North America, a long time ago

[Hai-Etlik]

Visually, spectacular, but there are a couple of things in terms of geography.

You've centred the projection at the pole, which is at the top of the map. Ideally you should be trying to put the centre of the projection at the centre of the map so as to minimize the overall distortion. As it is you've got quite a bit of distortion at the bottom of the map that you could have avoided. Of course drawing an azimuthal graticule centred at a pole is a lot easier, but it does make for a less effective map.

The compass rose doesn't make sense as the map does not preserve bearings. Also although it's very pretty, it doesn't actually work as a compass rose very well. Ideally you want a clear centre point where in this case the centre is somewhere under one of the petals of the flower, and the centre of the flower is close enough to provide a distraction making it harder to eye-ball a bearing off of the rose. Very pretty, but functionally problematic.

[Lingon]

@Schwarzkreuz:
Thank you! I'm not sure about the forests either, but the planet was a lot hotter during this time period, so I think it's plausible actually. Antarctica was covered in jungle at some point, though I think that was even earlier.

@Chashio:
Thanks for the ideas! I really should have made the graticule lighter, and your point about color is exactly what was bothering me, only I couldn't put it in words! I love the landscape idea too, I'll have to do that sometime. I'm not sure where Maine will be, but I think somewhere in the north end of the eastern mountain range?

@Hai-Etlik:
Thanks! I was aware of the projection problem actually, I chose to do it this way because there is a relatively small amount of land in the south, and as you said, an oblique aspect would be extremely difficult to do by hand. Plus, I just really like the way a pole-centered azimuthal looks for some reason. The compass things I didn't know of though (still new to mapping, this was my third completed) so thanks for pointing that out! If there's a post/tutorial/anything somewhere that goes through which projections can have compass roses I'd love a link

[Hai-Etlik]

@Hai-Etlik:
Thanks! I was aware of the projection problem actually, I chose to do it this way because there is a relatively small amount of land in the south, and as you said, an oblique aspect would be extremely difficult to do by hand. Plus, I just really like the way a pole-centered azimuthal looks for some reason. The compass things I didn't know of though (still new to mapping, this was my third completed) so thanks for pointing that out! If there's a post/tutorial/anything somewhere that goes through which projections can have compass roses I'd love a link

On spherical worlds, Normal Mercator can have a compass rose at any scale. Otherwise a map should be a fairly large scale (zoomed in) in an appropriate projection for the extent.

On flat worlds (Because that is an issue around here) there's the problem of what 'north' even means. If you take bearings against a fixed point on the world, then you are pretty much in the same situation as on a sphere and can only make bearing preserving maps of small areas that aren't too close to the reference point. If you have some sort of consistent, universal indicator of direction across the whole flat word, then a simple flat map of it will be bearing preserving. If the flat world were rotating relative to the fixed stars such that there were a clear celestial north parallel to the ground, that would work, as would a magic compass that works like compasses tend to do in video games.

As a rule of thumb, consider different points on the map. If Northeast is the same direction at all the points on the map, or really close to being so, you can probably use a compass rose. If North is roughly the same direction across the map you can use a north arrow. Be wary that it is possible for some directions to be consistent while others aren't, don't just look at the cardinal directions.

[Lingon]

That sounds easy enough to remember! Thanks!