WIP: unnamed Earh-like planet

[groovey]

Here's the updated political map of my main continent. I've added a bunch of powers and applied Chick's shaded borders turorial.

POLITICAL (13NOV15).jpg

Some of the labels are placed awkwardly because of lack of space.

I placed Swifendlia's capital back to the north side because I want it to be on the inner sea, but also besides of a major river because the capital is a planned city with an Atlantis like design with either rings or hexagons of land surrounded by water, fed from a major river. There are no major rivers on the peninsula near Arlia on the inner coast, except in the recently conquered Nyle like area, which is not yet assimilated into the Empire culturally and politically because of its special status.

[Pixie]

Now you have set yourself a much more complex political reality. Your stories, given how much into court intrigue you're into, will be filled with diplomats and foreign envoys, armies being equipped and sent far away with promising officers.

For an empire like Swifendlia, the sight of fleets leaving the capital filled with soldiers filled with dreams/fears would be common and a typical source for songs/poems, wouldn't you say?

In the meanwhile, here's one more piece of advice (I did this recently and was somewhat surprised). Have a look at this continent in a different projection, an equal-area such as azimuthal. While your continent doesn't reach that far north to the polar area, the equiretangular projection is already stretching the northern section by a significant factor. In an equal-area projection, Reuran won't seem so far and the area to the north of the Empire doesn't seem so large.

[selden]

For example:
capture_15112015_085545.png

[groovey]

That's a great idea, and indeed, as selden's example showed, offers a different perspective on distances.

[selden]

That particular projection is called "Orthographic". Of course, you don't have to use Celestia to view a map that way. Here's a similar view using G.Projector. Like Celestia, though, G.Projector needs the input map to be an Equirectangular projection (also called Plate Carrée). I used Paint.net to overlay the regional political map on an earlier full-surface map.

capture_19112015_065031.png