The Dominion of the Elders of Sorres

[Steel General]

Very nice, one little thing that 'caught my eye' is the ocean color in the bay in the extreme south.

The water is so bright (it looks like you used a gradient of some sort) that it pulls the eye away form the other
map details around it.

[Jaxilon]

I especially like how you handled the villages and cities; each with their own little style. Very nice.

[LonewandererD]

Update...

I've put in most of the decorative features and most of the labels. Almost done now.

-D-

[tilt]

looking good, a few notes though.
The small texts in water are a little weak (but not a big problem)
Your rivers and roads in the forresty areas looks like they are floating on top of the landscape - it might be a trick of the light, but does in places look like the river has a drop shadow.

[LonewandererD]

Yeah, I know what you mean, I have addressed that problem. I redid the text so that's it all white but its stroke matches its background so it stands out and sort of blends in at the same time. Still experiment with the text for the towns to tone them down a bit. I've tried to address that river problem, it does have something to with the lighting, where it meets a cliff or descend I'm going to put an obvious angle on it to make it look like its dropping.

EDIT: Scratch that idea, tried it and it doesn't work as well as I thought it would...

-D-

[Juggernaut1981]

Just a couple of thoughts from poking around the map.

#1 Greenroad Keep
Is it defending the road, the river, or the riverbank? And which direction is it supposed to defend "from" (i.e. is it defending against attacks from the North?). It may need to move to the other side of a riverbank if it's supposed to be defending "from" anywhere but the major cities and if it's supposed to be defending something other than the road. Also, the village would spring up almost on top of the Keep. Lords have cash to spend and those who can supply goods to the Lord would want to live close by.

#2 Oldfield Keep
Oldfield Town would be near Oldfield Keep. So either the Keep needs another name (and Oldfield Town should have Oldfield Fort or Oldfield Tower or Oldfield Keep nearby depending on how heavily it needs to defend itself)... or the Town needs a new name (and Oldfieldton would be a hamlet/village near the Keep)

Those are the main C&C-nit-picks. Nothing else that I'd say "needed" to be changed, just personally I'd have called that place Riversmouth or [Insert Name's] Crossing.

[LonewandererD]

I understand where you are coming from Juggernaut and that thought did cross my mind, both can be explained in the backstory.

Greenroad keep - it is a little unclear on the map but there is a village litterally right next to the keep, the keep itself was built a long time back when the upper gift first belonged to another clan and the only other river crossing was at Sorrescei's Port so it was originally meant to defend from attack coming south from Jeharitu's ridge. When the clan of the Sorres expanded further north the keep was all but abandoned due to it's diminished strategic value, some of it was dismantled for resources to another keep further north. It then became a small village for casteless bandits; it was only recently reclaimed by the Elders of Sorres. Still a new group the Elders felt it was simpler to rebuild a already existing fortification rather than relocate it and also because the keep has lost some of it's importance as the Elders are protected from invasion by the other clans by royal decree. The keep now only really serves as a fortified checkpoint for patrols moving along the Greenroad and has a small garrison of mounted troops for a rapid reponse from bandits striking south from Jeharitu's forest.

Oldfield - Thankyou for bringing this to my attention, I had planned to change the names and thought I did it already. Oldfield town will be renamed Orchard Hill Town.

-D-

[LonewandererD]

Okay, this is hopefully the last update.

If no one can find any problems with it i'll be putting it into the Finished Map section on Saturday.

-D-

[Diamond]

That's awesome, man.

Really, the only thing that bugs me is, like tilt mentiond, the rivers and roads seem to float over the forests. Not a big deal with the roads, since they're man-made, but with the rivers it just looks odd. Sadly, I don't have any suggestions to improve it.

[tilt]

I don't know how the rivers and roads have been made - but it looks like they have a drop shadow in some places - which makes the roads look like they are on a ridge. If the rivers are made in photoshop - try adding a bevel down to them - or get the forrest to cast a little shadow on them - to lower them into the ground ..hope it helps