Ah ok, so there'll be a change to the existing code.
Well, I augur this goes well; such a map would be fantastic.
Well, I augur this goes well; such a map would be fantastic.
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It's already implemented:
By the way, I wanted to look at some of the pictures you posted of your map for inspiration (France in particular is turning out to be really annoying) but they're all down. Do you have anything you could upload?
I'm going to create a new thread for my map mod tomorrow or so when I'll have more to show of Europe.
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I'll see if I can find the PSDs in one of my hard disks but I fear I may have lost everything. I think Herr Doctor may still have them so I'll ask him as well. In any case, I will still put up some designs/suggestions from months of research which never saw fruition.
Here's a link to the psd files of my previous project, courtesy of Herr Doctor: http://www.mediafire.com/download/axa9i1g5xwogg1b/PV_Map_all_PSDs.rar
In this version, I used a realism over gameplay approach which I've since backed away from (as you can see, most rivers are passing through provinces) although in other instances I took gameplay considerations (e.g. the size of Europe vis-a-vis the rest of the world).
What approach are you using? That way, I can come up with some fresh suggestions.
Also, have there been any other changes related to the map e.g. the map dimension or the regional limits?
In this version, I used a realism over gameplay approach which I've since backed away from (as you can see, most rivers are passing through provinces) although in other instances I took gameplay considerations (e.g. the size of Europe vis-a-vis the rest of the world).
What approach are you using? That way, I can come up with some fresh suggestions.
Also, have there been any other changes related to the map e.g. the map dimension or the regional limits?
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Well that looks like a lot of work went into it. Why didn't you finish the project?
So overall I favour realism, not just in the sense that the starting scenario can be realistic but also that hands-off games will likely result in historical situations.
What's your philosophy regarding rivers that run through province? I try to avoid this (by moving or removing rivers rather than by moving province boundaries or splitting provinces) but in some places it may be unavoidable and I'm not sure what to do about adjacencies.
Generally speaking, I want to have many provinces where there are many countries (so mostly HRE but also e.g. Japan) and few provinces where regions always changed ownership as a whole (e.g. Bosnia, Silesia) or where large territories were conquered during campaigns (e.g. Hungary). Also, smaller countries that were disproportionally strong get more provinces as a sort of buffer to prevent them from being conquered too easily by AI countries.
So overall I favour realism, not just in the sense that the starting scenario can be realistic but also that hands-off games will likely result in historical situations.
What's your philosophy regarding rivers that run through province? I try to avoid this (by moving or removing rivers rather than by moving province boundaries or splitting provinces) but in some places it may be unavoidable and I'm not sure what to do about adjacencies.
No.
This is a very tricky thing. It largely depends from the level of the tags you want to have in game. Speaking about Silesia, for example, it wasn't "a whole" region, but a territory of many related vassal duchies of the Piast dynasty that remained there more or less gradually incorporated to the Bohemian Crown until the second half of the 17th century. Every of them had quite different complicated history that could be potentially represented as abstraction in game (check Kasperus mod, for example). And this history actually made it possible for the Hohenzollerns to lay their ambitious claim on Silesia later.
"Bosnia" also wasn't a unity, especially during this time, and different parts of it were usual object of military and diplomatic bargains, changing ownership between the powers of the region (the Ottomans, Hungary, and later the Habsburgs).
There are also ethnic, cultural, religious and political differences that could be better represented with different provinces. It is really hard to find any more or less "homogeneous" big region in Europe of this time that won't require at last some basic representation of this sort.
Yes, I know. The point is that all those regions were conquered as a whole in a single war, and from that point on they formed a unity, regardless of who controlled the region. From when the Ottomans conquered Bosnia till today it has remained largely politically unified (ignoring the small strip Austria took temporarily) under the Ottomans, Austria, Serbia/Yugoslavia, Croatia, Yugoslavia again, and now as a independent country. There may be good reasons to split Bosnia into many provinces (it's not a homogenous country at all) but that would make it almost impossibly improbable for historic outcomes to occur during normal gameplay. (I have actually considered adding one province to Bosnia, but since the limit of 2020 provinces is still in effect this doesn't seem likely at this point.)
