Guessing the Western Balkans DLC content

[P3TER_]

Guessing the Western Balkan DLC content

Welcome to this topic about the Western Balkan DLC. Here, we will try to guess what cities, roads, ferries and more SCS probably will include in the highly anticipated Adriatic DLC.

I've already made a setup, which I will share below:
Google Maps
[ external image ]

This setup consists of a lot of 'obvious' cities that SCS can't really exclude, but there are some cities which I'm totally unsure about and I chose them only because they have regional importance or have lots of inhabitants. Therefore, don't hesitate to give constructive criticism or to provide solutions, because I know some of you have way more knowledge about this region or mapping/scaling in general.

Because of the criticism on Iberia's (lack of many) secondary roads and RttBS' (lack of many) highways, which of course had their logical reasons, I think SCS will try to get a better mixed road system where possible. The Western Balkans have a lot of both types of road, so they may want to use this to their advantage.

I have included Greece, which is too small for an exclusive DLC and Trieste, which is just lacking right now I feel. Perhaps a western Hungarian city could be added too. I know these are discussed regularly, but I think they fit perfectly in this DLC.

Please share your opinions!

[Komen]

I have made a map which is attached to my signature months ago of which cities and towns I think may be added in the WB Expansion. Think I added a bit too much cities

[JolliciousJosh]

Good idea! But I have some opinions about this:

Trieste, an additional city in Italy, is not part of the Western Balkans DLC, and it falls either in the base game or in the Italia DLC as a free update at the time when Western Balkans DLC is closer to release. It will be similar to Bayonne as the closest to the border between France and Spain (that was introduced and released together with the new lighting adopted in 1.40). Trieste will be served as the closest to the border between Italy, Slovenia (on SS14/E61) and Croatia (on SS202/H5) and there will be hidden roads of it when the time the map DLC is very near to finish from scratch. In addition, this city will have a wide array of industries, particularly in the industry of shipping, marina, shipbuilding, general logistics and chemicals. Viewpoints will be present with a beautiful architectural landmarks (similar to Iberia).

Initally, Western Balkans will contain more secondary roads than expressways. Otherwise, it will be the same as Italia/Vive La France when these roads are added bothly. There will be tons of beautiful sceneries such as Mt. Velebit (P.S. Route 25 is a tricky secondary zigzag road while going to this landmark), E65 (both in Croatia), etc. and viewpoints will be added.

Another info, apart from Trieste that is closer to the border between Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, there's also a hidden road that is located at the roundabout, several kilometers away from Portile de Fier (in Romania), and in Szeged, where both borders are near bound for Serbia.

For the number of cities, it may fall less than 50. It may be 40-45.

Question: How much area is the Western Balkans? And how it differ between Iberia and the WIP-based Heart of Russia? Is Western Balkans larger than Iberia or Heart of Russia?

[P3TER_]

I have made a map which is attached to my signature months ago of which cities and towns I think may be added in the WB Expansion. Think I added a bit too much cities

Yeah, 65 cities is a bit overdone I think , but nice work anyways.

[P3TER_]

Good idea! But I have some opinions about this:

Trieste, an additional city in Italy, is not part of the Western Balkans DLC, and it falls either in the base game or in the Italia DLC as a free update at the time when Western Balkans DLC is closer to release. It will be similar to Bayonne as the closest to the border between France and Spain (that was introduced and released together with the new lighting adopted in 1.40). Trieste will be served as the closest to the border between Italy, Slovenia (on SS14/E61) and Croatia (on SS202/H5) and there will be hidden roads of it when the time the map DLC is very near to finish from scratch. In addition, this city will have a wide array of industries, particularly in the industry of shipping, marina, shipbuilding, general logistics and chemicals. Viewpoints will be present with a beautiful architectural landmarks (similar to Iberia).

Initally, Western Balkans will contain more secondary roads than expressways. Otherwise, it will be the same as Italia/Vive La France when these roads are added bothly. There will be tons of beautiful sceneries such as Mt. Velebit (P.S. Route 25 is a tricky secondary zigzag road while going to this landmark), E65 (both in Croatia), etc. and viewpoints will be added.

