Distances (A look at how the world really looks)

[TheDungen]

Now I get that you don't want 80% of your map to be water, I really do, but even if you decrease the amount of water on the screen the real numbers behind the scenes should work our right. Which means that the distances from point a to point b should be closer to what they are in reality for things like colonial distance (which will be the focuses of this post.

But at the moment eu4 takes all the usual flaws we have with percieving these things (thanks to looking at flat maps and mercato's projection) and dial it up to 11.
Here are some pictures taken on the round globe from google maps.

This is the distance between portugal and brazil. It's more than the full widht of europe (from ireland to the uralic mountains) In game the colonial distance of this seems to be less than the distance between spain and italy.

This is the north atlantic. It shows very well why the first north european colonists. ended up in canada. Because north america is basically facing away from europe.

The distance from poland to canada is less than the distance from portugal to brazil. Now in reality yes the iberians colonised for a long time before anyone else came along, because no one realised the importance of colinisation. But as near omniscient players we have an edvantage that they didn't have in that regard.

Now colonial distances represent more than distances it represents currents, weather patterns suply lines and so on but still the diffrences in colonial distances between diffrent european contries should be smaller.


(also africa and south america should be waaay bigger)

 

[TheDungen]

And my pictures won't post, well I direct you to google maps and the google earth function.

Edit: Managed to get it to work after a good night's sleep.

 

[Heinrikr]

Is there any reason for why eu4 has such a distorted map anyways? I mean, I can understand the argument that you don't want to waste 80% of the map on water if you're playing civ5, but in a game like eu4, where's the harm? And whay reason is there for having the souther points of africa and south america be on roughly the same latitude, when south america goes much further south? Is europe much much bigger btw? I don't know, but it wouldn't suprise me. Is there some kind of maximum possible size of the map, and that's why paradox is distorting the world, in order to fit it? This is not civ5 where the world is divided into hexes, where actual landmass matters.

Is there any reason why we shouldn't have a more accurate map?

 

[TheDungen]

Europe is the same size it is on every map. The problem is that most maps are drawn using mercator's projection. That results in that distances further from the equator gets drawn out and look bigger. Thus europe look as big as north africa, north america look twice as big as south america (it's really only 150%) and greenland looks as big as africa (while really being no bigger than libyia). While in truth Sri-lanka is the size of the iberian peninsula. Madagascar is the size of scandinavia. the arabian peninsula and the indian subcontinent are each almost as big as europe. China almost as big as siberia.

This is impossible to solve vissually because again EU4 is drawn on a flat surface. In order to compensate we'de have to represent the eu map on a sphere. Which would draw massive amounts of computing power. Maybee next time (EU5).

But the math expressions working behind the scenes could use the right numbers. I think this maybe part of why spain and portugal finish their colonisation to early. We've missrepresented how vast the areas that they colonised and they distances between them really were.

As for waters Yes I would like them to do them right (especially on the north/south axis) but they've already said they won't. I can understand that to some degree, the south pacific covers 1/4th of the world on it's own.

 

[Sparticulous]

it would be really amazing if things were based on a sphere for the world.

 

[Evie HJ]

Northern America may be closer to Europe, but that isn't to say it was easier to reach.

The simple truth of the matter is that both the southern and northern routes were valid - for all colonial powers. Portuguese and Spanish explorers did sail the northern routes; French and English ones did sail the southern one. France's early forays at colonizations didn't just include Quebec and Acadia, but also Florida and Brazil. Britain's first settlers to Virginia came there through the Bermuda route.

In short: the two routes should be about equal. Which isn't to say that's how it is in the game right now, just that it's how it should be.

 

[TheDungen]

This is because of the aforementioned weather patterns. A direct line isn't always the best way to travel at sea.I think my father has an old trans-atlantic sailing chart laying around (c.a. 1800) somewhere in his attic, I'll post it some day. But the point remains the internal distances in europe mattered very little the portugese and spanish didn't have an easier time reaching the americas by ship they simply prioritized it earlier. Which is represented by which idea groups the diffrent tags pick in which order.
But if I as say denmark or pommeria wanted to go the colonial route and chose exploration as my first idea group I should be able to be colonising as early as anyone. I'm sorry but you can't compensate for the players benefit of hindsight with arbitrary limitations. The "in-europe" distance is negliable compared to the size of the atlantic, and especially compared to the atlantic when you consider that a direct path is even less efficient.

 

[BFTeixeira]

In the map game all of the Americas continent is pushed north. If you look at any map, you'll see that the Cape Verde Islands are about half-way between Brazil and Portugal. But if you look in the game, Cape Verde Islands are right there in the door step of Brazil. In the game, the Iberian Peninsula faces the Caribbean on the other side of the ocean, but in reality should be facing Manhattan. In the game, South Africa is at about the same latitude as Patagonia, but Patagonia should be further south.

 

[Evie HJ]

The alternative is to waste a lot of map space (and computer power) on empty water south of AFrica.

 

[TheDungen]

The alternative is to waste a lot of map space (and computer power) on empty water south of AFrica.

Well a better naval battle system would mean that more sea didn't nessecerily mean wasted space.

 

[Evie HJ]

It would very much still means that. Even a better naval system could not lend importance to empty water that doesn't sit on any sea route to anywhere or contain anything of value. A better, ie more accurate model, would have to represent the area as nigh-unsailable and of no strategic value whatsoever. And it would come at the cost oe either fewer land provinces or worsened performances.

