I’m not happy with the Mesopotamian terrain choices.
All the Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian home regions in DBA are
classed as ‘Arable’…but Arable has Woods and Hills, and although these
existed in Northern Mesopotamia (i.e. Assyria), neither of them existed
in Southern Mesopotamia, which was a huge flat alluvial flood-plain.
So I’m going to re-name some of the Mesopotamian terrain features:-
Woods I’ll call ‘
Villages’ = all the animal pens, gardens, and fences makes
these bad going, with many huts that block visibility.
Gentle Hills are ‘
Tells’ = mounds consisting of the accumulated and stratified
debris of a succession of consecutive abandoned
settlements at the same site, formed by the refuse of
generations of people who built and inhabited these.
Difficult Hills are the same as above, but with an occupied village on top of them.
The I/12 “Sealand Dynasty” Sumerian successor state (1732-1460 BC) is a problem.
Their homeland should be in the marshes of Southern Mesopotamia, but the only
regions in DBA that are allowed marshes are Littoral
(not appropriate as they were
not a naval power), Tropical
(not appropriate as you can’t have a gully in a marsh),
and Forest.
So I’ll make these a Forest Region but with tall Elephant Grass and Giant Reeds
(species
‘Arundo donax’) instead of Woods.
Now my Mesopotamian terrain looks and sounds right.