Most of the warlight maps fill that entire space with the dot - but that means the entire thing is a generic single-colour blob (after it's captured) - and neutral/grey prior - so the map is basically just a collection of outlines with a grey background. I'm experimenting, trying to figure out a way to make a more visually interesting map.

The hexes show the colour of 'bonus territories' - in the game, if you hold all of a grouping of the same colour, you get extra armies (like owning continents in risk)...the dots represent who owns each area. This way, I can show the bonus areas, a colourful map, and still have the areas captured.

That isn't to say I disagree with you about it being busy. I wanted to use my original Abebe map scaled down, but Warlight only used 2k maps under 2mb in size...having things 'sharper' and more detailed rather than made up of loose curves increased file size too much (I had to get it down from 8-10MB after the initial tracing).