There is no reasonable trade-off in this scenario.

 

[Mattius]

Dangerous revolutionary ideas! I agree.

 

[TheDungen]

It would very much still means that. Even a better naval system could not lend importance to empty water that doesn't sit on any sea route to anywhere or contain anything of value. A better, ie more accurate model, would have to represent the area as nigh-unsailable and of no strategic value whatsoever. And it would come at the cost oe either fewer land provinces or worsened performances.

There is no reasonable trade-off in this scenario.

Actually the sheer vastness of the sea is what makes naval combat the way it is. Focused around certain objectives rather than two people who happens to meet each other at sea. Because quite frankly the sea is way to vast to happen upon someone.
Real battles happens as ships patroll coastlines, hold straits hold capes and so on. Anf there is always the option to withdraw back into the big nothingness of open sea. The game's few and massive seazones doesn't represent the way of naval warfare well at all. There may have been "no force on this earth that could match the might of the brittish navy" but yet other countries still wasn't like in the game forced to be in port or get sunk when fighting them.

And what parts of the sea are untravelable depends on the season and the weather and which direction you're going. Also ships sitting there like something permanent and always ending up where they should is also wrong. Not to mention the doomstacks.

The seas could use the size increase if they were more malleable. With the exception of the dark ages I'd say that naval warefare is actully more important than land warfare. the empire builders have always been the powerful naval nations. The exception being charlamagne and napoleon (neither who's empires lasted very long).

 

[Evie HJ]

The sea increased in importance thanks to the importance of sea trade - but running sea trade through the furious fifties (the name might be a clue here...) just wasn't a thing (except for rounding Cape Horn, and only because there was no other sea route) - we're talking an area of near-constant storm winds (due to lack of landmasses to break the wind), icebergs being a threat, cold from Antarctic constantly being an issue, and no land within thousands of miles.

When mariners phrased it "Beneath the 50th parallel south, there is no God", that should tell us everything about how navigable the region was.

Fleets losing themselves into the furious fifties (or the shrieking sixties, even worse) to dodge enemy ships is in no way, form or shape a realistic addition to the game

(In the Europa era. Vicky era the region is a bit more relevant once you get clippers and the like, but we're talking mid-nineteenth century naval technology.)

 

[TheDungen]

You do realise cape horn is the south end of the americas right? That's not where more water would be added it would be added south of the cape of good hope. And the north south alignment might not add that much to naval warfare (it'd be added since looking at the map as it is now gives me a headache), but increasing the width of the atlantic and the pacific might in fact do that. If nothing else because it means that losing a decisive battle in the distant overseas means there will be quite some time before you can get another fleet there.

Also the furious fifties have no bearing on every other pice of water that has been cut. I mean two ships could lose each other in the english channel (granted it'd have to be rather foggy) this occupy the same rather large sea zone and you're instantly at battle is kind of stupid. Especially since they're making the zones larger in order to make you able to fabricate claims on islands.

 

[BFTeixeira]

You do realise cape horn is the south end of the americas right? That's not where more water would be added it would be added south of the cape of good hope. And the north south alignment might not add that much to naval warfare (it'd be added since looking at the map as it is now gives me a headache), but increasing the width of the atlantic and the pacific might in fact do that. If nothing else because it means that losing a decisive battle in the distant overseas means there will be quite some time before you can get another fleet there.

Also the furious fifties have no bearing on every other pice of water that has been cut. I mean two ships could lose each other in the english channel (granted it'd have to be rather foggy) this occupy the same rather large sea zone and you're instantly at battle is kind of stupid. Especially since they're making the zones larger in order to make you able to fabricate claims on islands.

Now that you mention this, did the map adjustments changed distances? I mean, Cape Verde is closer to Madeira than Brazil IRL. But what about the game? Did that change put the distance between Cape Verde and Brazil smaller than between Cape Verde and Madeira?

 

[TheDungen]

Change? What change? You mean between how things IRL and in game? If so yeah I think it is.

 

[TheDungen]

Also yeah let's look at a pilots chart of the north atlantic

Lot's of empty space without searoutes there... oh wait no there isn't.

And again even f you follow the real sailing routes canada is the closest to europe and roughly equally close for most european powers.

 

[Evie HJ]

That's absolutely, completely, utterly irrelevant to the situation south of the Cape of Good Hope - the exact opposite, because there are lots of landmasses, plentiful resources (fishing, etc) and so on.


(And I'm not talking about adding water south of Cape Horn. The Furious Fifties ARE what is south of the Cape of Good Hope. They INCLUDE Cape Horn, but they exist much further north of Cape Horn, too. )

And again even f you follow the real sailing routes canada is the closest to europe and roughly equally close for most european powers.

And yet people in the age of exploration used the Canada route and the Bermuda route equally to get to the New World.

Historical realism matters more to this game than distances on a globe, because distance was only ONE factor governing where sailship went.

 

[TheDungen]

Of course they're south of Good hope but the furious fifties aren't directly south od good hope.

And again if you look at the pilots chart you notice how there are way more routes up north than down south. It's possible some northern trafic might have gone over the south, before the north was properly plotted. There got to have been a time when north america was still unknown (the spanish and portugese reaching the middle and south first). But even if they didn't know them weather patterns would have forced them along those paths.

I've backed my position up with charts and sateliet images. Thus far you haven't shown me anything. As the phrase is the burden of proof is now on you.