Full Campaign Map

[Templar Knight]

Found this in a link over at the Gamespot forums. Shows the full map and the parts of the new world that will be in.

[TB666]

Looks like 5 provinces in the new world, maybe 6 if Cuba is seperated.
Looks good.

[pyradyn]

Looking at my map they really moved North America North, considering the Yucatan shares the same latitude as central africa, and England shares the same latitide as Qubec Canada. So it seems they decided to shove North America North

[UltraWar]

Finally! I can conquer the New World!

[B-Wing]

Interesting. I wonder if that's truly the full map. I would think it would go further west to include the heart of the Aztec empire. Cortes' conquest took place within the game's time period, after all.

I also remembered seeing a small piece of land in the northwest corner of the campaign map in earlier screenshot that most people assumed was Iceland. I guess it was actually North America.

Does the full campaign map extend further south, as well? It looks to me like there's more of Africa in this one.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

That map doesn't look right.

Is that supposed to be Cuba and the USA (especially Florida) in the top left corner? As pyradyn noted, that seems too far North.

And Yucatan seems too large relative the rest of North America.

From flashearth.com:



vs.





It seems radically distorted to me.

[Midnight]

I'm dubious. Massive provinces in the south and east, and a weird America.

Makes me wish they'd just gone with African and eastern nations, instead of this.

[Templar Knight]

They must be going with the sort of medieval inaccurate feel

[Darth Nihilus]

Holy cow that made me laugh! I really hope this is a joke that Florida is higher in lattitude than London. If it isn't, thats going to be horribly inaccurate.

[NeoSpartan]

That better NOT be the map of Medieval II. It is WAAAAAYYYYYY off.

If they are messing up like this on a map, who knows how much they are messing up on the game.

[Faenaris]

Well, CA can't make the whole map fully realistic. That would mean every town, village, castle has to be added to the map. It would turn Medieval Total War into Medieval Total Siege and that would make the game turn stale way too fast.

Also, the game's focus is on Europe. I rather have them spent some extra time on making Europe seem a bit more realistic instead of America. Also, this way, it seems more medieval, just like Templar Knight said. They didn't have a clue about what they discovered, so, as America seems now, that is fine with me.

[NeoSpartan]

Well, CA can't make the whole map fully realistic. That would mean every town, village, castle has to be added to the map. It would turn Medieval Total War into Medieval Total Siege and that would make the game turn stale way too fast.

Also, the game's focus is on Europe. I rather have them spent some extra time on making Europe seem a bit more realistic instead of America. Also, this way, it seems more medieval, just like Templar Knight said. They didn't have a clue about what they discovered, so, as America seems now, that is fine with me.

hummm....i guess you have a point there.... Europeans had no IDEA what America looked like once they came accross it. Hell, Columbus though he reached South East Asia, the so called Indies.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Looks like we'll need a "Actual Geography" mod. That's just idiotic. I'd certainly rather have no Americas than something that isn't the Americas!

I can't see how that could be defensible. Medieval perceptions of geography never affected actual geography! Should we put actual sea monsters in the oceans just because some people thought they existed?

[Barbarossa82]

Although I favour a high degree of realism, I can't say I'm bothered by the geographical inaccuracy in the portrayal of the new world. For a start, while everyone is rightly pointing out the odd relative sizes and positions of the various parts of the Americas protrayed, nobody seems too bothered about the single most massive liberty which has been taken - moving the entire continents several thousand miles east. Like the other alterations to factual geography, it's been done because of the practicalities of fitting the relevant bits of the Americas onto the same map as Europe.
Now if the Americas' part in the game were to be the same as other provinces, I'd be bothered about the inaccuracy. But (from what we've heard so far), it seems like their main impact on the game is to provide access to new trade resources as a bonus to whoever controls them. It's not as if the map inaccuracies are going to lead to counterfactual gameplay as it would if they had messed around with European geography.
It's a fudge, but complete geographical realism would damage gameplay if implemented - a massive ocean taking decades to cross (assuming ship movement speeds are similar to Rome), vast areas of the Amazon included in order to go far West enough on the map to include Yucutan... CA have certainly been known to goof on accuracy big time but I don't think they had a lot of choice here and I can't see it messing up the game.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

The distance could be forgiven if the land looked... decently formed.

Well CA, no money from me until a 3rd party comes up with a real map. Preferably without the Americas.

[Myrddraal]

I'm dissapointed with this. I wondered how they would make them, and I assumed they would bring the americas closer to Europe than they actually were (which they have done) but I hadn't thought they'd change the latitude... It isn't necessary. As it is, South America is between spain and england... Crazy.

Well CA, no money from me until a 3rd party comes up with a real map. Preferably without the Americas.

Somewhat extreme wouldn't you say? Despite being dissapointed with this, I'm not that upset, I was expecting geographical anomalies anyway, just not on this scale.

[NagatsukaShumi]

Should we put actual sea monsters in the oceans just because some people thought they existed?

You mean they don't?

