RFC Europe map development thread

I think Burgundy should be later, though there may be issues with France and Germany's sandwiching them. The Vikings should start earlier - just because they didn't leave Scandinavia until the late 800s doesn't mean they didn't have a culture there that grew into the raiding, trading, colonizing group of people later.

The Arabs should start in Damascus, giving the Byzantines someone stronger than Independents to worry about at first, as well as historical accuracy in conquering Egypt after Mesopotamia. This also means Jerusalem won't suddenly become the capital if and when it flips.
 
jessiecat said:
I beg to differ on the Burgundy start. 840 is historically accurate and they
could have a strong south spawn to prevent them being swamped by the
Germans and the French.And there is a gap in the list between 800 and 860.

As far as the Norse goes, I originally proposed 700 but people objected and
said it should be 900. So if you want it early, that's fine with me.:)
Click to expand...

It's not the history that I have an issue with - it's that the spawn and flip is going to tear the guts out of either France or Germany every single time, probably collapsing one of them - which would be bad in 840. We could move the spawn area further south, but that's getting away from the historical side of things as well, and there's no logical capital - they'd probably end up in Switzerland with a couple of fairly weak cities, or fighting independents in Provence (which might not be so bad.)

I vote for having the Vikings around from the beginning. They'll start out fairly weak - Tonsberg and probably Aarhus, depending on where they found the city in Denmark - but we can reduce their preferences for Germany and the Netherlands to drive them north, which should spur normal development.
 
st.lucifer said:
It's not the history that I have an issue with - it's that the spawn and flip is going to tear the guts out of either France or Germany every single time, probably collapsing one of them - which would be bad in 840. We could move the spawn area further south, but that's getting away from the historical side of things as well, and there's no logical capital - they'd probably end up in Switzerland with a couple of fairly weak cities, or fighting independents in Provence (which might not be so bad.)

I vote for having the Vikings around from the beginning. They'll start out fairly weak - Tonsberg and probably Aarhus, depending on where they found the city in Denmark - but we can reduce their preferences for Germany and the Netherlands to drive them north, which should spur normal development.
Click to expand...

OK, I do take your point about the later Burgundy spawn, so for the sake of
balance I'll vote for an earlier date.
Same for the Vikings as long as they don't muck up the Germany start or
start raiding Britain too early.

I'd be happy with a Damascus start for the Arabs too. Jerusalem and Acre
should flip early, leaving them free to invade Egypt. And I just realized why
they couldn't start in Cairo as it they didn't found the city until 969AD.
It didn't exist before that. They could hardly start there, could they?
In fact Cairo shouldn't even be on our map. It should be Fustat instead.

BTW Did you know that Damascus is considered to be the oldest continually
inhabited city in the world? :)
 
Jeruzalem is the 3th Holy City of Islam (after Mecca and Medina), so could be a good start for the Arabs.
And I think the Arabs conquered Egypt witch was a Byzantian Province at the time. But I would make Egypt flip to Arabia after the spawn.
 
SadoMacho said:
Jeruzalem is the 3th Holy City of Islam (after Mecca and Medina), so could be a good start for the Arabs.
And I think the Arabs conquered Egypt witch was a Byzantian Province at the time. But I would make Egypt flip to Arabia after the spawn.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's true. Jerusalem became Islam's 3rd. holiest city as it was there
that Mohammed was thought to ascend to heaven. But it was never their
capitol. Damascus was conquered in 634 and Jerusalem fell in 638 where
they were welcomed by the local Christians and Jews. The first Umayyad
caliphs made Damascus the capitol and later it was transferred to Bagdad.
Egypt was conquered a couple of years later. Their main base there was
Fustat. Cairo was only founded later in 969.:)
 
jessiecat said:
Yes, that's true. Jerusalem became Islam's 3rd. holiest city as it was there
that Mohammed was thought to ascend to heaven. But it was never their
capitol. Damascus was conquered in 634 and Jerusalem fell in 638 where
they were welcomed by the local Christians and Jews. The first Umayyad
caliphs made Damascus the capitol and later it was transferred to Bagdad.
Egypt was conquered a couple of years later. Their main base there was
Fustat. Cairo was only founded later in 969.:)
Click to expand...

