be:


And the Pinsk Marshes are too large too. They shouldn't span to Warszawa or L'viv

Thanks for the correction on the river - you're right. I'll be sure to fix it in the next map update.

Making the Pinsk/Pripet marshes too large was deliberate, in an attempt to reduce the amount of good city sites in Poland and the Ukraine (also, to give the two a little bit of a natural barrier and room for development.) There are similar issues with Russia - we've replaced a lot of excellent farmland with unchoppable forest just so they don't overwhelm everyone else. I'm willing to shrink the marshes in the interest of accuracy, but we might have to do something else for balance there. As a compromise, would you consider putting the city names on the map as if the marshes were not present, and then indicating which are most important? We can clear land around those cities, and leave some of the less important areas impassable.

 

[jessiecat]

Just finished the Worldbuilder map as far as Egypt. So it now covers south of
the Kievan Rus area and the Danube, around the east of the map to Fustat
and Alexandra in Egypt. Will begin tomorrow moving west across North Africa
to the Atlantic. here's the link.
EDIT Revised and moved

 

[st.lucifer]

Just finished the Worldbuilder map as far as Egypt. So it now covers south of
the Kievan Rus area and the Danube, around the east of the map to Fustat
and Alexandra in Egypt. Will begin tomorrow moving west across North Africa
to the Atlantic. here's the link.

Lots of overlap in the Levant, but that's ok - there'll be built-up cities there from the beginning, and probably very few founded outside of Anatolia.

I wonder about Sinope and Trebizond. They're important, and should be included - but I worry again about making the Byzantine empire too strong from the start. Nicomedia falls into the same category - certainly important enough to justify inclusion, but if it starts out with the infrastructure or population that it should...

I'm assuming that the city in Epirus is intended as an independent, in the same orbit as Sarajevo, Beograd, and Zagreb? I'd remove it and Zagreb - six cities in that area (Split and Ragusa) is a lot to start out with. If we want to have some of these pop up later, that might be all right - but I'd rather start out with Split, Sarajevo, and Beograd, maybe Ragusa.

Nice job so far. I'm interested in what others have to say about the cities in question, especially as far as game balance is concerned.