[B-Wing]

I don't actually see the geographic inaccuracy as a problem. I assume that the ocean terrain will reduce ship movement speed more than coastal/sea terrain, just as land units move slower through woodlands than on grasslands with roads. This could account for the lack of actual distance between the eastern and western continents. Might be wrong on this, but its certainly feasable. And if its true, then the fact that the North, Central, and South American provinces are artificially squeezed together will hopefully be offset by the fact that they're all seperated from each other by water with disproportional crossing times.

Having said all that, I'd still prefer an accurate map, even if it is ridiculously large. The size of the sea regions would just make the prospect of crossing them more daring and less trivial. Preferably, the mini-map would be toggled to show either the eastern or western hemisphere, instead of both at once. Not sure how the latitudal (or vertical on a 2d map) shift would be handled on the actual campaign map. Maybe there could simply be two seperate campaign maps, one similar to MTW & RTW, the other containing the Americas and the majority of the Atlantic Ocean. When a ship crosses the western edge of the Euro-African map, it would automaticly appear about 20 latitudes to the south on the American map.

I'm afraid it wouldn't be possible to mod something like that in, though.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I'd be playing a game with the continents of Europe, (North) Africa, (Western) Asia, and something else. Not really North or South America, is it? You can change the scale or positioning and get away with it, but not the shape. At least give the feeling that you're looking at the right place.

They didn't even do that.

As to waiting for a new map, if CA gives modders adequate support, it would be a non-issue. But that's dicey at best.

For every one bit of information or feature announcements that CA makes that give me hope, there are a half-dozen of these.

[Tamur]

To the publishers, who are market-savvy, this is not really an issue. Only in niche markets like the Org here would people worry about Miami having pine trees.

Nice thought, I'd prefer it that way.

[Horatius]

Not perfect, but good enough if the gameplay is good.

[Laman]

Desperately trying to find something nice to say about the map. I wonder why they didn't make Scania a separate province or part of the main Danish province. Haven't they even done the most basic research? And about the Americas, I have nothing to add. And then we have Russia. At the time it shouldn't be Novgorod but Kiev/Kievan Rus (but the province borders doesn't allow Kiev with it's proper shape). Hope that the map is changed so it is more correct but somehow I doubt it.

[DukeofSerbia]

Provinces in Balkan Peninsula are pure catastrophe.

[screwtype]

The Russkies and Poles look a bit shortchanged. I'm sure they had a lot more provinces to play with in MTW 1.

[poo_for_brains]

Nah, don't think so - there were barely any Eastern Europe provinces in MTW1

As for the Americas, it's not the latitudes that irritate me - I was hoping that it would take ages to get to America, so that everybody had to rush there with one army and try and take the whole of America, as reinforcements would take too long to arrive. As it is, it's as close as other parts of Europe.

[JFC]

I genuinely believe that the map issue isn't really a major snag. CA had to get the map into an area which would live in the bottom left of the screen and show, at a glance, the whole of the conquerable area. Allowing instant appreciation of the political situation. For Florida and South America to be shown in the light that seems to be cast here in a more realistic geographical position, would have interrupted with the map of Europe.

I can look at this image and see, without pressing anything, who owns what and where. The larger Campaign map will, I'm sure, add the realistic issues such as distance and difficulty of travel.

[Servius]

The whole America thing is just a gimic anyway. American civilizations were a pushover, they can't attack back...it's just another feather for someone to put in his cap, a way to have a few interesting battles late game (interesting due to the unusual opposing units and terrain), and a way to generate lots of trade goods revenue most likely.

As far as the map of Europe...
Scotland is now 2 provinces instead of 1
Greece is at least 3 provinces instead of 1
France has 1 new province in the SE
There's 1 new province on the west coast of the Black Sea
Egypt is now 2 provinces instead of 1
I think they added Iraq
And yes, the Americas are totally mis-positioned

[Orda Khan]

I never thought much of the New World attachment to a Mediaeval game and nothing has changed, I still don't like it. If it was an expansion, fair enough I suppose but I fail to see the point of adding this when making different starting eras would have been a far better option

......Orda

[screwtype]

The whole America thing is just a gimic anyway. American civilizations were a pushover, they can't attack back...it's just another feather for someone to put in his cap, a way to have a few interesting battles late game (interesting due to the unusual opposing units and terrain), and a way to generate lots of trade goods revenue most likely.

Yes, it is a bit gimmicky, but I think it's a bit of a myth that the Americas were a "pushover". The standard story is that a few hundred Spanish conquistadors conquered a whole civilization, but in fact it took the Spanish about 20 years, including numerous defeats, to conquer the Americas. And they were helped mightily not only by exploiting existing hostilities between various tribes, but by the diseases they inadvertently introduced. Due mainly to disease, the indigenous population shrank by about 75%, from 15 million to 4 million, in the 30 years following the Spanish arrival on the mainland, and in the next 20 years it halved again.

[Csargo]

Is it me or is America one big Province?