On the second question you can add a Color Key sheet effect to the sheet the grassland is on and cut holes in the grassland using polygons of the Knock Out Color (Default magenta) where you want the holes to be. Make sure this effect is top of the list, so move it above any Edge Fade, Inner you probably have on that sheet.

Ah, a good choice. I used that one to do the Ferraris Style a few years ago. I've moved onto other apps these days, but I still use Krita from time to time to touch up seamless tiles that didn't quite go the way I wanted them to in other apps.

It will be interesting to see where you go with this.

And yes - Jonathan Roberts provided the artwork for both these styles. His website is called Fantastic Maps if you are curious.

No worries. Blogs tend to get forgotten these days. I forgot all about these two myself.

Looking good so far.

What software are you using?

Cities are well known for it.

While I can't explain all the technicalities involved there, I can suggest a few tips on how to cope with it.

In addition to reducing the resolution, you could also try 1 or more of the 3 options available in the Shading panel of the Display Settings dialog.

If you work on one sector at a time you can put all the other sectors on different layers and then hide them, though they might be on the same sheet.

30 minutes :)

It has a lot of power. Familiarity with a style makes everything much easier.

I may be misunderstanding the secondary problem you mention there about lack of detail, but when you create a hi res world in FT it's usually too much detail that's the problem.

Perhaps increase the Editing Size of your world in World Settings->Editing? That may change the coastline a bit, but you will get more detail.

Remember to hit Appy.

Thank you :)

LOL! I'm tempted to keep the road to nowhere now, but yes - it was a test. This whole map, which is about 8x the area you can see in the first shot, is a test site.

I don't know why the rivers do that. They are there and whole. It might be the way the effects are being read and displayed, though it's only an outer glow to match the inner glow on the land at the coast. It renders ok.