by MarshalNey on Sat May 01, 2010 3:37 pm
I do have to say that the USA map bugs me. A lot of it goes well beyond mere "gameplay liberties," it's bewilderingly apocryphal.
I hate the separation of regions- what is really wrong with using actual terrain for impassibles? You don't have to include every mountain range, but what's wrong with including the Rocky Mountains? With the Rockies, the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, the Appalachian Mountains and the Sierra Nevada-Cascades Ranges, you've got a pretty decent broad overview of the topogrophy and plenty of impassibles.
Even more, however, I hate the fictional regions themselves. I've never heard of the "Rockies" as a cultural region (where did they get that from, the time zone? They'd have been better off using the Appalachians) nor have I ever heard anyone refer to Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, W. Virginia, Viginia or Maryland as a "Great Lakes" state... since they're hundreds upon hundreds of miles away from the Great Lakes. The Midwest is scandalously divided in half and lumped into the "Great Lakes" designation, which I also have never heard of as a region but I'm willing to forgive far more than "Rockies". The Deep South is arbitrarily split between "Southwest" and "Southeast" and the "West" is almost a misnomer since it's pretty much just West Coast. There are, of course, many different ways to classify the same place ("Great Plains" as opposed to West or Midwest, for example) but there's just no consistency or even justification in some cases for the designations given.
Then there are places left completely out. As shakeycat said, Alaska and Hawaii aren't even included, nor of course are any of the reservations, territories, "commonwealths" or protectorates that produce natural-born US citizens. And to add final insult to injury, New England- the only region that is almost properly named- has amalgamated some of the small states and left others out (Maryland & DC in particular!).
I mean for goodness' sake, there's 50 stars on the flag, everyone knows what that stands for. How hard is it to have at least 50 freakin' territories on the map? It's not like we're talking about Old World countries where some provinces changed hands and borders dozens of times over the centuries and such distinctions get blurred between the traditional/cultural and the modern legal definition. American states pretty much fixed their borders before being granted statehood- no ambiguity. And don't tell me that state designations are meaningless in America (I will grant that jingoistic nationalism has reduced their importance) unless you want to get into a serious debate about history, the Constitution, geography and culture.
I don't expect a CC map to serve as a dual atlas and gameboard. But this map goes well beyond mere artistic liberties for playability.
I know that this rant is a bit off-topic, and probably a bit unfair. It really belongs as a revamp discussion perhaps in the USA map thread. But I'm saying it also because I think the current USA map would need way more than a revamp to address my issues with it. CC is overloaded with US maps, I know, but it shocks me how many of them exist and yet how few of them are any good as guides to the US. They play just fine, good balance- but as for accuracy, they'd be better off as fantasy maps. The only relatively accurate US map that I can think of is 13 Colonies... and Civil War (maybe a few others).
EDIT: I'm not really bucking to change the USA maps- I mean it's an entire map pack and players enjoy them, so what's the harm?... and I like Widowmakers' stuff for the most part. I'm just saying that there certainly is a different way of approaching the US that I haven't yet seen in any of the USA maps...