[CWBP2] World Map construction thread

[Falconius]

I think you guys expect a volume of people to be involved that is far greater than is actually going to be involved.

I was thinking of plots 500 km x 500 km with an allowance for people to claim multiple plots. France was something of an anomaly in terms of size in the medieval period, most countries were much smaller, think of the Untied Kingdom, and then break it off in to Scotland, Wales, England, and Ireland. Even France was carved up pretty significantly, you had Burgundy, England, Savoy, I think Brittany and all sorts of holdings to the East. Generally though what I use to base my conception of country size in such time periods is Italy.

As for the grid to use for plots I think we should do an expanding grid. Given our equirectangular projection this would mean plots stay the same height through out but that they expand horizontally as we move up the latitudes. Here is my example:

The size of the lateral expansion is set to 500 km at that latitude from the middle of the height. This means the edge closer to the equator will be bigger than 500 km, and the edge farther from the equator will be smaller. So all plots here are roughly 500x500 km. Above 60 degrees of latitude we should have pole end world maps and we will divide them accordingly.

600 miles by 600 miles is truly immense, way bigger than I was envisioning. I think that it was geared to "fill in" the entire world quickly, the way I'm approaching this project is that we have a world and setting that people can come in and fiddle around with and then take a break or whatever. The aim isn't really to "complete" the world for me.

Also in this example is how an active plot would block plots from other people, any of the white plots bordering those areas would be available to work. If the person was unconcerned about working with others than he could leave the red areas open for mapping as well. I think though the default should be set to blocking out those areas. This allows people to come in comfortably map what they feel like and not have to worry about coordinating with others etc. It's far more relaxed. It also allows us to be very vague with the world map.

[Falconius]

As for plots, if we just do isolated plots, you'll get some very large differences in tone, style, flavor. Crossing a border will almost literally be like walking into another world because there will be little globalization.

I'm not sure why that is a problem. In any case a created world is going to have difficulty matching the diversity and regional differences of the real world, so much so that I think any possibility of encouraging such diversity should be pursued.

Also, this may be totally out of line / unfair / whatever, but I'd like to express my interest in the region highlighted pink here on the eastern continent. Can I claim dibs?
Attachment 66487

I see no reason why not. Early investors get some perks, just the way of the game. Within the context of whatever we are deciding for plots.

This brings up another way to handle plots. If people just splotch a claim on the map like this and call dibs. Indeed thinking about it I think if may be the best method...

[Azélor]

I was also thinking about 500x500 km. it's about the size of a relatively large kingdom.
I'm not sure about your proposal for land division yet. Maps at high latitudes will represent a large amount of work.

On another note, I worked a bit on oceanic currents. By using bigger lines, I get a better idea of how water would flow. Because water movement is something massive and not just one little stream out of nowhere.
So far, no important changes but:

- the current above and under the equatorial counter current are too close. On Earth, they are more spread out. The also generate turbulence...
- the counter current also enters the strait between the two continents but doing so generate turbulence not of him.
- the middle ocean is probably the largest if we take the distortion of the projection in account. It has a lot of water and 2 strong current that are close. I expect that this will generate huge turbulence north of the broken archipelago in the center.
these two current are now closer
- And also, the water flow has changed in the strait between the northern and central continents. It's not east-weest because the flow of water form the central ocean is more important. It just seems more logical.
- the same turbulences occur in the far west and is also very strong in the far east.
- the current running east-west in the south: I'm not sure if it's supposed to be there.

Outside of that, I see no major change. Of course I added a lot of arrow but most don't have any real impact. The number of arrow is kinda useful to see where the current is weaker. Outside the main current I expect to see smaller current swirling here and there so getting to these islands far from the main current should be difficult.

[Falconius]

Cool, sounds good.

For the plots I think we should just use what BlackChakram accidentally stumbled into. Mark the world map where you want to map and just go for it. This method is many cases far simpler and less work. And one gets to map exactly what they want to. It might require some certain guidelines, such that 500 x 500 km is the size of a generally large kingdom and to use that as a size guideline. As well as if bordering another player to coordinate your efforts to what they done so far (based on seniority of plot if it comes down to an impasse). Maybe with a suggestion that if you choose an irregular area to leave those areas outside of your "borders" blank for others to come in after.

[BlackChakram]

That probably is the best way to go about plots. There's enough space that I imagine people wouldn't want adjacent ones unless they plan on connecting them. If you want something isolated, it's not like it's going to be hard to come by.

[Azélor]

so final rough version of the water currents. we are good to move on. Most of the small arrows do not have any impact on climates but are useful if someone plans to make a seafaring civilization. More details for later...

Attachment 66548

and here. that's the one:
Attachment 66549
If you wonder, the lines are for the equator and the 45th latitudes.

Ok but we still need some grid no ?

500x500 mean :

40 000/500=80

it's 80x40= 3200 but we have more than 70% water and 2 relatively big and possibly boring poles.

I don't have time to finish my message. I'll be back on this later.

[Falconius]

Those currents make sense to me. There might be a few vortexes here and there that we didn't think of but shouldn't really matter for our purposes just yet.

Yeah but it's not strictly 80 x 40, in any case if we do the blob method we can avoid such issues entirely. A scaling grid would help people with their projection and make the final stitched together world copy work better but those couple of advantages are not worth it imo. People should just plug the elevation map into G. Projector, flip on the orthographic projection and hunt for a land they like, blob that up with a colour back in the equirectangular black and white mask, and then post it it to the "Mapping Plots thread" and we'll take that add it to the overall map and it will be clear what's open and what's not.

[Ghostman]

As for the grid to use for plots I think we should do an expanding grid. Given our equirectangular projection this would mean plots stay the same height through out but that they expand horizontally as we move up the latitudes. Here is my example:

The size of the lateral expansion is set to 500 km at that latitude from the middle of the height. This means the edge closer to the equator will be bigger than 500 km, and the edge farther from the equator will be smaller. So all plots here are roughly 500x500 km. Above 60 degrees of latitude we should have pole end world maps and we will divide them accordingly.

This seems like the best way to allocate plots, although I'd rather see the individual blocks being smaller in size and allow each user to assemble their plot from multiple adjacent blocks. Eg. make the blocks be 100x100 km, and set plot size to 1-9 blocks. That way people won't have to use much more land than they need (in case you only want to map a fairly small area) nor will they be restricted to a square shaped plot (in case the area being mapped is long and narrow.)

[Falconius]

110 x 110 km blocks would basically be a plot for every degree of both latitude and longitude (until the angles get wonky). With 500 x 500 you'd end up with a couple of thousand plots, at 100 you'd get thousands and thousands. Really it is easer to do as BlackChakram has done and just put a colour on the map and say "I'm mapping this, B----es!"

[Azélor]

Attachment 66568

we could do a blob method like that. Everyone can take more than one plot (they are even encouraged to do so) with a certain limit. It allows some freedom to map a whole archipelago or a long coastline. People can take several plots as long as the shape stays rectangular. I have the grid in the PSD file only.

I also take that opportunity to lay a claim over the northern island.