Tinto Maps #28 - 29th of November 2024 - North America

[korandder]

The commercially import tree species in British Columbia are almost all softwood, not hardwood. Outside of Garry oak meadows, the forests and woods of BC are dominated by conifers, most notably Douglas fir.

Edit: But your point still stands, there should be a much greater range of trade goods on offer, including lumber.

 

[JohnCro]

I made some more suggestion for Baffin Island and Melville peninsula which east coast was explored by 1823. Also Southampton Island should have a location.

NOTE - The suggested location of Clyde River has been fixed in my newest suggestion map

Edit - English names for locations:

Iqaluit - Frobisher Bay
Kimmirut - Lake Harbour
Kinngait (or actually Sikusiilaq as it was prevously named) - Cape Dorset
Qikiqtarjuaq - Broughton Island
Killiniq - Port Burwell
Salliq - Southampton Island (Coral Harbour today)

 

[JohnCro]

I made uninhabitable and impassable areas into more tiles. My idea was to try to make Hudson Bay Company or Prince Rupert's Land borders possible to show on Baffin Island (when "colour wasteland" is enabled). So if one controlls Kimmirut and Frobisher Bay/Iqaluit then Meta Incognita uninhabitable tile (and that grey passage connecting 2 location) will be also claimed in colour on the map.

The tiles shown in blue borders and white letters. I tried to follow but it is vaguely like the borders of this map of Prince Rupert's Land:

 

[Tahami Tsunami]

I recently checked out Charles C. Mann's book 1491 and came across some paragraphs that may help paint a picture with what was going on at Cahokia and potential solutions that a player with hindsight can attempt:

"Cahokia represented the first time Indians north of the Rio Grande had tried to feed and shelter fifteen thousand people in one place, and they made beginner's mistakes. To obtain fuel and construction material and to grow food, they cleared trees and vegetation from the bluffs to the east and planted every inch of arable land. Because the city's numbers kept increasing, the forest could not return. Instead people kept moving further out to get timber, which then had to be carried considerable distances...Meanwhile, Woods [another researcher] told me, the city began outstripping its water supply, a 'somewhat wimpy' tributary called Canteen Creek. To solve both of these problems at once, the Cahokians apparently changed its course, which had consequences that they cannot have anticipated...Sometime between 1100 and 1200 A.D., according to Woods' as-yet unpublished research, Cahokia Creek split in two. One fork continued as before [straight to the Mississippi and bypassing Cahokia], but the second, larger fork dumped into Canteen Creek. The combined river provided much more water to the city-it was about seventy feet wide. And it also let woodcutters upstream send logs almost to Monks Mound."

According to Mann, the lack of tree cover in the uplands would've increased the chances of floods and mudslides in the area and the now-combined Cahokia and Canteen Creeks would've only added to it. This leads to "a crisis of legitimacy" with the Cahokian elites who respond by directing the construction of the 2-mile long palisade around the central area of the city and extending a low platform from one side of Monks Mound to perform ceremonies in full view and within earshot of the public below.

Mann admits that these are not easy problems to fix. "Trees cannot be replaced with a snap of the fingers. Nor could Cahokia Creek readily be reinstalled in its original location. 'Once the waters starts flowing in the new channel,' Woods said, 'it is almost impossible to put it back in the old as the new channel rapidly downcuts and establishes itself.' Given Cahokia's engineering expertise, though, solutions were within reach: terracing hillsides, diking rivers, even moving Cahokia...Cahakia's rulers focused on maintaining their hold over the people, paying little attention to external reality."

I'm curious to find out if Woods has published his research and if more recent research on Cahokia corroborates this theory. Regardless, it sounds like an interesting scenario to be thrown into when playing as Cahokia!

 

[fraughtGYRE]

These two locations comprise the Isthmus of Chignecto. Looking at the terrain map, they appear to be flatlands. I would suggest that the eastern location definitely, and the western location maybe, should be wetlands. The isthmus is very low lying and prone to flooding. It is also the site of several historical wetlands that have been drained, though some still remain (e.g. Tantramar wetlands).

 

[fraughtGYRE]

Another quick piece of feedback.

1. Circled in red is a location called "Williston" which contains a large lake. This is Williston Lake, a man-made reservoir impounded by the W.A.C. Bennet Dam, built 1961-68. So the lake should definitely be removed. As for naming, the location extends north-south along the courses of the Finlay and Parsnip rivers. Naming the location after the native term for the Finlay river (Chu Dadi Ts'elè), a native name for the plant the Parsnip river is named for (cow parsnip, "G'oos"/"G-wus"), or a name for a smaller river that drains here (Ingenika, in Sekani, "Idini Gàh"), are all good options.
2. In blue I've circled the Drumheller/Red Deer River badlands. I'm putting this out there for other commenters or devs to discuss if this topological feature should be included, especially as a wasteland - I'm not convinced it is a good representation, especially since other badlands in the area (like those in Dinosaur Park) are not represented. I would really like to hear other perspectives on it.

