Hello, I have spent a few hours creating two alternate maps of North America that I feel would make the continent much more interesting in-game (on normal, full world, 64 player games).
They are pretty ambitious, and not the most realistic, however I tried to make it as fun and interesting as possible, while keeping as much realism as I could. The reason I did this is because I find the North American continent to be significantly more boring to play than any other continent in the game.
I kept getting unknown errors while trying to upload images directly to the forum, so I created imgur links for them instead.
The first, and my favorite alteration:
imgur.com/a/7tt6IQA
(you can click on the image in imgur to enlarge it)
This alteration changes quite a lot on the continent. To make the continent more interesting, it changes the mainland USA into three different countries. I didn't decide on any names for them, as it is unimportant, but there is an Eastern US, a Western US, and Texas. The cities in each nation were designed carefully to represent both strategic locations and important real-life cities. Rivers also play a very important role in the continent.
Texas is positioned purposefully directly in-between Western and Eastern US, as to allow the player to strategically choose to attack instead of having easier access attacking one. Important rivers also provide the less-advantaged nation to better defend itself against its larger neighbors.
The two bot nations in the US, Dakota (a combination of real-life North Dakota and South Dakota) and Kansas-Nebraska serve the purpose of most other bot-nations in the game, to allow for small early game expansion while also prompting conflict between the nations on the continent. It also allows for Texas to be secured early-game, while simultaneously not allowing Eastern US and Western US to fight each other immediately.
Hawaii and Alaska are up for interpretation. In my personal opinion, they should both be bot nations, each with one city each. Alaska could be turned into its own nation, and if so, it should only have 5 cities to represent its general weakness as a region in real-life, however I believe it would be better off for the game if Alaska remained a bot nation.
The second significant change is Canada, which is split in two, with Quebec in the far East and Canada encompassing the rest of the real-country. This is to add some diversity to Canada, and pose more of a threat to both Canada and the Eastern US early-game. This is probably the most realistic of the additions. I tried to spread out Quebec's cities just a little bit, specifically St. John's, in order for Quebec to spend some time grouping all of its units before deciding to strike on either Eastern US or Canada.
Canada remains relatively the same, obviously losing its Quebec region. Aside from losing its Quebec region, it lost New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. I decided to add these regions to Quebec because it simply looks nicer, and I feel it makes the map a lot cleaner, while also allowing for Quebec's cities to be more logically spread out. I was originally going to give Canada only 6 cities, but because it is such a long country, I gave it 7, adding Regina. I also added Sudbury to replace Halifax, which it lost to Quebec.
Mexico still remains as its own full country as it is in the current game, however some of its cities changed. I removed Mexicali and replaced it with its larger, western neighbor, Tijuana. I also added Hermosillo in the north. These two cities are crucial for Mexico's defense against Western US. The rest of Mexico's cities are the same as in-game, and that's about it for Mexico.
Overall I really like this map, I think it would make the continent a lot more interesting, strategic, and relatively realistic.
---
This is my second alteration. I prefer my first one, written above, but this is a different take at the continent.
imgur.com/a/RZPi30t
(you can click on the image in imgur to enlarge it)
This alteration "Europeanizes" or "balkanizes" the US. Unlike the previous version, which sought to simply make North America more interesting, this version pretty much turns the continent into another Europe, making it have a lot of important and long-lasting gameplay in the game.
I did not recreate the entire continent, however I redid the Eastern US. This is just an idea of what the continent could like, with a bunch of smaller countries, mainly composed of states, some combined, depending on size. I am not as strict on the layout that I created, as it is just a reference as to what could be done, but something like this could definitely bring interest to the continent. I do not favor this idea as compared to my previous one however, as instead of simply making it more interesting, it almost changes the entire purpose of the game, focusing it on the US.
A different idea could be to just have a mode featuring the US, like how Flashpoint Europe mainly consists of Europe.
---
These are just ideas I have for North America to make it more interesting. I spent a good amount of time on this, using paint.net, so excuse any visual discrepancies. I do not expect any of these to fully replace the normal game, but perhaps different modes could feature maps like these or ones similar to it.
