I have improved the campaign map for my simple ECW campaign. I have drawn up the areas using county boundaries, and it looks much nicer.
The observant will see one major change - the Midlands has been split into two areas. When drawn up this way the original area was huge compared to what was covered by the other areas. This split into North Midlands and South Midlands makes a little more sense.
I have run some test campaigns with this map and it doesn't radically how the campaign pans out. The setup for the Royalists changes; they start with South Midlands, but North Midlands is uncontrolled at the start.
In some of the campaigns I used random rolls to select the active area each turn, but then allowed that side to choose which area they moved into. If they go into an uncontrolled area then they simply take it over. If they choose an enemy area then they fight a battle as per the rules, which causes time to advance.
The really, really observant will see that the map I chose for the background was actually produced fifty years after the ECW. I liked the image though.
Impressive bit of mapwork, there…👍🏼. I admire the IT skills of those who can rework an existing map like that so convincingly (more of a paper and crayons level, meself…🙃)
ReplyDeleteIt's mostly my 20 year old copy of Photoshop Elements :)
DeleteThe map now has much more period atmosphere, and the division of the Midlands - where much, if not most of, the fighting took place - makes good sense. How did you decide whether the active side moved into an uncontrolled or an enemy-held area? Die roll?
ReplyDeleteI made what I regarded as a sensible decision, backed up by a die roll if I couldn't come up with something fair. Whilst simply attacking enemy areas (especially capitals) always seems the best option if you can do it, grabbing an uncontrolled area does build up the amount of control you have and prevent a total collapse if the enemy gets the initiative for a few turns.
DeleteI like the reworked map. Do you plan to use place names off the map for your campaign battles?
ReplyDeleteI could do, although printed off at A4 it's tricky to read even the county and major city names :) And, of course, not all battles were named after settlements, so I'd really need a map with names of commons, hills, ridges and bridges as well :)
DeleteI’d just make a list for each zone. Maybe start with any actual battles, then add towns or features. Tick one off each engagement.
DeleteWow! Great map! 👍
ReplyDelete