Looking for some advice on a WIP map

[Elvis.Osmanovic]

Also is 6500x4500 pixels good enough fo printing in A2 format, or A3 is better?

[Azélor]

The map is good except that you have overlapping elements, like mountains spreading over water or over other elements. The other problem of using a brush like that is it look blurry if you make it larger (to illustrate larger mountain ranges). I think it can be fixed using tools to increase clarity but don't overuse it or it will make it worst by adding weird colours and patterns.

As for cities, assuming the population is evenly distributed on a given area, you should have cities also distributed evenly. That said, many factor will favour the placement of a city in a specific spot instead of another. On of them is the presence of a rich trade route. Cities can also exist without major trade routes but the region with more trading will tend to have more and bigger cities. We should assume that the map is in a temperature climate, if so, access to fresh water is not a problem anywhere. Even small river can be used to ship merchandise on raft.

Forests are interesting in fantasy geography because they usually don't make sense from the economic point of view. If a region was settled for long enough, with increasing population, every bit of forest will be chopped down for agriculture (not exactly, some areas will remain forested for different reasons like there are abandoned buildings in the core of large cities despite high demand). Difficult terrain like hills is not fit for agriculture and thus keeps the forest cover.

[Elvis.Osmanovic]

Well since this is a High Fantasy novel more on the lines of LoTR than Martins Game of Thrones the social and economics aspect wont be present in the book (at least not to an extent where i have to plan trading routes) and the Setting of the world will portray that if i am successful in my writing. The thing is i like to do everything i can before i write a single word of the book. This map will likely only be used by me to create some cohesion in the movement of my characters, and god forbid to even speak about it, but if published one day, im sure this is not how the map will look like.

But nevertheless i am that type of person who finds help in these sort of things and making this right is kind of a big deal for me, even tough i understand that it might not be that beneficial. So forgive me if i ask too many questions about it that come across as "uneducated" or simply "arrogant", i just dont know any better

[Falconius]

If a region was settled for long enough, with increasing population, every bit of forest will be chopped down for agriculture (not exactly, some areas will remain forested for different reasons like there are abandoned buildings in the core of large cities despite high demand). Difficult terrain like hills is not fit for agriculture and thus keeps the forest cover.

This simply isn't the case, forests end up managed just like any other piece of land, not only for hunting, but also for timber etc. If your thesis was remotely true, France and England would simply have had no wood to build their giant fleets initially (after which their wood reserves were depleted, but whatever). Indeed deforestation, is far more likely to occur for other reasons, either for industry (glass making for instance), or for war. Industry being the more far reaching of the two (war depletes resources in the immediate vicinity, industry transports them much farther).

[Charerg]

Well, Azelor's thesis is not true in every case, but in many cases it is valid. The level of deforestation caused also depends on the type of agriculture being used, though. But there's no denying that the forests of the Mediterranean (and parts of the Middle East, I guess?) were destroyed almost entirely by slash-and-burn farming at a relatively early date.

Also, the Romans hacked down basically all the forests of North Africa precisely to increase the amount of land available for agriculture.

[Falconius]

The Mediterranean, and especially North Africa are places where it takes an extremely long time to grow a forest. It takes a concentrated effort over generations to rebuild a forest in the Mediterranean. Indeed it was why I mentioned the glass making because Israel was deforested in the second Temple period (500 onwards till the Romans) largely because of this industry. Wood has always been a valuable resource, the Romans would not have slashed and burnt it anywhere where it was useful for them. You can see forests depicted both in art and literature right the way back through history.

[Azélor]

Yes the forest was managed with laws, and if wasn't of that, it would all dissapear like the Amazon forest is slowly vanishing. Apparently Ireland had almost 0 forest cover in the 19th century, because of agriculture and because it became of England's biggest source of wood. http://www.rohanlon.org/downloads/O%...une%202012.pdf

France was forced to take action to keep a strategic resource of wood. Most of the forested areas are either in the Landes (swampy area close to Bordeaux), in the Massif Central or other hilly areas. Also, large national fleets is something that happened in late Renaissance. It could happen sooner maybe without a feudal system but ships would still be rather small compared to say the HSM Victory.

Also, France and England had colonies and imported some of their raw materials.

I haven't really taught about industry as the main reason for deforestation, I think agriculture had a larger impact but domestic use is also something to consider.
In times of prosperity population increase, so does the demand for food and new lands get deforested to feed these people. Sometimes (as seen in Indonesia a few years ago) people will prefer to burn the forests instead of cutting the trees. It's not wasted since burnt wood also have some uses.

[Falconius]

Yes but that's my point, forest were managed, with laws. It wasn't just willy nilly. You couldn't just go into the forest hack out a clearing build a log cabin and burn yourself an area for farming, because you'd probably be hanged. Forests were owned as part of a fief, or else as with everything owned by the crown. Colonies and conquered territories are obviously treated differently until they are seen as part of the empire/kingdom/whathaveyou, but any area with long governance, managed it's resources. Forest were not only cut down, but also replanted, for both timber and fuel in the future.

France and England started importing from the colonies only after they were established as world powers and had the ability to maintain said colonies, with ships, built in Europe. By that point they had cut down almost all old growth forest and so lacked the large timbers needed for masts spars and keels or whatever shipbuilders use. That was part of the drive for colonization yes. But they still had forests.

[Charerg]

Some forests, yes. But probably not the sort of "fantasy forest" which is basically an untouched wilderness where barely anyone lives. Those kind of forests usually require a low population density. Although as far as I know, Medieval France and England still had quite a bit of forest cover left, but Azelor points out correctly that the largest forests appeared in specific areas (borderlands depopulated by warfare, mountainous or hilly areas less suitable for agriculture).

[Falconius]

Yeah I agree, there would be no 'natural' forests or old growth forests in any place with a permanent population of any significance.