Thursday, September 27, 2007

A Request

Gentlemen and Kind Sirs,

I seem to recall seeing a map of Greater Europa somewhere on one of the blogs, possibly this one, that showed many of our territories. These territories were represented on the map by colored "orbs" and failed to define any specific geographic boundaries. As our ranks have grown considerably, and as many of us have used reasonably accurate cartographic representations to show our dominions, I believe that it is time for a new map to be commissioned. I humbly offer my own representation, based on a map of Greater Europa in 1780 (but still somewhat accurate for earlier periods) that has two advantages: (a) It is in public domain for non-profit use, and (b) It does show the primary meridians of latitude and longitude, as well as most major rivers and cities, making the exact definition of territories more of a possibility. I have found that in many cases I can relate this map to more modern maps that I have to include other significants cities and states as well.

I feel that such a map would be of value to us in determining who and where our potential allies and opponents are. It would also be valuable in determining where land claims or grants overlap, resulting in disputed territories that may lend themselves to active campaign and diplomatic fodder for our humble group. I would willingly provide a clean jpg file to a designated cartographer, or would be willing to attempt the assignment myself (through the appropriate minions of course!). Your thoughts on this proposal would be greatly appreciated.

Sir William of M'Uedail

20 comments:

tradgardmastare said...

Sounds and excellent idea and it is good of you to offer help to the cartographically challenged like me! I for one do feel it is time for a new map. The old one served us well but we have moved on since then and are a larger brethern.

Bluebear Jeff said...

Sir William,

I like the idea . . . but one difficulty may be found in that a few countries seem to be occupying the same territory.

Nevertheless, I encourage you to give it a try. For a start, here are my two nations:

Saxe-Bearstein equates to Bohemia

Stagonia occupies the same space as Bavaria (and does so most vilely).


-- Jeff

old-tidders said...

I had put the map of europa generated by a previous cartographer on to the Who's Who & What's What site, and made a couple of minor alterations.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/allan.tidmarsh/Wargames/EvE/

Have a go at a new map; we need a better one.

For your info the Kingdom of Wittenberg - is basically where the Electorate of Saxony was with Monrovia (its rival) to the west.

-- Brother James of Alt-Wittendorf

MurdocK said...

Here is just such a mappe, as I did a few months ago...

Bubble Mappe 5

as Sir William of M'Uedail points out in his post, there are many more imagi-nations that have been added since May, when I did this mappe.

abdul666 said...

An excellent suggestion and a kind proposal.

As for several Imagi-Nations coexisting 'on' the same historical country, the problem may in some cases be easier to solve than it appears at first glance. E.g. for OTL France we have Gallia and (in the 'sphere' of another, let's call ir "primary", country) the Batrachian Empire. Then this last 'has some Belgian inspiration': it could -its grandiloquent designation notwithstanding- correspond 'in our real world' only to the few extreme North-Eastern French 'departements' contiguous to the Belgian border. Gallia would have the whole 'actual' Franco-German to aggress the Hesse-Seewald led coalition: historical French so often crossed the Rhine.
May be each similar case, when analyzed, will turn out so be not really more complicated?

Monte-Cristo is so small it poses no problem; besides, we are accustomed not to appear on any map, being always *under* the line marking the frontier between 'France' and 'Savoy' - and appreciate it. Nobody will plan the invasion of an inexistant country, and no army following a road marked on the map -any map- will enter accidentally the peninsula.

Sir William the Aged said...

I do have a question for my Esteemed Brethren; When I use the built-in features in blogger while composing to insert and image, I lose the ability for the viewer to click on the image and make it larger. I have my images both on my desktop and on Photobucket, and it doesn't seem to matter what the source is. If you'll take a look at M'Eudail's blog you'll see what I mean. Any suggestions that don't require me to become a programmer? I'm getting ready to post uniforms and flags, possibly along with a new map, and would like the ability to for viewer's to enlarge what they see.

Sir William the Aged said...