Hopefully I get some time for a more thorough look at some things.

 

[korandder]

I do not think the badlands near Drumheller make sense as wastelands on the scale of the map. Looking at maps and remembering visiting the area as a kid the areas free of vegetation are relatively narrow (usually less than a kilometre) strips on the steep sides the Red Deer River valley. The steep sides of the valley would limit were an army can cross and produce easily defended choke points but this is hardly unique to this section of river valley.

I have no idea what is the criteria for inclusion as a lake in the game but I find it a bit weird that the lakes northwest of what is now Prince George are included (ones like Babine, Stuart and Takla) but no others are, excluding the man made Williston Lake. Lakes that immediately come to mind are Okanagan Lake, Kootenay Lake, Harison Lake and Shuswap Lake. The Nechako Reservoir was created by a dam but there were a number of decent sized lakes in the footprint of the reservoir. There are also a number of large lakes on the BC-Yukon boarder (Atlin Lake is the largest) but they mostly appear to be in wasteland. Most of the big hydroelectric dams were built after the second world war so if you can find a good prewar map that should give you a good idea of what lakes were like in period the game covers.

In terms of what rivers should be in the game, the Fraser and the Columbia (and their major tributaries the Kootenay, Nechako, Quenel and Thompson) are the most important. Other major rivers include the Laird, Nass, Peace, Skeena and Stikine.

 

[fraughtGYRE]

I do not think the badlands near Drumheller make sense as wastelands on the scale of the map. Looking at maps and remembering visiting the area as a kid the areas free of vegetation are relatively narrow (usually less than a kilometre) strips on the steep sides the Red Deer River valley. The steep sides of the valley would limit were an army can cross and produce easily defended choke points but this is hardly unique to this section of river valley.

I have no idea what is the criteria for inclusion as a lake in the game but I find it a bit weird that the lakes northwest of what is now Prince George are included (ones like Babine, Stuart and Takla) but no others are, excluding the man made Williston Lake. Lakes that immediately come to mind are Okanagan Lake, Kootenay Lake, Harison Lake and Shuswap Lake. The Nechako Reservoir was created by a dam but there were a number of decent sized lakes in the footprint of the reservoir. There are also a number of large lakes on the BC-Yukon boarder (Atlin Lake is the largest) but they mostly appear to be in wasteland. Most of the big hydroelectric dams were built after the second world war so if you can find a good prewar map that should give you a good idea of what lakes were like in period the game covers.

In terms of what rivers should be in the game, the Fraser and the Columbia (and their major tributaries the Kootenay, Quenel and Thompson) are the most important. Other major rivers include the Laird, Nass, Nechako, Peace, Skeena and Stikine.

Pretty much my exact thoughts about the badlands - fairly small and not overly distinguished from your average river valley. Probably should just be ceded to the neighbouring locations, and just have a river crossing in between.

Good points about the lakes. I think there are some others across the Prairies that were left out as well - I'll take a look.

 

[Stevo76]

1. I think the preference for geographical borders is very clear at this point, and I’d agree with pretty much all of the points in favour of it. I’d also say for provinces/areas, that river watersheds would make the most sense as guiding principles behind them. Given the way that trade and economic activities took place in the colonial sphere, it just makes sense to me.
   
   Colonial commerce would have been heavily reliant on export of raw materials and goods. These would be transported from inland areas through river systems to ports along the coast.
   
   This is also broadly similar to how economies of native populations would function, and the ability to navigate these river systems was incredibly important to regional trade even before the arrival of Europeans. Major cities in North America were often founded as trading posts in locations that would be easily reached via inland waterways.
   
   
2. Using river systems and watersheds would also allow for the development of larger cities and colonial centres at natural harbours and other key points. It would make the colonial economies, and their emerging centres of trade feel real and authentic.
   
   
3. This seems to be something that has already been taken into account at the provincial level, but areas still seem to conform to colonial borders. Getting provinces to follow these river systems a little bit better should be fairly easy to do, and would make for an interesting colonial-era experience. I’d hope that areas could then be grouped together based on these river systems, mountain ranges, and drainage basins to better reflect the influence of geography on colonial development.
   
