Announcing Clio : A new map for Victoria : Revolutions

[Divi]

Rule of thumb is that the more provinces a state will have, the more of an industrial base it can develop by drawing on larger number of POP groups in each province.

England thus needs to be more provinces in the North, not fewer, to better emulate the rapid industrialization in the North of England. Southwest England, on the other hand, should have not as many since it was much less industrialized. Lancashire should be 2 provinces - Liverpool and Manchester - not having a Liverpool province would be a crime for this period, since it was THE major UK port of the period, while Manchester was the fastest growing center of urbanization in the period. Combine those with a Carlisle province as well for the rural north of Lancashire.

I'm also thinking of reworking Yorkshire into three provinces so that the industrial expansion in the Northeast can also be better illustrated : Provinces centered on Sheffield, Leeds and Hull

Similarly, Ulster having 3 allows it to be more of an industrial center (and it was the industrial center of Ireland in this period). So Ulster should stay at 3 provinces, not drop to 2.

Splitting off Argyll as a separate province in Scotland, at the expense of Dundee, seems wrong for the 19th C - Dundee would have been of more economic importance as a province center than the Argyll region. Same with having a separate province for the far north of the Highlands, just not making a lot of sense in terms of the economic development of Scotland in the Victoria period (or the 20th C)

And having a single border province in Scotland I think makes more sense. Were Scotland to be played as a separate nation in game, from gameplay POV it makes more sense to have a border province to guard the approaches to the Lowlands than have the ability to march right into Edinburgh.

Okay - to be frank, I was less than inspired when I got to it, less than I thought I would (and I had to go before I could write a detailed explanation of the reasons behind my proposals), besides a general feeling that something was off with the geography of Britain. And with 30 provinces, representing all of England's important centers will have to be combined with dropping off some geographic expediency then - maybe East Anglia could be combined as a single province, similarly with Cornwall and Devon (in both cases, the ressource base would be the same and the population isn't that high, but that makes for rather large-ish provinces for the area) to have a Sheffield (south Yorkshire) and Liverpool (oddly-shaped, though, unless I combined Lancashire with Cheshire - Chester was, at the time, in comparative decline...) provinces. Dropping Durham as well, might have been a better idea.

And as someone who once did a Seeloewe in 1911, I've seen the British AI waste corps after corps trying to get through Dumfries province; that was a mainly strategic concern. Then again, it seems like the British AI always has Churchill in charge, which by end game makes them thoroughly suicidal.

Perth could be renamed Dundee - I forgot the name Perth would have to go to Australia. It would just require a slight border tweak.

As for the rest, back to the drawing board for reflexion.

 

[Divi]

Ya know, OHgamer, while your focus it to make this map accessible borders-wise to modern day mods, it seems to me that analyzing the requests for changes reveals that more people are actually interested in this map for modding pre-Victorian situations. So, it might be more profitable, and might draw more volunteers once its time to move past the map drawing and into converting all the game files for the new map, to consider things from that pre-1836 view.

Actually, I'm interested in map versatility, really.

 

[OHgamer]

Ya know, OHgamer, while your focus it to make this map accessible borders-wise to modern day mods, it seems to me that analyzing the requests for changes reveals that more people are actually interested in this map for modding pre-Victorian situations. So, it might be more profitable, and might draw more volunteers once its time to move past the map drawing and into converting all the game files for the new map, to consider things from that pre-1836 view.

If we had the extra provinces (or better, a map system like EU3 where there were no hard limits) then I'd be a good deal less "grumpy" regarding these issues. The bigger issue is that I've got most of the provinces for the rest of the world already sketched out, awaiting Xie's return to do the technical cartography on them, and not very many free tags left. I'd really like to get a full map run-through first before coming back and re-visiting regions again, just to see where the numbers are overall in terms of province IDs and to see how the density issues in Europe are = it may be that we are already too dense with provinces in that sector and will have to take some of the provinces already planned out. I don't know for sure, and really won't know until Inferis' tools are complete and Xie and I can begin actual coding of the map. Right now everything is more or less conjectural.

Believe me, I'd love to be able to please everyone with this map, and if this map was based on the EU3 engine (which if there ever is a Victoria 2, will mean a 19th C game with a more flexible map) then we could. But the reality is we have a hardcoded limit on the number of provinces that a map can have, and right now we are very close to it. Once we get a first draft of the map overall I'll feel more comfortable with saying yes or no to ideas, especially to reflect pre-1800 boundaries. But as we stated from the start, the focus is for the map to be effective for the 19th and 20th C first and foremost. If we can get some help for pre-1800 periods without adding new provinces in W Europe at this point, then those can be considered now, but new provinces in W Europe will need to wait and see, and I don't want to promise anything that might have to be retracted later because of limits being reached.

Re Damao & Diu, have not made a decision yet - most likely will be part of Goa province, but we might consider a separate province depending on the amount of free tags left.

