RFC Europe map development thread

[3Miro]

St. Lucifer I see your Bulgaria argument. I am currently working on an updated version of the map, I will take your comments into account and will see what I can come up with. I hope to have a map in a couple of days or so.

 

[onedreamer]

-I'll move the mountain pass.

Cool. This is the pass used by Hannibal and by the most daring Moor scouts, which have been stopped exactly here AFAIK.

-We're not going to have rice in the mod as a food resource, which is why I went with wheat for that part of the valley. If there's another grain which fits better, that might work. Is it ok if we substitute clams for fish? I'd prefer to have clams be a more Mediterranean-centric resource, while fish are more Northern/Western, to promote trade between the two. There will also be fish off of Corsica, which Genoa is likely to control.

Why not having Rice ? It spread in Europe in the Middle Ages. Clams in the Med is a good idea. They are more suited for isles though. Sicilian clams are quite renowned for example. But I wouldn't limit fishes to the ocean because a) they are better than clams/crabs and b) it's not realistic. Also the northern seas will already have whales which I assume won't be in the Med.
The reason why I said Genua should have fishes and not farms is that it relied particularly on fishing. Genua is built along a hill, and behind it are mountains. There is really no room for farming there, and I think the current wheat tile should be a hill.


Bulgaria: it starts in 620, in that time the Bulgars were based in Crimea not in Bulgaria. Could this help with their start ? Their first goal could be to control Bulgaria.

 

[st.lucifer]

Why not having Rice ? It spread in Europe in the Middle Ages.

Where besides Italy was rice a major crop? If it was widespread, it might be worth considering. We're going to have at the very least wheat and barley, and probably either oats or rye as our third grain, although I'd be willing to consider rice if you can make a good argument for it. I have similar feelings on potatoes.

Clams in the Med is a good idea. They are more suited for isles though. Sicilian clams are quite renowned for example. But I wouldn't limit fishes to the ocean because a) they are better than clams/crabs and b) it's not realistic. Also the northern seas will already have whales which I assume won't be in the Med.
The reason why I said Genua should have fishes and not farms is that it relied particularly on fishing. Genua is built along a hill, and behind it are mountains. There is really no room for farming there, and I think the current wheat tile should be a hill.

I have no problem putting fish in the Mediterranean - it was and is an important resource, and should be reflected as such. I was going to put clams next to Genoa to avoid the redundancy with Corsica. I'll be happy to change the wheat tile to a hill, particularly if we're adding a seafood resource; that's a good tradeoff. I'm not sure if we'll keep whales or not - the resources whales provided (baleen for women's clothing and oil) were primarily used later than the scope of our mod would suggest. It may be worthwhile to add a different oceanic resource, maybe even differentiating fish into 'herring' (to reflect the Baltic/Hanseatic trade) and 'fish' for the larger fish (tuna, etc.) of the Mediterranean. I'm not sure if that's advisable or not, but it's under consideration.

Bulgaria: it starts in 620, in that time the Bulgars were based in Crimea not in Bulgaria. Could this help with their start ? Their first goal could be to control Bulgaria.

Starting the Bulgars in Crimea, while historically accurate, would be a disaster in terms of gameplay - if the AI controlled them, they'd never leave.
I'd rather place them in the slightly inaccurate Danube valley as a counter to the Byzantines.

 

[jessiecat]

I think the only 2 historic rice-growing areas of any importance were the Po valley in Italy and on the coastal plains around Valencia in Spain. The Arabs started growing rice there in the 10th. C. and it has always been an important food crop in that region. Valencia is, of course, where "paella" was invented, although it is popular in it's many forms all over Spain today.

 

[jessiecat]

OK. I've finally finished the Ottoman settler map on excel. You'll note that I have covered the whole area from Budapest and the Ukraine in the north to the Levant and North Africa as far as Algiers to the west. They did historically control all those areas at one time or other, though it's unlikely they could do so in our game. Comments and suggestions please.

Edited and revised map posted below.

