Trees

[athanaric]

(By the way if anyone has superior palaeoenvironmental knowledge of Iron Age Europe i surrender to you without a fight)

No, you're correct. Forests in Germany at that time were made up mostly of beeches, with oaks and other deciduous trees thrown in. On sandy ground you'd find more pines (PINES NOT SEQUOIAS, Creative Assembly!) among the oaks and beeches. In mountain forests, more firs (not spruce!) among the deciduous stuff. Only in the highest woded places of the Alps and some other mountain ranges some woods dominated by spruce and Swiss Pine.
In low regions, especially in the vicinity of water, you'd find oaks, maple trees, hazel, Carpinus betulus, willows, alders, and other stuff I can't remember just now.
Generally, forests would be somewhat less dense than they are now in most places.

Interestingly, there are many trees in East Asia and North America that could be found in Europe once - but they were eliminated there by the ice ages.


P.S. for anyone interested (including the EB II team): I can upload some pictures of typical forests in Germany and Denmark, if needed. Though I've found that M2TW is not as horrible as RTW when it comes to representation of the environment.

BTW, does anybody know how to change the ambient sounds for RTW and M2TW? American birds are nice, but I'd prefer historically accurate background noises.

[Brennus]

(PINES NOT SEQUOIAS, Creative Assembly!)

lol

BTW, does anybody know how to change the ambient sounds for RTW and M2TW? American birds are nice, but I'd prefer historically accurate background noises.

I never even considered the faunal ambient sounds. Good point. Be lovely to hear pheasents and grouse in the background.... or maybe even an auroch (difficult due to the laws of extinction, i know, but i'm sure we can get domestic cattle angry enough).

[bobbin]

We can certainly change the climate map so regions will have the correct vegetation, but we cannot add new types of trees so i'm afraid your stuck with m2tw vegetation (which isn't that bad really).

[Brennus]

Your right it's quite good, just in the wrong place.

Do we have hazel trees in MTW2? (very important for Britain and Ireland).

[athanaric]

I never even considered the faunal ambient sounds. Good point. Be lovely to hear pheasents and grouse in the background.... or maybe even an auroch (difficult due to the laws of extinction, i know, but i'm sure we can get domestic cattle angry enough).

Pheasants only for Asia and Caucasus, though. IIRC the Romans experimented with them, but they certainly weren't present in Western Europe at that time.

Reminds me of a (re-enacted) documentary on Neanderthals in Western Europe. At more than one point, you could clearly hear a pheasant calling in the background. Almost made me cry...

[Brennus]

Well I never knew that about pheasants, thanks!

I think I remember that documentary about Neanderthals.

Well so far no illumination from one of the team members about vegetation in EBII. Where are you gods among men?