   
4. I’ve found a map of river basins and watersheds coded by colour. Higher resolution maps (including those in GIS form) can be found pretty easily online. This system would make it easier to split up inland areas of a watershed into larger areas. In coastal regions, provinces can follow the smaller river basins along the eastern seaboard, and it makes sense for areas to be a collection of these smaller river basins – this makes sense as colonial trade in these areas would make much greater use of the sea.
   
   
   
5. Mountains as cultural and economic dividers makes a lot of sense. I don’t know exactly how the emergence of colonial cultures would work, but it would make sense that somewhere like Appalachia would be a natural boundary for colonial cultures and countries. I imagine it would also be a very good place for distinct colonial cultures to form in these mountainous regions, and for areas on the other side of mountainous regions (the Ohio Valley, for example) to then have a new distinct culture form from those in the Appalachians or Eastern seaboard).
   
   
6. The addition of Sault’s/portages as a map feature. In the same way that natural harbours are depicted on the game map, it would be really cool to see these places reflected. Even though they’re barriers to movement and trade, these points represent locations where significant towns, forts, settlements, etc. popped up all across North America. They would be a point of connection between those coming from upstream and downstream. Thinking of Canadian examples, places like Ottawa, Niagara, Sault Ste. Marie (obviously) or American cities like Richmond, Columbia, Augusta, Grand Rapids, etc. were built at points where traders would need to disembark from river vessels to cross for a period over land.
   
   
7. Could there be some sort of ‘Society of Pop’ function that would simulate inland exploration and frontier colonisation? Thinking of people like Coureurs de Bois that would have traversed very large areas, but would not have really established any form of permanent settlement.
   
   
8. Locations reflecting likely settlement patterns: It would make sense for coastal locations to be ‘skinnier’, so to speak. Along the St. Laurence river for example, the Seigneurial system encouraged a form of land use with long, thin plots that would maintain access to the river for farmers. I imagine that similar forms of land use emerged along other major rivers.
   
   
9. Greater detail in certain ‘hot spots’. There are some locations in North America where, regardless of coloniser, and political situation, are likely to become major settlements over the course of the game’s timeframe. These locations would often become the centre of colonial conflicts, would at times be split between colonial powers. I feel like these areas should have some more granular detail (potentially a greater number of locations) to help emphasise their importance. These are the areas I’ve had in mind:
   • New York City: Currently, the entire area seems to be concentrated in one location (Manahatta). This would include the island of Mahnattan, present day Queens and Brooklyn, and Staten Island. Staten Island alone was the subject of colonial conflict – both between powers, and later even by colonial ‘states’. Splitting Manahatta up into three or more smaller locations is something that I’d like to see (Manahatta, Staten Island, and Brooklyn/Queens as a separate location at the west of Long Island). I’d include all of Long Island as one province, and for Manahatta to be part of a province that would be based on trade along the Hudson river.
   • Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac and Delaware Rivers: Both of these locations have some of the best navigable waterways, and were a major hub for trade and commerce during the colonial period. It’s fertile ground for colonisation, and was the subject of colonisation efforts by a few different countries. This area could very easily be the subject of fairly significant colonial conflicts between competing powers. Given the large network of bays, peninsulas, and rivers, this area should have a large number of locations that would make it a perfect location for settlement and colonial development.
   • Mississippi River Delta: It’s location a the mouth of North America’s largest and most significant river system should mean that this area will attract a significant amount of colonial attention, and will be a great candidate for intensive economic development. A greater number of locations in this area would help underline it’s importance – especially with a couple of high-quality natural harbours.
   • Quebec City: As the mouth of the St. Laurence river, this is likely to be a point of conflict if there are multiple colonial powers operating in the area. The location should be modelled with a good natural harbour, and should likely have a significant trade bonus considering the significant volume of trade along the St. Laurence (Especially if montreal is not to be an accessible port in the game). The addition of another location at Levis (directly to the south of the river) and/or Beauport (directly to the east of ‘Stadacona’ as a hillier location perfect for defensive fortifications may help to model some of this. Likewise for Montreal, the island itself should be its own location, as should the island of Laval and the north and south shores.
   • Natural Harbours along the West Coast: Present day San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Victoria, etc. are all located in some of the best natural harbours possible. Having a larger number of locations around these harbours could add some more interest in the late game if there is significant competition between colonial powers.
     
10. Particularly in present-day Northern Canada, I’d like to see a broader discussion on how locations would be set up in these remote areas. I’m not sure if people would prefer continuous chains of locations like in Siberia, or something more akin to the trade corridors found in places like the Sahara. Significant chunks of the north of Canada would not have really had much permanent settlement, and development would have been concentrated in specific locations around trading posts, etc. I’m not sure if it would be unrealistic to expect a continuous chain of settlement for those looking to expand in these remote area, or whether there would be isolated pockets of locations centred around more favourable locations, or key trading points.

