I first started with Dungeons & Dragons in December of 1979. !!! Back then, our maps were hand-drawn on graph paper, or store-bought modules that were only slightly more sophisticated than graph paper. Played off and on with different groups for decades.

In 2017, having not played for nearly a decade, I started to create my campaign world. I searched for mapping software and the Internet's consensus was that Campaign Cartographer was both the most powerful and the hardest to learn. Sounds like a challenge! I used my tax refund to buy everything except the annuals (which I didn't understand)...and failed.

I've always been a visual learner. I retain more from reading a book than from listening to the audio version of it. I thought I could teach myself from the PDF manuals. I got some basic concepts, but I didn't really get them. I fiddled around with the software but everything looked awful. (They might have looked slightly less awful if I knew how to turn on sheet effects.)

Then COVID hit in 2020, and with a lot of not-leaving-the-house-time, I revisited my world-building, but not map building. It wasn't until mid-2023 (six years after buying the software!) that I finally decided to start watching some of the tutorials. The obvious thing to everyone except me: videos aren't just audio, they are also visual. Things started to click. And then I became addicted to the videos. To see a blank canvass come to life and turn into a work of art! And then to start mapping: even more addicting! I've mentioned this before, but it is really stimulates left brain/right brain simultaneously. There's the creative part about creating a work of art. But there's also the analytical/problem-solving part about how to do that with textures and symbols and optical illusion sheet effects. I posted my first map here (not the first map I created, but the first I posted) in January 2024, and it's been full speed ever since.

I am diving into the interiors now, starting with the first floor (or ground floor).

At this level, the perimeter wall is mostly solid stonework. The defensive passageway with arrow slits will be one story higher. But the gatehouses do have chambers on this level with mechanisms for raising the two portcullises (I was tempted to write portculli) and open the iron gate. Internal spiral staircases allow guards to reach a chamber with access the parapet over the gate, where they can address visitors when the gates are closed.

Mostly I've been working so far on the first floor of the balneae, the bathhouse. This is what it looks like covered:

And here's the (not yet labeled) interior of the first floor:

The balneae, or bathhouse, is connected to the main villa by a colonnade, an unwalled covered walkway lined with pillars.

As you enter, there are stairs going up and down to your left, and the chimney for the hypocaust in the basement on your right. Then you see two lavatories, and then the frigidarium, the very cold pool. Next to the frigidarium is the apodyterium, the changing room where bathers could clean up before entering the communal pools. Across the courtyard is the caldarium, the hot room, where both the water and the tile floor are heated by the hypocaust furnaces in the basement. The main pool in the center, partially open to the sky, is the tepidarium, the warm room, where water is heated to a comfortable temperature but not as hot as a bath like the caldarium. On the northern wall are two saunas, the laconicum (dry sauna) on the northwest side, and the sudatorium (steam sauna) on the northeast.

Downstairs will have the hypocaust as well as the pipes for bringing water to the various pools. Upstairs will have more communal exercise areas, a library, and a balcony overlooking the tepidarium.

Congratulations on your first map! It’s looks great. Ans I agree with you: it is oddly therapeutic and calming. I like that it’s simultaneously exercising my creativity and my analytical/problem solving sides.

Did the same thing when I was getting started and it took me forever to figure out that right-clicking again would collapse it. Glad you're posting these questions -- everyone here is very friendly and happy to help.

Here it is again with exterior features labeled quite pretentiously in Latin. Some of the terms came from sites describing architectural features of Ancient Rome. Others were crudely translated with Google Translate, so I welcome feedback from anyone who knows any bit of Latin. The description write-up will translate these terms and explain them, but basically:

1. Muri Magni (Great Walls)
2. Portae Turres (Gate Towers)
3. Turres Anguli (Corner Towers)
4. Stabula (Stables)
5. Custodes Domus (Guards’ House)
6. Sevorum Domus (Servants’ House)
7. Portico (Outside Covered Porch)
8. Villa Citri
9. Colonnade (Covered Column Walkway)
10. Balneae (Bathhouse)
11. Pomaria (Orchards)
12. Vinetum (Vineyards)