MAP: Improved Huge Map of Earth

[Vargas920]

Good stuff, and the person who made the original firaxis map should be ashamed of himself! Original map designer - go to your room and think about what you've done. (though to be fair it was probably due to pressure from infogrames to get it finished quick)

[Solomyr]

somewhere in all of this, the changes i made to the western united states were lost. they were mostly goegraphical, and didn't deal much with resources. IMO, i think the changes were more realilistic and increased playablity. so here i am, letting you guys know i am going to makes some changes to the 4.0 version. only on west of the rockies. well, maybe some minor changes in the rest of the US, but nothing big.

one other thing: i am planning to make a map of just N. America (sorry, it's where i live and what i know best). so any recommendation on where i can find good color maps with physical info on them would be great.

[Kaptnwakky]

Okay here is the map 4.2, based on 4.0. The resource locations with quantity are in a .txt file in the zip file. I also did some slight changes to geography to enhance playability include:

Made Eastern Russia and China more accurate with regards to desert, hills, rivers etc.

Changed the great lakes so that Eastern Canada is larger and not sloping as much - No space was actually lost, I moved eastern canada "up" one "square." It straitened it out like a mercator projection should and it helped the Iroqious out to give them some breathing room.

Changed mexico so that the Aztecs aren't screwed out of resources and starting location. The Aztec starting location is now where Mexico City is historically.

The resources I positioned were placed useing a historic atlas with this idea in mind - Many of the early resources are scattered in clumps of one or two with the clumps growing as technology progresses. Hence Iron is all over the place, while rubber only exists in about 5 locations worldwide. There are between 20-24 of each strategic resource with some of the later resources like uranium only having 18. I included this many because I found in my games that the AI won't trade unless it has a LARGE surplus of resources. For example, areas like the MIddle east have only oil and a square of something else lke coal, but have many luxuries such as incense and dyes, allowing for trade and dependencies on allies. In the game I just started, I am the Americans at about 1000AD and everyone is very interconnected with trade. Severing of ties by war has caused the decline of a few of the Europeans and other civs.

I also placed Luxury Resources. These were harder to do since my atlas only details half of them, so I had to fudge it with ones like dyes. Also silks historically only came from china but giving china 16 silks made no sense so for game balance they were placed in other areas such as south america etc. There are only 16-18 of each luxury resource, but they are clumped together in various locations allowing for trade. I felt that it was too much for every civ to have all 8 luxury's (thats 8 happy faces!) so I figured that most civs would only get half, if even that many, of the resources if they were slick with trading and nice to there neighbors.

Thats that, hope everyone likes the changes!

[Kaptnwakky]

Also since people are changing maps alot, any way to post documentation as to what was changed so that if someone doesn't like parts of the map, but likes other parts they can change it back?

[Solomyr]

i will make changes on 4.2

[Solomyr]

version 4.3

well, the US is updated. IMHO, it looks much better, and is going to be very fun to play. i am a little worried about it being to strong. nice amount of room for growing cities and buiding mines. weak on the resources, so that should balence it. the changes i made are below, as well as in the zip. hope you all like it.

and if you don't... i am off to

North America:
-enlarged rockies
-defined serria nevadas
-formed great basin
-snake river, 'magic vally' of idaho
-colorado river redrawn
-colombia " "
-added river near Vancouer, BC for gameplay
-extened Baja one square, added goodie hut
-added snow to mts.
-coast/sea tinkering
-rearranged the Rio grande, some hills in northern mexico.
*don't feel great about the changes, but mexico is small to begin with.
-forests throughout canada, eastern US
-barabin camp or two added to give people a hard time :-)
-replaced some tundra with plains in canada. the land id harsh, but not that bad. i think.

Resources
-wines in Napa valley (CA)
* only one, as CA wine is well known in the US,
but i don't know how many people have heard of it overseas.
-removed one oil in Alaska. plenty for US, not two civs
-removed uranium in rockies, they tested bomb, not mine for them there
-removed Ur in eastern canada, gameplay and reality (?)
-added Ur in north of canada.
*if the ruler of N. Amer. wants a local source of Ur, they can, but they have to pay for it.
-removed one Al in midwest, quebec (was it there to start with in 4.2?)
-Added Al near seattle.
*large production, but not really mining. if this is an issues, let me know where else it might go in the NA
-coal and iron moved in east coast to represent industry
-fish off Pac. NW for salamon

Goodie huts added for a jolly good time

(i just figured out how to make the smiles work today )

[Solomyr]

maybe this time...

Edit: Insomnia gives me the chance to correct mistakes. i added an iron so the Iroquois can survive through the middle ages.

