Dead Moroz's New Map

[Russa]

Hi,

One of the fellows suggested that we keep the news thread clean of discussion of the map itself. I wholeheartedly agree. Please, see the original sticked news thread for the map image itself.

What can I say, great work, Dead Moroz! I have also enjoyed seeing your prior work in other threads. This is my first post, by the way. The map is so good, I just had to stop lurking!

Anyways, I have a question - is the orange faction still the Scythians? Vernadski and other authors say that by the 3rd century BC the Scythians were pressed closer to the Crimean peninsula by the Sauromatae (or Sarmatians, as they are commonly known). Are you keeping the Scythians as a faction or is it going to be changed to Sarmatians? Maybe there are other sources on the Scythians that contradict Vernadski, I am not sure??

Overall, I am amazed at the work this team has done so far, and your ambitions sound most worthy and encouraging!! I wish I could assist in some way, however my expertise is limited to Central European pre-Roman cultures, and even that is limited to a couple of undergrad courses in university. You appear to have plenty of knowledgable people on board already!

Keep up the good works, and cheers!!

Russa

[Big_John]

on the new map, the orangey faction are sarmatians. the scyths are out until they can add new factions, afaik. but the map isn't final anyway.

[Zero1]

For commens on the map, all I can say is WOW! HOLY MAMAJAMMA GO DEAD MOROZ! YOU ARE THE MAN!

I knew it was going to be historically accurate and quite detailed but I never imagined that could be done to such a fine and surpremely detailed level. I wish I could give some sort of constructive criticism but I can't find anything about it to criticize, its absolutely perfect.

Playing as the Carthies is going to have a whole new level of depth with the deep interior of Africa to expand into, and the Sarmatians are going to be surrounded with endless steppes to conquer and the Scelucids will have the difficult task of holding their massive empire together and the Parthians ready to pounce on their tender underbelly and and and and AND!!!!

Whew...I seriously CANNOT wait for this mod, its going to blow everything else out of the water

[eadingas]

Russa: well, if you could add some info about _names_ in Central, Eastern and North-Eastern Europe... all we have so far is archeological cultures, and for names we have to use either Herodotus, or Ptolemy, neither of which is very accurate... With Dead Moroz being from Russia and me being from Poland, we have some extra knowledge of these lands, but perhaps you have found something interesting?

[Sheep]

I like the current extent of the map. But is there a way to make 'dead space' that isn't possible to move onto and doesn't have a capital? I was thinking the bottom seven provinces in the southwest of the map (the Sahara) looked particularly useless.

Or, since it's only the cities that have to be within 50 tiles of adjacent cities, make really tall provinces where the cities are clustered up closer to the coasts or the Nile, but the land within the provinces extends vertically all the way down to the map border?

Mostly I'm not looking forward to slaughtering the Carthaginians up in the important provinces but then having to send armies down to root them out of the Saharan provinces by capturing and holding seven completely useless settlements there.

[Sheep]

Can't edit my posts but this is what I mean by really tall provinces. As far as I can tell the cities that remain will be no farther from the adjacent cities than they were before.

[Arkatreides]

I think that's a great idea!

[Sheep]

Especially since you can take those 7 provinces and use them elsewhere... you could make cool, happening cities like Philippi, Agrigentum, Bononia, another province on the east Adriatic coast, give Carthage another city on their coast... heck, there's probably a whole crapload of cities I don't even KNOW about...

[Darius]

EEP! That's incredible! Except....well when it comes to those cities in the southern most area of Africa...those will be hell if rebels pop up. So much open space away from...well anything.

[Meneldil]

Are you all reading what khelvan and other people from EB said ? It there's more than 50 tiles between two province, it will break both the AI and trading. That's why there's no huge RTR-style province (those provinces might actually be causing the slowdown during AI turn).

[khelvan]

We will most likely be implementing a solution to cut down on the number of desert provinces, but only if we can do so without sacrificing any stability in the game mechanics. We do not know if we can, yet.

[Sheep]

Are you all reading what khelvan and other people from EB said ? It there's more than 50 tiles between two province, it will break both the AI and trading. That's why there's no huge RTR-style province (those provinces might actually be causing the slowdown during AI turn).

I did read what Khelvan said... he said:

By definition, you're talking about increasing the size of the map provinces. The settlements cannot be more than 50 tiles by road away from each other. If we increase the scale of the map we will be extending the distances beyond this limit, thus breaking the game mechanics.

So I think a map like the one above would work, given that the settlements are still close together, clustered up against the coast and the Nile (like they were in real life, for the most part).

[khelvan]

Dead Moroz seems confident that this will break the AI as well. As I said, we are discussing different options.

[Pereus]

Maybe this is too late, but I think we should incorporate the sacred Island of Delos as a province to our map. This place was considered a focal point of pilgrimage until the introduction of christianity. People from many religions and deities were visiting this holy place throughout the year. Imagine something like Jerusalem or Mekka of the Ancient and Hellenistic World. Temples of Apollo and Isis were amongst the more prominent. In particular the statue of Apollo was about 15 metres high and even today there are fragments surviving.

[Big_John]

maybe the "isle of delos" could be a new wonder, if EB chooses to add those.. it could belong to athens (that's the closest of the game cities to delos, right?)

[Dead Moroz]

So I think a map like the one above would work, given that the settlements are still close together, clustered up against the coast and the Nile (like they were in real life, for the most part).

