I also forgot to add that Spectrum has by far the best fills. I would urge that ALL the Koppen biomes are included - with perhaps at least 2 fills per biome.

@Loopysue I understand your attitude about not revamping Spectrum. Thanks for replying though.

I am a bit puzzled by the comment that raster as opposed to vector slows things down. My experience is the opposite, as I guess Sue's is too. So my tip would be to keep vector symbols to a minimum. But I am open to correction.

If the population is above 20,000, I use the following rule of thumb to work out size. On average, each building has 30 x 30' (or 10x10 m) footprint, with 2 stories. Each 100 M2 houses 4-6 people, thus on average, each 100 m2 houses 8-12 people. So the formula for distance (in square Metres - I just cannot think imperial - we have been metric since 1970's) is Area = Population x100/ people in each 100 m2/ number of stories per building.

So, if you want a sparsely populated city. make it 5 people per 100 m2. Say the population is 50,000. For all single storey buildings of 100 m2 average, that is 10,000 buildings requiring 1,000,000 ie 10,000 x 10,000 m in area.

But make the city more densely packed, say 10 per 100 m2, with average of 2 stories per building, and the area required is greatly reduced. Area = 50,000 x100/10/2 = 250,000 m2, or 500 x 500 m2. Add some extra for very large buildings, and you get an idea of the dimensions required for your city - but remember to add extra to make room for space outside the city walls, or building extents.

In general, for a 50,000 city, I would allow about 1000 x 1000 m dimension (or 1 sq km).

Dun Fingolfin has 16526 buildings, and dimensions (of the city, not the map) of about 6600 x 3100 ft (yes, I used feet for the Atlas to fit in with all you imperials) which is about 35 x 35' per building (close to 10 x 10 m) with average of 2.5 stories per building, and a dense population of 10 per 35x35', that gives a population of Dun Fingolfin of about 413,000. But if I had made it a sparsely populated city with average of only 1.5 stories per building, and only 5 people per 35x35 ', the population would be only 123.000.

So decide what population you want, how many would fit into a 100 m2 space (you will have to work out what this is in sq feet), what the average number of stories per building is, then that works out the number of buildings (Pop/ number per 100m2/average stories per building) and area (no of buildings of 100 m2 average x 100) in m2. Hope this helps you gauge your area and buildings required.

Wonder if the human tasted nice?

Only one criticism - I think the red of the cities is a bit too vibrant - I wonder if a darker red would suit better. But I am in awe of what you and Sue's style have achieved together.

The whole point of the menu buttons is for convenience, otherwise we would always be navigating to the files manually. SO there is a bit of 'Grrrr' reaction about this lack of a feature for the newer monthlies.

I totally agree, Ricko. Us dog lovers feel neglected. LOL

I missed commenting on the mountain base - I thought that was because you had covered it with the snow bitmap. It does seem too blurry to me. I hope my negative comments don't upset you - I am trying to indicate the very few things I think could be altered, but you know I am a HUGE fan of your artistry, so please don't be offended by my 'negative' comments.

The spelling is correct as far as I can see.