 

[JohnCro]

Particularly in present-day Northern Canada, I’d like to see a broader discussion on how locations would be set up in these remote areas. I’m not sure if people would prefer continuous chains of locations like in Siberia, or something more akin to the trade corridors found in places like the Sahara.

I would love to see a mix of both, anything other than a huge unclaimable wasteland because now geography is correct (Americas are no longer pushed more north than they actually are, unlike in EU IV) which opens a lot of space there. So I think some locations are a must have, even if they were temporary settlements.

 

[korandder]

1. I think the preference for geographical borders is very clear at this point, and I’d agree with pretty much all of the points in favour of it. I’d also say for provinces/areas, that river watersheds would make the most sense as guiding principles behind them. Given the way that trade and economic activities took place in the colonial sphere, it just makes sense to me.

Most of the regions of British Columbia, both historic and modern, places like the Okanagan, the Kootenays, the Shuswap and the Peace, share their names with the river or lake that dominates the region.

 

[Tahami Tsunami]

I'm looking up information on the Fort Ancient people in Ohio and I came across a paper called Fort Ancient Adaptations in the Mid-Ohio Valley (2007). On page 5 of the paper, Robert F. Maslowski states that "Use of burial mounds in the western Fort Ancient region is concurrent with burial mound use in Mississippian components in the lower Ohio River Valley during that time period, such as Wickliffe (Kentucky), Kinkaid (Illinois), and Angel (Indiana). However, unlike areas around Mississippian ceremonial centers such as Angel, Fort Ancient settlement patterns are not hierarchical, and display no indications of a chiefdom social organization. Where information on grave goods is available, burials within mounds do not seem to be consistently differentiated from non-mound burials at the same site in a way suggesting that mound burials were restricted to members of an elite group."

Due to that, unless there's something pointing to the contrary, we're probably not gonna see any Settled Countries at game start for the Fort Ancient people. It kinda sorta definitely throws a wrench into thinking that there were chiefdoms among them. At least there are SoPs with the Ofo People and the 5 divisions of the Shawnee.

 

[Stalin's Right Hand]

Hello all, after lots of research and a decently long hiatus, I present to you a completely remade continental U.S. which was created from the ground up to help rectify some of the concerns the community had regarding the official Tinto map. Its not perfect by any means, but it should hit some of the broad strokes of parts of Tinto's release that we were most critical about.

When creating the map I focused heavily on integrating the geography of the region with the map from macroscopic formations such as the Great Plains, to smaller local geography like minor rivers. Another area of focus was in directly transcribing information from sources with as few edits as possible, even in the few cases where it made the map look somewhat odd.

Spoiler: Areas:

View attachment regionsFull.png

Natural Borders!! This was one of the most unanimously agreed upon critiques about Tinto's map. The borders here are based heavily on the EPA's Level III ecoregion classifications, but with a few edits to include major geographical landforms as their own areas such as in the case of the Florida peninsula and Great Lakes.

The major issues with this map mostly stem from occasional odd borders (looking at you Southern Great Plains) and some areas being significantly different in size to others (Great Plains again...). Other than those issues, its certainly at least better than Tinto's colonial-based areas.

Spoiler: Provinces:

View attachment provincesFull.png

When making provinces, I attempted to avoid crossing rivers/mountains/other terrain that would make a decent natural border. This is the result.

Overall, it looks okay. However, due to the heavy usage of rivers as natural borders, some provinces are long and skinny as a result of following corridors between two parallel rivers. This is particularly evident on the eastern seaboard.

Spoiler: Locations:

View attachment statesFull.png

Here's a map with the locations colored according to modern day political borders, for those of y'all who are into that.

Locations. First let me preface by saying that I might have gotten slightly carried away and made some provinces too small (oops). In particular, most of the Great Plains south of Montana and many of the mountainous areas with wasteland present, such as the Cascades just east of Seattle, could do with having the average location density lowered. I did not do this because by the time I noticed I was (and still am) burnt out by this project. However, areas that I'm decently pleased with are the Gulf Coast and West Coast. My goal specifically for those areas was to increase their location density to bring them approximately on par with the Eastern Seaboard, and while its not perfect, I think the map is in a good place in that regard.

