Switzerland Map *NEW MOCKUP POSTED*

[Minister X]

Okay. Let's try this. Here's a list of the 20 largest cities in Switzerland as per Wikipedia:

Zürich
Geneva
Basel
Lausanne
Bern
Winterthur
Lucerne
St. Gallen
Lugano
Biel/Bienne
Thun
Bellinzona
Köniz (statistically only the whole municipality, but not the village)
Fribourg
La Chaux-de-Fonds
Schaffhausen
Chur
Vernier
Uster
Sion

Now I'd be happy to carefully find all the correct coats of arms and spread them out inside an outline of the country, but here's a map showing where the largest cities are actually located:



Ian says, "form follows function: the actual location of a city on the map is irrelevant, as long as it makes sense relative to the others." Fine, but I honestly don't see how I can both spread these cities out AND have them make sense relative to each other. I'd have to place too many of them south of the mountain chain when in fact they lie north of it. That's why my attempt above included so many ski resorts. Would you move St. Louis to the other side of the Rockies?

A suggestion: south of the mountains I use mainly ski resorts and two of the largest cities there, north of the mountains I use the twelve largest cities there, spreading them out as necessary. Since ski resorts themselves don't have coats of arms I use whatever makes the most sense, either a city or canton for which they are named or in which they are located. Please let me know if this is acceptable. If it's not, please consider the next suggestion...

#2: According to the list and map, just four of the largest 20 cities lie below my mountain chain: Lugano, Chur, Bellinzona and Sion. So I map just four terts in the south and fit the other 16 north of the mountains. I'd reduce the number of "passes" through the mountains to just two. This will mean having to make the map larger to fit those 16 in an area now occupied by 12. It will also make the mountains less relevant -- the map won't be so effectively broken up into two zones. This will affect gameplay.

I think option #1 is much better, but if mixing resorts and cities is no good, #2, weird as it is, seems at least slightly reasonable. I think it will make for a strange-looking map and I think the gameplay will suffer, but I'd be willing to do the graphics.

If neither option is acceptable I'd be more than willing to consider any specific suggestion. Switzerland is an unusual country, with most of the mountains in the south half and most of the development in the north half. It makes it difficult to translate into a CC map. Some rules or preferences will have to be stretched or adapted.

[Dukasaur]

Map Name: Switzerland

What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: This map was in the Recycling Box. I fixed the XML. Art is total rework. It would say a lot about The Foundry to raise this from the dead.

Seeing this, I'm already dreaming up scenarios for an Alpine series of Tournaments! We already have France, Italy, Yugoslavia. Switzerland and Austria would complete the large nations! Then we just need Monaco and Liechtenstein and we're ready for the Alpine War!

[iancanton]

Here's a list of the 20 largest cities in Switzerland

that's one way to do it. however, i can see that u're less than enthusiastic about a map based purely on this list, for various reasons that u've stated.

I honestly don't see how I can both spread these cities out AND have them make sense relative to each other. I'd have to place too many of them south of the mountain chain when in fact they lie north of it. That's why my attempt above included so many ski resorts. Would you move St. Louis to the other side of the Rockies?

my statement was simplified and u spotted the hole in it. the locations of the cities and impassables must make sense relative to each other. u wouldn't move st louis to the other side of the rockies, but u can move the rockies so that their location relative to st louis continues to be valid.

A suggestion: south of the mountains I use mainly ski resorts and two of the largest cities there, north of the mountains I use the twelve largest cities there, spreading them out as necessary. Since ski resorts themselves don't have coats of arms I use whatever makes the most sense, either a city or canton for which they are named or in which they are located.

another method of choosing regions, one that's more in keeping with ur preferred option 1, is to combine the city list with the most-visited places by number of hotel rooms occupied (from the federal statistical office). the top 15 in 2018 were zurich, geneva, ZERMATT, basel, luzern, lausanne, DAVOS, bern, INTERLAKEN, SANKT MORITZ, OPFIKON, GRINDELWALD, LAUTERBRUNNEN, lugano and MONTREUX. how can we design a map based on these lists combined to give a bit more weight to zurich and geneva, which appear at the top of both lists?

https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics.html

a challenge for switzerland is to find easily-described bonus groupings that are not arbitrary. resorts obviously have something in common with each other and can logically fall into the same bonus. note that not all places listed are resorts and not all resorts are ski resorts, interlaken being a well-known example of a non-ski resort.

ian.

[Mad777]

If you want let me few weekend to check it and I can come with some scenario of layout, I have some idea to create good mix between counties, cities and notorious place, plus using famous tunnel road to create special connection. Potential is there, small country but lot of stuff than can be use and keep a certain logic.

[Minister X]

...combine the city list with the most-visited places by number of hotel rooms occupied (from the federal statistical office). the top 15 in 2018 were zurich, geneva, ZERMATT, basel, luzern, lausanne, DAVOS, bern, INTERLAKEN, SANKT MORITZ, OPFIKON, GRINDELWALD, LAUTERBRUNNEN, lugano and MONTREUX. ...note that not all places listed are resorts and not all resorts are ski resorts, interlaken being a well-known example of a non-ski resort.

A very reasonable idea. Below is a location map that combines large cities with those you put in all-caps. Opfikon is a problem. According to Wikipedia: "Thanks in part to its favourable location between the city centre and Zurich airport, several large companies have their headquarters in Opfikon." And that appears to be its only distinction. I'm guessing there are a lot of hotels there because of the airport and the large companies. Koniz is another. It borders Bern and appears to be little more than a suburb of it. Perhaps instead of listing the 20 largest cities I should have listed the 20 largest metro areas. In any case, here's the location map that results:



Resorts are listed top left and their locations use capital letters. Cities are top right and their locations use lower case, sometimes more than just an initial. I've placed these signifiers as accurately as possible. As you can see, we still have a problem. South of the mountains will still be underpopulated, that area just west of center is awfully busy, and several large areas are empty. Spreading out these locations to make a usable CC map, providing separation where needed and filling holes as much as reasonable just seems like asking too much of the old elastic.

What say we give Mad777 a chance at this? As a native we should at least give him a chance. I have no idea if he's familiar with the various demands of CC mapmaking but he seems enthused and I can work with him via IM. As he hints above, a hybrid system using a variety of justifications for terts, while it may not be ideal based on typical CC practices, may be the only way to get a usable CC map of this unusual country. My preference would be to weigh heavily on sheer worldwide name recognition because I want potential CC players to see tert names they recognize. There's a nice romantic aura to names like Gstaad and St. Moritz (at least for me) that just doesn't apply to Schaffhausen or Biel. With a little luck we can combine these various sources and preferences to generate a map that is fairly accurate geographically, has good gameplay, and will attract some players. We may need more than just a little luck.

[Mad777]

I think here the key is to not focus much on one subject such as cities, counties or other but more finding a relevant cohesion with what switzerland is notorious for, the geography on one side is complex for a small country and on the other side Switzerland is know from areas that may be difficult to insert to keep a « standard » line up based from other map that has larger geographical areas.