Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Bufo

Hi again! Great to see the addition of Michigan. I live in the UP so I had one or two things to suggest about the area.

1. Since the mid 1850s, Marquette had acted as a major shipping center in Northern Michigan and may warrant the inclusion of some minor port.

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2. The area between Munising and Newberry (today regarded as the Seney Stretch) is mostly cedar swamp.

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3. In the first half of the 20th century the UP was a key supplier of both copper and iron for the US war efforts (both WWI and WWII). Here is a small snippet from an article by the National Parks Service:
"The journal was right. By 1914, copper had become an essential component of every weapon, vehicle, and piece of equipment used on the battlefield. Its ability to conduct electricity, withstand water, and transmit heat made it ideal for many different applications, as did its malleability and durability. Engineers used copper to improve weapons and develop machines that were far more deadly than those used in previous conflicts, including armored tanks and airplanes. Submarines had increased capacity and range; rifles and machine guns were more accurate than ever before.

At the time, Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula was one of the most important copper mining regions in the United States.2 Although it was no longer the country’s leading producer—that distinction shifted to Montana and Arizona mines in the 1880s—Keweenaw copper was highly prized because it was nearly pure, elemental copper, which gave it exceptional conductive qualities. Actively mined over thousands of years by early American Indians, industrial-scale operations began in 1845, and the Keweenaw quickly became the most important copper mining district in the world. Many different companies operated along the mineral range, but they were led by two giants: the Quincy Mining Company (1846), and the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company (merged 1871). Their innovative and unique mining history is commemorated at Keweenaw National Historical Park."

I do not know what this would do for balancing but the presence of Iron Mountain alone doesn't quite capture this spirit IMO.


4. The UP has a strange shape that is difficult to capture in these sort of editors. That being said, the Keweenaw Peninsula (the area right above Houghton) could be extended a bit more. The peninsula itself is actually an island (Copper Island) parted from the main by a river which Houghton is built to the south of (the Keweenaw Waterway was dredged in the 1860s to make Houghton a more important port/reduce travel time through the lake).

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5. Is Isle Royale on the map? It is a major feature of Lake Superior. It may very well have been in a different screenshot that I missed, just wondering as I see other smaller islands.

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ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

On Illinois I would suggest put Cairo (Little Egypt) in, they were strategically important in both IRL Civil War and in TL-191's Great War. Southern IL also has some swamps and wetlands due to Mississippi River and Ohio River.

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ORIGINAL: vonspee

Wow! This is looking great so far. I rather enjoyed this timeline in Turtledove's writing. Looking forward to further updates.

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ORIGINAL: Elessar2

This is relevant to the scenario I've been working on [20km scale Euro map]. Your town/city density sure seems pretty high; you've got 3 towns all in a row thru Milwaukee, for example. Since settlements give defensive bonuses as well as act as supply centers, will this slow down any offensives, as they have to laboriously siege one after the other? Esp. since there are no mechanized units in your era which you can use for encirclements.

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ORIGINAL: Elessar2

This is relevant to the scenario I've been working on [20km scale Euro map]. Your town/city density sure seems pretty high; you've got 3 towns all in a row thru Milwaukee, for example. Since settlements give defensive bonuses as well as act as supply centers, will this slow down any offensives, as they have to laboriously siege one after the other? Esp. since there are no mechanized units in your era which you can use for encirclements.

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ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

Congratulations for finally finished Quebec. I can imagine that it must take ages to make St. Lawrence feels right.

Anyway, one detail about Quebec: The city of Lévis (south of Quebec City) has a series of 3 forts built in late 1860s as a result of US Civil War, in case US invaded Canada and cut off the St. Lawrence waterway. The original plan recommended a total of 5 forts surrounded the city, but since US-Canada relationship turned into a friendly one in 1871 via Treaty of Washington, only 3 were built and all out of use shortly after.

In TL-191 where tension between USA and UK never cooled down, Lévis would probably became a fortified town with these forts, in order to protect Quebec City.

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ORIGINAL: FOARP

Basically the goal here is to make sense out of the attack from the north (by Custer) and east (by Pershing) on Kentucky described in the books by providing good transport links in those places.

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ORIGINAL: BiteNibbleChomp

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ORIGINAL: FOARP

Basically the goal here is to make sense out of the attack from the north (by Custer) and east (by Pershing) on Kentucky described in the books by providing good transport links in those places.

Been a while since I last read the books, but from memory Custer's 1st Army attacked much further to the west, following the Bowling Green-Nashville axis, which would suggest a starting point around Evansville.
I checked the books and the first chapter with Custer in it mentions his initial HQ being in St Louis, not a likely location if he was going to start his attack near Covington :)

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ORIGINAL: BiteNibbleChomp
You might also want to label the Cumberland Gap on the map? (Near the joint border between KY, TN and VA) I'm not sure if it comes up in the series at all, but it was a notable attack route during the Civil War and had been used by traders and explorers since the middle of the 18th century.

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ORIGINAL: BiteNibbleChomp
Looks like you're going along quite nicely! Excited to see this done :)

- BNC

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ORIGINAL: 1775Cerberus

On the Tennessee map. I would consider adding the Duck River in Middle Tennessee. Would run from north of Shelbyville to south of Columbia then into the Tennessee river in a mostly east / west direction. In summer the river is fordable but the banks are often steep along its course.

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ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

As for the TN map, the Mobile & Ohio railway, after passing through Corinth, TN, extends north to Jackson, Humboldt, and eventually reaching Columbus, TN.

There is also another major railway - the Louisville and Nashville Railroad - that goes Memphis-Humboldt-Ft. Henry-Ft. Donelson (where Grant had fought)-Bowling Green, KY-Louisville.

(Humboldt, TN may be too small to be included on the map, I think you can use Jackson as its replacement.)

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ORIGINAL: FOARP

This ended up being one of those things where making one small change ended up changing lots of other things - adding a label identifying a mountain pass means adding the pass there otherwise the user will be confused. Adding the pass means adding the road/rail links that went through it (which means researching the rail links through it). Having the road/rail link means adding a way-station otherwise it looks a bit funny to have a long stretch of road with nothing on it. Adding London, KY to the map means removing Laurel River Lake (which anyway didn't exist until the 1940's so it's an improvement) to make room - I didn't want to put it next to Hazard as I don't like having adjacent settlements outside of dense urban terrain. Having two passes means the Cumberland mountains aren't the barrier I wanted them to be so I removed the pass via Big Stone Gap. This leaves the road/rail link to Hazard which comes close to the mountain-peaks so I increase the mountains to high mountain terrain to compensate... etc.

Now it looks like the below picture - definitely an improvement and an example of why I actually enjoy building this map.

...
Thanks BNC! BTW, I have thought about how I might be able to adapt this map for use with an American Civil War mod. I've done some experiments and it's definitely possible to chop my larger map using the shift-function in the editor to include only those parts of North America that you previously had in your old mod (i.e., North America east of Galveston and south of the St. Lawrence - or more of the west if you want a bigger western theatre). Making the Mississippi, Ohio, and St. Lawrence navigable is also doable. The main task would be removing towns, infra, and lakes that didn't exist in the 1860's (e.g., Birmingham Alabama) but again that shouldn't take too long.

Is that something you'd be interested in?

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ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

If I recall correctly, Turtledove mentioned some kind of outlaws were active in the Ozark Mountains around Missouri and Arkansas in the first book, but never elaborate it afterwords. Don't know if you are interested to put some partisans here.