Visual Entertainment and Technologies Forum

Europe Expanded II for GearCity - RC 1


The Map, showing population growth rates in the mid-1980s

Installation Instructions

Download the .zip file from https://ajtjp.com/software/GearCity/Down...%20RC1.zip (1.11 MB).

Then decompress the .zip file and put the "Europe Expanded II" folder in your "GearCity/media/Mods" folder.  Then start the Video Settings Editor and go to the mods tab, and select Europe Expanded II.  Start GearCity, and you should be running the mod. Use the Europe Test map, which should be the only one in green, to start a game of Europe Expanded II.

Summary

This is the first release of version 2 of Europe Expanded.  Europe Expanded seeks to provide a viable second map for GearCity, focusing on Europe, and greatly expands the number of cities available from the base Europe Test map.

Using current borders, EEII features:

- 268 cities overall (+199 over the base Europe test map)
- 50 cities in Italy
- 49 cities in the United Kingdom (40 in England, 4 in Scotland, 3 in Wales, 2 in Northern Ireland)
- 47 cities in France
- 40 cities in Spain
- 10 cities in Portugal
- 10 cities in Belgium
- 9 cities in Switzerland
- 9 cities in the Netherlands
- 5 cities in Ireland

Approach and Demographics

Europe Expanded II takes a hybrid region-city approach to the game.  Each city's population represents the population of a region, or a part of a region if multiple cities from one region are included.  The GNP also reflects the regional GNP rather than that of just the city.  This way, most of the population of the countries that have been covered are included, and are potential customers.

Countering this increase in population, infrastructure and manufacturing levels are generally lower than in the base game, and starting economic wealth is also generally lower.  In my in-depth playthrough (before the Netherlands, Ireland, and Scotland were revamped), this resulted in industry-wide sales figures that were about half the level of the base game over the first decade, rising to about 75% by the late 1920s.  So while you may have a lot of potential customers, don't think everyone will be able to afford a car in 1900!

A future post will provide more detail on the demographic and economic approach, but in short while the hybrid city-regional approach means the figures won't match a historic atlas, historic population levels for both regions and cities have been gathered and used as the basis of the mod, as well as historic national-level GNP data and current regional GNP data.

There are City files for every decade, and where possible historic demographic data was used for each decade; interpolation was necessary in some cases, as the depth of data varied from country to country, largely based around the frequency of censuses.  Nonetheless, there should be at least as much depth on average as in the base game.  If you start a game in 1912, most cities will be growing at different rates than they will in 1902.

AI Companies

EEII also features real AI company names (though not logos) for 124 of the AI companies, and adds three new AI companies in Portugal.  For many of the AI companies with real names, the starting location has been updated, if need be, to be historically accurate based on the much-expanded roster of cities.

City Art

For twelve cities, EEII also includes custom city art, deptcing the actual skyline, plazas, or historic landmarks.  These are:

- Berlin, the Tiergarten viewed from the Reichstag
- Chur, panorama of the city
- Kiev, Maidan Square
- Le Mans, panorama of the city
- London, the Palace of Westminster
- Nancy, Place Stanislas
- Padua, Prato della Valle
- Paris, Notre Dame
- Rome, the Colosseum
- Soria, San Juan de Duero
- Teruel, the Plaza del Torico
- Zurich, Rathausbrucke


London, in 1987

Please see Image Credits.txt, included in the download, for more info on these locations, as well as attributions.

I played EEI - What's New?

The Italian, Swiss, Belgian, Dutch, British, and Irish revamps are all entirely new.  Another pass has been done for Spain, Portugal, and France as well; France has gained 14 cities since EEI, Spain has gained 11, and Portugal has gained 5.  Much of this has focused on adding cities/regions that had proportionally larger shares of their country's population in 1900 than they did in 2020.

Overall, the number of cities has increased from 124 to 268.

The demographics are also much more granular over time; in EE1 there were only 1900 and 2020 city files, now there is one per decade.  All cities have at least 3 data points (1900, 1950, and 2020), but many have far more than they did in EEI.

The economy also now varies by region, whereas in EEI only country-level economic data was used.

The real AI names and city art are also new.

Errata

Currently, three historic aberrations are known:

- The Treaty of Versailles is more favorable to Germany than historically, allowing them to keep Elsass-Lothringen
- It is also more lenient on Austria-Hungary, who gets to keep their Italian cities, though their economy will falter
- The Irish mostly do not gain independence from the UK, only in Dublin

These will be fixed for the final release, however as my focus has been moving to other hobbies over the past week I wanted to release what's available, rather than wait several months while I did other things as happened with EEI.

