Geography

[unmerged(30761)]

A question Incompetent raised in Scandinavia thread. Why does Kalamar resemble Scandinavia proper in Vanilla.

I choose to answer here as opposed to there and maybe generate discussion about other regions along the same idea

Very likely because of geography bottlenecks

The mountains and seas, the coming and going of winter, attrition and concentration of power allow even the countries that do not have proper combinations of culture / shields to assume the borders of the countries in vanilla.

To change that we need to rethink some geography around the globe to make for different geograpical borders

No mater what you do Italy will look like italy under one name or the other since the easily defendable terrain is to the north

 

[Incompetent]

Well, geography is a fairly drastic change as alternate histories go. Most of our deviation from history go back a few hundred years or less, but the geography has been roughly the way it is now for millions of years. So I wouldn't be too keen on changing the geography (except to make it more accurate); instead we need to come to terms with the consequences of what's there.

Mountains, rivers etc do make natural borders. But strangely enough, they don't matter too much in terms of how the AI develops, because it doesn't know about them. It just blindly strikes out, with no knowledge of terrain. All that really matters are where the bodies of water are, and that affects the AI more than it should, resulting in eg an entirely Scottish Great Britain.

On the Scandinavian subject, of course there are bottlenecks. But thanks to straits, anyone can cross the Sund unless it's blocked by a fleet, so a decent naval power, even an AI, can easily manage to have land on both sides of it. Southern Scandinavia is the natural home of any Scandinavian power, because the rest of it is too poor; but such a power could either extend south into Germany, north into Sweden or nowhere and become a colonial power. We can change the setup, we just need to be flexible.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

I think the essential thing to think about with geography is accuracy. There are at least two cases I can think of in vanilla where provinces have ports that shouldn't or don't that should (Los Angeles shouldn't, Petropavlovsk should and this would help an ocean crossing from Siberia to Alaska as it did in real life)....

Also, a lot of what you're talking about could be guided by events; we could rig it so that Kalmar would experience Dutch-like revolts if it goes into Finland; Genoa or Milan could if they delved into Naples and Sicily; Scotland could in Wessex; and so on....

 

[unmerged(30761)]

http://www.portoflosangeles.org/

Los Angeles sitting on the pacific should not have a port?

I think real world geography disagrees

 

[unmerged(1047)]

Actually, it's an artificial harbor, which was constructed in the 1890's. Prior to that, there was no harbor, and the few ships that came to the area had to anchor on an open shoreline and could only load/unload cargo by use of smaller craft which often swamped in the waves. There are no natural harbors of useable size between San Diego and Monterey.

 

[unmerged(30761)]

What do you think the colonists do?

 

[Nikolai II]

What do you think the colonists do?

Colonists can colonize coastal provinces without a port, so they will manage just fine even when the port is removed.

And the coastal province will still be able to use flatboats to make the seazone attrition-free.

Transported armies will be able to be ferried ashore using smaller vessels. (Will look remarkably alike walking).

-

But naval vessels should not be able to dock there, thus the port should be removed.

Although this sounds like something that should go into the main bug reporting forum, rather than be hidden away in a small subforum where few dare tread.

 

[unmerged(30761)]

That was a rhetorical question

Coloniosts are for building ports among other things. Drugstores, saloons, temples of Ra, etc

The geography of Los Angeles, namely harbor, is difficult to do without powered works true.

having a harbor in los angeles does not provide any advantage at all. those who own los angeles own monterey. for gold.

 

[unmerged(1047)]

The L.A. thing I *have* brought up in the main forums in the past; I've always been shouted down because "local sources aren't always reliable"... probably a carryover from those bloody debates about culture in the Balkans.

 

[Nikolai II]

The L.A. thing I *have* brought up in the main forums in the past; I've always been shouted down because "local sources aren't always reliable"... probably a carryover from those bloody debates about culture in the Balkans.

Hmm.. well, the game is old now and actually more prone to small changes (Kalmuk religion) so making a bug report might be a good idea. Putting it in GD or anywhere else is probably bound to fail though.