Geographical reconciliation

[eliddell]

Okay, I've made the changes you requested--the cities are now arranged in an equilateral triangle (although the roads between them are intentionally not perfectly straight, since it takes a lot of effort to make a straight road in a preindustrial setting) and I've adjusted the Tri Forest to match (I'll see about perfecting its shape and returning it to its original more open state during the touch-up phase). I also extended the western hills to touch the edge of the Lost Woods. The water has now had its final touch-up, with texture and shoreline ripples added and the shoreline itself cleaned up to remove pixel errors.

If there are other features you would like added/changed/moved/removed, now would be a good time to mention them. Otherwise, I'll proceed with the remaining cleanup steps and the label-related stuff.

[Mountain_King]

Looking good. A minor nit pick:
I agree about the difficulty of making pre-industry roads straight, but I think that [acronym=It's a tad overdone on Iobhar's corner]Iobhar's corner could be improved upon[/acronym]. I can't help looking at that corner and thinking, "that looks really pinched". Other than that, great!

You seem to be on top of everything else, so I'll just let ya do your magic. I'll be looking forward to seeing how this ends up.

Best Regards,
Mountain_King

[eliddell]

@Mountain_King: Almost there--forests now have clean borders without partial trees, and the hills now mostly look like they belong on the map instead of having been pasted in from somewhere else (which some of the ones I added were). Iobhar's corner hopefully now looks a bit less messy, and the Tri Forest is back in its original, sparser, state (or did you like it thick?)

I still need to clean up the mountains in the southeast, do the labels, and maybe revisit the north edges of the bits of forest in the northeast, so it's going to be a few more days before I'm ready to sign off on this and go back to the ubermap, but I figured you deserved a progress report.

[Reepurr]

I've placed my campaign beyond the River Oumph; is that a problem to the big map scheme at all? Also, is there any way of showing a canyon on a map?

[eliddell]

@Reepurr: The map I've been working on for Mountain_King slots in on the far side of the Wild Steppe, but as his campaign takes place centuries (millenia?) before the founding of Wesnoth, we can excuse some pretty massive changes in topography between his campaign and yours, although it might be nice to keep the coastline mostly the same. There's a chunk of land between the northern border of Lintanir and the southern edge of that map about which we know nothing at the moment.

Canyons . . . I don't think they have an accepted map symbol at the moment. Hmm. The best depiction would probably involve an outline made of a series of parallel curved lines sort of at right angles to the way the canyon runs--I seem to remember seeing that sort of thing on old contour maps.

Here's a half-scale version of the ubermap as it currently stands. Tell me what you need, and I'll shift the forests, etc. in the northeast around to match.

[Reepurr]

It's cool to see the big map shaping up!

Well, I don't actually need much at all; it's mainly a loop-the-loop campaign. (Can't wait to see what the journey path looks like (!))
Here's the current campaign map.

Mt Valvog is a volcano, in case it makes any difference. The Draakspyne is meant to be impassable, to give the necromancers a reason for going through the cavern. The Ghoulwood is another deterrent for the necromancers, but the campaign never actually goes there.

[eliddell]

A quick look suggests that if I add another tributary to the Oumph, I may in fact be able to shoehorn you in in pretty much your indicated position, north of Farzi, between the edge of the SotBE map and Mountain_King's. That will mean stuffing the additional geography into a section of the ubermap ~150 pixels to a side, though, which may be too small. I'll try to remember to check the fit tonight.

[Mountain_King]

Still looking great! Both I and my co-developer agree on this. Sparser forest looks fine, keep it that way. I also like the way it fits in with the big map, it actually looks like it could belong there.

Best Regards,
Mountain_King

[Simons Mith]

I wonder what kind of creature one might encounter in the Ghoulwood?

[eliddell]

@Simons Mith: It's clearly where a necromancer goes when he's looking for a ghoulfriend. ::rimshot::

@Mountain_King: Thanks.

@Reepurr: I was right about the space being kind of tight. Attached are three possible ways of fitting your map into the ubermap. They all require the Ghoulwood to be shorter and fatter.

[Reepurr]

map3.png is almost exactly where I wanted it; looks good, thanks!

(But if you refine it for putting in the map, I would like a copy of it for the campaign.)

@ Simons Mith: I was stuck for inspiration...If you have any less generic ideas?

[Simons Mith]

Well, if it was a really small wood - e.g., on a scenario map, I'd have no objection at all to Ghoul Wood, after that time when the mayor's great-grandfather and his best friend the blacksmith fought a ghoul there once. Ghoul, singular. To my ear, that sorta fits. It's only when the implication is that they infest it like elves that my editor senses begin to tingle. It's not that it's wrong, it's just, too close to the Wesnoth game rather than sounding like an actual lived-in place, if you see what I mean.

If it's a larger feature, as appears to be the case, name it after some local town, or after the tree types that grow there, or a person related to it, or a landowner

Wennow Wood, Tanglewood, Drakesdene, Draksdene, Grak's Wood, Daeda's Wood, Drumlea, Duncliff Forest, Kiln Wood, Whitecave Forest, Whitecave Wood, Whitcave Forest, Whitcave Wood, Khan's Wood, Ouleburn Wood, Oule Forest, Ash Hollow ...

Will that do?

Why didn't you try Googling for 'names of woods', 'names of forests', 'names of battles', 'names of flowers'? Or look at a real-world map? First thing I try when I'm trawling for inspiration.

[eliddell]

@Reepurr: I think I can make it work--I'd just like to shift that river a little so that it doesn't slop over onto Mountain_King's part of the map (it's very near the border). The smaller stream and the hills I'm not going to worry about, since those are plausible topography changes. I may have some questions for you when I'm no longer so full of decongestants and painkillers that I can't think straight. ;P

Anyway, once I fit your bit of geography in, I'll be glad to give you an appropriately-sized ubermap-slice centered on that area that you can use as a campaign map.

[eliddell]

Mountain_King, is this okay, or did I mess too much with the mountain range while trying to clean/sharpen it up? (I also copied that one hill an awful lot . . .)

[Mountain_King]

Looks pretty good. Just lacquer on some labels and you'll be good to go. I can wire this into my next release sometime later this week once you're finished.
Best Regards,
Mountain_King