 

[OHgamer]

Here are my revised thoughts on England

1) Newcastle-upon-Tyne
2) Carlisle
3) Hull
4) Leeds
5) Sheffield
6) Manchester
7) Liverpool
8) Chester
9) Lincoln
10) Nottingham
11) Birmingham
12) Shrewsbury
13) Worcester
14) Leicester
15) Cambridge
16) Ipswich
17) Chelmsford
18) London
19) St Albans
20) Oxford
21) Bristol
22) Bath
23) Plymouth
24) Salisbury
25) Southampton
26) Brighton
27) Canterbury

And for Scotland :

1) Dumfries
2) Edinburgh
3) Glasgow
4) Stirling
5) Kirkcaldy or Dundee
6) Aberdeen
7) Inverness

 

[Divi]

Looks great (although I'd probably split Saint-Albans between London and Oxford, with Berks going to Southampton province - that way Wales would keep its 4th province without revisions and Britain would remain 51 provinces).

Out of curiosity, how many tags are there left to do Africa, the Middle East, Greece and Southern Spain?

 

[OHgamer]

Looks great (although I'd probably split Saint-Albans between London and Oxford, with Berks going to Southampton province - that way Wales would keep its 4th province without revisions and Britain would remain 51 provinces).

Actually there had been a revision done in Britain in the Spring that added one more province to England, so we are actually balanced with England having 27 provinces, Scotland 7, Wales 4

 

[OHgamer]

Out of curiosity, how many tags are there left to do Africa, the Middle East, Greece and Southern Spain?

We have the preliminary sketches done for all remaining regions (including Lat Am and Australia/New Zealand).

this currently leaves us with about 50 tags free after acconting for a minimum 280 sea provinces. So we have a bit of wiggle room left if we need to adjust sea provinces further or improve depictions in regions like Africa, Latin America, SE Asia etc.

 

[OHgamer]

As for Ireland, taking into the issue with Kildare

1) Dublin
2) Belfast
3) Londonderry
4) Donegal
5) Armagh
6) Kildare
7) Sligo
8) Galway
9) Limerick
10) Cork
11) Waterford
12) Wexford

If we have an extra tag, I'd consider splitting the northern Kildare region which are the two counties of Ulster (as well as Donegal) that became part of Eire in 1922

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Cavan would be the obvious choice if you did that.

 

[Herr Doctor]

Re Damao & Diu, have not made a decision yet - most likely will be part of Goa province, but we might consider a separate province depending on the amount of free tags left.

IMO, it is better to merge Damao and Goa, and to make Diu a separate province if you would have free tags for India.

 

[unmerged(32924)]

When is it done?

 

[OHgamer]

When is it done?

At the earliest, late 2008 or early 2009. There is still a LOT of work we have to finish - the first draft of the map itself is not done, we are still awaiting the completion of the development of the programs to code the map from Inferis, and then there will be all the Victoria files that need to be edited to reflect the new province IDs.

So not for at least 12 months, if not longer. Both Xie and I have real life commitments as well, jobs, family, and such. Plus I will still be workig on VIP development throughout.

So patience will be required, this is definitely a long-haul project.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Apols if this has been asked already, but this map is specifically intended for VIP, correct - with the VIP events etc?

 

[OHgamer]

Apols if this has been asked already, but this map is specifically intended for VIP, correct - with the VIP events etc?

Actually at this point the plan is to make it work with base Revolutions first (which has a lot fewer files to convert over to the new province IDs), and then move on to VIP if the other developers decide to adopt it.

I personally would love to see it integrated into VIP, but its not my call alone to make. And of course we need to actually get it working first before making any plans for its adoption. Having it work for base Revolutions first will therefore be a good "dry run" before the more challenging proposition of VIP integration is attempted.

 

[Earl Uhtred]

Actually at this point the plan is to make it work with base Revolutions first (which has a lot fewer files to convert over to the new province IDs), and then move on to VIP if the other developers decide to adopt it.

I personally would love to see it integrated into VIP, but its not my call alone to make. And of course we need to actually get it working first before making any plans for its adoption. Having it work for base Revolutions first will therefore be a good "dry run" before the more challenging proposition of VIP integration is attempted.

Good thunkin'.

 

[OHgamer]

With Xie now back from Africa we can now present Asia with China fully integrated into the map. Enjoy!



Note, full file is 1.1 MB, and is 3/4 normal size, and in low quality so that we could upload it to imageshack for hosting.

 

[Nietzsche]

This has probably been asked before, but the thread is 43 pages long, so..


Will this work with VIP?


Edit: God I'm such an idiot...it's not even up for DL yet...excuse my gun-ho-ness..


*puts on dunce cap*

 

[Josip]

With Xie now back from Africa we can now present Asia with China fully integrated into the map. Enjoy!



Note, full file is 1.1 MB, and is 3/4 normal size, and in low quality so that we could upload it to imageshack for hosting.

The map's really nice, but will all those small Asian cities be clickable? i.e. Hong Kong, Edo, Port Arthur etc.

 

[OHgamer]

The map's really nice, but will all those small Asian cities be clickable? i.e. Hong Kong, Edo, Port Arthur etc.

On the full size map (keep in mind the posted version is 75% of normal size) Edo appears to be no more of a problem than say Saarbrucken on the regular Victoria map.

And Hong Kong, Macao have the nameplates - which should help the process further.

 

[Jayavarman]

With Xie now back from Africa we can now present Asia with China fully integrated into the map. Enjoy!



Note, full file is 1.1 MB, and is 3/4 normal size, and in low quality so that we could upload it to imageshack for hosting.

Beautiful. Great to see things rolling.