Also, wastelands, what do you think of them here? Too many? Probably, but the reason the map is pockmarked with hundreds of tiny wastelands is to help give the geography, particularly in the west, a sense of scale. Also, it was to address another one of the goals that I had when creating this map: fixing the disparity in granularity between the east and west of the continent (at least as far as wastelands are concerned), so now the Pacific Coastal Range actually exists!! Overall, in my subjective opinion, I like the way it looks, although I would like to hear y'all's opinions on it too.

Moving on to the wasteland's evil twin: lakes/salt flats. Overall I wasn't particularly concerned with perfecting these, but did include quite a few, particularly in Minnesota. Other than that I did make a few major changes compared to Tinto's map: First, I made the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah actually salt flats. Secondly and probably more controversially, is the inclusion of the now extinct Lake Palomas in Chihuahua. That I know of there are no primary accounts of anyone seeing the lake during the game's time period. However, there is geological evidence that the lake existed in some capacity during, at least a portion of, the Little Ice Age. Again, feedback is appreciated.

Spoiler: Climate:

View attachment ClimateFull.png

The climate map doesn't have anything too special to write home about. The information came straight from the 1901-1930 Koppen Climate map with zero edits. The biggest differences from Tinto's map are that SoCal has significantly less Mediterranean climate, the inclusion of large amounts of continental, and even Mediterranean, climate in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains, and adding arctic climate to some of the higher mountain passes.

Spoiler: Terrain:

View attachment terrainfull.png

The new and improved terrain map!! Now with new exciting features such as: The Cascades, The Pacific Coastal Range, Texas Hill Country (the most important one, obviously), and much more!!

For example, there are a lot more wetlands. This is likely due to Tinto using modern wetland coverage data rather than anything era appropriate. For example, one of the more glaring omissions was that of the Great Black Swamp in Ohio, which existed until it was drained by settlers in the late 1800s.

I tried to be as accurate as possible with the terrain, as such, the USGS's National Map proved invaluable for most of the mapping, and was able to give good data for everything, even outside the U.S. As for the wetlands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has plenty of documentation regarding current and natural wetland coverage throughout all 50 states. However, this type of information was much harder to come by for Canada and near impossible for northern Mexico. As such, information for Canada was gleaned from a mix of modern land usage maps made available by the Canadian government, a handful of scholarly articles on the subject, and knowledge of regional formations (such as the Prairie Pothole Region). Due to lack of documentation I could find, the wetlands present in Mexico are educated guesses.

Spoiler: Vegetation:

View attachment vegfull.png

A new vegetation map, reworked from the ground up! This is an interesting one, as it looks extremely different to Tinto's rendition.

First, most of the eastern half of the continent was upgraded from woods to forest. The reason for this is because the main source for my information, the U.S. EPA, actually provides detailed descriptions of the types and density of flora that would naturally be found in each of its level IV ecoregions. However, this is a double-edged sword, because it doesn't take into account the activities of the Native Americans, who were known to maintain the forests in certain areas by routinely burning the underbrush. Regardless, it still serves as a good baseline onto which Native American population densities can be mapped to to extrapolate a more accurate vegetation situation.

Secondly, the western two-thirds is more evenly divided between desert, sparse, woodland, and grassland. Again, the information for these areas was provided by the EPA. However, they don't perfectly define places as being "sparse", "desert", or "grassland", so I had to make my own definitions. As such I defined each as follows: Sparse being defined as having shortgrass present, but not having a large number of trees nor any medium or tallgrass present. Deserts defined as having no grass or trees, but may contain shrubs. Finally grassland is defined as having medium and/or tallgrass present with little or no tree cover. As a result, there are significantly less sparse locations, and many more desert, woodland, and grassland locations.

Finally, a fun fact! That random blob of desert locations with the wasteland in it sitting in the middle of the map is the Nebraska Sand Hills! As the name suggests, they are in fact hills of sand, i.e. sand dunes! Although by the start of the game they've been stabilized by sand grasses, I still classified them as desert. Afterall, corn (or any other type of common sustenance crop for that matter) doesn't grow in sand dunes!! Along with that, the Sandhills sit directly on top of the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest such in the world. Since many of the troughs in the Sandhills sit below the aquifer's water table, water will seep out of the ground and fill these low-lying areas. Due to this, portions of the Sandhills are filled with thousands of ponds ranging in size from practically non-existent to over 1 mile in diameter!! Somehow adding water only makes the Sandhills worse for human habitation, due to the fact that the water is often brackish, saline, alkaline, turbid, shallow, and warm which makes it very inadvisable to drink from. Also, it creates quicksand. Quicksand is bad. Because of this I also classified some areas of the Sandhills as being wetland. Which means part of the Sandhills are a desert wetland!! Because of this, I have defeated god. Yay.

