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Via Romana

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Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:56 pm

Map Name: Via Romana
Mapmaker(s): MarathonMax (me), Sasha Trubetskoy (the graphic artist) and whomever wants to helps us
Number of Territories: lots
Special Features: Subway style map
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: Sasha Trubetskoy's visualization has mashed-up two enduring obsessions of mine – transit maps and Ancient Rome – to help us understand the connection between Rome and its sprawling empire.
Map Image: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-cont ... 24_jun.png
[bigimg][/bigimg]
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Re: Via Romana

Postby Minister X on Fri Aug 07, 2020 6:12 pm

It might be possible to make a playable map from this by making each road (perhaps combining a few) a tert. Identify just six or so cities and award a bonus when you connect two by road, a larger bonus when you connect three, and so on. So say Rome and Lugdunum (in Gaul) were termini. There are any number of alternate combinations of road that could connect the two. Lugdunum to Hispalis (in Spain) can also be connected via three roads using different routes. One of the challenges of play would be discerning what route an opponent might be going for. And two players could each get a bonus for connecting the same two cities (using two distinct routes) and that would be pretty unusual.

It would be challenging to pick the right termini when designing the map. For instance, unless you make Brundisi connect (i.e. to Corinth) by sea, it becomes either a backwater or (if made a termini) too close to Rome. Perhaps also connect Brundisium to Alexandria (historically just fine) but make some penal midway stop in the Med so the crossing is costly. I'd make Memphis a termini and not show anything south of that.

Some roads would be superfluous under these rules and could be eliminated. Via Gallica in NW France is such a one. Via Agrippa and Via Aquitania connect anyway. So be it - the map becomes a bit simpler. It will be complicated enough I think.

Some of the longer roads would obviously be more useful to hold than short little ones but that's also fine.

Other possible sea routes: Ostia to Carthage, New Carthage and to Massilia - all quite accurate historically. It may be possible to code as follows: that sea routes can only be used on alternate turns. This would accurately reflect the fact that winter voyages were rare and very dangerous in those days.

It could work.
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Re: Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:58 pm

It could work!
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Re: Via Romana

Postby Minister X on Fri Aug 07, 2020 10:24 pm

I looked up Sasha Trubetskoy and he's a fascinating cartographer. For those interested, you can see all his maps here:https://sashamaps.net/docs/maps/

Feel free to use the ideas I outlined above. If you need someone to do the graphics, we can talk. If it were up to me and we used some version of the plan I outlined, I'd make the map look historical, not like a modern transit map. I know those transit maps have been used several times here, but those depicted current-day geographies. IMHO this should be a traditional map. Sasha Trubetskoy has kindly created a great reference of all those Roman roads, but I'd utilize it only as a reference. If I were to make this map I'd try to make it look something like this as a base (for appearance and atmosphere):

Image

But that's just me. Fell free to IM me if you want to discuss this.

PS: Trubetskoy's website has info on licensing his images. Unless he gives you permission (is he a member here?) you'd have to pay to use anything even close to his map (simplified geometry, brightly colored lines, etc.). He's even got a copyright stamp on it. There are a huge number of maps showing Roman roads, so my idea is not encumbered by any concern regarding intellectual property. But maybe you and he are best friends?? :ugeek:
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Re: Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Mon Aug 10, 2020 7:45 am

I wrote to Sasha and yes he has agreed to let me (us!) use this map. He asks that credit him for the graphics and the base idea.

I liked the contrast of old vs new map. Thus the idea. Strangely enough, it is the second time that I post the same idea. I am either consistent or absent minded lol.

Traditional subway maps found here are more 3D with territs underneath (NYC, Chicago, etc). This could be done, but a complete different undertaking.
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Re: Via Romana

Postby Minister X on Mon Aug 10, 2020 8:46 am

How cool! And if for no other reason, Trubetskoy's map is superior because he "expanded" Italy so he could display all those roads clearly. Using a map like I suggested would require Italy being magnified into an inset, which is always confusing.

