A Nice Map Template For You All

Saramello · Sep 19, 2022

Introducing Saramello's Inadequate Map Project (SIMP)

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/comments/xiwo17

Reddit link because this website can't handle more than 4 pixels.

I like to make what-if scenarios but despise map-tracing to get historic and/or natural borders. I'm not a fan of the blank green maps, and I've tried to find map templates with pre-defined provinces (usually paradox maps) for the longest time, but I'd never been fully satisfied with the pre-defined states in any of them. So I've decided to be the change I want to see in the world and am making my own. This is a (now outdated) State Map of Kaiserreich that I have traced several dozen new states to following river borders, primarily in Europe (mainly France, Germany, and Poland). As you can see by the mess in the US I tried to do more but my hand threatened to cramp and I had work.

This is a simple PNG image, and each border is only 1px long, making it easy to paint-bucket fill your desired countries with good borders and then get rid of unnecessary internal lines with ease.

I feel that a lack of good mapping tools can be a damper on anyone making a genuinely good alt-history, as many of us painfully know that walls of text without visuals sometimes don't garner too much attention. I hope by using this I help inspire you all to keep doing what you do best.

I might do continual updates if I'm seized by another 2 hour tracing fit, but don't hold your breath, I'm terrible at commitment and change interests faster than France changes governments.

Hope this helps.

Mods, let me know if I should post this elsewhere.

shearsforest · Sep 19, 2022

Saramello said:
Introducing Saramello's Inadequate Map Project (SIMP)

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/comments/xiwo17

Reddit link because this website can't handle more than 4 pixels.

I like to make what-if scenarios but despise map-tracing to get historic and/or natural borders. I'm not a fan of the blank green maps, and I've tried to find map templates with pre-defined provinces (usually paradox maps) for the longest time, but I'd never been fully satisfied with the pre-defined states in any of them. So I've decided to be the change I want to see in the world and am making my own. This is a (now outdated) State Map of Kaiserreich that I have traced several dozen new states to following river borders, primarily in Europe (mainly France, Germany, and Poland). As you can see by the mess in the US I tried to do more but my hand threatened to cramp and I had work.

This is a simple PNG image, and each border is only 1px long, making it easy to paint-bucket fill your desired countries with good borders and then get rid of unnecessary internal lines with ease.

I feel that a lack of good mapping tools can be a damper on anyone making a genuinely good alt-history, as many of us painfully know that walls of text without visuals sometimes don't garner too much attention. I hope by using this I help inspire you all to keep doing what you do best.

I might do continual updates if I'm seized by another 2 hour tracing fit, but don't hold your breath, I'm terrible at commitment and change interests faster than France changes governments.

Hope this helps.

Mods, let me know if I should post this elsewhere.

Some notes for future additions:

Nice job! This calls for more customization. You can use the Q-BAM borderpools as a template.
River basins and improved river borders? The Rio Grande, for instance, could be extended further north for an independent Texas. There's also the Louisiana Purchase which extends north into Canada.
South America could use some of its pre-Treaty of Ayacucho borders.
The provincial borders in Canada and Australia need extension into the "wasteland" bits; as a bonus, numerous proposals from Canadian and US history for provinces and states can be implemented.
South Sudan and Cameroon need their modern borders as an extra-add on in case somebody wants to make a modern-day map.

Saramello · Sep 20, 2022

shearsforest said:
Some notes for future additions:

Nice job! This calls for more customization. You can use the Q-BAM borderpools as a template.

River basins and improved river borders? The Rio Grande, for instance, could be extended further north for an independent Texas. There's also the Louisiana Purchase which extends north into Canada.

South America could use some of its pre-Treaty of Ayacucho borders.

The provincial borders in Canada and Australia need extension into the "wasteland" bits; as a bonus, numerous proposals from Canadian and US history for provinces and states can be implemented.

South Sudan and Cameroon need their modern borders as an extra-add on in case somebody wants to make a modern-day map.

Thanks! TBH I'm not planning on making it as in-depth as Q-BAM(though I didn't know that map existed, so thanks). I guess I should have mentioned this map is really only intended for French-Revolution onwards, given the minute border changes for every era will require every pixel to be a state.
As for Texas I did try. Problem is tracing a 1 pixel long line in America is way longer than doing 3 of them in Europe, making it less fun and more time consuming. I might get to it in the future, the next time I'm seized with procrastinating.