Map: to make the desert bloom

For the first time, I made a map that is both a solo challenge and nice to look at. The original inspiration for this map was an idea about putting one's starting position is a desert and force him to deal with the lack of good terrain to grow trees. I even fancied putting a script that makes wells not produce except in a few chosen locations, and that will periodically drain water stored in your warehouses, and would kill your workers if there is not enough water, so that in the game you'd have to actively fight thirst. Alas, I don't even know how to start writing a script, so the idea remained in the back of my mind.

Then, at some point, wandering on google earth I came across the Tibesti mountains, in central Sahara. I was fascinated by how water interacted with the mountain desert environment; the dry desert air cools as it climbs the mountains, and the cold squeezes out what little moisture there is. The rain is quickly absorbed under the sand, but it keeps flowing underground, feeding a network of oasis in a radius of hundreds of kilometers. On the surface it's dry sand, but in some places the water comes close to the surface, giving rise to apparently inesplicable patches of vegetation in the middle of a dry valley. This merged with my previous idea, and so this map was conceived. Notice how the mountains where the blue player starts are volcanic in origin.

The idea was still that of actually making it out of the desert and conquering the tribe that had the better land. But why is there such a dry place and close to it one with abundant rains? Enter the big mountain range to cast a rain shadow, with the desert on the east and the fertile land to the west, near the sea. Since I had a mountain range near the sea, I decided to also add some fjords to it. I don't suppose it is possible to have a hot desert and fjords nearby - fjords only form near the poles, and in the time the continental drift bring them to the tropics, the fjords are wheatered down. Still, they look nice. You can pretend it's a cold desert, like the mongolian steppe, if you like a more consistent explanation. The two big rivers uniting near the mouth to form an even bigger river is inspired by the Shatt al-Arab, and the delta by the Po delta.

As a challenge map, it's fairly easier than my other maps. You need to be good to win, but unlike my most recent challenges (no metal challenge and concentric rings) this map is not made to take an extremely strong player and make him curse at the monitor for days of trial and error.

BONUS CONTENT

Yes, this map even has bonus content! I had two ideas for the map description. I ended up choosing the one most, well, descriptive. Here are parts that were cut from the description.

1) "Your land was conquered by a terrible invader. You survived by escaping into the inhospitable desert. You have no food, no water, limited supplies. What do you do?

a) I die

b) I try to find water, I fail, I die.

c) I try to eat a snake, I get bitten, I die.

d) I curse at whoever put me in this situation, then I die.

e) I manage to find water and food and shelter. After living like that for years, I realize how crappy it is and that I'd have been better off dead. I suicide.

f) I die

g) I go to the invaders and beg them for mercy. They take me as a slave, and eventually I die.

h) I tame the desert, adapt to live in it, gather resources from it, build an advanced civilization, raise a mighty army, lead it against the invaders, get defeated and killed in battle.

i) As above, but I win. Then I wake up and realize it was only a sunstroke-fueled allucination.

j) I pick up a spear, cover my face with a black veil and go fight the invader that has no honor. I die because I'm just a poser.

k) I die"

2) "After you win, wonder about the morality of kiling a man and taking the land where he's lived since he was born, just because his remote ancestors did the same to your ancestors one or two centuries before. Yes, you figured it. You bastard."