Mapping is being seriously misunderstood here.
The kind of complex precise cartography requiring significant work and specialized people and rools is a relatively recent phenomenon. Geographically accurate navigational aides largely emerge in the late medieval era, along with tools like compasses and astrolabes which made that kind of map far more feasible and useful). There were maps before then, but they were symbolic and/or approximate maps, often used more to illustrate than to guide (and that kind of map predates the start of the game, so making it a tech wouldn't be very sensible)..
Instead, people on long journey needing to know where they were going relied often on oral or written instructions that told them what was where and how to get there. And that worked. (you even see it today: even with google map, you don't necessarily need the map, just the driving instructions that go with it). And that was enough to build massive trade routes and empires over thousands of kilometers.
Accurate maps and navigational tools proved super useful and made some forms of travel far, far, far easier, but the idea that you you need to develop mapmaking to know what's where in the world is modern cultural blinders.