Kiyev-Zytomierz, west of Kiyev

Turns out, I am going to catch the city of Kiyev on this pass around before turning southeast.  This is a very tricky part of the map.  Passing the 30th parallel east, the direction of the map turns 30-degrees in the upper right corner shown; then another 30-degrees with the next three hexes.  Plus, this small corner, being at the top of the map, ends up being copied onto three different map sheets.  I'm working on sheet two right now so I can fill out the blank hexes above, then I'll be on sheet 3 to fill out the blank hexes there... and then I'll be on my way again, probably at a faster pace, because after Kiyev the population drops considerably and stays that way right to the Sea of Azov.  Then I cut through eastern Crimea, maybe or maybe not touch upon Kubanistan (the mainland opposite Crimea) then right across the Black sea to Anatolia.  That's when things begin to get interesting again, with mountains.

Wiki Guideline to 6-mile Maps

Today's post is a link.  I'll be posting about this on the main blog, but I've just completed a step-by-step primer on making a 6-mile hex map from a 20-mile hex map.  This ends in creating what would have been the next section on this blog, the Kiyev and Vassia border around Uman.  Normal mapmaking will resume tomorrow.

Bratslaw Turned

Starting with the completion of yesterday's turning:

Looks perfectly ordinary.  If we didn't know the other version existed, we'd think this was the original.

This reaches the point where our mapmaking turns from going straight east towards south-east.  As before, I'm going to provide a picture to show the order of maps being made, so no one gets lost.  I'll make this a little prettier than last time:

The reader can see how the direction of sections changes, and how this mapping technique allows us to get quickly back into an east-west oriented section.  I grant the shift would give an honest cartographer kniptions, but I'm a dishonest cartographer, so it doesn't bother me at all.  Remember, always, the players can't tell and don't care, so long as they can get on a road to the next village and find it.

The mapping over the next couple weeks takes us through a corner of the Kiyevan state and then back into territory controlled by the Ottomans, with former provinces of the Tatar States in the 16th century.  These lands aren't as devoid of infrastructure as Bratslaw, but they are rural ... and once we're south of Kiyev, it's all steppeland.  That'll continue until we get to the Black Sea, after mapping the western Crimean peninsula.  Then it's across the sea and back around to cutting through Bulgaria.

The thing I like about this corridor mapping, where I roll in a big circle around the centre provided very early this year by Kronstadt, is that I see different things as I go.  It's not just an endless slog of mapping heavily populated parts of Europe or endlessly empty vistas of Southern Russia.  This provides enough novelty to make me keep going, day after day.

But ... not planning on adding a section today, the first I've missed since starting this blog a month ago.  I may change my mind this evening, after performing my other duties.  If I do make that map, I'll publish it.  I'll be sure to do two sections tomorrow in any case.

Bratslaw County, north of Bratslaw

Okay, strange things today.  We start with these two figures, before and after:

The emptiness of this part of the world makes the next part easier.  The first thing is to grab a large part of the map above and paste it onto the adjoining map to the east, K.30e - Kiyev:

The reader can discern that the new content on top has parts that are duplicated on the sheet map below.  These parts have to be cut away from the new content, and the new has to be turned 60 degrees clockwise.  In addition, the boundries of the new map have to be adjusted to the new colour and width, and the steppeland hexes on the Kiyev sheet also need an update.  Thus:

There.  Now the new section needs to be fit into the Kiyev sheet.  There are old paths for roads and rivers on the Kiyev sheet that have to be updated to the work we've been doing in the last month, so those ends have to be "sewn" together.  Meanwhile, the individual labels must all be turned back (they're at 60 degrees now), including all the symbols for bread, coins and hammers.  Finally, the old hexes that are turned must have their colours copied; because of the turn, the old hexes don't quite fit, so they have to be tossed out.  But I'll shrink them inside the space of the new hexes, so the information can be easily copied.  Here, I'll demonstrate:

Looks like a helluva mess, doesn't it?  Here it is again, without the background:

All there is to do is tidy up all the pieces, sew the roads and get rid of the flotsam.  Unfortunately, I can't do that just now, as I haven't the time.  I'll have a completed version tomorrow, and we'll start the next section.