I'd be pleased to give this a try, using Trubetskoy's map as a template and trying to reproduce his look and feel as much a CC requirements allow.
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Re: Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Mon Aug 10, 2020 9:38 am

Minister, how then do we proceed? This would be my first contribution to CC. Should I ask Sasha if he has a version in Photoshop, InDesign or some other graphics software? Having the original would be easier to modify to CC requirements ... not sure the author would share however ...
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Re: Via Romana

Postby Minister X on Mon Aug 10, 2020 11:54 am

I couldn't resist and got started before I saw your last post. I just love Photoshopping maps, I guess.

I've made sea/land, experimented with roads, then realized that before I could go much farther some critical decisions have to be made. The first is where the "destination cities" should be placed. So I'm posting the draft map below as a basis for discussion about these critical placement issues. With destination cities the idea is to maximize as per three goals:
1) Make maximal use of historically important cities.
2) Spread the destinations out as much as possible so as much of the map as possible becomes relevant.
3) Avoid allowing any two destinations to be connected by owning just two roads.

And a fourth, perhaps... include London because it's now so famous and so that there's no reason to totally avoid Britain in the map.

Now those goals can be cross-contradictory. For instance, several cities in Italy were very important at the time but they are too close to Rome to include for game purposes. And it would be wonderful to include Alexandria or Memphis but if you do it's impossible to find a good destination between there and Byzantium, and Damascus was also very important. (I've made these city circles with red so they'd show up better here. Don't worry. They'll look like Trubetskoy's later.)

Sea routes are next: I've included what I think satisfy two goals: historical importance and frequency of use, and gameplay utility. Now if we can't get XML to support seasonal use only (and perhaps even if we can) an important question is should there be reset-to-three (or some such) terts in between ports so voyages are more costly? How many? Where? The Brundisium-to-Corinthus crossing should be less costly than the Roma-to-Carthago Nova one. And should stretches of sea routes be ownable terts that count toward your tert count and thus affect troop awards? It wouldn't be historically inaccurate to allow players to own sea routes since there were plenty of pirates around at the time and using your navy to limit their areas of control was important. And that said, wouldn't it be rather cool if we could find some way to make pirates randomly appear and take control of sea routes? I doubt there's a way for XML to support that.

I've used black lines to indicate sea routes to be added but Trubetskoy already has five on his map and we have to decide how to deal with them. He uses connected circles for the English Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, and the Straits of Messina, and he simply has roads crossing water twice over the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. I can understand why his did those last two since they'd be the easiest of the crossings. So was the Straits of Messina. But the English Channel and the Strait of Gibraltar were rather treacherous. Just ask Julius about the Channel. Should we make all these free crossings? Some of them? Since we'll not have all those little circles if the Straits of Messina were to be free I'd just have the green and yellow roads connect. No special iconography.

Another issue: the Via Numidia (green road in North Africa) forks. The extra spur would be irrelevant to gameplay and could cause player confusion. As it is, this road serves only as an out-of-the-way tert someone could capture. It doesn't connect two different roads. Can I eliminate one of the forks?

Another: Trubetskoy did not name that little gray road that connects Massalia to the rest of the world in southern Gaul. On this map https://sashamaps.net/images/gaul_vthick_140-2.png he shows it as just another station on a coast road but we need it to have that gray spur for gameplay purposes (otherwise it's just two from Rome and Lugdunum) and in any case we're basing our map on the one of his, not some combination of maps. And on this map http://www.athenapub.com/aria1/_Eur/md_gaul-map-rhonemouth2.jpg it's indeed shown as on a spur. I've tried like heck to find a map where it's named but cannot. Would it be okay if I gave it a color and named it "Via Massalia"?

Finally: What to do about Sardinia? I'll show every other road Trubetskoy has shown (except possibly the "Via Futura" bits he's shown with dotted lines) but Sardinia was not very important and creating a sea route just so someone can claim one extra tert would clutter up the sea for no important reason. Theoretically it could be a way station between Ostia and Carthago Nova but that wouldn't be very accurate. When the Romans made that voyage if they stopped anywhere it was usually at Masalia because they liked to hug the coastlines. So would it be okay if I just ignore that little bit of road and make Sardinia a simple white blob like Corsica and Cyprus?

