Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Coast of [something] Hex Sandbox

Terrain is done! I spent a few hours (OK, more than a few), finishing off all the six-mile hexes with basic terrain, and then dropped in a couple islands for good measure. Here's the final result.
Final Terrain Map

By way of comparison, here's the original 36-mile per hex map, showing the underlying terrain types.
Original Large Hex Terrain
And here is the entire process thus far, in convenient gif-animation format!
Ooh, Sparkly
So what's next? I've been giving some thought to where to go with this, and I have a few ideas. Theoretically the next steps would be to generate all the detailed features: roads, rivers, dungeons, towns, sites, and such, but there are a lot of hexes to fill in, so I need a plan of attack. With that in mind, I've started developing a bit of a back story for this place.

Rather than doing this hex by hex, I'm going to treat this as a virgin continent, and send in a bunch of randomly generated expeditions to do the exploration and settlement for me. These won't be parties of adventurers, instead they'll be colonists from Somewhere Else (TM). Where exactly I haven't decided. I'm sure some random tables culled from random games will provide answers to that.

I also still need a name for this whole project. I'm leaning toward Coast of <something> given the generally coast-like layout, but I'm terrible with names. Ideas?

Oh and if you're interested in how much space this actually represents, here's a chunk of the US Pacific Northwest that roughly matches up to the hex maps above.
Look at all that Space!
That's about it for today. Next time I should have some more thoughts on how I'm going to fill this in, and a start on the first expedition into the dread Coast of <something>.

10 comments:

  1. Sixlund.
    The Coast of Sixlund.

    Great work. :D

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  2. Wow. That is something beautiful. Surely there are adventurer type explorers sent along with the colony to scout out resources and start charting out the area. I'm (or rather the character I'm playing is) applying for the job! C'mon, you know you want to start another play by email game. :P

    Sixlund is great.

    Other ideas.. (none that particularly speak to me but brainstorming here)

    Outcast Coast
    Toe hold Shores
    Anchor Coast

    Coast of Randoms
    Coast of Genesis
    EXCELlent Coast
    Table Coast

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  3. Hmm. PBM world building. Let me think about how that might work.

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  4. The Yearning Coast?
    Coast of Hope?
    The Fortune Coast?

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  5. Yes, Yes, PBM world building!!!

    I'm liking Yearning or Fortune. How about both. The Coast of Yearning Fortune. Now that's a mouthful.

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  6. I posted the final map on Cartographer's Guild, and someone suggested my tongue in cheek title "The Coast with No Name" was a good idea. It's a bit of a mouthful too, maybe the Nameless Coast.

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  7. Nameless Coast. That has a nice ring to it.

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  8. I just went for a run.... and had nothing to think about except...

    Crafted (or Artifice) Coast - The new continent has been created through some arcane means since some poor kingdom in the old world keeps losing its many land wars and needs a new home desperately.

    Sharkfin Coast - Named after the plethora of menacing fins seen swimming through the waters surrounding the colony ships

    Rolling Coast - Named after the hills, or the waves, or the method used to create the map.

    Gate Coast - Gateway to the new world

    Coast of Mapmakers (or Cartographers) - The old world has been absolutely explored and inventoried. This new world gives those poor cartographers a means to elevate their status from map Xerox men to real cartographers! (I like this one best)

    Colony Coast - Go figure

    Just some more food for thought. Yum. :P

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  9. The Nameless Coast is kind of sticking, but I'll need to name various bays, rivers, mountains, hills, plains and deserts too, so keep em coming!

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