Well that all took longer than I hoped!
The good news is I managed to recreate the results Waldronate got in Wilbur and generate some lakes and rivers successfully. Although I kept on getting straightline rivers eventually by experimenting with higher and higher values of noise finally managed to get some wiggly rivers!
I pulled two things out of Wilbur, first there was the rivers (click on image for more detail): -
The reason the rivers are against a black background is so I can easily extract them by selecting the colour black and deleting it, leaving just the rivers.
Then there were the Basins, destined to become lakes. (click on image for more detail): -
Once again to ease extraction they are against a black background.
Obviously there were far to many basins, so after some pruning I arrived at what I considered to be a reasonable number of lakes as you can see in the next image: -
From that point on it was merely working out how to represent them on the Terrrain map and the Contour Map as you will soon see.
I simplified and reduced the scale bar on the map and was happier with the result, and finally I bordered the maps to finish them off.
Here is the finished Contour Map: -
Click here for the full size map (2.5mb)
There was slight shadowing on the rivers to make them stand out and the Lakes also had a minor photoshop treatment to highlight their edges.
Finally the Terrain map: -
Click here for the full size map (2.5mb)
The rivers in the terrain map are only visible in the unforested areas (as one would expect) and can be seen better in the lower south easter section of the map.
With these two maps complete, I have to consider the policital map next. This will be especially critical as I am planning on using Birthright rules to run a "meta" campaign and control all the countries.
I still am not quite sure as to a good example of map style to adopt for the political map, if anyone has any examples or recommendations I would be interested.
Brennall