Murdock;

Many, many thanks for the link to the May map. I like the fact that yours shows much more topographic detail and many more cities. However, I also like the fact that mine shows a larger scale with Ireland, Northern Spain, all of the Italian States including Corsica and Sardinia-Sicily all appearing, along with the meridians marked for reference. Any suggestions on how we can combine the two? I also don't see as big a problem with overlapping grants as I once thought. Using my own Duchy as an example, I point out that Louis had already made conflicting land grants and that I "may" have a dispute with the landlord of Lyon. I'm sure there are or will be others, as Louis wasn't always firmly based in the real world. In the case of the German States, Baden was actually split historically and in the midst of a semi-civil war to re-unite with various factions invloved. My patron in Baden is a descendant of the Simpert family who finally re-united (to some extent) the actual state of Baden-Baden. So the fact that there are Freistadt's and Duchy's within this disputed area is of little consequence and may, in fact, have some basis in reality. In the case of Monte-Cristo, it would lay along one of my routes to my patron in Milan, but such is the warmth of the people of this region (and my reputation with the Church in Rome after saving their precious Abbey and my precious Amaretto), that I seriously doubt there would be any major consequence.

Bluebear Jeff said...

I don't believe that the Electorate of Vulgaria is still active.

He has left our group blog and not posted on his for over four months . . . so if he overlaps anyone, reduce or move him (I'd prefer not to eliminate him even though I don't think he plans on rejoining us).


-- Jeff (as blog moderator)

Sir William the Aged said...

I actually e-mailed him about some plastics that he said he had available in his last post. Took him a couple of weeks, but he finally responded and said he had sold all of "that stuff" a long time ago and hadn't thought any more about his Blog. I'm not the "final authority", but I do believe Vulgaria has left the building.

Anonymous said...

Batrachian Empire?

Never heard of it.

Gallia said...

The moderator could email and ask if he has "left", etc. Was he the fellow who tried to burn down all of Paris? I'm thinking he is but....
Bill

Fitz-Badger said...

The Batrachian Empire (in spite of the grand name) is, as Jean-Louis pointed out a fairly small nation. It borders the Soweiter League and is in fact their main on-again and off-again protagonist.

MurdocK said...

I took a look at the map from M'Eudail's blog, it expanded just fine for me?

I liked the background map that I used in the Mappe project, since it was very 'clean' and allowed the insertion of colour into it much easier; that way we could get our imagi-nations on the map and not encounter too much confusion with the 'background' map.

If you can find one that has the features you want and covers the earth's surface the way you want then I can add our imagi-nations to it the way I did with the earlier map...all I ask is that we start with a clean 'black and white' map. I am not such a fan of the 'olde world' style of map that had such enourmous 'border' lines and such a blocky text that we cannot fit in our names.

On the 'fit' note I also chose the background map in question since it covered the 'imperial territories' in a smaller scale, thus allowing room to put in all the names of the multitude of states...that so many seem to favour.

In the end I suspect we will need two maps to cover it all properly, one large scale one covering the whole of europe from the mid atlantic to the urals, from the arctic to the north of africa.

hmmm...

I seem to recall already DOING such a map.

Check out:Murdock'S MarauderS

I have this map in a format that I think I can change the names/numbers etc and maybe we can use it as a baseline in a giant 'game' of Sport of Kings?

Bluebear Jeff said...

Bill,

No, I'm pretty sure that it was someone else who tried to burn down Paris.

As for Poruchik, I hadn't really realized he left until I noted his absence amongst our contributors. By the way, we currently have 31 members plus two more pending.

I personally believe in not burning bridges. I'm pretty sure that Vulgaria will not return . . . but I've been wrong before . . . and it doesn't cost us anything to leave that possibility open.

We also have about 20% of our authors who mainly just "lurk" . . . but I believe that just about everyone has posted at least once.


-- Jeff

Sir William the Aged said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sir William the Aged said...