That's a boatload of questions and decisions to be made. It's going to take me a while to get all the roads done and while I'm slaving away at them we could be working on all these other matters. So please go through this long post carefully and repeatedly and supply as much input as you can. And it sure would be great if some other CCer's chimed in. There have got to be some folks here who know a lot more Roman history than I do.


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Re: Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:14 pm

1) You mention ading London. It is in the original map!
2) You appear to be using a slightly different map. For example, you have added an south western leg to the Via Britania (which is fine)
3) Would the hub cities start neutral and have like a +1 deploy?
4) Sardina should be connected by sea. Much like you have start. I suggest that we use this map (https://sashamaps.net/images/gaul_vthick_140-2.png) and maybe other to suggest sea routes
5) I do not mind the circles like across the English Channel. If it were a real subway, we can imagine tunnels. Sea routes are different and should be drawn as such.
6) Via Numidia. I don't mind it. It becomes more relevant if we connect Rusicade by sea. Cartena must be connected by sea as well for its maritime importance.
7) Via Marsilla? Yes indeed :-)
8) Sardina. My original intent was to ignore it as it was not connected. Now that we have see routes, maybe we could connect it.

All in all you are doing great my friend.
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Re: Via Romana

Postby Minister X on Mon Aug 10, 2020 1:28 pm

MarathonMax wrote:1) You mention ading London. It is in the original map!
I didn't mean to imply that I was adding London to the map, merely including it as a destination city.
2) You appear to be using a slightly different map. For example, you have added an south western leg to the Via Britania (which is fine)
I believe this is exactly the map to which you first linked but I see that the version at Trubetskoy's website lacks that bit of Via Britania. It seems he has two versions of this map. I've compared the two and the differences are extremely minor.
3) Would the hub cities start neutral and have like a +1 deploy?
They would not be terts at all. Only roads (and maybe sea routes) would be terts.
4) Sardina should be connected by sea. Much like you have start. I suggest that we use this map (https://sashamaps.net/images/gaul_vthick_140-2.png) and maybe other to suggest sea routes
I'll connect Sardinia but on his regional maps Trubetskoy shows just about every possible sea route, which is WAY WAY too many for us. We want just a few to enhance gameplay.
5) I do not mind the circles like across the English Channel. If it were a real subway, we can imagine tunnels. Sea routes are different and should be drawn as such.
I'd prefer no circles at all except for the destination cities. But it's easy to just show roads connecting at the Channel. I'll do it that way and we can review the results then.
6) Via Numidia. I don't mind it. It becomes more relevant if we connect Rusicade by sea. Cartena must be connected by sea as well for its maritime importance.
I can't find Cartena. Do you mean Carthage? That's "Carthago" on the map and already shown connected to Ostia. Please clarify what you want to see here. I'm a bit confused.
7) Via Marsilla? Yes indeed :-)
Great.
8) Sardina. My original intent was to ignore it as it was not connected. Now that we have see routes, maybe we could connect it.
I'll connect it.

All in all you are doing great my friend.


What about penalties/costs for crossing water? Any thoughts?
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Re: Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Mon Aug 10, 2020 1:53 pm

1) OK
2) Oh wow did not know lol
3) I think that ub cities should be territs. We can discuss if they need to be special territs or not (ex: +1 auto deploy, neutral start, belong to multiple bonus areas/subway lines, etc)
4) Nope we do NOT want all the sea lines of course
5) Sea routes it is. I agree with your proposal, makes it consistant across the board with other such routes
6) Carthago yes
7) cool
8 ) (and not "8)" lol) sea routes we shall see lol
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Re: Via Romana

Postby Minister X on Mon Aug 10, 2020 3:08 pm

What is a "ub" city?
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Re: Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Tue Aug 11, 2020 8:33 am

It is a hub city without the h lol
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Re: Via Romana