 

[Stevo76]

Hello all, after lots of research and a decently long hiatus, I present to you a completely remade continental U.S. which was created from the ground up to help rectify some of the concerns the community had regarding the official Tinto map. Its not perfect by any means, but it should hit some of the broad strokes of parts of Tinto's release that we were most critical about.

When creating the map I focused heavily on integrating the geography of the region with the map from macroscopic formations such as the Great Plains, to smaller local geography like minor rivers. Another area of focus was in directly transcribing information from sources with as few edits as possible, even in the few cases where it made the map look somewhat odd.

[/SPOILER]

I like a lot of your ideas, I just wish that they followed river systems more closely. I'd also say that it makes sense for the great lakes to be a bit more of a divider than a unifier -- that is to say, I would think that the north shore of Lake Ontario should be in a different area to the south shore, for example.

Likewise, I'd say that important coastal areas like the Chesapeake bay would make sense as a single area as well. From what I've seen, the provinces look good -- that they seem to follow rivers, and that areas along the coast are grouped together as well.

I wish that there was more detail on northern North America though -- I understand you've created the present day united States, but it's a bit funny to see Newfoundland just hanging out by itself. I'm also curious to see how you would model areas along the St. Lawrence in terms of provinces and locations.

Overall though, the level of detail looks fantastic!

 

[King_Potat]

Hello all, after lots of research and a decently long hiatus, I present to you a completely remade continental U.S. which was created from the ground up to help rectify some of the concerns the community had regarding the official Tinto map. Its not perfect by any means, but it should hit some of the broad strokes of parts of Tinto's release that we were most critical about.

When creating the map I focused heavily on integrating the geography of the region with the map from macroscopic formations such as the Great Plains, to smaller local geography like minor rivers. Another area of focus was in directly transcribing information from sources with as few edits as possible, even in the few cases where it made the map look somewhat odd.

Spoiler: Areas:

View attachment 1284279

Natural Borders!! This was one of the most unanimously agreed upon critiques about Tinto's map. The borders here are based heavily on the EPA's Level III ecoregion classifications, but with a few edits to include major geographical landforms as their own areas such as in the case of the Florida peninsula and Great Lakes.

The major issues with this map mostly stem from occasional odd borders (looking at you Southern Great Plains) and some areas being significantly different in size to others (Great Plains again...). Other than those issues, its certainly at least better than Tinto's colonial-based areas.

Spoiler: Provinces:

View attachment 1284280

When making provinces, I attempted to avoid crossing rivers/mountains/other terrain that would make a decent natural border. This is the result.

Overall, it looks okay. However, due to the heavy usage of rivers as natural borders, some provinces are long and skinny as a result of following corridors between two parallel rivers. This is particularly evident on the eastern seaboard.

Spoiler: Locations:

View attachment 1284281

Here's a map with the locations colored according to modern day political borders, for those of y'all who are into that.

Locations. First let me preface by saying that I might have gotten slightly carried away and made some provinces too small (oops). In particular, most of the Great Plains south of Montana and many of the mountainous areas with wasteland present, such as the Cascades just east of Seattle, could do with having the average location density lowered. I did not do this because by the time I noticed I was (and still am) burnt out by this project. However, areas that I'm decently pleased with are the Gulf Coast and West Coast. My goal specifically for those areas was to increase their location density to bring them approximately on par with the Eastern Seaboard, and while its not perfect, I think the map is in a good place in that regard.

Also, wastelands, what do you think of them here? Too many? Probably, but the reason the map is pockmarked with hundreds of tiny wastelands is to help give the geography, particularly in the west, a sense of scale. Also, it was to address another one of the goals that I had when creating this map: fixing the disparity in granularity between the east and west of the continent (at least as far as wastelands are concerned), so now the Pacific Coastal Range actually exists!! Overall, in my subjective opinion, I like the way it looks, although I would like to hear y'all's opinions on it too.

Moving on to the wasteland's evil twin: lakes/salt flats. Overall I wasn't particularly concerned with perfecting these, but did include quite a few, particularly in Minnesota. Other than that I did make a few major changes compared to Tinto's map: First, I made the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah actually salt flats. Secondly and probably more controversially, is the inclusion of the now extinct Lake Palomas in Chihuahua. That I know of there are no primary accounts of anyone seeing the lake during the game's time period. However, there is geological evidence that the lake existed in some capacity during, at least a portion of, the Little Ice Age. Again, feedback is appreciated.

