Alexandria and Memphis shouldn't be surrounded by a desert

[(:Baktra:)]

I'd have to search more for detailed topographical maps like the ones Baktra shared.

That would be great! But I do disagree about map 2 though. The purple part that you are seeing isnt necessarily accurate. That map has been copied by so many other people I can't be too confident that it. But I also don't disagree about the environment surrounding Alexandria. We just need to do more digging.

[Domaje]

I went into the game and checked, it's not as bad as I thought. Sure, Alexandria is slightly outside the green zone, but the rest looks OK to me. It's a smaller issue.

On the strat map, sure, the Nile delta is green as you would expect. The problem seems to be that it doesn't translate well in the battlemap, hence why we have desert battles while the battle takes place amidst the Nile arms.

[Roma_Victrix]

That would be great! But I do disagree about map 2 though. The purple part that you are seeing isnt necessarily accurate. That map has been copied by so many other people I can't be too confident that it. But I also don't disagree about the environment surrounding Alexandria. We just need to do more digging.

I'll look into that tonight, along with further primary sources that discuss the Nile. At the very least, as related by the Livius.org article, other authors like Herodotus describe the Nile River in some detail. Hellenistic Egypt after the conquests of Alexander produce far more direct eyewitnesses among Greek historians, though, let alone Roman ones who lived there after the Ptolemies and death of Cleopatra.

On the strat map, sure, the Nile delta is green as you would expect. The problem seems to be that it doesn't translate well in the battlemap, hence why we have desert battles while the battle takes place amidst the Nile arms.

Precisely. Very rarely were towns built in the middle of a desert and only because they were connected to a fixed water source like an oasis, lake, or tributary river. Even then it would have been naturally surrounded by greenery, as is the case whenever there's an abundance of water around sea level. Even outside the enormous Nile Delta region, the lush green inhabitable terrain and floodplain farmlands of the Nile River valley stretching all the way to Sudan were still over 50 km in width the entire way down, according to Book XVII of Strabo's Geographica.

I recently played the siege of Diospolis-Megale in Upper Egypt. While there is some green shrubbery, grass and palm trees immediately around the Nile River behind your army, this is paltry and nowhere near as wide as it should be, looking no more than 1 km versus what it should be in reality, 50-55 km (31 to 34 miles) and extending for almost as far as the eye can see (with the curvature of the Earth, the human eye generally cannot make out things more distant than 3 miles). It should certainly envelop the entire city with green landscape all around the walls. Another weird thing about Egypt in the game is that you can see traces of snow on the roadways during winter. LOL. Pretty sure it does not snow in Egypt, except perhaps at the very peaks of some mountaintops. Here's the city on the battle map:

[Roma_Victrix]

Unfortunately I have not been able to get my hands on a copy of this, but if anyone else can access it that would be hugely appreciated, since it is precisely what is needed to settle this beyond general remarks given in primary sources like Strabo that have already been presented here.

https://ieasm.institute/book-modal.p...nr=28&add=last
Damian Robinson & Andrew Wilson (eds.)
Alexandria and the North-Western Delta - Joint Conference Proceedings of Alexandria City and Harbour (Oxford 2004) and the Trade and Topography of Egypt’s North-Western Delta (Berlin 2006)
Oxford Center for Maritime Archaeology at the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 2010. | ISBN 978-1-905905-14-0


CONTENTS
Alexandria and the North-Western Delta
1 - F. Goddio: Geophysical Survey in the Submerged Canopic Region.
2 - S. Pfeifer: Naukratis, Heracleion-Thonis and Alexandria - Remarks on the presence and Trade Activities of Greeks in North-Western Delta from the 7th C. BC to the End of the 4th C. BC.
3 - U. Höckmann: Heracleion, Herakles and Naukratis.
4 - J-D Stanley, E. A. Laundau: Early Human Activity (pre-332 BC) in Alexandria, Egypt: New Findings in Sediment Cores from the Heastern Harbour.
5 - D. Fabre, F. Goddio : The Development and Operation of the Portus Magnus in Alexandria: an Overview.
6 - G. Majcherek: Discovering Alexandria - Archaeological Update on the Finds from Kom el-Dikka.
7 - Z. Kiss: L’édifice théâtral de Kôm el-Dikka - Quelques mythes et plusieurs questions.
8 - A. K. Bowman: Trade and the Flag - Alexandria, Egypt and the Imperial House.
9 - P. Wilson: Settlement Connectins in the Canopic Region.
10 - A. Nur: Destructive Earthquakes in Alexandra and Aboukir Bay ?

Studies in the Material Culture of the North-Western Delta and Submerged Settlements in Aboukir Bay
11 - G. Grimm: Fatal Evidence.
12 - C. Grataloup: Occupation and Trade at Heracleion-Thonis - The Evidence from the Pottery.
13 - A-S. von Bohmhard: The Naos of the Decades - The Discovery of New Fragments and their Contribution to the Imterpretation of the Monument.
14 - J-F. Quack: The Naos of the Decades and its Place in Egyptian Astrology.
15 - C. Leitz: Das dem Naos der Dekane zugrundeliegende kalendarische System.
16 - S. Albersmeier: Statues of Ptolemaic Queens from Alexandria, Canopus and Heracleion-Thonis.
17 - E. S. Libonati: Hydreios Statues from the IEASM Excavations in Aboukir Bay.
18 - Z. Kiss: Le dieu Nil hellénistique - A proos d’une sculpture de Canope.
19 - Z. Robinson: Living with Metals in Hellenistic Egypt - New Finds for Heracleion-Thonis.
20 - Y. Petrina: The Early Byzantine Jewellery from Aboukir Bay and its Significance.
21 - M. S. Venit: Egypt as Metaphor - Decoration and Eschaeology of the Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria.
22 - K. Lembke: Terenuthis ans Elsewhere - The Archaeology of Eating, Drinking and Dying in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt.
23 - S. Walker: Landscape of Cameo Glass.

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

[IMG] https://www.twcenter.net/forums/albu...hmentid=364561 [/IMG]
A little off your discussion but as I had the map handy
Hope it is useful