Happy Friday!

So I'm working on a battlemap that depicts a ruin in a sandy desert and I just realized I've spent the last hour or so reading the results from searching google for "patterns of wind driven sand accumulation around buildings" as well as substituting "aeolian" and "structures" to see if I got more technical results. What am I doing? I have no background in engineering or physics! And from what I understand, fluid dynamics are very difficult to model because of their complexity. But now I know a little bit more than I did.

So I'm just curious about how other people approach the research of map-making. My current thinking is that I learn a lot by making maps. However I also have to keep in mind the purpose of a given map. Right now I over do it. I spend time zoomed in, working on details that disappear when the map is viewed at a normal size. In this particular instance I don't need to understand exactly what's happening, but I'm hoping my map will be a little better if I pay attention to the fact that the sand in my scene has been mostly deposited there by wind.

Any stories of too much research? Something amazing you learned because it is tangentially related to a map you made? Is making maps totally the greatest?

cheers,
Meshon