Vikings

[Oregon Lee]

If something could done that the city in Finland would be Helsinki
or Turku - Åbo in Swedish - or Oulu, rather than Vasa - Vaasa in Finnish - that would be nice. Vasa - which I have in my game what I play now - has always been minor city in Finland. Helsinki, Turku and Oulu are by CIV logic important cities in Finnish history.

And one very important note. Finland is not part of Scandinavia.
(It is part of Nordic countries) Scandinavian area - present day Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland - share same important part of history: Viking culture and same language (group).

Vikings did not have any influence to Finland and I mean really nothing - may sound strange but that how it was in real history.
Finnish language and some part of culture is totally different from Scandinavian countries. Our language is not even part of Indoeuropean language group so many languages in Indian subcontinent are closer to Swedish than Finnish is to Swedish.

What that all could mean in CIV terms that Finland is foreign area (or at least contest area) to ALL civics.

Helsinki should be an AI city spawn that the Vikings can take over (

The First Swedish Crusade was a possibly mythical military expedition around 1150 that has traditionally been seen as the conquest of Finland by Sweden, with pagan Finns converting to Christianity. According to the legend, the crusade was conducted by King Eric IX of Sweden. Bishop Henry of Uppsala accompanied him and remained in Finland later to become a martyr there.[1]

The Second Swedish Crusade was a Swedish military expedition to areas in present-day Finland by Birger jarl in the 13th century. As a result of the crusade, Finland became part of Sweden for the next 550 years.

). With Karelia's culture becoming Swedish from this conquest (naturally), and eventually becoming Russian from normal Russian culture production.
I realize Finland isn't Nordic, but it is tied to its history. Plus, we don't want to add in another civ.

 

[Zaduzai]

I just want to clarify that I don't want Finland to be other new civ. There are very long list of civ which suit much better to game than Finland. Actually Finland don't have it's history anything that would be interesting in Civilization game. (I commented in last post in that point of view that if for some reason people wanted to have some special character to Finnish area.)

Only purpose Finland could have in DoC is that it could come border line of Viking (Sweden) and Russian empires like it was in history. For that purpose part of Finland could be either no one's core area or mix core area with Vikings and Russia.

To help game to follow real geopolitical meaning of present day Finland area I would remove all resources there or if for game balance there should at least one I would leave deer (deer is ahistorical but grain would be too much food) there and but it south of Finland. That way area would be border line between Viking and Russian civs but would not have any major cities.

In Sweden, Norway and Finland south has been and are still farming lands and in north there are minerals but farming in big scale is impossible. So I agree no big cities in north rather small mining cities with population of 2-3 like they were and are in real history.

And about crusade that is after Viking period and crusade word is really overstatement even that is used in history books (or actually word crusade came centuries after crusade period but that is other story).

Spoiler :

Sweden "conquered" area where were very few people and lot of forest and lakes. Swedish army could march for two weeks not see anything else than trees and small lakes. Than they came to tiny village and told people that they are christians and not anymore pagans. Finnish were little bit confused because Swedish soldiers used their pagan gods name all the time (You know: Thursday - Thor's Day). Than Swedish army asked where is next village and villagers told that it was very near just ten days that way. Swedes army left behind man who called himself priest and again Finns were little bit confused because that guy spoke about some god and his son but in language that even Swedes soldiers could not understand.
For next several hundred years nothing special happen in village until Swedish army came back and they say you are now true christians - protestant and again villager were little bit confused because Swedes told that they have been lied by catholic devils all this time. And that Swedish king would fight against those heretics. Most of villagers want to know more about Swedish King and were excited to hear that it was their King too.
"Vau" they said we have king - cool. "Is that sack of grain we give every summer to Swedish taxman going to king´s home?" Villagers asked.
"Do king like more our grain than those annoying neighboring village grain?"
"Could king move neighboring village more far away from our village ten day is way too close to us."
"We even sometimes see them in forest" - one of the old man complaint.

And about that martyr Bishop Henry:

Spoiler :

It is very famous story even now days in Finland. In the television series Suuret suomalaiset – the Finnish version of 100 Greatest Britons – Lalli was chosen as the 14th greatest Finn.

