I've never used this style before but now I'm intrigued. I'm in the midst of castle building at the moment but might try this out when I need a pause from the castle.

I love complimentary styles that allow for a consistent "vibe" at the continental, regional/local area, and city levels.

(I have heard of Joe v. the Volcano but it came out my senior year of college when I didn't have much time to go to movies, and I never got around to seeing it.)

One thing I use layers for is to simultaneously reveal or hide things that because of different sheet effects need to be on different sheets. I once designed a five-level sewer system with each level of the sewers involving multiple sheets on a single layer for each level. Or a mountaintop covering a dungeon that can be hidden or revealed with a single layer.

Here's the other map. Much smaller southern forest. This map has 2,380 trees -- nine more than the map above.

I redid the southern forest for the first map. I deleted the original blocks of mixed forest trees but kept the semi-transparent gray forest background, and then added a few thousand individual trees. Mostly deciduous and pine, with a healthy smattering of different-colored fruit trees along with a handful of barren trees and a surprise or two. There's something very peaceful about placing all of them individually -- though maybe that's easier to say when there's "only" 2,371 trees and not 41,000!

Here's a close-up of a bit of the forest.

On to the other map!