Land of the Eleven Tribes

[LonewandererD]

By painting the entire area in forest and deleting large swathes by ctrl-clicking certain layers and deleting i was able to come up with this rough forest covering, i'm now going to go back and clean it up. Any suggestions as to what I should focus on in my clean up?

The second pic included is the same as the first but without the drop shadow on the forest, which looks better?

-D-

[Djekspek]

hehe, both looking great. personally, i like the drop-shadow better (little more depth but i'm not sure if it fits with the scale). btw it seems your rivers are floating a bit above the forest, maybe ease a bit on the bevel? or is there some glow/shadow on it (cant really point out why the river looks elevated).

[Juggernaut1981]

Okay, i need to explain, which is also another reason why i changed the named from "The Eleven Tribes" to the "Evelakaia".
...
In the modern time of this map the tribes don't really exist as the tribes anymore, they're closer to being great houses or city states.
...
I hope this clears things up.

-D-

All I can suggest D is that you read about the political shennanigans that went on in France and England. The War of the Roses and the times leading up to that are a great example of how to get "semi traitorous" politics within a feudal system.

In what you have described there would be a large cemetary dedicated to those in the lowest rung of nobility. They would change allegiances and be executed by assassins, suffer "accidental horse runs into tree" deaths, the odd bandit raid which happens to kill the nobleman's son and other "clearly it was an accident, what a tragedy" events.

If I was a high ranking noble (or the King) in your lands, I would have to whack heads hard to keep order. Kings that spend too much time working on keeping things stable tend to get conquered. Solutions: kill the untrustworthy, exile them on trumped up charges, send them on a battle campaign you don't intend for them to survive, execute them for crimes against the crown, etc. Oh and make sure I keep the Inquisition FIRMLY in my pocket, those guys are a weapon to be used not just some kind of 3rd party commission.

[LonewandererD]

Okay, I'm keeping the shadow on my forests to give it depth but i can't dial down the bevel, its pretty much as low as its going to get.

Now Juggernaut. Some of the methods that you have described are som of the ways that the higher nobles have kept anarchy amongst the Jhul'a to a minimum; there is always call for more troops at the frontier. However, should too many lesser lords end up having accidents than the judges are going to get just a wee bit curious as to why. Also a lesser lord doesn't just openly declare that he now likes this noble over this noble, he has to make his switch more subtle, normally taking months. By then they would have grabbed the attention of the new noble that they're trying to impress and if the noble accepts them than they announce their new allegiance. Once that happens the Jhul'a gains slight protection from the new noble but should the new noble reject them than they better try to be charming to try and win back their way back into their old nobles good graces. To the higher lords the loyalty of the lesser lords isn't away of measuring power but popularity. The reason that the high nobles don't take the lesser seriously is that they just don't have the power to challenge them; the higher lords would rather focus on the other higher lords than worry about the clucking of the little people.

On the judges, it isn't necissary to keep them in your pocket because they keep themselves n check. The judges have three mission and one is to protect the interests of the castes and one such interests is to protect the interests of the royal caste. Too make sure that the judges do their jobs there's even a subgroup of judges that monitor the judges.

-D-

[LonewandererD]

Firstly, ignore my last comment about the judge caste, i'm rethinking alot about the people of my map and secondly, update time.

I clean up the forests and moulded them into their base shapes, i kept the drop shadow but changed it from a black to a dark green. I'm now going back and reshaping and detailing the land as needed, such as what i did in the southeast. I'm sure f you can see it but i try to experiment with creating a mix of dense and light forest to try and make it more natural.

Back to detailing.

-D-

[LonewandererD]

Update, filled in more of the map.

Now guys level with me, what do you really think of the map, I think it's turning out alright but what do you think?

Anyway I'll be focusing on the large blank space in the central-eastern area next.

-D-

[jfrazierjr]

Update, filled in more of the map.

Now guys level with me, what do you really think of the map, I think it's turning out alright but what do you think?

Anyway I'll be focusing on the large blank space in the central-eastern area next.

-D-

I think it's quite lovely. Several items of note:

I am really rather interested as to the reasons for the two chasms. Especially as they are both essentially surrounded by forests which seems a bit odd to me. Now granted, I am no geology person(not even close), but what little I have been exposed to in the real world appears to put such chasms in a more rocky barren type areas. AGAIN, I could be wrong one this and it's still a good looking map anyway, just wondering, thats all.

Are these jungles or unexplored lands? I noticed the forests all go directly to the edge of the land up to the water. Not a big deal though, just wondering. Also note, in two of the "bays" on the center right hand side, it appears like the forests were note masked off properly and you have some greenery into the sea/ocean. The higher one(location wise on the map) is very thick, but the other one takes a bit of looking unless you are zoomed in...

EDIT: Oh... and your water pattern repeats. Not a huge deal and its not super noticeable, but it is there in the zoomed in version....

[Steel General]

No 'nit picks' from me, I think it looks good so far.

[LonewandererD]

Adressing the items of note.

The chasms were caused by two different events. The one on the left, the Western Scar, was actually supposed to be a large geothermic vent or something on those lines, i'm still trying to figure but it needs to be something linked with the hotsprings that the area is known for. I visited a few such areas in New Zealand and they were quite green, although the odour of sulfur was a bit off-putting (I have a touchy sense of smell). The second chasm was actually formed several hundred years in the past when the Great Uniter completely obliterated the armies of the Sorresnan tribe that opposed him. The event was so great that it left a great rent in the land and turned the surviving Sorresnans into pacifists.

As this area is a bit too far north for jungles to appear, think about where Japan is although Japan may still have jungles. I've got to do more research. I'm thinking they are more just deep forests, I just like green maps. I am going to go back and break it up a bit, i already have tried to do this with the large rocky areas, once i can figure out how to make a nice transition from forests to grasslands. I'm going to have to look it up but here in Aus its not uncommon for the trees to go straight to the coast, quickly turning from dense vegetation to beach. The two areas where the forests break out over the water was actually just a mistake, I forgot to delete all forests over the water last time i opened up this map. It will be corrected by my next update.

Lastly i was hoping that people wouldn't notice the repeating water pattern, i'm using one of my older textures that i havn't actually work alot on. I will try and change but the texture is mainly just there to break up the large matt of blue that is the ocean.

Thnx for the feedback.

While I'm here does anyone know how to make a good mist/cloud cover? I ask because I'm going to use to cover the edges of the map, sort of a fog of war or something instead of just putting in a border.

-D-

[Ascension]

Personally, I like it. It looks like a blend of my style and Pasis' style but with your own, more vibrant, color scheme. JFJ hit all of the points that hit me so the only other thing that I'll add is that I think your rivers could use some variation in thickness...they're all the same thickness from coast all the way up to the mountains. I'm not referring to the branches, that part is good, I'm referring to the main trunk of the rivers...put some thick and thin parts in. If you only have a mouse to do that then it can be tedious to do (I know, I did it that way for 5 years). Oh, and maybe a delta or two for the bigger rivers. Nice job, though so