Silesia is even worse since you can't just add one province – if you add one you essentially have to add at least two others as well. And Prussia taking those four provinces (of which 3 are very small) in a single war against Austria will never ever happen. And even if it would magically happen, and Austria would get the upper hand in a revanchist war, the four provinces wouldn't all be ceded to Austria again. It's just a limitation of the EU2 war/peace system. So, one province it is. Gameplay realism over initial realism.
By the way, the period I'm most concerned with when deciding which provinces to add is 1492-1789.
Edit: Related to this, I'll probably merge Transylvania and Partium since Transylvania always controlled the Partium, and this way Transylvania could be annexed by Austria or the Ottoman Empire in a single war. A situation where the Ottomans took the Partium from Transylvania which would then continue to exist as a state really wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.
Silesia is even worse since you can't just add one province – if you add one you essentially have to add at least two others as well. And Prussia taking those four provinces (of which 3 are very small) in a single war against Austria will never ever happen. And even if it would magically happen, and Austria would get the upper hand in a revanchist war, the four provinces wouldn't all be ceded to Austria again. It's just a limitation of the EU2 war/peace system. So, one province it is. Gameplay realism over initial realism.
By the way, the period I'm most concerned with when deciding which provinces to add is 1492-1789.
Edit: Related to this, I'll probably merge Transylvania and Partium since Transylvania always controlled the Partium, and this way Transylvania could be annexed by Austria or the Ottoman Empire in a single war. A situation where the Ottomans took the Partium from Transylvania which would then continue to exist as a state really wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.
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In case of "Bosnia" it was conquered by parts and it took the Ottomans half a century from subjugation of Sandalj' duchy to the conquest of the kingdom of Bosnia, and a century to take the last parts under Hungarian control and the huge region of Usora of the Berislavici family in the north of country (1520s).
Silesian history of this period is very completed. For example, large parts of it, the duchy of Oppeln/Opole in particular, could pretty much end as the dynastic fief in the hands of the Polish kings (both the Jagiellonians and Vasas).
I agree that it's nice and important to represent the major borders changes in military conflicts but there are a lot of unappreciated outcomes and alternatives possible with AI. For example it could lead to the situation when you had to create provinces half the size of such huge realms as Hungary, with extremely big base tax and manpower. And in the end these "parts" could be conquered (with only two-three provinces in a single war) by some other neighbours (Moldavia, Wallachia, Poland) leaving them effectively in control of Hungary.
Silesian history of this period is very completed. For example, large parts of it, the duchy of Oppeln/Opole in particular, could pretty much end as the dynastic fief in the hands of the Polish kings (both the Jagiellonians and Vasas).
I agree that it's nice and important to represent the major borders changes in military conflicts but there are a lot of unappreciated outcomes and alternatives possible with AI. For example it could lead to the situation when you had to create provinces half the size of such huge realms as Hungary, with extremely big base tax and manpower. And in the end these "parts" could be conquered (with only two-three provinces in a single war) by some other neighbours (Moldavia, Wallachia, Poland) leaving them effectively in control of Hungary.
Due to a multiplicity of factors - uni studies, diminished interest in FTG, disheartened by the tedious database work, etc.
Despite my previous work, I've come to strongly prefer rivers on province boundaries (one of the reasons I didn't finish the project). Having rivers run through provinces undermines one of the key strategic aspects of the game. It is in this sense that I prefer gameplay (and aesthetics) over realism. One other aspect is the province size - given that most of the province information is displayed graphically and that clickability is an indispensable aspect of gameplay, I feel that provinces should be as large as possible to the detriment of realism/historicity. Other than that, I strongly support the notion of scenarios unfolding historically in the way you describe it.