Additionally, infrastructure grows at the same rate as manufacturing due to game limitations, which is not intended.  I am hoping that Feature Bounty item #191 (https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=3975) can be funded as that will make this mod (as well as the base map and other maps) more accurate.  If you haven't signed up for the Feature Bounty yet, please consider doing so!

Aside from these aberrations, as far as I'm aware EEII is working as intended.

Future

After the full release, which will also be posted to the Steam Workshop, there may well be a 2.1 or 2.2 release that includes more historically accurate demographic, economic, or infrastructure data; in particular I've recently found additional sources for historic regional economic data.

Long term, there may be a 3.0 release that revamps countries father east; Germany would be a top priority, but depending on how much demographic data I can find, a 2.5 release with a smaller country such as Greece may arrive first.

However, I will most likely do a North America map first unless Eric beats me to it.  I seem to be motivated to work on this about once a year, so that may mean North America 1.0 in 2023, Europe 3.0 in 2024.  Or I could skip a year or decide to make a Japan map before Europe 3.0 if someone hasn't done that first.

- JC Denton
Ohio, USA

Is there an updated version of this map, I noticed that this map was made in 2022 and I'm not sure if it's available in the latest 2.5.0.0

(05-12-2025, 08:50 AM)24K_xyf Wrote: [ -> ]Is there an updated version of this map, I noticed that this map was made in 2022 and I'm not sure if it's available in the latest 2.5.0.0

There isn't; I did eventually release a Great Lakes map (which is available in the Benefactor Lounge, for Gear City: 2nd Gear only), but never got around to adding more to the Europe map.

Realistically, this probably is the final version, as other interests have successfully competed for more of my time in the past few years.

Although... historical data on German city populations appears to be much more readily available now than it was a few years ago... that is a bit tempting.

(04-16-2026, 11:06 PM)JC_Denton Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-12-2025, 08:50 AM)24K_xyf Wrote: [ -> ]Is there an updated version of this map, I noticed that this map was made in 2022 and I'm not sure if it's available in the latest 2.5.0.0

There isn't; I did eventually release a Great Lakes map (which is available in the Benefactor Lounge, for Gear City: 2nd Gear only), but never got around to adding more to the Europe map.

Realistically, this probably is the final version, as other interests have successfully competed for more of my time in the past few years.

Although... historical data on German city populations appears to be much more readily available now than it was a few years ago... that is a bit tempting.

I really want to try some other maps, but so far no one has made any maps that match the official quality and completion standard. I've also thought about creating a Chinese-themed game map. Do you have any suggestions on this? I'm not quite sure what work is involved in making a map.

(04-17-2026, 04:43 AM)24K_xyf Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-16-2026, 11:06 PM)JC_Denton Wrote: [ -> ]

(05-12-2025, 08:50 AM)24K_xyf Wrote: [ -> ]Is there an updated version of this map, I noticed that this map was made in 2022 and I'm not sure if it's available in the latest 2.5.0.0

There isn't; I did eventually release a Great Lakes map (which is available in the Benefactor Lounge, for Gear City: 2nd Gear only), but never got around to adding more to the Europe map.

Realistically, this probably is the final version, as other interests have successfully competed for more of my time in the past few years.

Although... historical data on German city populations appears to be much more readily available now than it was a few years ago... that is a bit tempting.

I really want to try some other maps, but so far no one has made any maps that match the official quality and completion standard. I've also thought about creating a Chinese-themed game map. Do you have any suggestions on this? I'm not quite sure what work is involved in making a map.

I really want to try some other maps, but so far no one has made any maps that match the official quality and completion standard. I've also thought about creating a Chinese-themed game map. Do you have any suggestions on this? I'm not quite sure what work is involved in making a map.

(04-18-2026, 07:30 AM)24K_xyf Wrote: [ -> ]I really want to try some other maps, but so far no one has made any maps that match the official quality and completion standard. I've also thought about creating a Chinese-themed game map. Do you have any suggestions on this? I'm not quite sure what work is involved in making a map.

Well, quite a bit of work is involved, which is probably a good part of why there aren't a multitude of maps.

The first step is getting the visual map in the game, and I wrote up a guide here.  The screenshot is of the result of that process with a Japan/Korea map (but European city locations overlayed on the map, as that hadn't been converted).

