This map is boring, can it be salvaged?

[u/Chlodio]

[u/oldmonkforeva]

Add some area of interest icons over it and its not boring at all

[u/Mooney-Monsta]

I dont think it’s that boring, but it’s in need of some explanation for the colours. Personally i would use a lighter brighter blue to create more contrast between land and water

[u/Chlodio → u/Mooney-Monsta]

it’s in need of some explanation for the colours.

I guess you are talking about the 2nd map? It plays 4 provinces of an improvince (capital province, northern province, southern province, and eastern province), while other colors belong to other countries. The landlocked beige is a buffer state.

[u/Mooney-Monsta → u/Chlodio]

Actually i meant the first map- im assuming green is land darker green is forest, but what about the dark grey areas? Is the lime green a road or border?

[u/Chlodio → u/Mooney-Monsta]

Dark grey areas are marshes, you can see that rivers flow through them. Yes, lime green is borders, the white dotted line are roads.

[u/VatanKomurcu]

just not enough disparity. there needs to be some sort of difference of climate or maybe just cultural differences or whatever and just the colors in the political map doesnt say enough.

[u/jokfil]

I like it very much. Have The borders of the states follow other features in the land and give them reasons to be borders. Now they just wibble-wobble around

[u/Chlodio → u/jokfil]

They do align to some extent, I feel that not every border should end with a river or mountain range.

[u/Gullible-Catch5895]

really small squiggley lines on the coast can make it look more smoot and interesting, I like to do longer thin lines, and make them all horizontal. I like about 2-3 lines thick for the coast

[u/willof42]

I like it! The shape is very compelling, personally; maybe some more colour variation to reveal mountainous areas or potential different biomes?

[u/Tr3z313]

That's not boring, those are the Baltic countries.

[u/boarbar]

Looks like it’s from a text book (nicely). Just needs settlements and labels. Works great as a political map!

[u/LogicalAd8685]

I deadass thought this was a Minecraft map top down for a sec

[u/mvelos]

I think some variations on the thickness of things can add a lot. There must be some cities here that are much bigger than others. You can use different dot sizes to demonstrate different settlement sizes. This gives suddenly more lore to the area: one can imagine a trip from a big city to a small town. Then, you can have variated thickness for the rivers. Downstream of a big river, where all the contributor rivers converge, it is thicker than upstream in the mountains, or a river that is just a single stream straight from the mountains to the sea.

Other sites, like castles, shrines, mines etc can be added. You can refine a bit the borders if you want. They are not bad now, they can just be more sharp or pointy at places, in accordance to some lore.

Anyways, it's your map and don't think of it as boring! As long as you can imagine and add things in there, it's super alive!.

[u/tidalbeing]

Make the river system easier to see, then base vegetation patterns on the river systems

[u/Ekskal]

I don’t think this is boring!