ArMDE chapter 14 - the Map of Europe ...

... is after downloading the rough PDF still a mess. Swabia, where Lombardy is expected, upper Lorrain near Speyer!
I don't have time now to analyze it in detail - but I'd rather have no map at all in the DE instead of this one.

1 Like

Yeah, it looks like there's a lot of displacement affecting the labels of much of the German-speaking areas. At my first glance, the labels "Austria", "Bavaria", "Franconia", "Holstein" "Swabia", and "Upper Lorraine" are all grossly out of position from what I'd expect. Mostly too much south-and-east, though "Franconia" is too south-and-west.

Some of that is the map's tilt, maybe? Some is the more "primitive" cartography, okay. But I compare to this map of Germany in the year 1000 (that's labeled in German, so it's a bit tricky, but . . . ), and, ugh.

I agree, it's like the feedback from last time was mostly ignored. There have been a few very minor changes, but on the whole the whole the map is so wrong that it is worse than no map...
My suspicion is that the region names were all just pushed to make space for the city names, but that really isn't helpful. Also the border between the Rhine and Novgorod region still is not true to the books: the border should be more or less the modern border of Poland, minus Pommerania which is in the Rhine.

I find this all the more egregious because checking on googlemaps plus wikipedia or just in the relevant Tribunal books would take a matter of minutes.

Here is a quick and dirty go over:

Aquitaine is good. We are in 1230, duchy of Aquitaine is pretty all English possession in French land.

Flanders starts at Calais and covers a large part of the Belgium now.

Map from GotF

W

The second half of the map is missing, namely the eastern half.

1 Like

Ooh... I had never realized that Valnastium was in the Julian Alps, right at the doorstep of Tremereland! For some reason I had always imagined in what is now Switzerland.

Comments through the feedback form, please. They are unlikely to get to the right place from here.

3 Likes

Yes, the map is a mess. It's on me, I kept meaning to make time to give it an overhaul and to then get more refined feedback, and never got around to it. So it's basically unchanged right now and needs MAJOR updates.

One bit of progress in the new year is that we now own computers capable of opening the massive raw file with all its layers and high resolution, so we can make edits directly rather than going back-and-forth directing changes with the cartographer.

13 Likes

Looking at the new, freshly-downloaded PNG of the map, I am now quite happy with it. Thank you very much.

4 Likes

Very glad to hear that. Credit goes to Michelle for reading a lot of comments, digging up recommended reference maps, and wrestling the enormous many-layered file to rearrange labels.

I hope folks can give it another super close look! I don't want to send it off to have the cloth maps (and everything else) made unless we know it's all fixed.

8 Likes