Something I didn't know...

The way symbols with some transparency are drawn is different to the way symbols with no transparency are drawn. One of the smoke symbols (the one we both had trouble with) has some transparency and that's why we couldn't get it to come to the front.

The best solution is the new sheet option in this case. As was pointed out to me it's probably best that the smoke doesn't have the same sheet effects as the bushes anyway.

I think I prefer the textured one. It does something to fill the gaps between the rooms where there are some quite large ones.

The place to use plain solid backgrounds is when there are no large gaps.

I'm not sure I know for sure what you want, but I did write a blog a while back about achieving various map effects here:

There is a bit about increasing the contrast (number 3), and if that's not what you meant there are several other effects that might be the one.

Ah. Sorry!

You will have to switch DELAYDRAWSYM to 0 (zero) before it works. Type the command on your keyboard and press return, then enter 0 when you see the command line response. Then refresh.

There are lots of different things you can do, but possibly the easiest if you happen to have an image of an old piece of parchment is to import that image onto a sheet that has a Blend Mode sheet effect on it set to multiply right at the bottom of the list of sheets (on top of everything else in the map).

I expect lots of others will come along and recommend more ways of doing it that are equally good, but that is one way of doing it within CC3.