First, the hex generation excel has been updated and expanded. I've included a little gimmick where you may go to individual tabs and it will generate which hexes in a seven-hex group should be wilderness (black) or civilized (white) ... and there's the beginning of a generation for what sort of hex it should be. This description on the groups tabs will be expanded and expanded, until - I expect - once you generate a hex you should be able to copy the information from that hex onto another file for reference. So all you need to know about the hex can be generated in about a second. But making this really, truly creative is a ways off.
All I really wanted to manage at this point was to create a realistically random representation of a group of hexes with almost no information. I spent some of yesterday and some of today working up southern Kosovo ... which I now present here, at two miles per hex.
It's no overly clear on blogger, even though I've saved it in 300 dpi. There has been some color change. There are little notes on it describing not just what the hex areas are, but in some cases what's produced in the mines or upon meadows. My trade tables, with references for what is produced in what parts of my world, were very useful for adding notes to the map.
There is a great deal more that I generated, but the edges all around are filled with notes which did not look as sweet as the above ... so I've cut the edges down to what's completely finished.
I had to do some goofy things that must be done to manage all the in-between hexes ... which I'll blog about tomorrow. I'm a bit tired right now, and I want to pick up my writing for this evening.
Hope you find this interesting.
Random question, where do bandits reside? The civilized, the wilderness or both?
ReplyDeleteThere are a number of possible options, keeping in mind that 'wilderness' is truly wild, whereas those hexes that are a) not within 6 mi of a village or town or b) without any other features are quite nearly wild. One of these hexes with three hamlets in it would only be farming about 300 acres of a total 1,900.
ReplyDeleteBut, that said, bandits would,
a) Take over an existing hamlet and/or hex, using it for food production and as a base for attacks on roads, rivers or nearby towns. These would be the lowest, least able bandits.
b) Be part time farmers in agrarian population centers (villages or towns), making forays at certain seasons upon shipped goods or into foreign territories. Much of their motivation would be clan-based, attacks on specifically hated families or groups
c) Organized thieves in guilds setting up planned, complicated strikes against high value targets, perhaps with several 'civilized' hexes that could serve as refuges. These would be less inclined to fiddle with small stuff - professional criminals.
Finally, keeping in mind that really, bandits could be anyone, anywhere, with sufficient cause and motivation to gather together to make a hit. 'Bandit' isn't really a profession. It's an appellation applied not by the bandits to themselves, but by others who don't know what else to call them.
Now, the wild versus non-wild hexes aligned pretty crazily well with the road in several places.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming this was because you did so purposely for the main thoroughfare, but maybe not!
Do you have some sort of guideline for when a (red) road makes a hex civilized and when it does not?
Other than that question, this looks pretty damn awesome.
Several rules for roads:
ReplyDeleteMines produce the rutted roads which are earthen and merely beaten with use. They're thin, light orange, as do 'small villages'; mines to the nearest larger road, villages to the next nearest centre. These rutted roads cannot cross water.
Towns produce cobbled roads, which are a mixture of clay and smooth rock mixed with packed earth. These are the thicker orange roads. One of the results for a hex can produce a cobbled road, and this must be extended logically between centres (how the designer likes). One such road was created east of Gusinje, in the upper left corner - but as Streoci was a village, the cobbled road turned to a rutted road before it reached the village. Also, in the upper right the generator produced a "carter post" ... which extended cobbled roads north, east and south to Janjevo.
The heavy red roads were generated by my trading system ages ago, and are the shortest distances between established market cities (none shown on map) - so they've simply been incorporated.
Rivers were trickier ... they were generated by the placement of meadows, waterwheels, mines (which would rely on them), wilderness (which in Kosovo is all high country) and the location of Towns (which because of their size, would need a good watersource to exist).
So where the source of a river was determined, I extended that through as much civilized country as possible until it came to a predetermined river already shown on the original, 20-mile hex scale Kosovo Map.
Sorry, meant to add that the heavy red roads are stone and gravel, often paved with lime & clay for mortar.
ReplyDeleteHello Alexis,
ReplyDeleteThe more I read your articles, the more I am stunned by the quality and quantity of your work. A true source of inspiration, and of many avenues of thinking. Gosh ...
I have been very interested in the Infrastructure and general Hex generation currently, trying to create a "coherent" map for my campaign set in the world of Conan.
I must confess that I'd be very interested to know what softwares you use to make all those clean and useful maps of yours ? Please, tell me ...
Thanks for all your work, I can only wait for more ...