That’s a good point that I hadn’t thought about. When I’m designing a new map, I often draw polygon blobs on a temporary sheet to get a sense of what I want to do, and what goes where. This would be a fun way to sketch out a rough layout.

I went back to my previous save -- the last version before starting on the trees -- so that I could replace the trees individually to ensure exact placement. Having the coniferous and deciduous trees on separate sheets made it easier so that I could focus on the firs and the barren trees separately. (Another tips: make sure all of your original trees are on the Vegetation layer and then freeze the other layers -- before I did that, it was way too easy to accidentally grab other things unintentionally.)

Also (not sure if I mentioned this before), I used the effects from one of the Winter Trail sample maps on the white text. I think it makes them stand out nicely. One of the other samples used red text, which made for a nice contrast but felt a little jarring for this map. But I could do a dark blue like the legend if folks think that's better.

Tremendous work -- and C.C.'s second annual this year!

Okay, trees converted. This was trickier than expected because these ones tended to be a little jumpy wumpy when I replaced them.

Currently debating what to do:

1. I could go through and move the trees that did something weird, like jumped onto a road or building, and move them, knowing that their final placement won't be exactly the same as the summer map it's derived from. or
2. Roll back to a backup FCW (fortunately, I've been making backups before every significant change in case something went wrong), and then replace each tree individually.

I'm leaning towards #2. It might be weird cycling through each of the seasonal maps with the trees in an identical spot for three of them and then suddenly jumping around for the fourth. And while it may seem tedious to go through that process, tree by tree, I'm actually finding it kind of peaceful.

But either way, it won't be finished tonight. Fortunately, this winter map was never intended for the competition and I've already gotten my contest maps submitted.

Making progress on the symbols from Forest Trail. Cliff and river bank symbols have been swapped out for their snowy counterparts. Same with the ruins symbols, and the wooden bridge. Changed the trail on the western side of the wooden bridge to use the Forest Trail effects. Added breaks in the ice for the Spruce River, and as it continues down the Whispering Pines River.

For the ruins, there wasn't a snow-covered version that I saw. I thought about covering it entirely with a hill of snow, but discovered that I could make frosty patches using the "Terrain Default Cliffs Drifts" drawing tool, which I will also use (on separate sheets) to add a little snow to the rocky outcrops. This is how it looks on the ruins close-up:

Not sure I like the frost on the upper part of Whispering Pines River. Not sure if I should expand it, so it covers more of the iced-over part, or reduce/eliminate it.

Still need to swap out the trees and add snow to the outcrops.