North American Map

[Felix]

G'day,

A question on map aesthetics and functionality. I've got a map of North America at the 25km hex scale which I'm fine-tuning. I was wondering about the following;

1. Do the Appalachians count as mountains, or just big hills? The map I used showed them as being less than 2,000m in height, which is a hill to me. However, this seems to make an invasion of Virginia from West Virginia quite easy. Do the Appalachians deserve to be shown with mountain hexes, should I just accept the easy trafficability or should I use some badland/hills hexes to make life difficult for an invader?

2. What is the consensus for putting forests on hills? I don't like it for aesthetic reasons, as it pushes the hills into the background. However, if not putting the forest on has real game implications, then bugger the aesthetics. I had some trouble understanding the game manual on this, so, what difference does a forest on a hill hex make, compared to a hill-only one?

Cheers.

[JMS]

G'day,

A question on map aesthetics and functionality. I've got a map of North America at the 25km hex scale which I'm fine-tuning. I was wondering about the following;

1. Do the Appalachians count as mountains, or just big hills? The map I used showed them as being less than 2,000m in height, which is a hill to me. However, this seems to make an invasion of Virginia from West Virginia quite easy. Do the Appalachians deserve to be shown with mountain hexes, should I just accept the easy trafficability or should I use some badland/hills hexes to make life difficult for an invader?

2. What is the consensus for putting forests on hills? I don't like it for aesthetic reasons, as it pushes the hills into the background. However, if not putting the forest on has real game implications, then bugger the aesthetics. I had some trouble understanding the game manual on this, so, what difference does a forest on a hill hex make, compared to a hill-only one?

Cheers.

IMO the difference depends on the abruptness of the terrain, if it rises from 0 to 2000m in 1 Km it should be a mountain, if it does in 10Km it may be a hill

[Menschenfresser]

Height or no, much of the Appalachians are rough enough terrain to constitute being TOAW mountains. There are some real vertical valleys and gorges there. My opinion is that whole armies could disappear into the back woods of W. Virginia.

[Felix]

OK, I'll put a string of mountains through there. I've noticed that everyone else who's done a map of North America has done this, but as I've never been to the US, I wasn't 100% sure myself. It was a bit stupid when I tested the scenario, and had two US armies invading right through the Appalachians with few supply problems.

What about forests and hills in the same hex? Is there much of a difference here?

[Tiberius]

OK, I'll put a string of mountains through there. I've noticed that everyone else who's done a map of North America has done this, but as I've never been to the US, I wasn't 100% sure myself. It was a bit stupid when I tested the scenario, and had two US armies invading right through the Appalachians with few supply problems.

What about forests and hills in the same hex? Is there much of a difference here?

Adding forests to hill definitely makes for rougher/better defensive/harder to move through terrain. If they were there I would add them. Many places in the Appalachians are probably eligible for everything from light woods/hills combinations to mountains/forest combos with everything in between. Throw in some major and minor escarpments. In the Sierra Nevada near where I'm from you would have plenty of major escarpments and alpine terrain in the higher parts , with mountains/evergreen forest one step down from that and hills/light woods near the foothills.

[JMS]

Adding forests to hill definitely makes for rougher/better defensive/harder to move through terrain. If they were there I would add them. Many places in the Appalachians are probably eligible for everything from light woods/hills combinations to mountains/forest combos with everything in between. Throw in some major and minor escarpments. In the Sierra Nevada near where I'm from you would have plenty of major escarpments and alpine terrain in the higher parts , with mountains/evergreen forest one step down from that and hills/light woods near the foothills.

Problem is, mountains and forest are not compatible.

[piero1971]

having done once the appalachian trial north to south, these are definitely mountains... in my maps, I usually put large escarpements in such cases to simulate gorges and passes, etc. to make passage routes as few and as historical as possible

[Siberian HEAT]

I am slowly working on a NA map at 20km and would be happy to look at how you are doing things and offer any help. I'm using several map sources for elevation and land cover - but it is slow going and right now I really only have the west coast to Salt Lake City roughed out. Takes a lot longer than I ever would have thought to do a map right.

[Felix]

If you want, I'll e-mail you mine. I'm quite proud of the damn thing, but I don't like the look of Illinois and Kentucky (You'll see when I send it.). Just bear in mind that it's dated for 1914, and alternate one too. So North and South Dakota are just one state, as is Arizona and New Mexico. Maine is truncated, due to the British winning a war in 1882. There's more forest, fewer fields and roads, smaller towns. But the topography should still be the same.

I assume I can send you a private e-mail via this website?

[Siberian HEAT]

Feel free to send it to siberianheat -at- warfarehq.com.

Look forward to it!