RFC Europe: Roman Roads and Starting Map

[Michael Vick]

So one needs 5 cities to get 6 resources. Sorry, but who in hi right mind would build that. There shouldn't be more than one city per Island group that is capable of getting all (or almost) the resources.

The Azores are two cities to get 4 resources.
The Madeiras are 1 city to get 3 resources.
The Canaries are two cities to get 5/6 resources and and optional extra city to get two, which will probably never happen, because Spain is already loaded with salt.

Sugar and bananas aren't found anywhere else in Europe. 4 cities to have a monopoly on those resources until colonies come around? I, in my hi right mind would do that.
Plus for Portugal it's required to build there, might as well have options, no? (There isn't even any salt in Portugal, another perk) Again, you don't have to build all the cities, it's up to the civ.

@SF23, It's not ocean, it's just the effect of when you change a previously land tile to water.

 

[3Miro]

12 cities is considered a large empire. 5 cities on the islands means that half of a large empire is situated there, consider the monopoly over something (you have only 1 banana so you cannot trade it and only one sugar and you can only get to those islands when you get very close to Astronomy) vs the maintenance cost of 5 overseas cities. And with so little production land around them, they will hardly grow into anything significant.

I think one should only have one city on each of the screenshots that you posted.

 

[Michael Vick]

We could put another banana somewhere on the canaries, and yes, 1 city should be the logical intention of most players, it's up to them. They might not get settled at all, except for by the Portuguese, it's all optional, completely up to the player. The island setup is not obligating anybody to maintain 5 overseas cities.
I'm just saying this looks better than the other versions, it's more accurate, and it leaves more for the player to decide

 

[Michael Vick]

With the new version out I'm going to make a new version of the starting map with Roman roads, ruins, villages, and a few extra indy/barb starting cities. Also I will put in the changes I suggested to the islands, a small terrain change in Gallicia, and indications of where the olives will be. Make suggestions now and I'll include them.

 

[jessiecat]

With the new version out I'm going to make a new version of the starting map with Roman roads, ruins, villages, and a few extra indy/barb starting cities. Also I will put in the changes I suggested to the islands, a small terrain change in Gallicia, and indications of where the olives will be. Make suggestions now and I'll include them.

Could you put a few fish near Greenland, Iceland and Shetland? The northern islands are pretty bare at the moment. Maybe one ivory on Iceland too.
BTW. I live in Cornwall where there's loads of fishing villages. Why haven't we got any fish?

 

[Michael Vick]

Could you put a few fish near Greenland, Iceland and Shetland? The northern islands are pretty bare at the moment. Maybe one ivory on Iceland too.
BTW. I live in Cornwall where there's loads of fishing villages. Why haven't we got any fish?

Iceland has one Ivory currently, Iceland and Greenland already have two fish each, do we need more? What about the Faroe Islands? Where's Cornwall? Is that Wales?

 

[Michael Vick]

Roads taken out of Romania, reduced where possible. New Villages, Ruins, Forts added.
One Byzantine city suggestion: Dyrrachium
New Indy Suggestions: Strasbourg, Pisa, Seville, Zaragoza, Bordeaux, A Coruna
Terrain Changes in NW Spain
Previously suggested changes to Atlantic Islands
Terrain change in Western Sahara

What's to be kept, what's not?

 

[Michael Vick]

Roads taken out of Romania, reduced where possible. New Villages, Ruins, Forts added.
One Byzantine city suggestion: Dyrrachium
New Indy Suggestions: Strasbourg, Pisa, Seville, Zaragoza, Bordeaux, A Coruna
Terrain Changes in NW Spain
Previously suggested changes to Atlantic Islands
Terrain change in Western Sahara

What's to be kept, what's not?

Forgot to post it.

 

[Michael Vick]

Forgot to post it.

Oh wait I forgot to compress it. There we go.

 

[jessiecat]

Iceland has one Ivory currently, Iceland and Greenland already have two fish each, do we need more? What about the Faroe Islands? Where's Cornwall? Is that Wales?

Are you kidding? The SW tip of Britain past Plymouth of course.

 

[Michael Vick]

Your thing says "somewhere near England" Sorry, I'll go read the entire wikipedia article on cornwall now.

 

[JediClemente]

Haven't seen the map, but if Dyrrachium is in its proper location in the southern Adriatic, please don't put it, or Venice will be pushed back even more.

 

[3Miro]

As usual what Michael Vick makes looks very good and as usual I have some objections to it from purely gameplay point of view.

1. Forts and towns look great, but I would cut the down on the roads, particularly in France and northern England. There is nothing more frustrating than a Barbarian Skirmisher traveling from beyond your area of view and taking down your worker. We should only connect the capitals i.e. one road from Rome to Dijon to Paris with a side branch to the coast maybe.

2. Lion is now going to starve big time. Cows and sheep on hills do not provide enough food to feed all the other mountains around it. Maybe you can handle such a situation, but AI controlled Spain would be doomed because of it.

3. This is the biggest thing for me. If you are going to add all of those independent cities (especially in Iberia) you should take some of the other indy cities out. A Coruna and Hispala would flip to Spain and Cordoba anyway, so the only effect they will have is to restrict the player's choice on where he/she can found new cities.

4. Did you made changes to the middle east? Now Arabia has way too much silk, it is not like they are going to trade with anyone other than Cordoba anyway. I don't know if you did that or if it was introduced in some of the other map updates, I just don't remember seeing it before.

5. JediClemente has a point about Durazzo (or whatever you want to call it). If you want, we can add another Independent Ohrid on the spot. It will be inland so it will not block Venice, and it had more impact on the region than Durazzo (culturally I mean).

