OpenGeofiction
Hi all,
it’s already one and a half weeks ago since I decided with Luciano to make a major change in Commonia. As there was a quite populated area right next to the equator, which is unrealistic, we moved the Thompson/Darsons (formerly Thompson/Lincoln) area from here
old position of Thompson/Darsons area
to here
new position of Thompson/Darsons area
and Luciano put a large rainforest around the equator, which is a realistic feature at this latitude.
Also, the moved area had to be turned approx. 150 degress counterclockwise to make it fit to the new location within the north of Commonia.
I will continue drawing some details within Darsons. (By the way: I developed this city for two young US novelists who needed a college town for their books. They called it Lincoln, but I renamed it to Darsons, which is the original name I gave to it.) And we had the idea of making Thompson the Commonian capital.
I changed the distance between Darsons and Thompson, because I think the two cities were too close to each other. In my opinion, when starting new large cities, even in a “free” territory like Commonia, users should leave enough rural area around existing cities, leaving them their “own life”. I think that 150km/200km distance is good. If users want to create a polycentric, multi-city urbanized region, they should discuss it before with users who started the first city within the region.
That said, I want to say that I hope you’re all ok with the changes we made. Let’s leave the equator area a bit “untouched” or very low populated and stick to the northern part of Commonia for larger cities/urbanized regions. And let’s make Thompson a nice capital. (@the founder of Thompson - who is ist, btw?: Are you ok with this?)
Best regards joschi81
Discussion
Comment from Luciano on 16 April 2015 at 00:07
I will add, I don’t think the rainforest area in equatorial Commonia needs to be entirely empty - I added a few towns (just labels, without details) when I made the rainforest. My concern was that the cartographic character of Darsons wasn’t very “equatorial” but more evidently temperate/agricultural region. Anyway with the rainforests, new users can more easily see the character of the land they’re choosing to edit, hopefully.
I think Thompson may have been created originally by either FBG or Ode O - based on looking at the “history” of some of the map elements in the area.
Comment from joschi81 on 16 April 2015 at 07:37
Thanks for your addition! No, of course it doesn’t have to be entirely unpopulated around the equator, but - as you say implicitly - new additions should fit to the character of the equatorial region.
Pretty nice town names by the way. Especially “Blue Orleans”. :)
Comment from Luciano on 16 April 2015 at 07:56
In fact Blue Orleans was invented by Sarepava. I only added the “Sinian” (Chinese) version of the name, which is roughly “blue-gold city” (Orleans is derived from latin Aurelianis meaning “gold”).
Comment from joschi81 on 16 April 2015 at 08:10
Good to know! Thanks. Nice translation. And @Sarepava: Pretty cool name for a city!
Comment from Sarepava on 17 April 2015 at 12:22
Yes, Blue Orleans and nearby Bureaucracie were sort of parody cities, the former obviously based on New Orleans and the latter a sort of totalitarian office-work kingdom run by petty officials. South Commonia seems to be a rather anarchic collection of city-states unlike the north which is more organised.