First-timer's Alternate History Map - Advice Appreciated

[Saldunz]

I have never made or experimenting with making maps before and I failed the last art class I will ever take.

I just wanted to put that out there before anything else. I write an After Action Report (AAR) for a game called Europa Universalis III, where you play as any country in the 15th century through four centuries of gameplay.

Now paragraphs of text describing army movements can be kind of boring on their own, so I decided to experiment with map-making for the first to make a little something that might be able to help tell the story a bit. The process was filled bumps and setbacks, took several hours, but was loads of fun too. Below is the finished product.

It's not the best map I've seen made for AARs from this game, but I couldn't, for the life of me, think of any feasible way for me to improve it.

There's not much I can do to this map now, but if you have any advice or suggestions that I might apply to my next attempt, I'd appreciate it!
Tell me what I could do better! And how!

[dangerdog15]

This looks really interesting. I like the use of color and typography. My only suggestion would be to change the stark black to darker colors that match each territory.