If you can get that far, using China where I refer to India as a hypothetical example, you'll have gotten farther than most.

The next part is the most laborious - getting the data, particularly for the cities, although it is also possible to add companies, events, etc.  In theory, one can use the official mod tools for this, and that's how I started with my first map, Europe Expanded (the version available on Steam).  However, I eventually ran into some challenges, particularly:

 - The mod tools are a bit clunky.  You can load most elements that are customizeable from the sub-tools, but they aren't necessarily all synced up if you don't do it right.
 - For cities, the mod tools focus on years.  I tended to think in terms of cities.  For example, let's say I want to add a new city to a map.  In the mod tools, I have to open all of the city-population files (eleven if I have one per decade from 1900 through 2000, though fewer is an option).  But I think in terms of "I have the data for this new city, I just want to add the city's data".
 - Demographic data can be incomplete and require interpolation.  If I had a 1950 population file but only some cities had data for that year, I'd need to interpolate.

The latter one wasn't much of a concern on my Great Lakes map because it only had two countries, both with regular censuses, and might not be a problem in China.  But it was a pain point in Europe, where census frequencies varied heavily by country.

Being a software developer, I eventually build my own database and application to store the data I needed for the map (cities, coordinates, population, company names, etc.), and to copy that into the XML files that the game uses (which is subsequently puts into a database when you start a game).  Although two years later, it seems I've forgotten a step in how to get my map working in-game.

If you get as far as creating the map and having it show up in game, like in the Korea/Japan example, let me know and I'll take the time to revisit my map development tools and make them easier to use.  It's basically "put a bunch of data in a SQLite database, run a Java program, it generates the XML for GearCity, put the XML in the right folders".

Edit: The other aspect is data research. In my Great Lakes example, I track the actual population of the state (such as Pennsylvania), and the population of cities, and distribute the surplus population (from smaller towns) proportionally to the cities, so the whole state's population is accounted for and is a potential customer.

This isn't too bad in a place like the U.S. where state borders have been stable for a long time, or France which aside from Alsace-Lorraine has also been stable, but can be much more difficult in places like Germany, whose subdivision borders have changed significantly over Gear City's timeline, and even in places that might look stable from the outside, like the United Kingdom, which after about 800 years with no modifications to its Parliamentary subdivisions, started changing their borders every so often to result in more fair Parliamentary districts.

It might be difficult in China, given the major government changes over the course of the 20th century - I don't know if that also resulted in major administrative changes. If there were, it might be necessary to do what I did in the UK, where my administrative divisions are "England", "Scotland", "Wales", and "Northern Ireland", rather than, say, "Yorkshire" or "Sussex".

Or perhaps it would make sense to start the game circa 1950 or 1960, after the government changes; my plan for if I ever get around to a Japan map is likely to have it start post-war.

But those are details to be figured out once a visual map is loaded in-game.

(04-19-2026, 10:05 AM)JC_Denton Wrote: [ -> ]

(04-18-2026, 07:30 AM)24K_xyf Wrote: [ -> ]I really want to try some other maps, but so far no one has made any maps that match the official quality and completion standard. I've also thought about creating a Chinese-themed game map. Do you have any suggestions on this? I'm not quite sure what work is involved in making a map.

The first step is getting the visual map in the game, and I wrote up a guide here.  The screenshot is of the result of that process with a Japan/Korea map (but European city locations overlayed on the map, as that hadn't been converted).

Thanks for the advice! I’ll first try to get the visual map to load in the game. 

Also, for the China map, I plan to set the start year to 1970. Prior to that, China had constant conflicts and a fully state-run economy, with almost no private enterprises.

(04-19-2026, 10:05 AM)JC_Denton Wrote: [ -> ]If you get as far as creating the map and having it show up in game, like in the Korea/Japan example, let me know and I'll take the time to revisit my map development tools and make them easier to use.  It's basically "put a bunch of data in a SQLite database, run a Java program, it generates the XML for GearCity, put the XML in the right folders".

Amusingly, I went down this route with AeroMogul, except using CSV and a spreadsheet.

I probably should have went that way for GC's mod tools, but at the time I was heavily considering doing AeroMogul in QT and I wanted to learn that sdk in and out in case I needed to get a job. Original data was done by hand. Which I find just as easy. But you need a big monitor and a syncing multi-panel text editor.