MacAurther
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2013
- Messages
- 42
Hi all! I've been reading this forum for a while, but have never really contributed, until now! I thought I'd give the political boundary method on the United States a shot. (long post, sorry 
)
Methodology:
First, I overlayed a map of the US onto a screenshot of the continental US from the new map, trying to skew it and distort it to roughly fit the shape of the coast.
I used that map as a rough guide as I filled in cultural boundaries. While the shape of each state was most important when choosing tiles for each state, I also kept track of how many tiles each state occupied, and compared that to how many tiles they should occupy given their actual land areas. This helped me keep proportions. This is what I got:
And here are the results for the comparison between actual size and represented size:
I'd like to think I remained mostly faithful, but I had to make a few compromises in areas in favor of shape over accuracy.
With the political map done, I moved on to the next step of trying to improve the map's geographical features. I have only done bodies of water (rivers and lakes) right now, but if people like my approach I'd be happy to tackle more, including resources and terrain type! Here are the changes I thought were best by region:
North:
I'll start with the region with the most drastic changes. It was not possible for me to reconcile either the shape or the area of states with the current positioning of the Great Lakes - they're just too far west (as you can see in the first image). Accordingly, I moved each lake 1 tile east and shortened Lake Ontario to only one tile. If we look at the actual sizes of the great lakes, Lake Ontario and Erie should only be one tile at most, Lake Michigan and Huron should be 2 tiles, and Lake Superior should be 3. I only changed Lake Ontario because I liked the shape of the remaining Great Lakes. I moved over resources adjacent to the Great Lakes too so they would remain in the same spot relative to the lakes.
Other changes include:
-lengthening the Hudson and Susquehanna Rivers
-shifting the northern Mississippi river over to the East by one tile to hug the eastern border of Iowa.
South:
The only non-river change: I added the Florida Keys west of Miami (instead of south) to not slow ships moving between Florida and Cuba.
I used a map of major US rivers to determine which rivers to include or not, so that is why there are both inclusions and removals:
-added the Savannah river to the border of Georgia and South Carolina
-shifted the mouth of the Alabama one tile west to put it closer to where Mobile would be
-removed Brazos River. There is a river in East Texas near Houston on the current map (I think it is supposed to be the Brazos)
-shifted a part of the Rio Grande one tile north to have it conform to the border of Texas
-added the Red River that forms the Oklahoma-Texas border and feeds into the Mississippi
-shifted the Arkansas River over one tile (in Arkansas) because it should not border Texas
-shifted the Arkansas River up one tile (in Kansas and Colorado) because it should not border Texas
Midwest Changes:
-Added the Platte River
-Shifted the Missouri River East so that it forms the eastern border of Nebraska
-Shifted the Missouri River North so that it does not stay on the South Dakota-Nebraska border too long
-Shifted the Missouri River South so that it does not border Canada
West Changes
- Moved the mouth of the Columbia River one tile north so that it is on the border of Oregon and Washington
Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear feedback!
)Methodology:
First, I overlayed a map of the US onto a screenshot of the continental US from the new map, trying to skew it and distort it to roughly fit the shape of the coast.
Spoiler US Map overlay :
I used that map as a rough guide as I filled in cultural boundaries. While the shape of each state was most important when choosing tiles for each state, I also kept track of how many tiles each state occupied, and compared that to how many tiles they should occupy given their actual land areas. This helped me keep proportions. This is what I got:
Spoiler USA Map States Labelled :
And here are the results for the comparison between actual size and represented size:
Spoiler USA Map Size Accuracy :
I'd like to think I remained mostly faithful, but I had to make a few compromises in areas in favor of shape over accuracy.
With the political map done, I moved on to the next step of trying to improve the map's geographical features. I have only done bodies of water (rivers and lakes) right now, but if people like my approach I'd be happy to tackle more, including resources and terrain type! Here are the changes I thought were best by region:
North:
I'll start with the region with the most drastic changes. It was not possible for me to reconcile either the shape or the area of states with the current positioning of the Great Lakes - they're just too far west (as you can see in the first image). Accordingly, I moved each lake 1 tile east and shortened Lake Ontario to only one tile. If we look at the actual sizes of the great lakes, Lake Ontario and Erie should only be one tile at most, Lake Michigan and Huron should be 2 tiles, and Lake Superior should be 3. I only changed Lake Ontario because I liked the shape of the remaining Great Lakes. I moved over resources adjacent to the Great Lakes too so they would remain in the same spot relative to the lakes.
Other changes include:
-lengthening the Hudson and Susquehanna Rivers
-shifting the northern Mississippi river over to the East by one tile to hug the eastern border of Iowa.
Spoiler North Changes :
South:
The only non-river change: I added the Florida Keys west of Miami (instead of south) to not slow ships moving between Florida and Cuba.
I used a map of major US rivers to determine which rivers to include or not, so that is why there are both inclusions and removals:
-added the Savannah river to the border of Georgia and South Carolina
-shifted the mouth of the Alabama one tile west to put it closer to where Mobile would be
-removed Brazos River. There is a river in East Texas near Houston on the current map (I think it is supposed to be the Brazos)
-shifted a part of the Rio Grande one tile north to have it conform to the border of Texas
-added the Red River that forms the Oklahoma-Texas border and feeds into the Mississippi
-shifted the Arkansas River over one tile (in Arkansas) because it should not border Texas
-shifted the Arkansas River up one tile (in Kansas and Colorado) because it should not border Texas
Spoiler South Changes :
Midwest Changes:
-Added the Platte River
-Shifted the Missouri River East so that it forms the eastern border of Nebraska
-Shifted the Missouri River North so that it does not stay on the South Dakota-Nebraska border too long
-Shifted the Missouri River South so that it does not border Canada
Spoiler Midwest Changes :
West Changes
- Moved the mouth of the Columbia River one tile north so that it is on the border of Oregon and Washington
Spoiler West Changes :
Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear feedback!
