Madison's War

[techumseh]

We're still here.

[EZRhino]

Hi jim. These are my observations about your map: Forgive me for echoing techumseh re: contemporary maps. Except for a few irregularly garrisoned forts there were no permanent anglo-american settlements west of St. Louis with one exception. Rainy Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia river was founded in 1810 by Americans, but was seized by the Brits in the war of 1812 who renamed it Ft. George. America got it back at the end of the war. I lived there for several years. As far as I know this was the only real settlement in the region. I'm positive that Vancouver and Victoria didn't exist yet in 1810 and Winnipeg I think, was just a seasonally occupied fur-trade post.

San Antonio in Texas, Santa Fe and Taos in New Mexico, Tuscon and Tubac in Arizona and Monterrey and San Gabriel(today Los Angles) in California were the most important Spanish/Mexican settlements inside the boundaries of the treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo cession. Santa Barbra and San Diego were still just small non-self-sufficient presidios/missions that has to be resupplied by sea every year(there was no safe land route to California from Mexico). Yerba Buena(which wasn't called San Francisco till the 1850's at the earliest IRC) and Sonoma were also fairly small. Loreto in Baja was an important city back then.

Regarding the map itself, in reality there is pretty much solid mountains between the Sierra Nevada and the Great Salt Lake (rather than plains). Also west of the Cascade Mountains from Alaska to Monterrey there would be no plains or grasslands (sans the Central Valley of California) at the scale of your map, just solid forests. Inversely eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, southern Idaho and Nevada don't have much in the way of non-alpine forests. They're actually quite arid, their geography typified by dry scrub and scablands.

For city placement this looks like a pretty good historical atlas of the United States

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/national_atlas_1970/ca000101a.jpg

Likewise for Canada

http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/historical/preconfederation/britishnorthamerica1823

Sounds like a really exciting scenario. I can't wait to see more

Edit: I forgot that the Russians had a fairly large settlement in the Sonoma area of California called Ft. Ross.

Also you might consider replacing Mazatlan with San Blas, which was the second most important pacific port in Mexico, in this time period, after Acapulco.

[GhostOfDisco]

Just a thought ... if you want to continue the scenario into the 1860s, you might want to get rid of one of the filler civs with the CSA. Of course, since they won't get into action until 1860-61, you'd have to "keep them alive" by giving them a settler unit on a distant ocean square (maybe guarded from enemy ships (and landing forces) by some terrain and/or impassible units or something - look at what tecumseh did with the Russians in "Frederick the Great" and the Communists in "Warlords of China"), and then, when the secession begins, event-generated "Confederate" units.)

Of course, you could make the Confederates barbarians, but then you couldn't reflect the fact that foreign powers (like Britain and Spain) could have supported the CSA)...

Just some thoughts...

[jim panse]

Now finally some useful feedback - but I have to admit the War-of-1812-song was hilarious, too

@ EzRhino: I am currently a wee bit swamped with my PhD thesis (which, in fact, means analyzing testaments and wills from people long dead), I shall have a go at those suggestions this weekend, I suppose. Thanks again

By the way, those presidios in the west are only there to give the US player an impetus to actually go there later in the game. I could, however, replace those presidios with 'claim buildings'?

@ GoD ( ): About that idea of including the CS of A as well, the main reason I would have not wanted 'em in this scenario resp. ending that one (roughly) with the election of Abe Lincoln is for I have an idea about a slightly alternative outcome of the 19th century and could possibly come up with a slightly different War between the States, too ...

[GhostOfDisco]

Cool. And you can use "GD" for my "initials" (it's what I do in my unit sigs).

[EZRhino]

Originally posted by jim panse
By the way, those presidios in the west are only there to give the US player an impetus to actually go there later in the game. I could, however, replace those presidios with 'claim buildings'?

Not necessarily, some of Mexico's only notable victories in the war with the U.S. happened in California. But it might be more realistic to use fortresses rather than cities to represent the non-permanent nature of some of the presidios. Alternately you might just remove Sacramento and rename San Diego to San Gabriel.

[GhostOfDisco]

Maybe instead of fortresses, airbases could be used (with an appropriate mission/presidio graphic). But if they did provide defensive advantages historically, I'd say go with forts.