I actually had Fustat on the map and changed it to Cairo. Can't remember why... I'll change it back in the next update.

Damascus for the capital, then?
 
mitsho said:
<-- *had always thought Fustat = Al-Qahira, just a different name, goes off looking it up on wikipedia*

Btw. Are there any news or a schedule?
Click to expand...

Just read the article on Fustat myself. Very interesting. Al-Qahira was the
Arabic name for Cairo but they were very close together. Fustat was the
first capitol until Cairo was founded in 969AD. Cairo became capitol in 1168.:)
 
Yeah and basically they are at the same place, (Fustat East of the Nile, Cairo/Al-Qahira West). Fustat got "deliberatively" (the Arabs let them) razed by Crusaders and then Cairo, formerly something like a "suburb" was made the new capital. That's what I read from the article... ;)
 
I cant make this map work. When i load it direktly from windows it just open in vanilla, and if i try to open it trough RFC it craches... isent this map playable or what im i during wrong ?
 
This isn't a playable map, at least not in RFC (you can play it in Vanilla, but, it's just a Europe map). It's posted here for development purposes, so we can discuss improvements to the map and so those working on the coding can coordinate with it.

Watch this space though.
 
Interesting.
 
Okay, sorry for that last post. The truth is, you need to have posted at least once before you are allowed to upload files. Why would I want to upload files, you may ask? It is simple!
I have been reading these threads for ages, lurking per se, but never bothered to post (as is the case with so many these days). I'm quite a history fan, so had always been drawn to classics like TAM and teturkhan's world map in CIII. Of course, with the advent of CIV, I went straight from Sulla's introduction to RFC. I kind of miss those first versions where the whole world would be conquered by barbarians and huge waves of instability would cause all of Europe to collapse, but honestly I think Rhye's is much better now. In fact, I think it is perfect and, being perfect, requires no more work. Therefore, everyone should work on Rhye's of Europe! Why? Because, as an influential part of the world, Europe's history and politics are quire complex; unrepresentable to a sufficient level on the world map. Plus, Europe's just cool and interesting, and what could be better than playing an exciting, historically based game with its setting in Europe? Nothing!
You may be wondering what I'm getting at, why I needed to upload files, and how I have the nerve to waste your time. Well, here it is! After having read about and seen pictures of the map so many times, I decided to download it and see it with my own eyes. Now, I started placing capitals and one thing led to another, and soon I had spent six hours creating a sort of settler map without the complex codes. How? Well, I took out all of my historical atlases (did I mention I like history? ;) ) and compared them, together with my modern one, to see which cities were truly 'important.' Of course, I was lenient, and used any that appeared in more than two. Basically, this lead to a city on most squares in Spain, France, Italy, the UK, and Germany, but with one only about every four squares in Russia, North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In fact, Ukraine and Romania are especially empty. To tell you the truth, this isn't for lack of places on the maps, but rather that I disliked placing cities I'd never heard of. I actually didn't place any cities at all I hadn't heard of, except for Écija in Spain (Don't know how I'd managed to avoid hearing of that one :blush:).
Now, I know you are probably disappointed that I didn't do something you actually needed (eg: code all this stuff that's been so magnificently planned), but I hope you will at least download it and have a look around. It did take me quite a while!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/settlermap.rar
 
:eek:

Wait... you're apologizing for creating a city/settlement database???

This is great. It may not be usable in its current form, but this is definitely something we were going to have to do - and I appreciate your correcting some of my original city placements (even if I feel obligated to defend them!)

