NationStates Jolt Archive

Can anyone give me pointers on the best ways to make a really cool map? Sure, I can figure out a way to make an average one but I see really neat maps all around nationstates and I was just wondering if anyone could give me advice.

My region is newly formed and it is called "Supreme Union". I hope it will continually grow and grow at a steady pace, so I dont want to keep updating a map again and again for nations coming and leaving my region. I will probably put a limit...like for a while, you must have atleast 25 million people in your country and be in my region 2 weeks to be on the map etc. etc. so I only put the more dedicated countries on the map so there wont be as much updating i will have to do.

Can anyone give me pointers about ANYTHING to do with the subject of maps? It would be greatly appreciated.

--Mely Ranen

Can anyone give me pointers on the best ways to make a really cool map? Sure, I can figure out a way to make an average one but I see really neat maps all around nationstates and I was just wondering if anyone could give me advice.

My region is newly formed and it is called "Supreme Union". I hope it will continually grow and grow at a steady pace, so I dont want to keep updating a map again and again for nations coming and leaving my region. I will probably put a limit...like for a while, you must have atleast 25 million people in your country and be in my region 2 weeks to be on the map etc. etc. so I only put the more dedicated countries on the map so there wont be as much updating i will have to do.

Can anyone give me pointers about ANYTHING to do with the subject of maps? It would be greatly appreciated.

--Mely RanenI see no maps here. Where do you see them?

Hey I remember you the Qeendom of Christain Empire told me about you.

Hey I remember you the Qeendom of Christain Empire told me about you.
ME?

For making my region's map, I took the coasts of actual places, distorted and pasted them together in the desired shape. It works out well if you can find a map that just has the shapes of the continents without anything filling them in.

Another way you could do it to achieve a detailed effect would be to use Google Earth, screenshot different places at odd angles, and paste them together to make a satellite collage.

to begin: just draw some landmass, keep fiddling with it until it looks right. donm't be afraid to start over, get region members to describe their ideal terrain, try and work out the differences, try to reduce the amount of ungoverned border areas (unless you feel the need for "barbarian tribes" in your region's RP's.)

Seriously dude, it doesnt have to be totally complicated. Just draw a map in paint (make sure its about 1024 x 768 or some large size like that). Make it a large landmass, like an island or continent. Then assign a Small area for each nation - leave room for growth/new nations. Do lots of small islands, and place some npc nations on them - this makes for some good r'ping if only a few people are relatively active in your forum.

Next, ask each person to draw a small map of their proposed nation. Again, tell them to make it small. Tell them to include capital cities/other major cities, mountains, lakes, rivers, etc. Once done, draw these onto the map.

Assigning each nation a different color is very helpful in distinguishing different nations.

I've included an example of what me and a few of my mates did for our regional map -

[img=http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/2218/currentmap9le.th.png] (http://img472.imageshack.us/my.php?image=currentmap9le.png)

And here's an example of a zoomed-in look at a nation -

[img=http://img469.imageshack.us/img469/5619/cid5oz.th.png] (http://img469.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cid5oz.png)

Simply send my nation a telegram if you need any further help;)

http://www.nationstates.net/imperial_domains

I wrote a thread about a random map generator (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=466970) which you may find useful.

However, as Imperial Domains says, you don't need to be very fancy; the maps of the Haven (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v172/NSFlags/HavenMap.png) and Sisgardia (http://img128.exs.cx/img128/8030/Sisgardia.png ) regions are good examples of simple, effective maps.

I hope that helps!

I have actually developed a Windows GUI for that, it does not support all of the program's features but it has a nice extra feature of being able to save data used to generate the map and then be able to determine what look you want for your map. It requires the .NET 2.0 framework and as at the moment only works if Tsaraine's program is in a directory called planet from the root drive.

I'm working on an installer, etc at the moment. Let me know via TG or whatever and we'll work a way of getting it to you

EDIT: I've got the installer and program working together so that whereever the program is installed. And so I can now officially release this is, with Tsaraine's approval.

If you can't run the program. It is very likely that you don't have .NET 2.0 or are running in Windows. This program is a Windows only program but if you don't have the .NET 2.0 framework. IT can be downloaded from Microsoft here (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=9&p=3&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=&u=%2fdownloads%2fdetails.aspx%3fFamilyID%3d0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5%26displaylang%3den). To check if you have .net 2.0 installed you need access to the control panel, load the "Add/Remove Programs" and in the list there Should be "Microsoft .Net 2.0 Framework". IF there is then it is installed otherwise it isn't.