A map

[Therion]

My current opinion on rivers: the function of rivers in this game is to give a battle malus to crossing armies that engage in battle. As such rivers should first and foremost be drawn strategically in places where we want to have that malus e.g. the Loire for the HYW or the Rhine for the Franco-Imperial Wars. At any rate they don't have to be exact.

Maybe other features could be added to rivers, for instance that of increasing the trade efficiency of adjacent nations inside the CoT the river is in.

e.g.

The conflict was also motivated by trade considerations: the Knights controlled lower reaches of the three largest rivers (Neman, Vistula and Daugava) in Poland and Lithuania.[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic_War

Here's an interesting campaign map which could show, among other things, the role of rivers in war: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Grunwald_1410.png

 

[Andrei Gijgorev]

I've done the Caucasus region and am now working on the Middle East. I'll post a picture once I'm happy with the Arabian peninsula. If anyone has ideas for inner Persia that would be great because it's kind of random at the moment.

Regarding rivers, I decided to adopt a very simple rule: If a border is identical with a river, it gets a river defence bonus. If not, then it doesn't. Exceptions will only be made for borders where a river cuts through a very small part of a province, e.g. Schaffhausen.

Also, here's a mockup of how I intend to draw naval provinces:

On a related note, for the mod I'm eventually going to make for this map I'm considering completely removing naval attrition, because a) I dislike AI cheats of any kind and b) exploring navies often anchored at neutral ports anyway.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
On a related note, for the mod I'm eventually going to make for this map I'm considering completely removing naval attrition, because a) I dislike AI cheats of any kind and b) exploring navies often anchored at neutral ports anyway.

Then you could as well disable attrition for armies as long as the AI is unable to move it´s armies without taking high losses for strange ways to move.

Naval attrition is not only historical, it´s one of the key elements to slow down an ahistorically fast exploration of the world before better ships and better ways to feed sailors were invented. No player navy ought to be able to just sail around the world without suffereing attrition to force it back into a friendly port it it goes to far out.

As far as I remember pirates have been changed in 1.3 to not show naval attrition because they are immune to it anyway. But a player who wants to play anything but an easy game should have to take naval attrition into account.

 

[Andrei Gijgorev]

Okay, let me rephrase that: I don't intend to remove all naval attrition, I intend to remove the attrition you get for staying at sea too long. You'd still get attrition from bad weather. Exploration would mainly be limited by shorter explorer lifespans.

Like I said, this is just something I'm considering. Neither option is remotely realistic anyway.

BTW I'm looking for a map that shows the extent of the Kingdom of Ormus ~1500-ish. The only thing I found is this crap.

 

[Nein]

I couldn't find a map, but what I read (Wikipedia and Iranica) suggests they only controlled Ormus itself plus some forts throughout the Persian Gulf and Oman as well as the islands of the Gulf.

Here's a bad translation of the Arabic Wikipedia page

"While the Portuguese gave to the coast of the Gulf in the year 1507, there were a great trading nation get rich, but lacks the military power and combat experience, the Kingdom of Hormuz, which lies about 12 miles from the coast at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Spread their influence on the Arabian coast of Qatif north to south and Ras al Hadd entered Bahrain in their possession and Qeshm and Hormuz property also Qalhat and Quriyat, Sohar, Khor Fakkan and Muscat and Ras al Hadd. Al-Ahsa and Qatif as well"

https://translate.google.com/transl...9_%D9%87%D8%B1%D9%85%D8%B2&edit-text=&act=url

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Okay, let me rephrase that: I don't intend to remove all naval attrition, I intend to remove the attrition you get for staying at sea too long. You'd still get attrition from bad weather. Exploration would mainly be limited by shorter explorer lifespans.

Like I said, this is just something I'm considering. Neither option is remotely realistic anyway.

BTW I'm looking for a map that shows the extent of the Kingdom of Ormus ~1500-ish. The only thing I found is this crap.

When that kingdom "fell under the suzeranity of persia" before the year 1300 wouln´d it just be a vassal to one of the Koyounlus before being conquered by the portuguese in 1507?
http://www.mapandmaps.com/en/archiv...om-ormus-iran-antique-map-by-bellin-1746.html

 

[Andrei Gijgorev]

Well according to a guy called Abbé TGF Raynal "Hormúz became the capital of an empire which comprehended a considerable part of Arabia on one side, and Persia on the other." It's not clear to me when that empire disintegrated, but when the Portuguese arrived the Kingdom of Ormus was at least nominally the overlord of the Jabrids who according to Wikipedia "dominated eastern Arabia in the 15th and 16th centuries." So I'm pretty sure they weren't just vassals of the White Sheep with no political power of their own.