Actually, safe distance between regions is smaller than 50px. With lots of large regions, even within 50px radius from each other, you will always have problems. You need some number of small/medium provinces to bind the web of regions around.

[professorspatula]

Hmm, the opening turns for the Seleucid player could take absolutely hours. You could even take out Parthia in a few years but sacrificing a few provences and moving your units into their terrority early on. Same for against Armenia.

And Carthage can conquer Numidia almost immediately too.

[Colovion]

Holy crap, that map is massive! The Eastern Factions would actually be able to build up a stronghold back home before assaulting the MeditteraneaN!

[ah_dut]

that's the point mate, I huess it's more accurate that way

[Sheep]

Actually, safe distance between regions is smaller than 50px. With lots of large regions, even within 50px radius from each other, you will always have problems. You need some number of small/medium provinces to bind the web of regions around.

K, if that's the case then I stand corrected. Do what you have to do. Just trying to throw ideas out there.

[thrashaholic]

I have question about the rivers in Britain: Why have the Thames featured, but not the river Severn? The Severn is the biggest longest river in Britain. I'm not suggesting you replace the Thames with the Severn, its just to be more 'geographically accurate' it should be added. I find it perplexing how the Severn was not included in vanilla RTW either, I mean CA are actually British, I can't blame a foreigner for not knowing the features of the British countryside.

Please do add it though, and perhaps could you lengthen the Thames slightly, and if you're feeling extra generous maybe you could add the river Trent in England and the river Shannon in Ireland.

[Aymar de Bois Mauri]

I have question about the rivers in Britain: Why have the Thames featured, but not the river Severn? The Severn is the biggest longest river in Britain. I'm not suggesting you replace the Thames with the Severn, its just to be more 'geographically accurate' it should be added. I find it perplexing how the Severn was not included in vanilla RTW either, I mean CA are actually British, I can't blame a foreigner for not knowing the features of the British countryside.

Please do add it though, and perhaps could you lengthen the Thames slightly, and if you're feeling extra generous maybe you could add the river Trent in England and the river Shannon in Ireland.

Then please show us some geographical information.

[thrashaholic]

Then please show us some geographical information.

Righty ho,

Here's a map of the River Severn and river Wye (severn on right):

River Severn

here's one of the shannon:

shannon

Here's a link that'll show you the position of all the noteworthy rivers in Britain:

rivers

[khelvan]

Thank you for the info. We'll do our best to make the map more accurate.

[Sheep]

Were these rivers easily fordable or were they major obstacles? Cause if they were small rivers that armies just walked across, then personally I would rather not have them on the map as obstacles forcing me to march around them.

[monkian]

Were these rivers easily fordable or were they major obstacles? Cause if they were small rivers that armies just walked across, then personally I would rather not have them on the map as obstacles forcing me to march around them.

Um... if you remove the natural defences and obstacles of a territory to make it easier to attack then the very idea of this mod is thrown away.

*edit*

I think I may have actually mis-interpreted your post.

As i live near the River Severn and Wye I can safely say you'd need a bridge or you'd have a lot of floating legionaries

What 'city' are you planning to have in Wales ?

I know Caerleon was a major Roman stronghold in South Wales but then I guess this is set sometime before the Roman conquest of Britain...

[eadingas]

It has nothing to do with the 'idea of this mod'. The idea is not to make everything harder :) Nor is it to show every possible geographic detail. Of the rivers in Britain, only Severn and Thames are big enough to appear in game, I think. If we'd put any smaller, then we'd have to put about a hundred other rivers of equal length that are in mainland Europe...

[khelvan]

Mona will be there, in Tribus Ordovices.

[Russa]

Russa: well, if you could add some info about _names_ in Central, Eastern and North-Eastern Europe... all we have so far is archeological cultures, and for names we have to use either Herodotus, or Ptolemy, neither of which is very accurate... With Dead Moroz being from Russia and me being from Poland, we have some extra knowledge of these lands, but perhaps you have found something interesting?

Hi, eadingas!

Pardon me for being rather late in replying: I was unable to access the board for a few days and then things got hectic at work for a while. I would certainly love to do what I can in terms of names. Would you like place-names as well, or just personal names? I will have to look through my reference materials to see what I have. I was trained by Dr Schutz, one of the few experts on Germanic and Central_European culture in North America.

Here are some of his books, if anyone is interested:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...599821-5570268

Den' dobre and zdravstvuite, eadingas and Dead Moroz! I was born and raised in Russia and my ancestors on the father's side came from Poland in the 18th century (Prus I clan, last name Plonski). I somehow ended up moving to Canada eight years ago, go figure!

Thanks for letting me participate in your project!

Russa

[Tigran]

It is a great map however i would like to point out that the borders of Armenia should be extended east of the Arax river. The Arax river is Armenia's eastern boundry in the map. However historicaly, and in the modern sense Armenia extends beyond the Arax river, but not to the Caspian sea. Infact the captial of the province, Artashat (Artaxata) is actualy located east of the Arax river.

P.S. I dont know if it is possible to change the terrain and climate of a province, but if it is then it would be accurate to change the dry looking climate of Armenia into more of a greener enviroment. Armenia is not a desert. In the winter there should be snow in Armenia, becasue it snows alot in that land. Thank You