Idea is I’ll add buildings and colour in as the empires grow. Any ideas for improvements? Maybe a more elegant way of marking the empires?

I have been working on a world map for ages, and the scale is simply never right. I can't figure out how to represent mountains for example. Or forests. I am trying to create a continent with pretty major mountain ranges and trying to discern how water flows and how wide to make mountains and just... how do you guys do all that factoring?

And THEN I'm also trying to work zoomed in, an area it would take roughly 60 days to cross by horse back. And then that scale is even more weird for me.

How do you guys picture this stuff and work with scale for your maps? Do you have a trick or tactic you follow? Any help would be appreciated. My brain just isn't getting it.

Can anyone share advice on how to make make political maps look good? All my attempts end up looking very shoddy, and I see some brilliant examples on here. Are there tips and tricks that you've found work well? I've downloaded the Avoro Political Borders assets, among others, but while that's giving me a nice range of tools, it isn't making me any better at using them!

Thanks in advance.

I love this map editor a lot, and after trying numerous ones this is the best one, the one that I looked for, having said that - it would be even better, considering vast amount of options in the editor and customizations, to be able to create really big maps, like 2-3 times bigger than the current maximum.

Hello everyone,

I have tried to use the detail map fucntion on my world map but found out that on the obtained detailed map, the symbole scale would automatically shrink and there would be no way to make it stop. I can lock the scale but it is very unpracticale and it ruins the experience for me. Is there any way to cancel this option ?

Sorry english is not my main language

Thanks a lot for all the answers !

Does anyone know what to do? I tried restarting my laptop several times and even uninstalled and reinstalled it and still have the same issue. Any help would be appreciated.

Would like to know of official support planned.

Im having an issue where anytime i save my map, the program crashes before it saves. I reinstalled the program and updated my drivers, i have no assets installed.

Below are some maps I've been working on, which I thought I'd share here.

In this world, the continent of Amenathira lies directly across the North Pole (much as Antarctica lies across the South Pole in our own world). The first map shows the continent, along with its subcontinents, with "North" sitting at the very centre of the map.

To help navigation around the map, eight meridians are marked.

The majority of my worldbuilding so far has been focused on the Empire of Norath, a sprawling expanse that covers much of Eser and Rulian. At its heart is the city of Norath, which sits in the D4 square on the map above.

This map is rotated 90 degrees from how it appears on the larger map, so that north is (very nearly) directly up. The area depicted is approximately 750 miles by 750 miles -- about the same area as the Portugal, France, Spain and Germany combined. The cities of Reston, Forbond and Incre are regional capitals.

Much of the success of Norath steps from its fertility. The climate is reminiscent of southern England or northern France, much of the soil is rich, the landscape is rolling but broadly traversable, and the rainfall -- especially in the east and south of the map -- is plentiful. The Fetter, which flows roughly from north to south, is navigable along much of its length, promoting a thriving river trade.

A map showing the names of the rivers and mountain ranges of that same area. The Hithilsere is a bay about half the total area of the Bay of Biscay. The terrain is dotted with hilly regions, but is not mountainous -- the range of mountains known as the Bariniltyre is only about 150 miles in length.

Part of the world of my lore, I already write a book about lore and I think it deserves a map! This is first attempt of mine and I appreciate every kind of advice!

The upper right part of the map is empty because I have only written the names of the castles mentioned in the book so far.

I was working on a new project and saved maps to a new folder.
A day later all my wonderdraft files had disappeared. 2 years worth.
I went into a shock induced zombie-like file hunt including dropbox backups. no luck.
I then loaded wonderdraft, and managed to load one of the older files from the previous menu, which worked.
???
scouring the wonderdraft ini file I found them all stacked neatly in a roaming profile documents folder.

wtf
Does anyone know what can cause this so that i can avoid in future?

I'm new and made my first map for my homebrew dnd campaign. Please feel free to give me some feedback. Too colorful? Too detailed?

https://preview.redd.it/0se63tiemhwd1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=f4e120f691dd4df33352f353aaa615b87d6c573f

The Year of 1917 and the Italian Theather

1917 was not a good year for Austria-Hungary in the Italian theater. They had not recovered from the disastrous Brusilov in the previous year. 

The Kingdom of Italy’s strength significantly increased. With more than a million troops, the Italians outnumbered the Austrians 5 to 2. Britain and France supplied their ally with a large number of heavy artillery batteries and munitions. This made the Kingdom a force to be reckoned with.

The Italians launched two ferocious offensives equal to those on the Western Front. They won the Tenth and Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo (12 May – 8 June 1917; 19 August – 12 September 1917), pushing the Austrian Empire to the brink of collapse. 

The Austrians’ elastic defense could not work. There was no place left for them to retreat. The sensitive Hermada Citadel was within the Italian reach. If Hermada felt, the strategic port city of Trieste would surely fall. The loss of it would knock the Autria-Hungary Empire out of the war. The Italians would use their number superiority to extend the frontline which the Austrians had no more troops to spare.

During the Eleventh Battle, most of the Bainsizza-Heiligengeist Plateau fell to the attackers. The Italian would use this strategic area to cut the Austrian forces in half in their next offensive. 

In addition to territory losses, the Austrian fighting force dwindled. While their casualties were much lower, the empire could not replenish their losses. As for artillery pieces, more than half of the irreplaceable Austrian batteries were captured.

As things went, Austria could not survive another offensive. German First Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff predicted that Austria-Hungary would surrender before 1918.

To reverse the misfortune of war, a joined counteroffensive was needed. The Austrians had only 21 divisions against 40 Italian divisions. They needed at least 20 more from the German and Austrian troops on the Eastern Front for the offensive.