To address some of the points you flagged on the map:
-The landmass in the NW corner is meant to be part of Iceland, to encourage civs to develop astronomy. It's too far south, and possibly too far east, but we felt that we should have something there.
-The Hungary start is further south on the plain than Budapest. The Magyars and Avars didn't really have a capital, if I remember right; Buda/Pesth were eventually established as capitals of the region, but unfortunately they're right next to the Austria start. I placed the Hungary start south for better geographic spacing, in part because we initially didn't have Bulgaria; seems like it would be better to move it back.
-I deliberately misplaced Smolensk to have something between Moskva and Kiev. Bryansk will work; it's pretty old too.
-Some of the other city misplacements were due to confusion on my part. :blush: Others, like Granada, were attempts to keep landlocked cities from being coastal.

Thanks a lot for your work on this - it's really impressive. Please keep contributing! If you can work out a better map of swamps/wetlands than I managed to, I'd appreciate that - I didn't have much luck with it, and Disenfrancised keeps yelling at me.

Please feel free to 'waste our time' whenever you wish. :D
 
I'm pretty glad that you've found my placements useful! I was worried it was all just for fun, and no longterm benefit. The truth is, I don't really know how to actually make a settler map. But I'd be perfectly willing if I did!
Now, I must admit, it was obvious to me why you had moved some of the cities. For example, Granada, as you mentioned, clearly did not work on the coast. However, I wanted to stick with reality whenever possible, even if it would obviously have to be changed. I had not realized the explanation for Smolensk, however, and I thank you for the clarification. I was at first really worried that I had mixed up one of the rivers... I hope you can imagine my shock! I'm glad Bryansk will work, as historical accuracy and game balance are always better than just one or the other. Unfortunately there will always be those 'Granadas' throwing a wrench in the works...
As for Hungary, I had always thought they migrated from the east. From the steppes, right? I seem to remember them starting in Székesfehérvár in someone else's scenario. Is this accurate? One thing I can say is that the current place is startlingly close to Belgrade. I won't suggest it move to Budapest, but I will suggest it move from there. I'm near certain Serbia has always been in control of that region. Has it not?
A few more questions, though: was Athens purposely placed where it was? I couldn't tell if it was a better location. And Nicæa? I've been under the impression that it was a port, so I don't know why it would be inland. I may be wrong here, which is why I ask.

As for swamps/wetlands, I don't know if I could be of much help. I enjoy placing the land and cities on maps, but the individual terrain and rivers always frustrate me. It looks wonderful as it is already, at least to me, anyway, and I certainly commend you for your outstanding work.
 
D. Zavoevatell said:
I'm pretty glad that you've found my placements useful! I was worried it was all just for fun, and no longterm benefit. The truth is, I don't really know how to actually make a settler map. But I'd be perfectly willing if I did!
Now, I must admit, it was obvious to me why you had moved some of the cities. For example, Granada, as you mentioned, clearly did not work on the coast. However, I wanted to stick with reality whenever possible, even if it would obviously have to be changed. I had not realized the explanation for Smolensk, however, and I thank you for the clarification. I was at first really worried that I had mixed up one of the rivers... I hope you can imagine my shock! I'm glad Bryansk will work, as historical accuracy and game balance are always better than just one or the other. Unfortunately there will always be those 'Granadas' throwing a wrench in the works...
As for Hungary, I had always thought they migrated from the east. From the steppes, right? I seem to remember them starting in Székesfehérvár in someone else's scenario. Is this accurate? One thing I can say is that the current place is startlingly close to Belgrade. I won't suggest it move to Budapest, but I will suggest it move from there. I'm near certain Serbia has always been in control of that region. Has it not?
A few more questions, though: was Athens purposely placed where it was? I couldn't tell if it was a better location. And Nicæa? I've been under the impression that it was a port, so I don't know why it would be inland. I may be wrong here, which is why I ask.

