Topological anomalities

[Erik Springelkamp]

Although they don't have any game effect, I would like to point out some peculiarities of the map, in my region, both in the Netherlands and in the neighbouring regions of Germany.

Groningen and Friesland are OK, as are Emden and Wilhelmshaven as important harbours.

But the North-Western tip of Holland might be called Den Helder, after the major Dutch naval base situated there on the mainland, instead of Texel, which is the name of an island to the North of it.

The area to the South of Friesland is called Emmeloord in the game: this is a village that didn't exist during WWI, as it is located in the large polder that was created only in 1943 and even then it was just a field of mud. It should be called Zwolle, after the city in that region.

To the South of that region is something called "Wolle", which I can only interpret as a mistyping of Zwolle, but it is too far South for that city. It should be called either Veluwe, after the old county name of that region, or Apeldoorn, after the largest city there (or Amersfoort, but that lies in the Southern tip of that region).

To the East, and South of Groningen the region is called Koevorden, which is an acceptable name, though it is a sleepy fortress town that lost all significance after the 18th century. But there are no important cities in that regions, so that is OK, apart from the spelling, which is Coevorden (Vancouver is named after it).

South of Coevorden we find "Hengeh" which I assume stands for Hengelo. I would say the much larger neighbouring city of Enschede would be a more suitable name, or the old county name of Twente, as there is no game city anyway.

Over the border in Germany South of Emden the region is called Papenburg, and South of that Emsland. However, Papenburg is part of Emsland, while the region between Emden and Emsland is the Kreis Leer, with capital very old city of Leer, so this region would logically be called Leer.

Now further to the South, and closer to the theatre of operation I find the region of Duisburg very strange: Duisburg is a city close to Essen of the East bank of the Rhein, while at the location of that in-game city we might at most find the much smaller (but no less historically prestigious) city of Kleve.

To the West in the Netherlands we find in the game the region named Sittard, which is strange, as Sittard is a city in the Southern 'tail' of the Netherlands near Maastricht, while this game region represents the area containing Nijmegen through Eindhoven to Den Bosch, all of them very much more significant cities.

So, apart possibly from the location of Duisburg, there is no impact on the game at all, but I wanted to mention these things, as they are so obviously strange for someone living there.

[Kensai]

I have seen some minor inconsistencies myself in places I know well, in the Black Forest and Northern Greece. The graphics of the map will be difficult to be improved at this point, however the characteristics (names, civilization level, etc) could. Some intermediate improvement we see in the Sinai peninsula where the railroad portayed in hardcoded graphics was not yet constructed when the game era starts.