Postby Minister X on Tue Aug 11, 2020 9:52 am

The problem with making destination cities a tert is that several lie in the middle of a road and we would have to go to some lengths to explain to players that the city tert is independent of the road tert, that when they own a road tert, they own all of it, on both sides of the city tert. Now if it were very important that those destination cities be terts, this could be done, but is it so important? Trubetskoy's map is named, in translation, "Greater Roman Roads" and the unusual rules I proposed were all about making owning the roads the whole point of the game. That said, we could make the hub cities terts anyway, but what is gained by that? A tert is a tert is a tert as far as gameplay goes, why make things more complicated just to add a few more terts onto a map that will already have 51 as roads plus maybe 8 to 12 more as sea routes? The only reason I can see to make these cities into terts is that on most maps cities (or provinces with city-like names) are terts. Let this map be different. We lose nothing; we gain uniqueness and the avoidance of a complication..

That said, by adding sea routes as terts aren't I proposing something contradictory to what I just wrote? Yes, but at least sea routes are, like roads, lines of transportation, and unlike those cities, there are very good gameplay reasons to make sea routes into terts. We could possibly make them non-terts in two ways: 1) make them routes that are not occupied at all and that subtract X number of armies when transited, or 2) make them non-ownable terts that revert to X neutral after every turn. The problem with #1 is that it makes transiting the seas immediate and some of those routes are rather long, so that's a bit unrealistic. Also, later in the game players might have large numbers of armies crossing and the subtraction of X (which must be small early in the game) would be a very minor inconvenience - and that's not realistic. That same early-vs-late game issue arises with #2. Reverting to neutral 3, say, makes a crossing very costly early on but perhaps not very costly at all later when army numbers on the map grow quite large. The best solution might be the simplest: make them ownable terts subject to being conquered by other players. It's realistic and the cost of protecting the routes grows as the game progresses.

Changing subjects, I want to propose turning Via Claudia (long orange road running the length of North Africa) into three separate roads, West, Central and East Claudia. If we do that, and make the sea routes into chains of terts, we can add Carthage as a destination tert (a "hub"). This accomplishes two nice things: 1) Carthage deserves to be a destination city for historical reasons, and 2) that road is too darn long; it shouldn't be easier to "travel" from Gibraltar to Alexandria than from Rome to Ravenna. I checked: it's 2700 miles vs just 220. It's okay to have some long roads and some short ones, but this one is just too long. And by calling the three West, Central and East we're not being ahistorical to any real degree.
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Re: Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Tue Aug 11, 2020 10:50 am

ok I am lost lol.

For me all "circles" (subway stops) on the map are territs. Only those are territs (so not a 3D / 2 layers map like NYC or Chicago). We could make underlying regions territs as well, if you believe that it should be. I thought that just the subway lines was good enough.

Hub Cities (with an H lol) (aka larger cities with intersecting lsubway lines) would thus be territs, like others, but maybe with "extra power" (like auto +1 or whatever tbd).

For example Lugdunum would be part of both Via Agrippa I and Via Agrippa II.

Bonuses ("continents") are given to owning all stations / cities on a line. For example Via Agrippa I has 9 stations. From Col. Ulpia Traiana in the North to Arelate in the South.

As for sea routes, I was not thinking on awarding bonuses to owning them since no "stops" are planned in the middle of the sea. But we could if you think so.

I like the idea of sea "stops" (or subway stations lol) however. Could revert to neutral because Romans were not too good at sea. Maybe does not revert if you own Carthage or Alexandria, major sea powers.

I agree with you idea of Via Claudia !
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Re: Via Romana

Postby Minister X on Tue Aug 11, 2020 11:03 am

MarathonMax wrote:ok I am lost lol.

So am I.

Image

And clearly two very different concepts of how to adapt Trubetskoy's map to a CC map. I don't think we're going to be able to overcome these problems so I'll let you proceed without my interference and crazy ideas. I hope you can make a success of this image, or at least have some fun trying. Cartography rocks! Good luck.
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Re: Via Romana

Postby MarathonMax on Tue Aug 11, 2020 12:10 pm

I think that you are abandoning too fast my friend.
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