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Hi fellas.

I have finally completed my version 1.0 of a historical map, depicting actual documented production facilities and trade routes of 14th century northern Europe.
Compromises have been made, game mechanics drastically changed in the process, and in spite of intentions, no actual highly believable realism could be made. It is, however, a quite nice presentation of general outlines of the Hanse as it was and operated, if I may say so myself, and it comes with a complimentary documentation file, which should somehow make up for inaccuracies and anachronisms in the finished map.

I hope you'll find it interesting. I find that, in some small ways, this map endorses the player to establish trade routes much like the ones used by the Hanse. For example, using the land route to trade salt to Lubeck actually seems to work.

It can be downloaded via rapidshare on this link:
https://rapidshare.com/files/3996187826/Historical_map.zip

Cheers and have fun,
Nanuaraq

PS: Feel free to add comments and further documentation.

Zitat von »Preussenhusar«

I just had a look on this map.



It almost has only 1 production per town, so all goods are really rare.

It seems very hard to me to satisfy the needs of the poor population in order to keep them pleased,

as the are the part who is working and supply of food creates beggars for sailers and workers.

I shall see this weekend if or how it can be played.

PH

Yes, this issue evolved more or less as a consequence of the hardship I had finding adequeate documentation to complete the map. It has certainly changed game mechanics, and yes, it is much harder to attract workers and build up production. Expansion and city wall building takes careful planning and a steady cash flow, as bricks are only produced in one town.

However, the constant need for everything also makes it easier to secure cash flow, since you can pretty much always sell your wares. Consumption is lower in the beginning of the game, though, so you need to travel far and wide to find those markets.

I have also found that - especially in the beginning of the game - ferrying raw materials around and letting the city production take care of processing (for example, hauling iron ore from Stockholm to Brugge, and then selling the iron ore while carefully buying up the resulting city production) is helpful to initial cash flow. Secure your monopolies as soon as you can. Perhaps piracy can help you here.

To my delight, I have found that producing salt in Germany and using it to produce fish, will - just like in real life back then - become crucial to securing supply chains and workers.

Also, the computer AI has the same difficulties, and may even find it harder to cope, since the AI is not so hot on long-term planning as you can be. The historical map thus proposes a rather different challenge.

You are encouraged to read the documentation that follows with the map. These topics are covered more fully therein.

Zitat von »Preussenhusar«

Yes, I read the comments an then saw the map on the editor.

I cannot ativate the map with the brasileiro tool,

since the amounts of hanse-towns are not correct and the productions either ??

I'd have to change 3 "Kontor" into "Hansestadt" and add 6 productions


PH

Hmm, thats strange. It works perfectly well on my PC.
What is this tool you're referring to?

Zitat von »Preussenhusar«

Yes, I read the comments an then saw the map on the editor.

I cannot ativate the map with the brasileiro tool,

since the amounts of hanse-towns are not correct and the productions either ??

I'd have to change 3 "Kontor" into "Hansestadt" and add 6 productions


PH

It seems I made an error in the map with the number of cities. I've altered that now. This is the map version 1.01. Will you tell me if it works on your system?
https://rapidshare.com/files/3057307386/…map_ver_101.zip

And a savegame using the same map vers 1.01.

https://rapidshare.com/files/861683320/Historicalsave.zip

Oops, I see where I went wrong.
This is the map in gmf file format. It should work if you put it in your maps folder.

https://rapidshare.com/files/1013402545/Historical.gmf

Zitat von »Preussenhusar«

Ahh, now I see it correctly

Did you already play this map some months ?

PH

Game months or actual months?

Well, I've been playing a bit more'n a game year now, and progress is indeed slow. Fortunately, progress is just as slow for the computer AI. Gathering materials for new ships (and especially for new trading offices) is difficult and makes trading and production of your own raw materiales necessary to a much higher degree than in the original map. I have to constantly choose between using ships for cash flow, resource gathering for new buildings and ships, expeditions, and piracy or missions. I am so hard in need of cash that I sail without captains.

As I've stated in the documentation, it would be nice to have an at least average production of common raw materials like grain and timber in most cities, but the low number of production facilities available in the map editor makes it impossible to distribute these evenly. Besides, I would need documentation for which cities should absolutely not have production of timber (Lüneburg wouldn't, for one).

So, and for the fun of a different challenge, I chose to go with altering game mechanics in this way.

Zitat von »Preussenhusar«

What do you mean with "Low number of facilities" ?

PH

the map editor does not allow for production facilities to be distributed evenly throughout the map. You cannot have grain production in all cities, not even if half of them are on low efficiency.

Zitat von »Preussenhusar«

Zitat von »Nanuaraq«

Zitat von »Preussenhusar«

What do you mean with "Low number of facilities" ?

PH

the map editor does not allow for production facilities to be distributed evenly throughout the map. You cannot have grain production in all cities, not even if half of them are on low efficiency.

even wihout the brasileiro tool the amount of food is not THAT problem.

the map you created is very hard to handle due to the lack of food and other goods needed by the working poor population.

So Stockholm for instance lost nearly 200 inhabitants in the first 2 months.


If you want to build "realistic" maps it has to be taken into consideration that the MAP only knows the town,

but the towns in reality had some villages surroundig them.

PH

Yes, that pretty much sums up the considerations I had when designing it. As it is, I am not the one to tell you to play the historical map this way or that way. If you feel the map needs some adjustments for playability or realism, by all means do so. If you got any historical documentation to back up on it, more's the better.

Anyway, if you let the inhabitants numbers drop, they will stabilize themselves around 400 and will not go below. From there you can work your way up. you may choose to view this a a different challenge. Otherwise simply change the number of food producing towns with the map editor.

By the way, what is this Brasileiro tool you speak of?

Zitat von »Preussenhusar«

The tool allows to change productions outside the standard editor.

falko put a link.

How did you create the map ????

PH

Well, I simply used the standard map editor. And read a lot on wikipedia. I'll have to see about this tool, it could be good for a version 2 of the map with more production facilities.