In any case, here's what I have so far for the Middle East. Central Iran is still mostly random but it will be fixed eventually.

Next up is India. That might take a while...

 

[ConjurerDragon]

Well according to a guy called Abbé TGF Raynal "Hormúz became the capital of an empire which comprehended a considerable part of Arabia on one side, and Persia on the other." It's not clear to me when that empire disintegrated, but when the Portuguese arrived the Kingdom of Ormus was at least nominally the overlord of the Jabrids who according to Wikipedia "dominated eastern Arabia in the 15th and 16th centuries." So I'm pretty sure they weren't just vassals of the White Sheep with no political power of their own....

The problem is that the realm of the Jabrids contains several areas that are assumed to be ruled by the kingdom of Hormuz (e.g. Quatif, Bahrain, the arabian coast of the persian gulf).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabrids

The WIKI article does not specify if the Abbé´s report is about the original city of Hormuz before it was lost or the new city on the island.

Considering that the Kingdom of Hormuz lost it´s original capital (on mainland persia) already around 1301 to the mongols/Ilkhanate and had to flee to the island, IMO if we are discussing a normal grand campaign start in 1419 I don´t see them controlling anything on the persian mainland but only a few islands.

And the control of the arabian coast would be having the Jabrids as vassals instead of actually owning it.

 

[Therion]

Hormuz basically paid homage to whoever controlled mainland Persia.

I'm not sure that their presence around the Persian Gulf can be characterized as ownership. They were in the business of reducing other trading ports to being their dependencies. The closest they had been to occupation was probably in Suhar in which they had a fortress and garrison whose role was to effectively prevent commerce there and divert it to Hormuz.

 

[Andrei Gijgorev]

I'm not sure that their presence around the Persian Gulf can be characterized as ownership. They were in the business of reducing other trading ports to being their dependencies. The closest they had been to occupation was probably in Suhar in which they had a fortress and garrison whose role was to effectively prevent commerce there and divert it to Hormuz.

This actually brings me to my next problem: What to do about the ports Portugal controlled in India? In some cases (mostly Goa and Malacca) the hinterlands were also controlled by Portugal, but usually it was just a city that would result in a province with roughly 4 to 5 pixels. Obviously that's not an option.

The real problem here is that some of those cities, like Diu, are important. And it's not just Indian colonies either; there's a similar issue with Spanish possessions along the Berber Coast.

Another thing to consider is that AI countries are extremely bad at conquering fortified provinces on the other side of the globe, and using events to cede provinces that should be taken by force is stupid.

I see the following options:

• Slightly enlarge provinces so that they're just about clickable (like Diu in Watkabaoi).
• Remove provinces.
• Merge several provinces to create larger (non-contiguous) provinces.
• Merge several provinces and add a strip of coast to connect them.

I don't like any of those options. Anyone have any better ideas?

 

[ConjurerDragon]

This actually brings me to my next problem: What to do about the ports Portugal controlled in India? In some cases (mostly Goa and Malacca) the hinterlands were also controlled by Portugal, but usually it was just a city that would result in a province with roughly 4 to 5 pixels. Obviously that's not an option.[

The real problem here is that some of those cities, like Diu, are important. And it's not just Indian colonies either; there's a similar issue with Spanish possessions along the Berber Coast.

Another thing to consider is that AI countries are extremely bad at conquering fortified provinces on the other side of the globe, and using events to cede provinces that should be taken by force is stupid.

I see the following options:

• Slightly enlarge provinces so that they're just about clickable (like Diu in Watkabaoi).
• Remove provinces.
• Merge several provinces to create larger (non-contiguous) provinces.
• Merge several provinces and add a strip of coast to connect them.

I don't like any of those options. Anyone have any better ideas?

A much larger version of India with portuguese possessions than on your spanish-portuguese worldmap:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugiesisch-Indien#/media/File:Map_of_Portuguese_India.png

First of all single cities should not be represented by a province.
For the portuguese I would suggest to always lump together some, e.g. "Daman AND Diu" = 1 province even if in real life those were seperate lands too small to be represented individually.

Second I would limit any provinces of Portugal in India to the coast. They never had the manpower to control more than the coast without their ships aiding them. Anything they controlled for a while beyond that would be through a vassal and getting military access.

