ORIGINAL: FroonpWell, let me just say that we have added not cities for the moment. All those violet wrote cities are not yet added, they just are the proposals I've heard of for the moment. I did put them all on the map for people to see them, but I do not expect to place even helf of them on the map.Shreveport is maybe not that important to add on the map here in the south if we want to keep the map from being clogged with cities. But if that is so then I don't understand why we are in the process of adding so many new cities in the NE part of USA. Why is it ok in NE USA to add cities like Hartford, Flint, Albany, Akron, Dayton etc. while there are so few cities in the south compared to the north? Is it because you expect some military actions in the NE of USA so USA needs cities to add reinforcements?
For me the most important thing about making a map is to have CONSISTANT design rules everywhere on the map. If you go for one detail level at one part of the map then it would be strange if other parts of the map have a much lesser detail level. I think mainly about adding cities, ports and railroads. That is one reason I don't think the megalopolis idea of creating a continuous line of cities from Washington to Boston is a good idea. Was it really that crowded in 1940 from Washington to Boston? I noticed that many US cities have become a lot bigger during the last 50-60 years. One example is Las Vegas that had 8.400 inhabitants in 1940 and had 545.000 inhabitants in 2005.
So maybe it's a good idea to be more restrictive about adding new cities in NE USA. Especially new cities not needed for supply reasons, like adding a city adjacent to an already bigger city (like adding Providence adjacent to Boston).
Also, I'm more enclined to add cities to the NE because I think there are a lot more inhabitants in those areas, not that I expect any combat here (except if playing AiF). If I'm mistaken please tell me.
High density and/or a line of cities is not commonplace in WIF FE but it does occur in several locations. Here are 2 examples,
1 - in Germany: Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen, Magdeburg, Hannover, Essen, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Aachen, Sarbrucken, Frankfort, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart.
2 - in England: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Hull, Sheffield, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Coventry, Cardiff, Bristol, Southampton, Portsmouth.
I do have a concern about basing decisions solely on the population counts for the cities. Each hex is about 60 miles across (90-100 Km) and a city occupies very little of that area. I would like to see a lot of other smaller cities in the same hex and/or extensive industry and/or suburbs to justify the addition of a city. A single city in the midst of a mostly unpopulated area would require strong justification.
Conversely, there might be (hypothetically) a dozen or so small cities in a hex and then we would choose one of them for the label as the city in the hex, even if officially the 'city' proper has a population under 100K. I think that Newark NJ might be in this category. The NE part of NJ has a lot of small cities and extensive suburbs some heavy industry. That aggregate makes calling it a city ok by me. Even so, the rest of northern NJ is almost all lightly populated hilly woods with some national parks thrown in.
