So, six months work:
This is the full map so far, at 43% zoom. Just gets bigger and bigger. There's quite a bit more above than I had the end of June. I rather like the effect of colour as the hexes begin to shrink and disappear, with the brighter patches being various shades of orange to tan. That large light splash in the middle left is Transylvania; the orange arc north of the big river, the Danube, is Wallachia; south of the river it's Silistra in Bulgaria. The light patch on the far left, just below centre, is Serbia; the light patch on the bottom right, along the sea, is Dobruja.
You can see from this that "nations" are less about boundaries and more about patches of density separated from elsewhere by forests and mountains. Intensely populated centres are important militarily and economically; small patches, like the two orange groups in the upper right that represent Bukovina and Moldavia, matter locally but are mere satellites.
I have begun to place additional labels on rivers and mountains, but I'm still playing with colours for these things. The map is so dense that there's little room to draw in large letters defining "Serbia" or "Transylvania." I'm also beginning to feel that the boundaries need darkening, to a colour that's a deeper yellowish-brown or orange, that offer a better definition. Not sure yet which way I'll go.
Posting the map in 100% of it's zoom now requires six plates. Moving from west to east across the top of the map, and then from west to east across the bottom, this is Plate 1. Moving clockwise from the top, Ruthenia, West Transylvania, Bidin in Bulgaria, the Banat.
Plate 4. Southwest Transylvania, Bidin, upper and lower Serbia, the Banat.
Plate 5. Southeast Transylvania, Wallachia, Silistra, Oltenia.
Plate 6. Ismailia, Black Sea and the Lower Danube, Dobruja, Silistra and east Wallachia.
By virtue of the method I'm using of going round and round the outside rim, I find myself reposting content that's already been posted. I suppose this is somewhat boring for the reader. I'm hearing less and less interest in these maps and if the reader likes, I can centre on one corner a month rather than posting the whole thing each time. The map spreads out over eleven working sheets at this point and it would be easier for me to post the sheets as they're finished rather than trying to match them up. Still, it looks remarkable to me. I find myself gazing at parts from time to time as I'm working, startled by the slow, tremendous growth. The chaotic terrain of southern Serbia was, this month, both a trial and something of a revelation, as I've never viewed this part of the world in such deep detail. I can't imagine how difficult it was to invade and hold, for NATO forces, for the WW2 Germans or for the WW1 Austrians. The mountains roll every which way and have no continuity.
Please let me know if you're still anxious to see what next month's generation produces.
Absolutely.
ReplyDeleteIt's definitely nice to see the whole thing together. Maybe only the new tiles as you go along, and then a bigger update when enough accumulates?
ReplyDeleteConcerning hexes: while I was at university I seriously considered abandoning hexes as a method of mapping entirely, yet came to the realization that they are essentially just a different (and one could argue better) unit shape used in the method of making a raster map/image. Of course this means only representing things by hex that would be represented by raster anyway, and that the effectiveness is greatest when zoomed out like these maps are.
And then there's the little problem that computers are programmed with pixels, ie squares, in mind and not hexagons.
Because the Earth is a sphere, we'd never be speaking in squares, but in rhombuses. My use of the hex heavily distorts the land surfaces, the course of rivers and coastlines ... for which I compensate by making tiny adjustments that are ALL inaccurate but where the lay-person is concerned, mostly invisible. But there is no "good" way to map a sphere - even without the use of representative lines ... as a long history of failed mapmaking testifies.
ReplyDeleteMy goal is to make a game map that's functional in the highest number of ways. Hexagons are highly functional, because they all share the same size of border with all adjacent polygons, and because the center between adjacent hexagons is the same distance apart. I understand why a PRINTING company prefers squares ... they're easier to lay out in ink. But there gawdawful as a representative model for a battlemap, because the presence of diagonals demands the user to ignore the obvious discontinuity. For me personally, that's aggravating. For others, they don't care. They can't see that it matters. Which I also find aggravating.
It would be impractical for you to do what I do for mapping given how far you've gone in this direction, I think, although that would be an interesting problem. I have a technical specialty in geographic information and for my game I work in spherical coordinates until I need to make a flat map and then project it rectangularly and overlay a hexagonal grid rather than starting at the hex grid. I use a transverse Mercator-style projection specific to the longitude where I'm working and that minimizes both directional and area distortions to less than 0.001 at the scales I need for the game.
ReplyDeleteWell, what I'm doing isn't perfect. But a designer has to make his peace with that.
ReplyDelete