I think I "solved" the problem of the graphics not enlarging, at least in part. Yes, the map in my post will enlarge now. It seems that if you use the import icon from the Post screen and add a graphic, what you do with it after that matters. If you leave it where the program defaults it, at the top of your post, then everything seems to work fine. However, if you drag it to another position, say at the bottom of your post, then it becomes a "static" graphic. I contacted Google Support about it, they found the same results, and the person helping me seemed as baffled as I was.

Murdock - You may well be right about needing two maps, especially with some of our Brethren off exploring and colonizing. And, I can understand your preference for a clean black and white template to start with. Unfortunately, the only ones I can find (whole evening web searching) are the following:

(a) A series of free educational maps that DO have the latitude and longitude, are free to use for educational or "not for profit" projects, and can be had with or without country borders and town and country names. The problem is that they are all "current", not in our period. They would require a significant amount of work to re-draw some borders (unless we went with the version with no borders) and change some names. Here are the links so the group can check them out:

http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/pdf/eur_countrynl.pdf

http://www.eduplace.com/ss/maps/pdf/eur_country.pdf

(b) The other series that I found are from the University of Omaha site, have some of the same problems as the above two sets, and these do not have the latitude and longitude. However, the last link is for a very nice map with all primary waterways and bodies of water:

http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/funda/OutlineMaps/EuropeCities.pdf

http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/funda/OutlineMaps/EuropeNames.pdf

http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/funda/OutlineMaps/Europe.pdf

http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/funda/maps/Europe/Rivers.pdf

All of these maps are in .pdf formats, and we may be able to add the latitudes and longitudes to the ones that do not already have them.

Sir William

abdul666 said...

Jeff,

Bluebear Jeff a dit...
"I don't believe that the Electorate of Vulgaria is still active."
According to a recent post (but where? or was it a e-mail?), while the Vugarian blog has not been updated for 5 months, 'Poruchik' will revive Vulgaria soon.

Bluebear Jeff a dit...
"He has left our group blog"
" I'm pretty sure that Vulgaria will not return . . ."
As the blog owner, did you mean he actually *resigned* from our brotherhood, or merely has been silent for months? It happens to other members as well (I suspect some even *never* posted here?).


Glad to learn we are 31 now (Hetzenberg, I guess? Great: a man who wrote about the design of his flag: "The regimental colors depict the Flory cross of St. Ungulant of Hetzenberg, hero, hermit and gastronome" must be a merry companion), but we should aim to be 366:
because of the guy who updates only on leap years!
Cheers!
Jean-Louis

P.S.: Sir William: being almost an island, Monte-Cristo lays along no route at all; it was sometimes nicknamed 'Bagsend' or the '@..hole of No Where' before the current POPP managed to have it known as a possible tourist destination.

Bluebear Jeff said...

Jean-Louis,

Apparently Poruchik removed himself from our blog. I was surprised to discover that he is no longer a member.

I certainly did not remove him (or anyone else for that matter), so I presume that he decided to reduce his "blog-load" (at least for a while).

If he choses to return, I will certainly welcome him again.

As for our several "lurker members", they occasionally surface with posts or comments. And even if they don't, there's no problem with simply lurking anyway.

But to try to get us back on track, my original comment was directed to Sir William as an advisory for his MAP project . . . that IF Vulgaria was an overlap, that BECAUSE he has not only been inactive but had left the group, he should feel comfortable in adjusting the map position of Vulgaria. That was the extent of my intent.


-- Jeff

Bluebear Jeff said...

Also, Hetzenberg has become our 32nd member (with one pending).

It should be noted that there are a few members who don't have other blogs or websites . . . as well as a few who have multiple states.


-- Jeff

abdul666 said...

Jeff,

Jeff,
who did I miss?
On sept. 10 you wrote:
"With our most recent additions, "Emperor vs Elector" now has 30 contributors. The three newest imagi-Nations are the Abbey of Kempten, Duchy of M'Uedail and the Principality of Jordvicken."
I was expecting Hetzenberg -then who raised our number to 31? I guess that knowing already his blog, I did not notived his name or country as 'new'?

Just curious - well, somewhat worried and mortified not to have noticed him / it in due time!

Compliments & thanks to the man who started this blog!
Jean-Louis