volodo wrote:I will try to make my small research on Latvia if I will have the time (and I hope that you won’t be mad at me for doing that)....
As I promised… And beforehand: I’m so sorry for my English.
LATVIA
Here is a concept map:
http://postimg.org/image/pyy10qz9r/
It’s not a request. It’s just a vision of mine, if I was in charge of making Latvia. Moreover, even if I do understand the mapping scale 19:1, I have never done anything in the game editor, so I made my road and city planning only by doing analysis on other countries, roads and distances between cities in Promods and ETS2. I hope that the plan is not too complex and is easy to understand.
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In red boxes, I have checked the cities that devs planning to build. If I get it right, devs already made their research on those cities and have something (if not all) planed and blueprinted. Still, I want to express my thoughts on those in detail, but I will quick review only Rīga (at least for now) by posting a little bit more detailed plan. Two reasons: 1) it’s my hometown for life (I know what, where and why) and 2) there is no point of wasting everybody’s time (including mine) if the devs will consider these ideas pointless.
Rīga:
http://postimg.org/image/eyc53t4gt/
Rīga is somewhat huge in Baltics scale with population almost 800k. But the game space is limited, so there are reason why I chose those roads in Rīga – it could be interesting highway interchanges like 3) and 10), unique scenery, main truck transit roads that are there in real life, clusters of logistic companies and storehouses, etc. About Rīga I can tell a lot. Not just like a citizen, but also as real life "developer" of my country...
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In blue box is the only city in my concept that is not in the Promods plans:
Ventspils.
Population: 41,998. I’m pointing out that city as a real city (not a scenery) for a couple of reasons.
1) It is far away from Rīga (186km) and Liepāja (118km). As I understood ZelvaCZ is planning on adding Panevėžys and Šiauliai (80km between them) and there are some other examples in other parts of the map where distances between cities are even less. I’m not saying that it is a bad thing, I just want to point out that there is space to build the city and the connecting roads. And there is significant amount of map space that will be just empty without Venspils, about 1/5 or 1/6 of Latvia
2) It is a port. Yes, I have heard it, and not once that “This is not a ferry simulator”. I’m just saying that port means cargo, cargo means logistics, logistics means destinations and destinations means trucks. That’s all. As for ferries – look up in the end.
3) E22/A10 (Rīga - Ventspils) and P111 (Ventspils – Liepāja) have some nice and beautiful scenery that can give Latvia it’s unique feel and make the driving in ETS2 even more interesting. Just to point out some of them: Jūrkalne Seashore Bluffs, Road between curvy river “Lielupe” and lake “Babīte”, Pūre gardens, Tukums skyline, really dense forests near Ķemeri, neat villages like Ugāle and etc.
Ventspils is by far the sixth largest city in Latvia per population. Even though I do not see the reasons (I will explain it later) to make Jelgava or Jūrmala (4th and 5th) as a big cities, I still think there is a place for Ventspils on Promods map.
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In green boxes are the scenery cities in my concept that are maybe not in the Promods plans:
I will discuss only couple of them in short for the same reason as for Rīga: “2) there is no point of wasting everybody’s time (including mine) if the devs will consider these ideas pointless”
Salacgrīva:
Why this city on E67 between Pärnu and Rīga? ETS2 happens somewhat in summer. And if you live in Estonia or Latvia, you probably know what happens in summertime in Salacgrīva – one of the major music events in Baltics, the Positivus festival. And when small city with the population just above 3k is overfilled with massive crowd of 25-30k – it looks impressive. The main road is filled with small tents and mobile fast food trucks. Massive crowds are walking along the E67 throughout the city. The trucks are forced to slow down to 20-30 km/h and sometimes are stuck in jams. The atmosphere is astonishing in real life, but I’m not sure if it is possible to do something like this in the game. Though I have seen in ugly as **** TSM map somewhere in Spain (maybe the only place worth visiting) the place near the roadside with some random festival going on, and I think the mapper did a great job recreating such an event in the ETS game. So, theoretically, it is possible.
Jelgava/Jūrmala:
Yep. They are bigger than Ventspils and maybe Jelgava could even become as a full functional city with some companies, but I’m not the fan of overfilling one road with lots of cities too close to each another. Jūrmala could become a long scenery city across the river along the A10 to Venstpils with some landmarks, like Dubultu rail station for example.
Jēkabpils:
Smallest city in Latvia. Anything beyond that are just towns. It has some really interesting double roundabouts and intersections and also this is the place where A6 divides in two and A12 starts to Rēzekne.
Ferries from and to Latvia.
Yes, I will repeat it again that I have heard it many times “This is not a ferry simulator”. Ok, I get it and I really do agree with devs here, but still – ferries are handy sometimes to make new possible routes for different cargo destinations, so that it wouldn’t be boring to drive the same road all the time. I like how the west side of Kutchek’s France is made: there are many ways how to cross the region choosing different cities as destinations. Same goes with the ferries, they are like continuation of roads by sea. Still there is no need to abuse the map with a lot ferry routes.
In real life you can go by ferry from Ventspils/Liepāja to Nynäshamn (60 km from Stockholm), or to Travemünde (80 km from Hamburg) and from Rīga to Stockholm. 3 ports, 3 destinations... I think it is a bit too much for a game like this. In my opinion Rīga – Stockholm is the only ferry that could be made in game. But as I recall ZelvaCZ was also working on Gotland project and I can consider that beside real-life connection with Sweden, another fictional ferry route could be possible (if Gotland will be added) from Ventspils/Liepāja to Ljugarn or Burgsvik… As for Lithuania it could be something like real-life Klaipėda – Karlshamn. But it is Lithuania (not my plate)…
And as for the Roads
I don’t want to get into details right now for the same reasons as before. I can talk a lot about Latvian roads (I work in that sphere in real life), their good/bad sides. But this is my concept plan with some ideas in it. For example: A8, A9 and A10 from Rīga to crossing Tukums/Jelgava (P98) are really close to each other and to deal with that in 19:1 scale it may be possible to close the section of A9 from A5 to P98 on reconstruction which will force the players to switch between all the major highways using A5, A6 and P98.
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Well, in the end, all this bla bla bla of a walking-by-nobody, who is wasting your time is cool and all, but I think I have wasted enough of everything by making this post. Thank you for attention. Thank you Promods for this awesome map. And again: I’m so sorry for my English
For example an E-Acress to Riga!
, 
, 
who beta-tests, moderates and develops at Promods
I may fit one or two more cities to Lithuania, but I think 5 cities is quite a nice number for the country. I was considering especially Utena and Ukmergė when planning the cities, but I left the idea later. Anyway, plans may change anytime
) and let me know if some things are wrong or in bad place, or you have any other suggestions 