Spoiler: Climate:

View attachment 1284282

The climate map doesn't have anything too special to write home about. The information came straight from the 1901-1930 Koppen Climate map with zero edits. The biggest differences from Tinto's map are that SoCal has significantly less Mediterranean climate, the inclusion of large amounts of continental, and even Mediterranean, climate in the Arizona/New Mexico Mountains, and adding arctic climate to some of the higher mountain passes.

Spoiler: Terrain:

View attachment 1284283

The new and improved terrain map!! Now with new exciting features such as: The Cascades, The Pacific Coastal Range, Texas Hill Country (the most important one, obviously), and much more!!

For example, there are a lot more wetlands. This is likely due to Tinto using modern wetland coverage data rather than anything era appropriate. For example, one of the more glaring omissions was that of the Great Black Swamp in Ohio, which existed until it was drained by settlers in the late 1800s.

I tried to be as accurate as possible with the terrain, as such, the USGS's National Map proved invaluable for most of the mapping, and was able to give good data for everything, even outside the U.S. As for the wetlands, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has plenty of documentation regarding current and natural wetland coverage throughout all 50 states. However, this type of information was much harder to come by for Canada and near impossible for northern Mexico. As such, information for Canada was gleaned from a mix of modern land usage maps made available by the Canadian government, a handful of scholarly articles on the subject, and knowledge of regional formations (such as the Prairie Pothole Region). Due to lack of documentation I could find, the wetlands present in Mexico are educated guesses.

Spoiler: Vegetation:

View attachment 1284288

A new vegetation map, reworked from the ground up! This is an interesting one, as it looks extremely different to Tinto's rendition.

First, most of the eastern half of the continent was upgraded from woods to forest. The reason for this is because the main source for my information, the U.S. EPA, actually provides detailed descriptions of the types and density of flora that would naturally be found in each of its level IV ecoregions. However, this is a double-edged sword, because it doesn't take into account the activities of the Native Americans, who were known to maintain the forests in certain areas by routinely burning the underbrush. Regardless, it still serves as a good baseline onto which Native American population densities can be mapped to to extrapolate a more accurate vegetation situation.

Secondly, the western two-thirds is more evenly divided between desert, sparse, woodland, and grassland. Again, the information for these areas was provided by the EPA. However, they don't perfectly define places as being "sparse", "desert", or "grassland", so I had to make my own definitions. As such I defined each as follows: Sparse being defined as having shortgrass present, but not having a large number of trees nor any medium or tallgrass present. Deserts defined as having no grass or trees, but may contain shrubs. Finally grassland is defined as having medium and/or tallgrass present with little or no tree cover. As a result, there are significantly less sparse locations, and many more desert, woodland, and grassland locations.

Finally, a fun fact! That random blob of desert locations with the wasteland in it sitting in the middle of the map is the Nebraska Sand Hills! As the name suggests, they are in fact hills of sand, i.e. sand dunes! Although by the start of the game they've been stabilized by sand grasses, I still classified them as desert. Afterall, corn (or any other type of common sustenance crop for that matter) doesn't grow in sand dunes!! Along with that, the Sandhills sit directly on top of the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest such in the world. Since many of the troughs in the Sandhills sit below the aquifer's water table, water will seep out of the ground and fill these low-lying areas. Due to this, portions of the Sandhills are filled with thousands of ponds ranging in size from practically non-existent to over 1 mile in diameter!! Somehow adding water only makes the Sandhills worse for human habitation, due to the fact that the water is often brackish, saline, alkaline, turbid, shallow, and warm which makes it very inadvisable to drink from. Also, it creates quicksand. Quicksand is bad. Because of this I also classified some areas of the Sandhills as being wetland. Which means part of the Sandhills are a desert wetland!! Because of this, I have defeated god. Yay.

While this approach is probably great for some parts of the map, it falls short in a few areas as it splits politically and culturally connected lands in a very wild manner, particularly along the eastern seaboard as you have noted. Even then, not having the Potomac, Delaware, Susquehanna, and Hudson rivers as dividing lines for areas when going largely off of rivers and mountains is not great, as these were arguably the most important rivers for the development of the early colonies in America (bar the Potomac as its importance generally lies far more prior to European arrival than after it). To Illustrate this point I'll go to the area I know best, the Chesapeake Bay, and critique it as necessary.

