The Outline Map

In a previous post, I mentioned I wanted to play a solo map campaign. The campaign AI is provided by “The Solo Wargaming Guide” by William Silvester. Though not strictly required, the guide draws a lot from “Tony Bath’s Ancient Wargaming” which a good part of the book is a reprint of “Setting up a Wargames Campaign.” Both books emphasize the starting point is an outline map.

The outline map is just that, an outline of the land being fought over. My campaign of Amazon versus Amazon takes place on the large island of Valkae in the fantasy world of Talomir. If you are an American, you can think of Valkae as being the size of Texas, if you are in Europe, then think of the island being as large as France.

The best maps of Talomir for the purpose of wargaming are found in Rally Round the King from Two Hour Wargames (available for purchase from Rebel Minis and the Wargame Vault). I know, the newer rules have smoother game mechanics, and the map is pretty, but it is not very useful when mapping a campaign.

I used a pantograph to enlarge the map of Valkae to fill a sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 paper and then cut it out to use as a guide in drawing the map onto four sheets of hexagon graph paper. Why four sheets? Well, I drew the map where each 1/4″ wide hex represents 10 square miles of terrain.

This brings me to the next step in campaign preparation – filling in the map with terrain. This is done using 2D6 and a bit of common sense (things like not having rivers run uphill for instance).

This won’t take long, and I’ll post the results in a couple of days. (The reason there was so much time between the first post and this one, is that I had to order the hexagon graph paper and the pantograph!) Meanwhile, let me know your experiences in cartography, the art of making maps for a game. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome and appreciated!

The Iron Queen Campaign Series:

• Part 1 – Making a Darn Good Game More Complicated
• Part 2 – The Outline Map (this post!)

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