In September, the Central Powers created the German 14th Army from their best troops in the East under the leadership of General der Infanterie Otto von Below. It had 17 divisions, 1076 guns, 174 mortars and 31 engineer companies. This Army would be the spearhead of the Fall Offensive.

Plan for the Offensive:

https://preview.redd.it/wueya1wimhwd1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=a7c024187e17821c5758fa14b3e3eb96864aff60

The main goal of the offensive was to drive the Italians 40 km back to the Tagliamento and beyond. This would shorten the frontline and give favorable terrains for the Austrian defenders.

To achieve this, the 14th Army would break through the Italian 2nd Army’s lines at Flitsch (Plezzo) and Tolmein (Tolmin, Tolmino).  Between Flitsch and Tolmien was the the town of Karfreit (Caporetto) which was soon to be a namesake for the Twelve Battle of the Isonzo.

The Offensive would begin in mid-October and end before December. Ludendorff wanted those German divisions back for the Spring Offensive of 1918.

https://preview.redd.it/7yt54u5pmhwd1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=bcb3d4f374da61c61632c8feb91a03c4c34ee3d8

Kingdom of Italy after the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo

Victories in 1917 came with enormous cost. The staggering loss of more than 300,000 men was more than the two previous years combined. The kingdom could not send more men fast enough before the winter.

In addition, newly acquired territories add more burden to the victors. The road condition was horrible. The lack of roads prevented a sufficient amount of supplies from reaching the frontline. The terrain and bad weather hampered communications and coordination among the battle groups. 

Despite all the optimism in Italy, another offensive in 1917 was impossible.

As the Central Powers emerged victorious on the Eastern Front, Marshall of Italy Luigi Cadorna instructed his generals to focus on defense in case of the Central Powers’ attacks.

Despite his instructions, Luigi Cadorna and the Italian leadership did not believe a major Austrian offensive was possible until 1918.

The Commander of the 2nd Army shared this belief. Luigi Capello, the most abled general, did not follow the instructions and set his troops in an aggressive stance. Most of his troops were deployed in the forward positions at the cost of thinning his defense line. His 2nd and 3rd lines of defense were too close to the first line. Moreover, General Capello concentrated his divisions and batteries on the high ground and neglected the defense in the valley. 

The main road between Tolmein and Karfreit was lightly defended. This would not be an issue in good weather conditions as the defenders on the high ground had a clear view to fire at the defenseless attackers. However, with extreme weather in October and poor communication, there was nothing to stop the attackers from advancing quickly on this road. 

Capello’s reason for this aggressive stance was that he believed the offensive was small in scale. It would be shattered by a general counterattack. 

As Cardona did not force his general to follow the 18th September instruction, the Capello HQ intentionally misinterpreted his order. 

As signs of an imminent offensive emerged and Capello’s illness was serious, the weaknesses of the 2nd Army were on display. The Italian leadership attempted to adjust the defense, but it was too late. 

At 2:00 AM on October 24th, a massive artillery barrage fired across the Flitsch-and-Tolmein sector. The Twelve Battle of the Isonzo began.

Techniques and software:

Those maps were created with Wonderdraft, Inkscape, and GIMP. 

Wonderdraft is a wonderful mapping software that allows the user to add their symbols and other assets. Despite that, it has shortcomings when the map area is less than 100km square.

To overcome this limit, the mountains have to be drawn painstakingly with the pathing function. One mistake or a change of heart usually takes hours to fix. The risks of corrupting saved files and backup are very high with this technique as the files are large.

For the accuracy and color theme, historical pictures taken in the same month of the Flitsch-Tolmien section the the same period are used. Modern pictures are not reliable because the vegetation from 107 years ago was “less green” compared to nowadays. 

Inkscape and GIMP are free software that are used to edit the maps created by Wonderdraft. They are also excellent tools to create custom assets. 

Sources:

1.  OSTERREICH-UNGARNS LETZTER KRIEG, 1914-1918. Vol 6. Pg 532-622

• The maps were recreated from the Leaflet024 and Leaflet026. 

1. Caporetto and the Isonzo Campaign. The Italian Front 1915-1918. By Željko Cimprić, John Macdonald. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1848846715
2. The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front 1915-1919. By Mark Thompson. ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0465020379 
3. Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I. By Alexander Watson. ISBN-13: ‎978-0465094882

I'm trying to collect a list of assets, both official and otherwise, that are B&W.
I use the Adventure theme and love the look of the simple b&w inked/penciled trees and mountains. I'm sure there are more I should be using to indicate different terains.

I'm currently in the process of creating some custom color assets for a top-down city map I'm working on. When I create the transparent .PNG files, I'm painting them with red (FF0000), green (008000) and blue (0000FF). So they look something like this:

https://preview.redd.it/74i2upp5v4wd1.png?width=540&format=png&auto=webp&s=28202e0970201502543c6b445597e56bb7392a5b

This is a section of wall BTW. What I'm going for is a cobbled walkway where I can have the bricks be just slightly different colors from one another for a more realistic look. In Wonderdraft I've chosen 3 light grey colors that are relatively close to one another:

https://preview.redd.it/4ohjxt5qv4wd1.png?width=171&format=png&auto=webp&s=d64486e8885c26f6b36f372f6a7061062a6e0bf9

But the asset comes out much darker wherever the original was painted green:

https://preview.redd.it/7himyekyv4wd1.png?width=598&format=png&auto=webp&s=6e99c9b1a0b5fa1a414cb4ee158af46bacb17185

If anyone can offer any help or suggestions on what I may have gotten wrong, I would greatly appreciate it. At the end of the day, I can live with this, but I'd rather have it the way I originally intended. Thanks.

This is Sylvarion. I’m still fooling around with some forest options and label fonts/sizes

I only found how to move it or delete.