Diverse terrains for Australia & NZ

[Em Ay Ef]

this was initally discussed in a thread on the general forum, but it may be time to bring it up here.

as of 1.11, Australia and NZ consist entirely of grasslands with a single jungle province in Victoria. i prepared a suggestion that more realistically reflects the terrain and vegetation of that corner of the world. hope it proves useful if you ever decide to remodel terrain types in that area.

lo and behold:

terrain types as follows (colors differ from the regular terrain map for increased clarity):
grasslands.
savannah.
woods.
forest.
jungle.
marsh.
hills.
highlands.
mountain.
steppe.
coastline.
drylands.
black dots - tropical.
red dots - arid.

some provinces could work in more than one way, so for these i provide alternatives (albeit i'd rather go with the options from the original picture above):

Spoiler

 

[Blindbohemian]

I'd be more inclined to make the lower South Island all mountains (Southern Alps+Fiordland) and the top province highlands (Marlborough Sounds are rugged as hell; Kaikoura Ranges). The whole North Island should just be forest. Possibly Northland (Whangerei province, I think) could be jungle.

New Zealand was pretty rugged before European settlement. It's a shame the way the country is divided up, because we could get much more diversity if the South Island was divided lengthways (i.e. the way it's natural split by terrain) but that's okay.

 

[generalolaf]

The South Island provinces could be redrawn to work better with the one-terrain provinces. This would be how I'd do it (though it adds a province, so if you wanted to keep the numbers consistent you could split the southern highlands province between the northern one and the Fiordland/Southland province.)

 

[Demetrios]

I'd be more inclined to make the lower South Island all mountains (Southern Alps+Fiordland) and the top province highlands (Marlborough Sounds are rugged as hell; Kaikoura Ranges). The whole North Island should just be forest. Possibly Northland (Whangerei province, I think) could be jungle.

New Zealand was pretty rugged before European settlement. It's a shame the way the country is divided up, because we could get much more diversity if the South Island was divided lengthways (i.e. the way it's natural split by terrain) but that's okay.

Well, that is what the Suggestion subforum is for! I agree that the way the South Island is divided doesn't make sense geographically, so I would definitely support a new division along the lines Generalolaf posted.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

I'd be more inclined to make the lower South Island all mountains (Southern Alps+Fiordland) and the top province highlands (Marlborough Sounds are rugged as hell; Kaikoura Ranges).

there's quite a sizable plain in Southland (relatively to province size), and this plain is where most settlements were placed (terrain type affects building slots) and most battles would be fought. i don't think mountain terrain could really reflect that. Southland is also where the primeval forest cover of NZ survived the longest. based on those two points, i'd say forest is a good match for this province--somewhat rough, but not as rough as mountains.

the top province of SI is and definitely should remain highlands.

The whole North Island should just be forest. Possibly Northland (Whangerei province, I think) could be jungle.

since their arrival in the late 13th century, the Māori quickly removed forest from the coastal plains for hunting and agriculture. the hilly areas of NI remained wooded for longer and so they should appear on the map.

New Zealand was pretty rugged before European settlement. It's a shame the way the country is divided up, because we could get much more diversity if the South Island was divided lengthways (i.e. the way it's natural split by terrain) but that's okay.

yeah, a new province along the lines of Generalolaf's post would be a great improvement.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

View attachment 129316
The South Island provinces could be redrawn to work better with the one-terrain provinces. This would be how I'd do it (though it adds a province, so if you wanted to keep the numbers consistent you could split the southern highlands province between the northern one and the Fiordland/Southland province.)

now that is neat!

 

[SaphireSeas]

That Suggestion is neat, but I think this one Is better for 4 provinces. This is because it takes into account the Canterbury plains. the Westland province now more correctly follows the Main divide.
Southland and Otago have been combined because they are combinded for many, Many things, And it is a sensible division of the Island.
I have removed the forest in Southland because The only reason NZ was at all productive or settled was because the forest was cleared. Feel free to critique this.

Edit:
There seems to be a large amount of support for a forested NZ. Although this is historical, It is out of place. As I have already stated, NZ's Forests have been seriously damaged even before European Arrival, and European arrival cause much destruction to the Forests. Despite the huge forests that cover NZ, Any nation looking to settle NZ would log those forests. Thus the only time these should be represented as forests would be before settlement.

Another Option would be to add Fiordland to the westland province to more correctly show it's terrain, but this would mean you could land in fiorldand and walk up the coast to Nelson. Not Likely.

 

[Em Ay Ef]

i really like this new split with Southland and Otago combined. no forest in the southernmost province feels fine now that it includes the grassy highlands of Otago. if there turns out to be much support for a wooded terrain in this province, it could be changed to hills (which are basically highlands with trees in game terms), but to me it looks just fine as highlands. i wholeheartedly agree that having too many wooded provinces in NZ would be a misrepresentation. trees should be limited to the sparsely populated, elevated terrain in the east of NI and in the hills near Wellington (although i proposed only woods, not forest, as the tree cover there was patchy at best).

as for adding Fiordland to Westland, i think it would be unwise for seazone adjacency reasons just as you described.

 

[SaphireSeas]

i really like this new split with Southland and Otago combined.

Thanks! I'm glad someone likes it. Now all we need is one of the devs to like it.......
I haven't touched the North Island because I'm not so familiar with it and it has been done reasonably.