Oh, I've just realised I forgot to mention the 30th meridian.  It's that faint orange line that can be seen on the background maps.  I was going to brighten it up, but ... forgot.  Can't do it now.  'Til later!

Bratslaw, around Zhmerinka

And now we come to somewhere different.  I did three sections today, because they were easy.  Starting with this blank:

Very low numbers.  Note the dark line next to Zhmerinka.  This is a trade route, between Mohilev on the Dniester River and Kiyev, far off to the north.  This is a vital route, even if the region it goes through is unable to support it according to the mapmaking generator.  So it fits into a special rule: where arable land exists within 10 six-mile hexes of a world trade route, that route is a minimum of a dirt road.  This allows some trade routes, across the Sahara for instance, to exist as non-roads, but a road like the one here to exist as a dirt road despite Bratslaw's backwardness:

Empty.  Routes occur but they are barely helpful to outside travellers.  It can be seen that virtually everyone passing through this region is going to use the Zhmerinka road.

To complete Bar and Zhmerinka, I need the next two hexes above:

The second pic is a bit of a long shot; I wanted to show the rough for Khmelnik, and wound up cutting off the completed hexes of Zhmerinka and Bar, the latter of which does get a connection to civilisation.  I'll come back and explain those hexes.  Meanwhile, the emptiness continues.  Here's a long shot of the whole area done:

Let's come back around and discuss Bar.  Zhmerinka has effectively the same sequence of generation.

When a 20-mile hex is broken down into it's constitutuent parts, it leaves gaps.  Suppose we randomly generate three hexes in a circle, each with 20 infrastructure, to express what I mean:

The grey hex in the middle is undetermined.  Each of the 20-mile hexes, shown in a black outline, amounts individually to 20 pts. of infrastructure, remembering that a "7" = 1 pt., a "6" equals 2 pts., a "5" equals 3 pts. and so on.  The blank, or wilderness hex, equals no points.  The gap in the middle, the grey hex, receives it's infrastructure as an average of the surrounding hexes ... only, first we roll to see if it's a wilderness hex, like the one in it's upper corner.  We roll a d6, and if we get a "1", then it's a wilderness hex.  We roll a 5 and it isn't.

Next, we add the totals of all the hexes together, counting the wilderness hex as 8:  8+5+5+6+6+6 = 36.  36 divided by 6 = 6.  This means the grey hex in the middle is a type-6 hex.

But what if the total was 35, or 38?  Well, then we roll another d6.  Let's take 38.  It's 2 points from 36 and 4 points away from 42, which would make it a type-7.  So we weight the die: 1-4 = type six, 5-6 equals type-7.  If the total were 39, the roll would be 50/50 type 6 or 7.  With a total of 35, it weighs heavily towards type-6 (2-6) with a small chance of rolling a type-5 (1).

Okay, now let's look at Bar, when it's partly done.  As yet, we don't know what it is.  We have to generate the hex above, to find out.  One thing we know for sure: it's not a wilderness hex.  Although when we do generate the two hexes above, we find they're both wilderness hexes, Bar is a pre-determined settlement and therefore must be in a type-7 hex or better.

So we skip rolling to see if the hex is a wilderness (ordinarily, it would have a 50% chance of being one, since it's half surrounded by wilderness) and add the numbers together: 8+8+8+5+6+7 = 42.  Bar is in a type-7 hex.

However, if the total added up to 41, Bar would be in a type-6 hex, without rolling.  Whenever possible, a settlement is always put in the best possible hex, after going through the generation process.  Unfortunately, Bar misses that chance.  If the reader looks at the maps above at Zhmerinka, you'll see that it's surrounded by five type-8 hexes and a single type-7.  That adds up to 48, but Zhmerinka is also in a type-7 hex.

Look at it again once the area's complete and Bar's numbers are put together.  Bar is a type-7 hex, but it gets +1 coin, +1 food and +1 hammer for being a settlement.  If it were on a bigger river, it would also get +1 hammer for that, and would thus be a type-7 hex with two hammers (rare!).  A type-7 hex usually just has 2 food (like the hex on the left of Bar), but Bar does somewhat better.