[warlon]

Seeing what changes and modification people make on the map I have come to realize that there is too much national favoristm. At the moment cattle are totally absent in whole of Asia. Wheat you don't find in Ukraine. Whales are not near Japan. China can not support as many cities as USA... English and Americans seem to be most attractive to play...


to Alexandre:
replacing other people's work? I worked from 3.9. Should every step be little bit tiny even if somethings are absolutely wrong realistically?

[Alexandre Madeira]

Im sorry, if it wasnt you, it was someone else, it happened before.

[Alexandre Madeira]

Ok, I've made a few changes to the resources:

I dont think having clusters of the same resource together is very good (in some cases, there were 3 resources of the same type very close to each other), so I removed some.
Also fixed the oil locations.

Also, in my last version I added a single hill here and there in Germany and Russia, there's lots of grassland there, if they dont have at least one hill to mine, the german and russian capital cities wont have much chance to win wonder races Readded those hills.

Removed the horses from N America, the indians only got horses after the Europeans came I think, so to make it more realistic, they should only get them after being able to trade with old world powers, if that means the Iroquois will only get their unique unit when that happens, so be it. But I have a reason to do it, im looking for a way to limit Iroquois, Aztec and Zulus scientific progress, right now the best way i thought of is to not allow them to build workers (at least workers that can build roads), they didnt build roads after all, me thinks (No roads, not much comerce...)

If you disagree just dont download this version

[Solomyr]

harsh man. denying a civ their unique unit, especially an early one in the game? your are correct in saying that horses are not native to the Americas. but having to trade with an 'old world' power for them seems a bit much. it is a task to get around the atlantic with a galley.

and why do you want to limit thier scientific research? to represent historical events? i am all for accuracey, but IMO that goes a little to far. i don't want to replay history, i know how history has turned out for the most part. Alex man, get off your high horse

it really doesn't matter though, you should play the game how you want to play. i am just stickin' up for the little civs of history

PS if something was lost in the high horse comment let me know

[sianews]

Agreed. Civ isn't meant to be historically accurate - if you want that go play EU.

[romikua]

Originally posted by warlon
Wheat you don't find in Ukraine.

Since when?
Vice versa, Ukraine was (and still is) known for its wheat-oriented agriculture (and, since, the economy).
I believe only one link will be enough to persuade you. (US Department of Agriculture site - http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/Ukraine/)


Commenting on the modern Ukraine area (later I'll take a look at some other territories that I have a knowledge of) in the version 4.3 I should suggest:
1) moving player start position from (105,37) to (104,42)
2) adding wheat at (108,42)
3) adding cattle at (106,44)
4) adding hills and coal at (111, 45)
5) adding hills and iron at (110,44)
6) removing horses from (112,44)
7) adding wines at (110,54)
8) adding barbarian camp at (107.49)

Also suggest tweaking:
Azov sea (increase by 1 tile)
Buh river (move it 1 tile to south-east)
Plains line (trim it by converting 3 plain tiles into 3 grassland tiles)

If nobody disagrees I can incorporate these changes into one of the next versions.

[OmniGod]

two things...

1. Canada's north is that bad... tundra and some forested tundra is the main staple

2. Uranium is found in the Eastern part of Canada as well just outside of Sault Ste. Marie at the junction of Lake Huron and Lake Superior... so hopefully you aren't taking that out... and the north has little to no uranium well north of 70 to the best of my knowledge...



Just another Canadian perspective trying to clear the wrong minds of the world

[Dreifels]

Originally posted by Alexandre Madeira
Ok, I've made a few changes to the resources:

Also, in my last version I added a single hill here and there in Germany and Russia, there's lots of grassland there, if they dont have at least one hill to mine, the german and russian capital cities wont have much chance to win wonder races Readded those hills.

If you disagree just dont download this version

well, you 1st should say if you are creating a map being similar to the time 5000 years ago (with some changes to make it more balanced), or if you create a map as the planet is today. THAT IS A BIG DIFFERENCE!

Europe, Sibiria that time had more than 90% forest, the other was tundra, except north Germany and Danemark where green grass was.
Europe + Russia had/have BIG recources of Iron + Coal. And the production of food inearly time was absolute different than today. Where you today have weat (i.e.) in history nothing similar was.
(What do you think the reason for the expansion was in early time between 500 + 1500 AC ? Europe had too much people! Means they had so much recources that they could grow much faster than all around, AND they had the tech that time)

(Today the production of such recources is not decreased as they are empty, but as meanwhile the international working prices in other countries are cheaper.)