Thanks for reading, I appreciate any feedback.
They are pretty ambitious, and not the most realistic, however I tried to make it as fun and interesting as possible, while keeping as much realism as I could. The reason I did this is because I find the North American continent to be significantly more boring to play than any other continent in the game.
I kept getting unknown errors while trying to upload images directly to the forum, so I created imgur links for them instead.
The first, and my favorite alteration:
imgur.com/a/7tt6IQA
(you can click on the image in imgur to enlarge it)
This alteration changes quite a lot on the continent. To make the continent more interesting, it changes the mainland USA into three different countries. I didn't decide on any names for them, as it is unimportant, but there is an Eastern US, a Western US, and Texas. The cities in each nation were designed carefully to represent both strategic locations and important real-life cities. Rivers also play a very important role in the continent.
Texas is positioned purposefully directly in-between Western and Eastern US, as to allow the player to strategically choose to attack instead of having easier access attacking one. Important rivers also provide the less-advantaged nation to better defend itself against its larger neighbors.
The two bot nations in the US, Dakota (a combination of real-life North Dakota and South Dakota) and Kansas-Nebraska serve the purpose of most other bot-nations in the game, to allow for small early game expansion while also prompting conflict between the nations on the continent. It also allows for Texas to be secured early-game, while simultaneously not allowing Eastern US and Western US to fight each other immediately.
Hawaii and Alaska are up for interpretation. In my personal opinion, they should both be bot nations, each with one city each. Alaska could be turned into its own nation, and if so, it should only have 5 cities to represent its general weakness as a region in real-life, however I believe it would be better off for the game if Alaska remained a bot nation.
The second significant change is Canada, which is split in two, with Quebec in the far East and Canada encompassing the rest of the real-country. This is to add some diversity to Canada, and pose more of a threat to both Canada and the Eastern US early-game. This is probably the most realistic of the additions. I tried to spread out Quebec's cities just a little bit, specifically St. John's, in order for Quebec to spend some time grouping all of its units before deciding to strike on either Eastern US or Canada.
Canada remains relatively the same, obviously losing its Quebec region. Aside from losing its Quebec region, it lost New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. I decided to add these regions to Quebec because it simply looks nicer, and I feel it makes the map a lot cleaner, while also allowing for Quebec's cities to be more logically spread out. I was originally going to give Canada only 6 cities, but because it is such a long country, I gave it 7, adding Regina. I also added Sudbury to replace Halifax, which it lost to Quebec.
Mexico still remains as its own full country as it is in the current game, however some of its cities changed. I removed Mexicali and replaced it with its larger, western neighbor, Tijuana. I also added Hermosillo in the north. These two cities are crucial for Mexico's defense against Western US. The rest of Mexico's cities are the same as in-game, and that's about it for Mexico.
Overall I really like this map, I think it would make the continent a lot more interesting, strategic, and relatively realistic.
---
This is my second alteration. I prefer my first one, written above, but this is a different take at the continent.
imgur.com/a/RZPi30t
(you can click on the image in imgur to enlarge it)
This alteration "Europeanizes" or "balkanizes" the US. Unlike the previous version, which sought to simply make North America more interesting, this version pretty much turns the continent into another Europe, making it have a lot of important and long-lasting gameplay in the game.
I did not recreate the entire continent, however I redid the Eastern US. This is just an idea of what the continent could like, with a bunch of smaller countries, mainly composed of states, some combined, depending on size. I am not as strict on the layout that I created, as it is just a reference as to what could be done, but something like this could definitely bring interest to the continent. I do not favor this idea as compared to my previous one however, as instead of simply making it more interesting, it almost changes the entire purpose of the game, focusing it on the US.
A different idea could be to just have a mode featuring the US, like how Flashpoint Europe mainly consists of Europe.
---
These are just ideas I have for North America to make it more interesting. I spent a good amount of time on this, using paint.net, so excuse any visual discrepancies. I do not expect any of these to fully replace the normal game, but perhaps different modes could feature maps like these or ones similar to it.
Thanks for reading, I appreciate any feedback.