 

[generalolaf]

Yeah, the North Island as it is in our maps is good. Terrain should be fine too - Taranaki province is the one place that needs to be forest, and it is, so that's the main thing. The Napier province might work better as highlands, maybe? It's not exactly flat. Province border changes would be a bit overwrought.

 

[Titanius Puffin]

Love the reworked south Islands to include the Canterbury plains...

I'm not totally keen on the lower north Island (where I live) but it's not terrible.

I would suggest that the Wairarapa/Hawke's Bay area be hills or highlands. The Wairarapa (which I'm familiar with) has farmland, but it's cut off by the hill ranges that encircle it and has no natural harbour. The Hawke's bay area isn't exactly flat either (though I'm not very familiar with it). However, there is at least better sea access. These barriers may justify the change. Up to you though.

Taranaki can be portrayed as wooded, but if the east coast of the North Island needs a downgrade, the lower west coast might use an upgrade. Historically, the Taranaki region is a hotly contested piece of land. Settlers in New Plymouth were eager enough to purchase land from a dubious, subordinate chiefs in the area - an incident that kicked off the New Zealand Wars. The settlers wanted that land for farming purposes. They rated it as good land. And a lot of the land today is farmland - and it's mostly flat. It's also (I'd argue) more populated than the East coast, without even including the Wellington area.

I haven't mentioned Wellington and the Hutt Valley, because they are practically inside hill range. I don't think they fit well inside Taranaki from the perspective of terrain. However southern tip of the Taranaki region includes Wellington and it's immediate neighbouring cities (of which there are a few). The immediate Wellington region is hilly (which in EU terms is bad) but it's relatively prosperous and densely populated. Some of that prosperity is due to it's designation as the capital, but some of it is also due to having a good port and at least some flat land. It's hardly simple.

New Zealand has a lot of 'micro climates'. Every little place is quite distinct.

Hell, if one could reasonably designate a small region south of Taupo - The southern part of the Volcanic Platau - as a desert. It's a cold alpine desert rather than a burning hot/sandy kind, but it's a desert. Not far north of that (around the Bay of Plenty) I understand the land is pretty high value in terms of farming. It's pretty well-populated if you take Tauranga, Rotorua, and Taupo into account. It's only to the far east of the bay of plenty where it gets hilly (north of Gisborne).

So there's no perfect choice, but thanks for giving it a crack.

 

[generalolaf]

^ I pretty much agree with everything there. Thing is, though, I think as residents we're likely to look at it from that micro-perspective. The province system as it is doesn't really support that, though, which means we have to compromise. It wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea to split Wellington and the lower North Island into its own province, for example, but then that still contains land you could call farmland, hills, highlands, even mountains at a stretch (Tararuas, Rimutakas) and where do you stop? It's one of the failings of the one-terrain provinces. It's not how most provinces are.

In saying that, you have a good point on the shapes of lower North Island provinces. In a lot of ways, Wellington (and the Kapiti Coast) actually fits better with the province Hawkes' Bay is in. Possibly you'd want to include the central plateau with Taranaki if you were going to rearrange it that way, and actual Hawkes Bay could be lumped in with the Bay of Plenty. Adding provinces isn't a great idea, though, even if it would be the easiest way to represent the climates properly. New Zealand's provinces are already more detailed than a lot of areas that start the game settled - Russia and Eastern Europe particularly spring to mind - so we can't really justify getting too precious about it.

 

[PsysmicSound]

So happy that people are talking about this (and thrilled that nobody is paying any attention to the Australian half of this discussion). It really is such a difficult place to get right; perhaps we should petition Paradox to make a spinoff game with game mechanics that suit New Zealand better - Aotearoa Universalis?

 

[PsysmicSound]

On a more serious note, the wiki is telling me that the only trade goods that can appear in New Zealand are Fish, Wool, and Naval Supplies; is this still true? Might it make sense to include others?

 

[PsysmicSound]

Upon further consideration, no, it would not make sense to include others. Good job, me.

 

[generalolaf]

With a West Coast province you could make a case for gold. It'd be stretching it, but you could.

 

[Titanius Puffin]

Actually, maybe one... gold?

Dunedin, at one point, was the largest city in New Zealand thanks to its gold rush.
However it wasn't quite as large as gold rushes in Australia, so it's forgiveable either way.

edit: posted around the same time as you generalolaf... totally agree.

 

[PsysmicSound]

Gold in the SI was a big deal for New Zealand, but not for the world. Its effect is probably best simulated as a slightly higher base tax than would be expected of a population of period New Zealand's size. Anyway, discoverable trade goods are currently on a per-region basis, not per-province, and I can't imagine that changing just for us, though it might do if people think it's too abstract for other colonisable parts of the world.

 

[generalolaf]

If the islands were each separate regions then you could make the whole South Island be able to produce gold. If the system changed it'd be more plausible, though. A West Coast province would have a low tax value, which (I think?) would make the gold more proportionate in its benefit to how it was in OTL.

 

[PsysmicSound]

I am a little surprised that neither Copper nor Iron can be found in Australia in the game. Australia's pretty much the mining capital of the Asia-Pacific region right now; is it really so far-fetched that people in an alternate universe might conceivably have realised its mineral wealth (other than Gold) a little sooner than they did in real life?