The June Version

For those newly joining us, the map size is 6.67 miles per hex.  More about the project can be read here, here and here.

I'd rather publish the monthly map on the last day of the month rather than the first, so I'm putting May's work up now.  The size of the thing is reaching a point where it's not possible to publish it in one piece without spoiling it's detail, so I'm taking steps to manage this.  First, the whole map done so far, 80 miles wider than it was a month ago:

It should be evident that I'm pursuing the directions east and west more than north and south, because there is more east and west to the shape of the world. Thus the map is only 6 hexes higher but it's 12 hexes wider.  The size of image is 55% of normal.  It can be seen that I reached the Black Sea on the east, completed much of the Danube River's course and nearly completed the swamp around Dobruja.  Much of the northeast corner now extends into the Ukraine, while the southwest is verging into Serbia.  The heavily populated core of Transylvania is nearly enclosed; I think the map gives good evidence of how the region formed an isolated power-centre in European affairs, given that it's essentially a fortress between mountains.

Here's a full-size image of the northwest:

I see now there's one damn hex that's miscoloured.  It's a wilderness hex; the dark green is one of two colours that are adjusted as a pattern to make wilderness and alas, I failed to notice I hadn't fixed it until now.  I'll get it next time around; the maps are now spread over 10 files and it's something of a problem to fix it now that the whole images are set up.  Let me express my very strong desire that people point out anything that seems off or weird; many of the hex numbers include inaccuracies, since they get copied and recopied during the mapping process and quality assurance needs doing.

It took me an entire month to go just once around the entire map, partly because I redesigned all the stat components for the hexes (looks good, nyet?), and partly because of the southeast corner ... which we'll come to.

Looking at the southwest next:

Of course there's an illogic with my designing around in a circle, but on some levels the choice encourages me to keep going.  I'm not stuck repeating the same landscape over a large piece of country, giving a sense of exploration as I follow the going-around trail.  The Danube was put together one piece at a time, with my overruling the original map this is based on ... a map that was made sometime around 2007.  I had to make a decision about whether or not this was merely an expansion of the old or a re-make; in fact, it's been a bit of both.  Where the original continues to suit me, I've left it as is, particularly with regards to the borders and the location of rivers and settlements.  But the water is getting a serious overhall, with new lakes and adjusted course for some of the rivers.  Some rivers are being left where they are, despite being seriously misplaced.  At least I'll know if someone copies this map, as the mistakes will clearly indicate it was stolen.  The work is, after all, copywrited ... not that this concerns me much.

Northeast, then:

And there's the edge of the Black Sea.  Of course I'm looking forward to those sweet, sweet empty sea hexes, so easy to do, but the coastlines are much hard work.  At the end of this, I'll put up a single map that includes the whole coast I did, all since the 20th of May.  The inland lakes compared to the sea, divided by a thin strip of sand, are really startling.  The coast was extended outwards by about 10 miles from my original 20-mile hex map, which was simply acknowledging that I hadn't gotten it right so long ago.  Hm.  I'm seeing a place on the middle right where the borders don't join together.  Little things like that abound ... but it's just part of the process.  They get found and fixed and new small mistakes proliferate as the map expands.

Much of it's that the concert of fitting ten or twelve layers throughout the map causes a river to run under a border or a city name gets obliterated by a river that should be pushed further back.  I'm tweaking constantly, sending this object backwards while bringing that forward, until each is in its exact place.  The seacoast in particular makes this finicky work; but it only takes patience.

Here's the southeast:

A big headache is my decision to flatten the earth, which causes that 60-degree flip as the map passes the 30th, 90th and 150th meridians both east and west.  As it happens, the 30th goes right through the right side of this map ... which means much of the coast is twisted and compressed in order to get the right fit.  And because the map has to be turned, it means that with some difficult parts, like the whole swamp, I'm forced to duplicate the map in both orientations.  For example, here's the swamp as it appears on the "Kronstadt" map sheet:

And now, as it appears on the "Ismailia" sheet (which has the whole coast line in one piece):

I can't begin to explain how frustrating this is, to make both maps a match to the other ... especially if some massive overhaul of a river course gets re-made, to bring the region more in line with the real Earth.  I had a long fight with this just this last Sunday.  Not sure I've got it sorted yet; so if someone notices there's a difference, please say so.  I can't fix what I don't know's there.

Well, that should do for this month.  I'll still having fun.