 

[Úmarth]

I think you need to cover the north Black Sea coast.

 

[st.lucifer]

I think you need to cover the north Black Sea coast.

We're going to have to put the Crimea at the top of everybody's desirable list. The number of countries that controlled, occupied, and fought over it during the span of our mod is pretty impressive.

 

[jessiecat]

I think you need to cover the north Black Sea coast.

Have extended the map as suggested. Have I gone far enough east and north? See below.

 

[onedreamer]

Where besides Italy was rice a major crop? If it was widespread, it might be worth considering. We're going to have at the very least wheat and barley, and probably either oats or rye as our third grain, although I'd be willing to consider rice if you can make a good argument for it. I have similar feelings on potatoes.

Well it was brought in Europe by the Arabs initially in Sicily and Spain, then it spread also to the italian peninsula and France. But I don't want to make an argument for it if you have other resources in mind which are more european
Speaking of resources, is Amber on the list ?

I have no problem putting fish in the Mediterranean - it was and is an important resource, and should be reflected as such. I was going to put clams next to Genoa to avoid the redundancy with Corsica.

I think redudancy is good. If Genua colonizes Corsica and will have 2 fishes, it can trade one away for clams.

We're going to have to put the Crimea at the top of everybody's desirable list. The number of countries that controlled, occupied, and fought over it during the span of our mod is pretty impressive.

I wonder if we can make Genua get there

 

[st.lucifer]

Well it was brought in Europe by the Arabs initially in Sicily and Spain, then it spread also to the italian peninsula and France. But I don't want to make an argument for it if you have other resources in mind which are more european
Speaking of resources, is Amber on the list ?

I think redudancy is good. If Genua colonizes Corsica and will have 2 fishes, it can trade one away for clams.

I wonder if we can make Genua get there

We're definitely going to have barley, and possibly another northern grain. I'm not totally opposed to the presence of rice, but feel like it gives the southern civs another advantage (among many) and isn't widespread enough to warrant inclusion. The same argument could be made against potatoes, which probably weren't important enough for most of the scope of the mod to warrant inclusion (although they certainly had a major influence on Europe in the 18th/19th centuries.)

We may want to have a serious discussion of resources soon. I think we've got many of them settled (there was a lot of discussion in an earlier thread), but I'd like to go back and finalize it. I've got to check to see if amber made it or not - it was certainly discussed.

I don't think AI Genoa would go for the Crimea, but they're among those who are going to be programmed to want it.

 

[3Miro]

Sorry it takes me so long, but I had a paper to write and submit.

The updated Balkan map is almost ready. I have the draft of it in world builder format, all I need to do is to copy the cities to Excel format with the corresponding names (Greek and Bulgarian)

I followed the convention that no city should be bigger than 2x2 (most are 2x2) except for the prebuild ones. I left as prebuild Beograde, Ragusa, Split, Adrianopolis, Sofia, Thessaloníki, Constantinople, Athens.

A note on the spelling: The convention is that the names should be as written on the corresponding language plus some latinization. There are differences between the latinization of Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian and other languages in the region. For the Bulgarian map I picked a Bulgarian latinization, so Skopje = Skopie, Beograde = Belgrad, Nis = Nish, Pristina = Prishtina and so on.

 

[jessiecat]

Sorry it takes me so long, but I had a paper to write and submit.

The updated Balkan map is almost ready. I have the draft of it in world builder format, all I need to do is to copy the cities to Excel format with the corresponding names (Greek and Bulgarian)

I followed the convention that no city should be bigger than 2x2 (most are 2x2) except for the prebuild ones. I left as prebuild Beograde, Ragusa, Split, Adrianopolis, Sofia, Thessaloníki, Constantinople, Athens.

A note on the spelling: The convention is that the names should be as written on the corresponding language plus some latinization. There are differences between the latinization of Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian and other languages in the region. For the Bulgarian map I picked a Bulgarian latinization, so Skopje = Skopie, Beograde = Belgrad, Nis = Nish, Pristina = Prishtina and so on.

