Léodmidder

BwenGun

[p]A while back I started a thoroughly over-ambitious project to expand the world of my current forum game using the Jon Roberts style as a basis. Suffice to say ambition and my swift descent into too much detail killed that project rather thoroughly. Though I did make a rather detailed map of one section of the continent because of it. Recently I came back and decided to try again, only this time I used the wonderful Fantasy Worlds style, which I find does continent scale maps superbly. [/p]

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[p]For a larger version, click below.[/p]
[p]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59162065/Exodus/Mapping the World/Eastern Continent southwestern section3.PNG[/p]

[p]The continent in question has several names, though from the point of view of most of the protagonists it is most often referred to as Léodmidder, and is first mentioned in the earliest of their peoples myths and legends. Quite literally it translates as "The Middle Lands", and it does indeed hold a fairly central position in the world. In this current age the New Truewater, often referred to as simply The New Kingdom, many of it's great nobles being players, have previously invaded and subjugated the Western Coast of the San Gunu Empire, dubbing their new holdings the Outremer. To the south Shapayist (a heretical faith that flourished briefly in New Truewater) exiles have spread their faith through the region of Kesh with the help of warlike native allies. Whilst to the south lay lands as yet unknown to the men of New Truewater or the Outremer except in the charts of the Empire and Keshan merchants and Pirates.[/p]

[p]Though really the reason for a lack of names down there is mostly because I've yet to get around to naming them and having a good long think about who or what lives down there.[/p]

HadrianVI

Hi, that's a very nice map.
Did you use any edge fade effects? I can hardly see it in this resolution.
I think the mountains do not look very natural, some because of the symbols itself (I don't like the mountain ranges that come with this style), and the mountains in the middle of the map look a bit to triangular.
Besides that, its a very nice map. The coastline looks amazing

Modric

What are the map dimensions? I tried playing with this style, but I found the mountains difficult to work with.

Henrie61

Am working on a map with this style myself and also having troubles with the mountains.
Think is a great style for continent sized maps but not the easiest one to work with.

Having said that I think you made a pretty nice map.
And I like the background you have given.

BwenGun

Posted By: HadrianVIHi, that's a very nice map.
Did you use any edge fade effects? I can hardly see it in this resolution.
I think the mountains do not look very natural, some because of the symbols itself (I don't like the mountain ranges that come with this style), and the mountains in the middle of the map look a bit to triangular.
Besides that, its a very nice map. The coastline looks amazing

Thanks! I must say the coastline is one of the things I like most about the map, it's going to be rather interesting peopling it when the time comes. Which may be soon hopefully as there are several expeditions planned to explore the lands south of Kesh and open them for trade.

I did use edge effects, it's less noticeable on this scale, I must admit, I shall have to tweak things a little to see whether that helps. For the desert it is an especial problem as the desert fill doesn't blend in well with the grass. In the current version I've added a thin layer of wasteland terrain on the edge to soften the border and give it the feel of desert giving way to dry land and then to savannah/grassland.

As for the mountains I can see what you mean, I've been fiddling around with the map a bit since last night and have deleted some of the pre-made mountain chains and put new ones in their place using the individual symbols. I think it makes it look a little less unnatural, or at least less predictable and more interesting.

Posted By: ModricWhat are the map dimensions? I tried playing with this style, but I found the mountains difficult to work with.

In CC3 it's 2500 by 3500. In game terms it's a little less than that as the game has an economic model based on sectors of 17*17 tiles (each a mile squared) with varying terrain. Players can then build their economies based on the terrain in order to furnish themselves with an economy and thus afford the armies and influence required by a late medieval style Kingdom. If we ever restart I think I will demand that we change that to a 20*20 sectors for a slightly more rational approach to mapmaking as that duty falls squarely on my shoulders.

The mountains are tricky, I must admit, and nowhere near as forgiving as the Jon Roberts style (which is my preffered one for more detailed work). Though I find the zoomed out nature of the maps does mean the lack of variation in the mountain symbols is not so noticeable.

Posted By: Henrie61Am working on a map with this style myself and also having troubles with the mountains.
Think is a great style for continent sized maps but not the easiest one to work with.

Having said that I think you made a pretty nice map.
And I like the background you have given.

Thank you. =]

HadrianVI

Did you put the savanna, wasteland and desert one different sheets? Some styles put savanna and grassland and waste and desert on the same sheet. It leads to the problem that the edge fade effect doesn't work between these two sort of terrain.

If I use mountainranges I often put other mountains beside them to give them an individual shape. Then I add smaller mountains and hills on the outside. It gives a quite natural look because the mountains look less like walls and rather like a natural landscape. Therefor my mountainranges are often two or three times wider than the symbol ones.

I'm looking forward to see the next version of the map

cheers

BwenGun

[p] I've tinkered about with the map, added the names of most of the major political units in the region and also added a few of the large, but now dead, countries.I also added a rather long river running through the large desert. In centuries past the river was subject to yearly floods from the large amounts of melt-water from the mountain ranges east of the Gunu Empire. Of late, however, the climate has changed somewhat, with increasingly warm weather in the Empire meaning that less and less water is freezing during the winter seasons and as a result the amount of spring melt-water has been steadily decreasing for centuries, so much so that at present the yearly floods are only really felt near the source of the river. The result of which was that several civilisations along the banks of the river died out due to agricultural failure. The rising temperatures also pushed the desert north towards Salum Bhatar swallowing a much diminished Ushum Tar in the process.[/p]

[p]For a larger version of the map just click on the link below.[/p]

[p][/p]
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59162065/Exodus/Mapping the World/Eastern Continent southwestern section5.PNG

Medio

Very nicely done on shoreline. That actually makes good maps great ones.

BwenGun

[p]So I managed to fix a problem I had with CC3 not saving this specific map correctly (I suspect the font I was using was at issue and thus deleting all the text seemed to fix it. And forearmed with all the world building we've been doing over the last month or so I've added most of the civilisations onto the map which can be found below. [/p]

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[p]For a larger version (much larger) click on the link: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59162065/Exodus/Mapping the World/Eastern Continent southwestern section7.PNG[/p]

[p]My next big task is to put down the borders between all of them (and the provinces of the Djaqur Tar Empire). I tried using the dash feature for lines (like roads) in order to create a more traditional dotted line on the map feel, but it has a tendency to have long solid lines at certain points instead of the uniform dashed line I was hoping for. Has anyone found a way around that or a different way to get the dotted borders look?[/p]

nlp138

I REALLY like the southern peninsula. The small islands, the forests and rivers. I love the detail and the shape of the coast.

BwenGun

Thanks! I must admit that I do love the effect when you crank up the fractilisation when drawing the landmasses, it can (with a bit of care) produce some really interesting detail to add to the general shape of the coast. Though I did have some problems as too high a frac setting meant that on the first attempt I got halfway through the coast and CC3 must have run out of memory as no new waypoints were being placed.