I know that you are trying to represent Iberia and all as well as possible, but the gameplay simply doesn't allow for this. For example one of the largest cities on the Balkans was Sredec (modern day Sofia), it was first Byzantine, then it was conquered by Bulgaria. It has always been a large center of culture and power in the region, however, when we tried to include it in the game, it was just killing Bulgaria (culture block) and we had to take it out.

 

[jessiecat]

I've tried opening his map but I can't see any changes. But to address the points you made.

1 We spent a long time and effort cutting the indy cities down to the minimum number. There's no way we need to add a lot more, esp. in Iberia. That's going to screw up the gameplay something aweful.

2. I don't mind the roads but they have to be kept to a minimum, for the reasons you pointed out.

3. Arabia already had 4 preset silk plantations anyway to represent the end of the Silk Road from China to Damascus which predated Islam. So that's OK.

4. Ragusa already works pretty well and is very historical from Roman times. It doesn't interfere with gameplay and there's absolutely no reason to add a 2nd. indy city on or near the Adriatic. Beograd is enough.

5. The existing map and its preset city locations evolved over a period of a year and half and was only decided after days of argument and compromise with strong opinions expressed by everyone. There's no way that should be radically altered on the basis of a single suggestion. Sorry Michael.

 

[3Miro]

I also forgot to mention, Pisa in Italy and the peninsula in general has seen a lot of work of several somewhat zealous Italians. They came up with the current structure and I don't think we should change it (there was a huge discussion about Pisa and they picked Firenze at the end, I don't remember all the details, you can find it if you read far enough backwards on the treads, one of the Italians was onedreamer).

 

[Michael Vick]

Ok, less roads, less indys. We can take out Dyrrachium then. I among others am not a fan of Augsburg being there, can we take that out? A Coruna isn't important either. The rest I see as kinda important though. Like Pisa, one of the city-states that competed with Genoa and Venice in trade, Strasbourg, to cause wars between Burgundy and Germany, Hispala, because it'd be fun to see Seville during the reconquista for once, as important as it was it's never there, ever. Same with Bordeaux, how can you not have Bordeaux? Can we take out Toulouse to keep Bordeaux?
No I didn't touch the silk.
@3Miro, I'm not sure what you're talking about because Leon now has more food than it used to Also, Spain should definitely have smaller populations. Historically, Castille only had about a 1/3 of the population that France did.
everything else is fine then?

EDIT: Was Onedreamer's problem that Pisa was there or that Firenze wasn't? He'd be ok with both.. right?

 

[jessiecat]

I also forgot to mention, Pisa in Italy and the peninsula in general has seen a lot of work of several somewhat zealous Italians. They came up with the current structure and I don't think we should change it (there was a huge discussion about Pisa and they picked Firenze at the end, I don't remember all the details, you can find it if you read far enough backwards on the treads, one of the Italians was onedreamer).

Ya. I forgot about Onedreamer. Beware zealous Italians at your peril!

 

[3Miro]

Ok, less roads, less indys. We can take out Dyrrachium then. I among others am not a fan of Augsburg being there, can we take that out? A Coruna isn't important either. The rest I see as kinda important though. Like Pisa, one of the city-states that competed with Genoa and Venice in trade, Strasbourg, to cause wars between Burgundy and Germany, Hispala, because it'd be fun to see Seville during the reconquista for once, as important as it was it's never there, ever. Same with Bordeaux, how can you not have Bordeaux? Can we take out Toulouse to keep Bordeaux?
No I didn't touch the silk.
@3Miro, I'm not sure what you're talking about because Leon now has more food than it used to Also, Spain should definitely have smaller populations. Historically, Castille only had about a 1/3 of the population that France did.
everything else is fine then?

EDIT: Was Onedreamer's problem that Pisa was there or that Firenze wasn't? He'd be ok with both.. right?

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

So Pisa or Florence, Italians made their choice and I don't see why we should change it.

Leon used to have Pigs (purely food resource) and you replaced them with Cow (some food + some production, which they already had). Weak capital is enough to kill any AI.

How would Strasbourg cause war between Germany and Burgundy?

Seville is close to Cordoba and competes with them, and adding that would mean no Cardiz. Remember we cannot put every big Spanish city on the map. Historically on the Balkans, Ohrid was the second most cultured city (after Constantinople) and you don't see it in any game here simply because it gets too close to Thessaloníki and Sofia and others. Too Crowded.

So which one would you rather have, Seville or Cardiz.

 

[jessiecat]

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

So Pisa or Florence, Italians made their choice and I don't see why we should change it.

Leon used to have Pigs (purely food resource) and you replaced them with Cow (some food + some production, which they already had). Weak capital is enough to kill any AI.

How would Strasbourg cause war between Germany and Burgundy?

Seville is close to Cordoba and competes with them, and adding that would mean no Cardiz. Remember we cannot put every big Spanish city on the map. Historically on the Balkans, Ohrid was the second most cultured city (after Constantinople) and you don't see it in any game here simply because it gets too close to Thessaloníki and Sofia and others. Too Crowded.

So which one would you rather have, Seville or Cardiz.

For me, Florence over Pisa and no Strasbourg. As far as Spain goes, no change required. Let the human player as Cordoba decide what to build. This is Civilization (you know that game where people build cities). In other words leave things as they are. As they say "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

 

[Michael Vick]

Fine. Just Zaragoza. and if I took the pig out I didn't mean too. Wait, which pig are we talking about, the one South of Leon or way to the West near Santiago?