Another info, apart from Trieste that is closer to the border between Italy, Slovenia and Croatia, there's also a hidden road that is located at the roundabout, several kilometers away from Portile de Fier (in Romania), and in Szeged, where both borders are near bound for Serbia.

For the number of cities, it may fall less than 50. It may be 40-45.

Question: How much area is the Western Balkans? And how it differ between Iberia and the WIP-based Heart of Russia? Is Western Balkans larger than Iberia or Heart of Russia?

Thanks!
You're right, Trieste is more likely to be included in base map or Italia DLC indeed, but I wanted to add it to the game at the time of the Adriatic DLC, so therefore it's in this map.

The D25 along Velebit is a cool route, though I'm not sure if the E65 and A1 can coexist in an 1:19 scale.

Could you give clearer locations for the Romania and Szeged hidden roads? I'm quite interested in those.

I think we'll see no more than 40-45 cities indeed, as the Western Balkan DLC will have an area of about 416.000 km².

Iberia was about 582.000 km².
HoR will be larger, so probably somewhere around 620.000 to 675.000 km².

Iberia had one city per 11.800 km². 416.000 / 11.800 = 35 cities.
Iberia has a population density of about 100/km² whereas Western Balkan DLC area has about 80/km².
The amount of border controls and secondary roads make city distances feel longer however, so that might give them the ability to put in more cities than Iberia has per km².

However, we shouldn't focus all too hard on the area and population statistics, because they have adapted other strategies in the past too (Ruhr area, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds).

[JolliciousJosh]

The hidden roads of Szeged and Portile de Fier (just several kilometers away from the town of Mehadia {on the west} and a hundred kilometers away from Craiova {from the east} are referred to the Fan-Made Concept Map Thread that is recently updated.
(P.S. North Macedonia, Greece and Albania are not included). More specific location shots to be uploaded in no time.

In proportion, Western Balkans may contain at least 35 and not more than 48 cities and towns.

[P3TER_]

Thanks! I now understand what roads your were talking about. Those roads are quite interesting for what SCS may do in the future I think, because they may suggest Balkan roads or cities/villages.

The concept map by IvanKuz is fun for sure, but is made with a too optimistic view for me. I only want to include cities and roads I think SCS probably will include.
Sometimes his choices of roads and locations are definitely something to consider implementing though.

[jackalnxt]

Comparing square kilometers is not a useful tactic, due to how much of the map will be filled with border crossings. The weird borders within the region wont make things easier either.

[P3TER_]

I know the border controls will make things different, as I stated earlier. The square kilometers are just a comparison tool to get the size. Less highways and time "wasting" border controls allow for more cities per square kilometer however, so we can't make a linear function indeed.

[IvanKuz]

The concept map by IvanKuz is fun for sure, but is made with a too optimistic view for me

Yes, in terms of the amount of content the idea has always been more "what ETS2 should look like in an ideal world" than "what ETS2 might realistically look like in X years"
However, I still aim for realism in terms of map scale and the locations of cities and industries, and at least I'm not drawing road connections through this bridge like I've seen several Balkans concept maps do

But if I were to take an actually realistic guess about the Balkans, I'd say most of the stuff I added is still a good guess, perhaps with some exceptions:

• I can image SCS deciding not to bother trying to fit both Koper and Trieste (both are important ports, but are impossible to fit together without borrowing space from the sea or cheating around with the map background like ProMods doid), so either one or both will probably be excluded, if Iberia has taught us anything;
• Osijek and Subotica may similarly get omitted for spacing reasons;
• Zrenjanin only makes sense if a connection from Belgrade to Romania is done through it. Ideally, the connection should be done via E70 via Vršac instead, but due to how Timișoara is mapped there is practically no space for it. Again, if Iberia has taught us anything, there is a good chance neither connection will be made and there will be just a huge hole between Romania and Serbia;
• Doboj and Bihać will probably be just scenic.

I haven't looked into Albania, Macedonia and Greece yet so I can't say anything about their content, but a while back dahaka made an interesting concept map of Greece which I liked a lot. I can't seem to find it at the moment, unfortunately.