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My map I am making...This is for personal use because it will, in no way, be historical...so I will make the map, put some troops down and test it and then, when balanced, play!

Looks like Cyprus to me. Limassol gives me that kind of impression... [;)]

Yep...give away, really...that and Akrotiri!!

Looks good! [:)]

Billy,
 
That's terrific mate. And remember because you are doing a hypothetical don't be too perturbed by the historical accuracy thing. Best to get a rough knocked up first, populate your schenario, test it and then as time and inclination permit you can come back and refine it later. Well done.[&o]

Thx Dave. I'm going to take my time with it and try and make it as good as can be. I initially just wanted to mess about with the map maker tool (which is brilliant, by the way...I love the underlay thingy bob [&o] )...but I think I will populate with objectives and forces...maybe an attack south to Akrotiri or something.

Updated one here...got a question though...am I being too "thorough"? It looks a bit busy, what with all the roads and tracks etc...Advice would be appreciated.

Thinking about it, I think what I need to do is look at the towns and villages I'm going to include...skipping the majority of the minors...as it is at the moment, I've included every road and track and every junction and, therefore, potentially every village...I expect if I continue along this route, it will get to busy to play...

The terrain should provide an evil set of opportunities for both sides, so I'd say you should try the method I described in the other forum, if it comes to the topography:




Maybe just try to limit minor villages/towns, and go for a few key mountains. The max height of that dark brown area is like 975 m, according to Google (i don't have topo maps of this region), while the surrounding massifs are around 400-600 m high. Well, that isn't a bit tank-friendly, is it? [;)] So, the road-network u created is in fact leading through numerous very narrow valleys, where every valley displays a kinda eye of the needle, like we say. Excellent terrain for a thrilling battle.

I would personally cut out about half of the roads and tracks you have. Leave the highway, a main middle route, and a route on the left. In past maps I tried to not have two roads within 1km of each other running parallel. Worked well...

Agree re culling roads.
 
Thanks for the google earth pic GoodGuy. There is some massive reliefs there. If the max height is around 975 then you have two options for contour intervals. One just divide that by 16 and round to the nearest ten metres - ie 60m. Or you could make everything over 600m impassable terrain and then divide 600 by 16 and you could have 40m contours. I would probably opt for the latter.

But before cutting any villages (whoops, meant to say roads), complete the map before, save it, do a backup, then cut the unnecessary roads.

Between, how large is it ?

8000 x 7000

Here's another shot. I've stripped alot of the roads and tracks out and started populating villages and towns...then I'll work on the hard part2 - topography!

That's looking really good [:)]

Thx mefi.
 
Looking at it, though I've either got too many bridges or not enough major rivers...I certainly don't think (I could be wrong) that I can put a light bridge over a small river crossing a track!!

BTW Billy when we do our maps we start with the contours first and then the rivers and then the roads and towns and finally the vegetation. But hey whatever works for you, right! [:)]

DAMN IT!!! [:@]
 
I knew I should've rtfm!![;)]
 
Right - I'm going to start again...and this time I will get a decent map (the one I have, zoomed in (and out) is virtually unreadable...I doubt I've spelled all the names correctly) and start with topography, rivers, roads and towns etc...as per the experts advice!
 
Cheers Dave.

Stop stop stop - don't throw away what you have - there is no problem at all with doing the elevations last. It's just not the way we did our maps. In fact if your elevation data is less reliable than your rivers data, you are probably better off doing elevations last - that way you will have the rivers to help you see where the watersheds and valley floors should be, so you don't end up with a river flowing along the side of a valley instead of the bottom.

One small tip - when posting shots of your map, make sure the 1km grid is showing - that helps people to get a feel for the scale of the map. It's hard to give good advice without that information to start with.

Looking good - keep it up!

Regards
Steve

Yeah - but your maps look great...which makes me think it may be the way to do them.
 
Well, I'll keep with this one then...it is fictional anyway, so it will help me refine the skills needed to make a decent map.

Yes Billy I didn't mean to suggest you throw away what you have done or to disparage it in anyway. Far from it. I want to encourage as many new map makers as possible. Steve's advice is correct especially the bit about if the rivers are more accurate then start with them. That is good advice.