As for swamps/wetlands, I don't know if I could be of much help. I enjoy placing the land and cities on maps, but the individual terrain and rivers always frustrate me. It looks wonderful as it is already, at least to me, anyway, and I certainly commend you for your outstanding work.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I don't know how to do the settler map thing either. Maps are my passion, and I've done a ton of them for other versions of civ (and vanilla civ4), but didn't discover RFC until the BTS expansion. I think it's one of the neater concepts in the mod, and I hope that we can do it justice.

Placing cities in Russia/Ukraine is hard. I did screw up a couple of the rivers - had to go back and fix them upon transcription when I noticed that what I was calling 'Moscow' was closer to Kazan... and obviously, I still didn't get everything right.

Yes, Hungary migrated from the east, and controlled pretty much everything south/west of the Carpathians. There weren't a lot of cities there when they showed up, and they didn't do the existing ones any favors. Beograd seems like a decent starting point for a couple of reasons - 1, it's got a long history; 2, we don't have the Serbs in here (or any other Western Slavs - I'm not sure the Bulgars count.) I'm not sure when the Serbs began calling themselves the Serbs, but I'm pretty sure that the area around Serbia was controlled by Magyars up until the Serbs showed up.

I think your placement of Athens is better. Makes it possible to place a second city in the Peloponessus, and shrinks the area between Athens and Thessalonica.

Nicaea was on a lake slightly inland. I'm not sure that the lake is large enough to be worth adding; the city could be moved another tile or two to the west.

Thanks again for the help.
 
Honestly, I don't know how to do the settler map thing either. Maps are my passion, and I've done a ton of them for other versions of civ (and vanilla civ4), but didn't discover RFC until the BTS expansion. I think it's one of the neater concepts in the mod, and I hope that we can do it justice.
Click to expand...

In the past I have looked at Rhye's settler map and understood it, I figured out how to change it and stuff, but that's about it. I am totally clueless when it comes to creating a new one for a new, different sized, map. Hopefully some know-it-all shows up pretty soon, unless s/he already has and I missed it.
What's truly novel about Rhye's for me is this settler map. It is definitely my favorite part (although trust me, there are a thousand things tied for a close second).

Yes, Hungary migrated from the east, and controlled pretty much everything south/west of the Carpathians. There weren't a lot of cities there when they showed up, and they didn't do the existing ones any favors. Beograd seems like a decent starting point for a couple of reasons - 1, it's got a long history; 2, we don't have the Serbs in here (or any other Western Slavs - I'm not sure the Bulgars count.) I'm not sure when the Serbs began calling themselves the Serbs, but I'm pretty sure that the area around Serbia was controlled by Magyars up until the Serbs showed up.
Click to expand...

You've got me convinced that Beograd is probably a better idea than Budapest, but maybe you might consider Pécs? It is one of the oldest cities in Hungary, and it's pretty far south. If you really won't hear any words for cities in Hungary, though, I can deal with Beograd. The Serbs were supposed, however, (per Wikipedia) to have lived in Beograd 200 years before the Magyars crossed the Carpathians. Yet, as you've said, they will not be represented in the game, and will be settled by Hungary (or maybe someone else?) every time. No use delaying the inevitable, right?

Nicaea was on a lake slightly inland. I'm not sure that the lake is large enough to be worth adding; the city could be moved another tile or two to the west.
Click to expand...

You're right, I can see, as I have a map of the Roman Empire right on my wall (I should really have looked before I asked...). A pity; kind of makes it a worse city. Anyway, I'll attach an update.

I've also got some more work done. I split up all of the cities into the civs from the other thread (except for Papal States, Venice, and Genoa). The aforementioned three didn't work because I couldn't have more than 18 civs without the game crashing. I don't know why, but I'm not expert so the reason is probably obvious. Anyway, I added the 18 civs to the just land map, too, as long as I had had the codes written up. The only real use of these is it helps to visualize, so that's their basic purpose.
I hope you find great uses for them!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/118076/R_FoE.rar
 
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