Bishop Henry or Henrik as it called in Finland upset with his nice manners and gentleman behavior Finnish guy called Lalli or something like that. Anyway who could stand some fancy pants from Sweden or other part of so called civilized world - no true Finnish man.
Anyway Lalli did like still most Finns would do in that situation man or woman: took axe and chase that fancy pants to frozen lake where he cut poor bishop head off - who did not have slightest idea why he were killed. Story continues that Lalli was killed by some curse of God or something like that but no Finn are interesting that part.
We Finns think that Lalli describes the very essence of Finns nature: being very far away from all that civilized culture that Swedish and rest of Europeans represents. We think true man do not need gentleman's manners or fancy clothes. And what is that fuzz about those titles that people give them self? And some men call them self nobles? What is that?
Well you got a point. We are very down to earth people.

 

[Jusos2108]

Since cities in the arctic areas in Canada can grow over size 10 easily, I see no point in making some limitations to them in Scandinavia or Finland. However, I do think that the deer in Finland could be moved few tiles south together with the Copper and either some ores or fur should be added to northern Finland. Additionally fish could be added in the Gulf of Finland, the fish would also be in St. Petersburg's and Tallin's reach.

 

[Jusos2108]

Here is a map. Also please add the Neva river to make St. Petersburg more viable. I didn't move the copper, because I forgot to do it before re-drawing the rivers, but I would put it 1S. The Gulf of Bothnia is ugly, but it is hard to make any better.

Spoiler :

 

[Pavel Chichikov]

I will write more later. But few quick comments because I'm Finnish

Finland should be worthless. Only reason Swedish and Russian Empire had any interest to Finland was to have it buffer zone against each other.
Thank god that we don't share same geopolitical situation as Poland in history

St Petersburg was found to change geopolitical situation to favore of Russian Empire. In real history it was terrible place to found city. But like said reason to found city was only geopolitical.

If something could done that the city in Finland would be Helsinki
or Turku - Åbo in Swedish - or Oulu, rather than Vasa - Vaasa in Finnish - that would be nice. Vasa - which I have in my game what I play now - has always been minor city in Finland. Helsinki, Turku and Oulu are by CIV logic important cities in Finnish history.

And one very important note. Finland is not part of Scandinavia.
(It is part of Nordic countries) Scandinavian area - present day Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland - share same important part of history: Viking culture and same language (group).

Vikings did not have any influence to Finland and I mean really nothing - may sound strange but that how it was in real history.
Finnish language and some part of culture is totally different from Scandinavian countries. Our language is not even part of Indoeuropean language group so many languages in Indian subcontinent are closer to Swedish than Finnish is to Swedish.

What that all could mean in CIV terms that Finland is foreign area (or at least contest area) to ALL civics.

se ei ole kovin isanmaalinen!

I was (mostly) joking, though I am a Suomiphile.
Something that is hard to represent in RFC. A Civilisation starting with no strategic resources, small production, food and population, survives Russian invasion (while running Republic) and goes onto to have double living standards of the Civ at least 20 time's of it's size.
True about Finnish language, even harder than Arabic. But all Finland seems to speak better English than Germany.

To make Finland more important though, I would suggest making most land tiles in Scandinavia plains or tundra and putting a lot more Fish tiles in the Eastern Baltic.
Stockholm would still use these tiles, but Helsinki would be important to secure the culture in the area.

Agreed about Peterburg being a stpuidly bad city. I usually found cities in Latvia/Estonia for Fishes and to cramp Poland.

 

[LoneCentrist]

A couple comments on Scandinavian stability map.

I want to second the idea of preserving Finland as part of the Stable green for the Vikings, because of the long years under the Swedish empire and the shared cultural relations they have currently. If they shouldn't be stable under Scandinavian rule, we should reexamine Ireland under English rule, Korea under Japanese rule and several other stability maps.

I also think it might be interesting to add a tile of contested stability in America for Fort Christina, New Sweden (Deleware).