And are there plans or is it simply impossible?No.
I just did a very rough sketch.
Comments:
Brittany: I think Brittany should have 2 provinces as a minimum. Upper Brittany could be split to have the two chief Breton cities: Nantes and Rennes.
Maine and Anjou share the same history so they can be merged
Lorraine: The important thing IMO is to have both Lorraine (Nancy) and Trois-Eveches (Metz). Bar is only useful if we want LOR to have 2 provinces (though they were technically held in personal union).
Bresse: it kinda fits nicely between the Rhone and Saone but it was not terribly important territory (FRA gained it from SAV by exchanging it with Saluzzo, which probably won't even be in the game). If scrapped, the Saone can be deleted and the province split between Lyon and Franche-Comte.
Languedoc: if we want to represent the diverse terrain, a Cevennes province could be carved from the northern half.
French Flanders and Hainaut: I haven't included these territories yet..
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That's true for many regions though. First they're "conquered" and then there's a long period of actual subjugation that follows. Just look at Russia's southward expansion. In EU2 this is primarily handled by nationalism and other effects like higher revoltrisk and lower income in provinces with foreign cultures, and in some cases events.
I am well familiar with early modern European history, and like you I would prefer to model the situation in e.g. Bosnia in a more historically accurate way. But as I said, the problem in this case (and many others) is that higher accuracy at the beginning of the scenario will invariably result in much lower accuracy during later periods. And this is a trade-off I'm not willing to make.
You have to ask MichaelM; so most likely no plans. By the way, Inferis said he didn't find the libs that are missing from the Git repo but he may have them on some old external HD somewhere. Maybe if he's being pestered about it enough he manages to find them, and then we could at least break the 2020 provinces limit. So send him an e-mail or something maybe.
I'll have a more in-depth look at your France setup later. I can say right away though that I'm not particularly enthusiastic about adding the Three Bishoprics. They're very small and disjointed territories, and if they're joined together then Lorraine is non-contiguous:
I don't have any non-contiguous provinces currently, and I have now done the rest of the HRE (thread will be up shortly). I may still include the Three Bishoprics, but not with the borders in your picture.
I don't have his email address. He only gives his facebook/twitter accounts but I don't have an account there.
I look forward to the thread. Yes, like other imperial territories, the Three Bishoprics were disjointed but they don't have to be represented exactly that way. This depends on your philosophy of course. In any case, I think it's important to have Metz, being the chief city in Lorraine (definitely more important than Bar-le-duc), and as an additional province for France to expand into. French territorial evolution has always been a problem in WaTK3/Watkabaoi because for the period 1552-1765, France only has 4 provinces to expand into (Artois, Roussillon, Alsace and Franche-Comte) and historical French gameplay would have to be more peaceful and boring than it had been historically.
My philosophy is also that I want to keep the overall shapes of countries (especially those that existed for longer periods of time) intact, and this is why the Three Bishoprics are such a huge problem for me since adding a province will mess up Lorraine. Probably the best way to go about this is to have a disjointed province there and have it bordering only Bar und Lorraine, so in terms of gameplay it wouldn't matter that it's disjointed. I dunno.
That's a good point that I hadn't really considered. I already have Bresse/Bugey (since it used to belong to Savoy) and split Alsace into two (because Austria) but maybe it's not enough.
Here you go.
It's already implemented:
By the way, I wanted to look at some of the pictures you posted of your map for inspiration (France in particular is turning out to be really annoying) but they're all down. Do you have anything you could upload?
I'm going to create a new thread for my map mod tomorrow or so when I'll have more to show of Europe.
So, is the Victoria map useable in FtG now?
No, even with the modified executable I built for Andrei. Tiles.bmp and index.tbl can be copied into the FTG map folder without crashing the game, but without modification they just make stripes of terrain appear on the FTG map.