Province Issues:

• The organization regarding the orange province that encompasses Chesapeake, Croatan (in current setup, even though its ~100 miles away from where t actually was), and Chowanoke crosses cultural lines and splits what should be two separate provinces, one of Nansemond (including Chesapeake and an additional location in Skicoak, also potentially another additional location in Quioucohanock or even Cheroenhake). Basically, don't cross the eastern portion of the border of VA and NC because it was a dividing line between the Nansemond & Powhatan, and the Algonquins of Chowanoke who were never a part of the same political ecosystem.
• The James river province should extend far more inland to represent the area held by the Powhatan at game start, and the heartland of what would then become the Powhatan confederacy
• The Kiskiack province is far too large for what Kiskiack actually was, could be remedied by adding Kecoughtan with the border being made along Felgates Creek (which would still fit within a solely geographical approach) or by wrapping it into a Pamunkey (or even Nansemond) province
• Delmarva should be a province, splitting it is just a bit odd imo

Area Issues:

• There is no reason the blue areas should cross the potomac, this was a great dividing line of sorts between the more Powhatan affiliated tribes (ergo not much susquehanna control) and the more nanticoke tribes who were generally dominated by the Susquehanna
• There should be an area that would become the powhatan confederacy (plus probably some more inland places, particularly along the James and Rappahannock rivers given how their holdings extended further down those rivers, but we didn’t document specific locations very well)
• Pamlico should similarly constitute its own area (plus inland locations) rather than being unnecessarily split between the Powhatan in the north, and the Siouan & Muskogean people in the south

And these are only the issues I found for the Chesapeake bay area.

Basically what I’m trying to say is, this approach for assigning areas and provinces along the eastern seaboard is inadequate to properly represent these areas, and political and cultural ties must be accounted for. I can’t say how good they are for the west since that isn’t really my area of expertise, but there are some serious issues with the province and area borders, as you are probably aware.

Still looks like a good rendition apart from all that.

 

[korandder]

Spoiler: Provinces:

View attachment 1284280

When making provinces, I attempted to avoid crossing rivers/mountains/other terrain that would make a decent natural border. This is the result.

Overall, it looks okay. However, due to the heavy usage of rivers as natural borders, some provinces are long and skinny as a result of following corridors between two parallel rivers. This is particularly evident on the eastern seaboard.

Having the various islands between Vancouver Island and the Mainland, including the Gulf Islands and the San Juan Islands, be their own province seems weird to me. The island locations historically had closer ties to their adjacent locations than each other.

Your region on south bank of the St Lawrence river extends too far south.

 

[korandder]

We did some clean-up on the very early design, which had colonial goods, but apparently some were overlooked...

To be entirely clear: what we want on the setup is the raw materials present and exploitable in 1337, while those goods introduced post-Columbian Exchange will appear in the region in a different way (which will be dynamic, not static). On a side note regarding minerals, as we usually put in the map those exploited during the game's timeframe (1337-1837).

An issue with not putting in minerals unless they were exploited during the period the game covers is that large areas of the Americas and Oceania will lack these resources because they were not settled by states that had the technology to exploit these resources until after the period of the game.

 

[Tahami Tsunami]

@ScienceNinja7 Thank you very much for that information and the sources! I'll include some links and pictures that may help paint a picture of what Alabama could look like during the game period:

https://assets.caboosecms.com/media/15086003_investigations-at-the-choccolocco-creek-archaeological-complex-public-document.pdf

https://www.academia.edu/39790586/Late_Mississippian_Protohistoric_Ceramic_Chronology_and_Cultural_Change_in_the_Lower_Tallapoosa_and_Alabama_River_Valleys

 

[YashaCarry]

So, I saw the amazing map made by @Stalin's Right Hand and I knew that I had to try and make a setup post with the Plaquemine using it (seriously major props to them), I've been trying to make a map of the starting countries that should exist in 1337 with it.

In order, I've added a few more Plaquemine tags, those being the Sims site (between Atchafalaya and Medora), Pocahontas (the orange east of Natchez), Transylvania Mounds (the weird purple north of Ghost Mounds, east of Jordan), Jaketown (the brown north of Emerald Mounds, east of Winterville, and west of Holly Bluff), and removed Glass.

This leaves us with 12 Plaquemine tags, with Medora, Emerald Mound (despite being tiny), Holly Bluff, and Winterville being the most important, and the other eight of Jordan, Ghost Mound, Sims, Atchafalaya, Pocahontas, Jaketown, Transylvania, and Natchez being less important.

This is about as good as you can get it without there being a bunch of OPMs in the region or the Chitimacha being lumped in with the Plaquemine... which is just no.


If you needed to condense further, you could probably split Jaketown between Emerald Mound and Winterville, but I really feel like we've reached the extent of what can be done.

 

[BeyondExpectation]

This is about as good as you can get it without there being a bunch of OPMs in the region

While having purely OPMs makes for homogeneous gameplay, why not have some?