Thread: Migration Patterns / Country-Culture placement

My thought is that you're putting aesthetics over information or trying to depict too much information. All of the colors distract from the migration routes...try simplifying things. I had a rough go and here's what I mean, probably oversimplified but more emphasis on the how and when as migrations happened.

Thanks, I'll consider your suggestion.

I wasn't really thinking about aesthetics, though I can see that aspect. This was more a way for me to visually sketch out how migration had occurred and where conflicts might appear than any sort of final map....

Back to the drawing board to see what gels.

Dave

Don't take it the wrong way, it IS a pretty map...to me it just seems to be more of a countries map. Plop some cities and roads down and it'll be quite nice

a key thing to migration is terrain, mountains, rivers, deserts, tundras all become blockers for migrating masses. In the beginning people follow their food sources until they learn agriculture or animal domestication. Lakes, Rivers and the Sea are full of fish and provide people to use ships which leads to easier interaction with other people.
people also migrate because of they are usually running from somebody else, the Germanic tribes were running from the Huns. Also colonization can be a key factor Carthage became a major power even though it was a key port city to a Phoenician colonization golden age.

Looking at the red area alone where the humans started I got a few ideas how the humans would react to the environment. I am guessing the whitish areas are higher elevations and I am guessing the lake area is fertile grassland with woods and the same for the opposite of the northern and eastern mountain ranges. The people would immidieatly start settling around the lake harvesting the fish, if they know fishing. People would also start moving away from the lake seeking rich farmland along rivers from the mountains and hunting in forest or on the grasslands. These people near the mountains will slowly start to explore the mountains on the west it seems real extreme so I doubt few people will go to far west, but since the north and east ranges are not as white they're might be passes available for people to move north and east and start settling the opposite hill ranges and start settling the coasts. In the south near the lake they would start moving down to the coast while people in the south west will colonize the more inland hill areas to the west of the coast, people on the coasts will slowly move along the coast lines until they have settled every area until they run into a blocking terrain.

Without a scale or climate information it's tough to tell how the patterns would run, but the general flow is reasonable.

People migrate pretty quickly. I would expect to see basic hunter-gatherer folks spread at least a few miles a month after the initial population gets going (over a few thousand). That's 200 years to fill up a 6000-mile wide continent assuming 3 miles per month. Most likely population dispersal patterns would be along coastlines in temperate to warm climates.

After the basic fill of the continents with hunter-gatherers somebody will develop agriculture and the cultural package of those farmers will tend to spread along with their crops to similar environments. Similar environments happen at similar latitudes and distances from the ocean so the mostly-horizontal continent is excellent for rapid spread of a single culture or two.

If you haven't read it, I recommend the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. As I recall, some of his conclusions are a little peculiar but the discussion above is the broad generalization of the theory.

On the subject of countries, remember that it's no coincidence that the size of modern countries (and states/counties within those countries) is very roughly proportional to the communication technology of the day. If all you have is walking then you will tend to have smaller empires / counties than those with horses and those will tend to be smaller than cultures with mechanical transport. As always, good road networks move you up a bit on the list.

Ascension - No offense taken at all! I just wasn't thinking about it being pretty...justg hoping it conveyed the info I wanted (which I guss it doesn't!)

And yes, the white areas are mountains which would block migration (hence the two-tracks moving parallel in some areas and then meeting up again.

As for Guns, Germs, and Steel, it's on my list to read. Maybe today is the day to start.

Thanks guys!

Dave

By the way, thank you all very much for taking the time (I know it took a bit) to take a look and help me out (including making your map to show me)...I was thinking so hard before about what you both said that I don't think I actually expressed my thanks! I really do appreciate it.

Here's a revised, hopefully more clear version. As I put down climates etc, some of them will effectively act as barriers for progress; my idea here is to speed up and slow down different parts of progressions to moderate growth etc.

Right now, I've sketched things out moving from the green star. Red stars are places of conflict where I would envision quite different cultures meeting up.

I'm balancing this with some fictional planning for culture development that I've worked on previously too.

Now oops...where did the time go? Now that I'm getting more into this, I realize how much of a time-thief it can be!

Now that I've settled on a rough migration pattern, I've decided to work on my overall world map appearance. Thank goodness for all the different tutorials here and about!

I'm going for a blend of hand done look.

Any thoughts or suggestions for improvement?

TY