Hi all – I’m here looking for some mappers experience and brain powers.

What I'm doing is creating a map for a risk-style online game site. This particular map is Africa, and has inset maps along the side based on the conflicts and struggles within. There’s a lot still to be done - there will be region names, and army digits displayed over all regions, so there will be quite a bit of information on the map. There’s also mouse-over graphics showing active regions and such, but I’ll not get into that.

What I’m having a problem with is representing the side (conflict zone) maps back to the main africa map. See some are very large zones (like Congo) and some are really small (like Algeria). My attempt on the map linked here is skull/mask’s on spears in the ground, to at least visually call out where the conflict zones are. Both others think that doesn’t help, that there needs to be a clearly visual, unique way to see each one.

So maybe some of you have an idea, or had this same problem before? Or can recommend a map that has similar inset maps all around it?

Thanks for any help.
RJ