Thanks for that. Sorry I can't open it due to a conflict between rar and winzip. But I'll look at them when you transfer them to excel. Click "files" on the wikipage to view my Ottoman settler map. Still working on the Arab one. Hope to finish soon.

 

[3Miro]

Here is a zip file, I hope this one works.

The WB maps are so much easier to work with, they are more visual.

 

[Disenfrancised]

I don't think AI Genoa would go for the Crimea, but they're among those who are going to be programmed to want it.

If they get Open Borders with the Byzantines they will probably send a settler on a ship through provided its programmed to want it - see England in Australia in RFC.

 

[jessiecat]

Here is a zip file, I hope this one works.

The WB maps are so much easier to work with, they are more visual.

Thanks for that. Looks good to me. I agree it's easier to work in WB but it has to be converted to excel anyway. One question though. I've had to extend my Ottoman map well above the Danube and all around the Black Sea coast. Is this necessary for the Bulgars and the Byzantines as well, historically? See what I've done on the Ottoman map, in the wiki files, as I've said.

 

[3Miro]

Checked the ottoman files. I might update that map here and there to match the other Balkan maps. Note Skopie is not east of Sofia and I have fiddled with some of the alignments of the other cities.

I don't think the Roman or Byzantine empires ever held something north of Danube. Bulgaria controlled most of the region of modern Romania (for a short time), but never urbanized it. It seems like cities there started to grow in importance only after the coming of the Ottomans (not necessarily because of the Ottomans, but in that period of time).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bucharest

 

[jessiecat]

Checked the ottoman files. I might update that map here and there to match the other Balkan maps. Note Skopie is not east of Sofia and I have fiddled with some of the alignments of the other cities.

I don't think the Roman or Byzantine empires ever held something north of Danube. Bulgaria controlled most of the region of modern Romania (for a short time), but never urbanized it. It seems like cities there started to grow in importance only after the coming of the Ottomans (not necessarily because of the Ottomans, but in that period of time).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bucharest

Thanks for checking that. Of course I welcome any changes you can make on the Ottoman map
esp with positions. I agree that the Byzantines never really colonised north of the Danube but I
was wondering about the Bulgars, some of whom stayed north of the Black Sea near the Don.
Though we can probably treat them more as barbs rather than Bulgars for the sake of the game.

 

[st.lucifer]

Checked the ottoman files. I might update that map here and there to match the other Balkan maps. Note Skopie is not east of Sofia and I have fiddled with some of the alignments of the other cities.

I don't think the Roman or Byzantine empires ever held something north of Danube. Bulgaria controlled most of the region of modern Romania (for a short time), but never urbanized it. It seems like cities there started to grow in importance only after the coming of the Ottomans (not necessarily because of the Ottomans, but in that period of time).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bucharest

It seems like it would be better if there were Bulgarian names for Wallachia/Moldova, assuming such names exist. It may not be 100% historical, but they're likely to control those areas in the game at least half the time, and they did spend some time there before winding up in the Danube valley. If the information's not there, don't worry about it, but if you can find it, that would be great.

 

[jessiecat]

It seems like it would be better if there were Bulgarian names for Wallachia/Moldova, assuming such names exist. It may not be 100% historical, but they're likely to control those areas in the game at least half the time, and they did spend some time there before winding up in the Danube valley. If the information's not there, don't worry about it, but if you can find it, that would be great.

Just a quick question. I'm nearly finished the Arabian settler map on excel. It covers from Constantinople and Greece all the way through to North Africa and Morocco. Should I keep going thru Iberia, Sicily and the Balearics or not? If so, could it double as the Al Andalus settler map as they would use the same names? IMO

 

[st.lucifer]

Just a quick question. I'm nearly finished the Arabian settler map on excel. It covers from Constantinople and Greece all the way through to North Africa and Morocco. Should I keep going thru Iberia, Sicily and the Balearics or not? If so, could it double as the Al Andalus settler map as they would use the same names? IMO

Yeah, go for it. That's a good way of killing two birds with one stone.