Still, this is a wretched, backwards excuse for a place.  It doesn't even have as much infrastructure as an ordinary type-4 hex, which would have 2 hammers.  So what's the deal?

We might suppose a number of things.  The village was raided and wrecked, and hasn't recovered.  A plague hit the village.  The village is under the thumb of a despot who is killing development and trade.  It's the centre of a cult that puts non-economic concerns first.  The founder ineptly chose to build his manor house on bad land.  Proper access has never been constructed, as the village is connect to the outside by no better than a cart path, a difficult to navigate route that's wide enough for a cart but rife with many bad places.

It's up to us to decide the reason, and make the place interesting if the party decides to enter here.

Towards the Corner

This is my second post today; don't read the first.

The next section that needs to be done for the map is shown below.  It extends over the next sheet, K.26e - Czernowitz:

The reader can see the background has shifted, so that all the labels are turned 60-degrees clockwise.  The time has come to explain why.  Before reading this, you may want to familiarise yourself with this very old post.

Have a look at these two 20-mile map sheets:

The map on the left, "Carpathians," has served as the background for the mapping of Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine that we've done so far, while the map on the right is what'll be used going forward.  The Danube Mouth has been turned 60 degrees clockwise, as compensation for the Earth's curvature.  While strange, and often annoying (as you'll see), this turn enables me to effect a huge, unbroken flat map of the game world without having to stretch the polar center flat, as in a Mercator projection:

This represents most parts of the world that I've mapped in 20-mile hexes.  I had a large part of China done, before (I believe) accidentally deleting the files; some of Mongolia has been done, and a big part of Africa south of the line shown.  The reader can clearly see how the curve of the Mediterranean twists into the levelling of the Black Sea (assuming you know where these are without needing labels), or how India twists towards the right as it approaches the 90th meridian east, where the map turns again into Burma.

This would bother some people.  You may note on the comments connected to the link above, to the old post, that a number of people have firmly suggested putting the map on an actual globe.  Of course, there are two big problems with that.  First, it's very difficult to fit the globe into a scanner, so it can be put online ... and two, none of the pundits suggesting the globe idea have done anything.  Nix, nada, nothing.  This may help explain my contempt for pundits in general.  Full of ideas, shit for making something.

The map turn is a bitch, no question about it.  Usually, a rectangular sheet map, like "Carpathians" above, always overlaps adjacent sheets by just two hexes, such as I demonstrated here (see bottom of post).  The "corner map" overlaps considerably more, to ensure I have complete coverage, as shown:

When I make a corner map, this is the template I use.  The orange line represents the parallel, say the 30th E, that dictates the turn taken.  The blue line follows a row of hexes, showing that as we move from west to east, we simply turn the roads in a new direction.  In a few weeks, you'll see this done and be amazed at how perfectly simple it is ... and how the result is undetectable at a close-up scale, even at 20-miles per hex.  The "overlap" shows how much of the Carpathians map folds over the Danube Mouth map ... thus we can see the turn of the Carpathian mountains, represented by brown hexes, on both maps, even though the Danube has them turned 60 degrees.  Finally, the bottom left of the map ends up extending deep into the ring of maps below.  Carpathians and Danube mouth are the "D-Ring."  The "E-Ring" appears on the Carpathian maps only as the bottom two hexes ... but the corner hex sucks up a great deal more of the E-Ring.  That's why we can see part of Thrace showing up on the Danube Mouth map.

This repetition of maps, so that both sheets are duplicates of the other, is an enormous headache.  They have to be nearly perfect as well, or else I could not put them together to create a single, great map, such as the big map of the world shown above.  Unfortunately, Publisher as a program ffing won't turn a picture 60 degrees without distorting it a tiny, tiny, tiny bit.  Just enough to grind my teeth.

So, as we move towards the 30th parallel (we're at the 26th), the distortions between the map being made and Google Earth increase, ever so slightly, and never in a way that can't be tolerated.  Then the overlap has to be compensated for.  And then, as we move away from the 30th, the map becomes less distorted and from thence forward, there's only a hassle when the 30th is actually approached and crossed.  I've already done enough work that the main center of the whole 6-mile map I've done is past that overlap.  Wasn't much fun, I can tell you.