 

[Therion]

• Slightly enlarge provinces so that they're just about clickable (like Diu in Watkabaoi).
• Remove provinces.
• Merge several provinces to create larger (non-contiguous) provinces.
• Merge several provinces and add a strip of coast to connect them.

I don't like any of those options. Anyone have any better ideas?

I prefer the first option and would not hesitate to enlarge them even more. (Diu in Watkabaoi is too small)

In India, I think I would only make Goa under direct Portuguese ownership. The rest were either just controlled cities or uncontrolled cities in which the Portuguese (and other Europeans) had trade privileges or factories (e.g. Surat which, I believe, was the chief Mughal port). This can be simulated with the COT system.

The likes of Calicut and Cochin were kingdoms in their own right so they would at most be Portuguese vassals.

The last option can be useful for places like Portuguese Morocco where there was only a short distance between the respective towns. In this case, I would create one province for Tangiers and Ceuta (could be named Algarve Ultramar or (al-)Gharb in Arabic), one province for Mazagan and Anfa (Tamesna) and one province for Safi and Mogador (Dukkala or Abda).

 

[ConjurerDragon]

...
The last option can be useful for places like Portuguese Morocco where there was only a short distance between the respective towns. In this case, I would create one province for Tangiers and Ceuta (could be named Algarve Ultramar or (al-)Gharb in Arabic),...

But what would happen when Ceuta went to Spain and Tangiers was ceded to England together with Bombay?

 

[Therion]

But what would happen when Ceuta went to Spain and Tangiers was ceded to England together with Bombay?

IIRC England ruined and abandoned Tangiers after a few years so I would make the province go to Spain (and change the city to Ceuta) with the Iberian Union,

It's impossible to represent every seaport anyway. With the same reasoning, we would require a province for Swedish Wismar and a legion of provinces for all the seaports Venice controlled in the Romagna, Apulia and Albania.

 

[Khor]

Is the number of provinces hard-coded? In Darkest Hour the number of tags were, but than the devs after years of defense, changed their mind and now it seems there will be no limit, or just making the limit much higher. Is it possible, that devs of FtG would do the same for the province number problem? Maybe if we tried to bombard them?

 

[Therion]

Is the number of provinces hard-coded? In Darkest Hour the number of tags were, but than the devs after years of defense, changed their mind and now it seems there will be no limit, or just making the limit much higher. Is it possible, that devs of FtG would do the same for the province number problem? Maybe if we tried to bombard them?

The number of possible provinces was increased to 10,000 but the regional limit is still limited to 256 provs. The map editing software is restricted as well. In addition, the map resolution and zoom levels are also hardcoded which means that adding too many provinces will make them too small and cumbersome.

 

[Andrei Gijgorev]

The most pressing issue is the total number of provinces. Theoretically it has been increased to 10000, but the only tool available for ID layer editing is Inferis' Magellan which is still limited to 2020 provinces. Inferis has uploaded the Magellan source code but the exe that handles the ID layer can't be compiled because he didn't upload some of the libraries. I contacted him on Twitter last year and he said he might have the missing files stored on an old HD somewhere. Maybe if he's being pestered about it he will search for them.

If anyone would like to contact him about this, send me a PM and I'll give you his contact details. (I don't want to post them here on the public forum.)

Alternatively, perhaps someone could try and get Jamie's MapUtility to work with EU2/FtG. I already tried and failed.

 

[Andrei Gijgorev]

By the way, this is what northern Italy (my favourite region) would look like if I had 10000 provinces:

 

[Therion]

IMO the zoom level is the most crucial aspect e.g. EU IV's map is actually smaller but its zoom level ensures that every province is easily clickable. Can that be modified in FTG? Maybe also implement continuous zooming instead of the discrete 3 zoom levels.

 

[Andrei Gijgorev]

Maybe also implement continuous zooming instead of the discrete 3 zoom levels.

Not going to happen in a purely pixel-based game.

EU IV's map is actually smaller but its zoom level ensures that every province is easily clickable.

Because it's 3D, and the in-game map has a much larger "resolution" than the ID layer.

Realistically, if we had the source code and wanted to have a higher zoom level, the easiest way to do so would be by increasing the map dimensions. Honestly though, I don't have a problem with clickability of small provinces in Watkabaoi (except maybe Diu) because I play at a lower resolution on a large screen. I generally do that with old strategy games for nostalgic reasons...