If they all really touch, then they should all connect. If it's just the points touching, just be consistent with what you do for the rest of the map.

@Domenico:
All planar graph are four-colourable (Google it if you don't know what I mean), so it's impossible for them to "really" touch, it must be only points touching.

@Moros:
Like Domenico said, just be consistent with the rest of the map. If I take Netherlands Big as an example, there's quite a bunch of four-territory points and that map seems to be rather inconsistent, which forces players to always check whether two point-touching territories are connected or not.

Okay, different problem:
Here's Amsterdam, I drew all of the channels and came to a whopping 1857 nodes!
But... Now there's no more room for the airport and harbor sign, and I think it will lag a lot when in the game. Simplify or not?

When you place a number over it, all the fine details will be lost anyway.

I just realized this is larger than it seemed. Silly me.

Well, there's no (easy) way to "unsimplify" ("complexify"??), so how about leaving it as it is for now. After you've (we've ;) ) tested the map, if you don't like it, *then* spend the time on simplifying it (and test again; can be done really quick, since it's just testing performance, not something complicated like playability).

From the sneak peeks you've shown us so far, it looks like you're putting in a lot of detail; I think it would be a pity to throw out all that effort because *maybe* WL can't cope with it. (If you would've asked me beforehand "Hej, Amsterdam looks really complicated, should I draw all the canals" I would've told you you're crazy and of course not, but seeing how you already did it...)

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I'm unsure how big your harbour and airport signs are exactly but wouldn't they fit in either the Western (upper) part of Amsterdam, and/or the North-eastern (lower right) part? Btw, technically Schiphol is located on land belonging to Haarlemmermeer, according to http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiphol:

|> **Het vliegveld ligt in de gemeente Haarlemmermeer** en bevindt zich ongeveer 15 kilometer ten zuidwesten van Amsterdam.

so shouldn't you put the sign (and the corresponding "airport-links") over there?

From a gameplay point of view, having an airport and a seaport in the same territory would create a massive hub of connections. Having two smaller hubs (in directly neighbouring territories) might be better, don't you think (or is that something which needs play-testing)?

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@Matma: Take a look at Netherlands Big; this territory is (well, by Dutch standards ;) ) positively huge.

Schiphol is in Haarlemmermeer? That solves the problem, because the port sign only can fit in the part RvW mentions. And, strangely enough, it doesn't lag! It might when I've made all of the territories, but lets not worry about it now and wait till the map is finished...

The municipalities could have exclaves and such, making the graph non-planar. But as far as I know Hilversum is in between some of the mentioned municipalities...
As for Amsterdam, the bay is already pretty intricate. I'd take out the black lines if I were you. This is already going to be one of the most detailed map I know.

What black lines? Oh, do you mean the pixelled lines on the background? That was from my template image, it shows the province border.

|> The municipalities could have exclaves and such, making the graph non-planar. But as far as I know Hilversum is in between some of the mentioned municipalities...

Erm yes, of course \*shame on me\* you're (in general) completely right. Here that's not the case though, it really is five territories with a point connection.

I used another WL map, "The Netherlands (Big)" (you might be familiar with it :p ) as a cheat sheet: the point is question is due East of the "Het Gooi" bonus square (the last "intersection" before the (blue) "Oost-Utrecht" territories).

@Moros:
Stupid of me to only think about it now, but how about you post the list of airports and harbours you're using and someone here (I volunteer) can look up in which municipality those are actually located; it wouldn't surprise me if there are more which aren't technically in the "obvious" location.

Also, maybe you could put a compass somewhere, next to a message "Please note, due to limitations of WL, this map was rotated from its normal orientation. When talking about North or South in (team)chat, please keep this in mind."

Okay, after giving the map link to a few trustees, I have decided to make the map link public so people can see how far I actually am with the map, and give me tips while I'm still working on it. And to give an excuse for the fact I am a relatively slow map-builder.
http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=7555

Any comments? Tips? Bugs? And yes, I know not all of the bonuses are done, almost no territories are named and not all connections are set. And I twisted it with the north side up again, after I did the same thing with Brussels as with south Quebec it was possible! It will get crowded on some places, but I think the map looks way better now, and it's worth it.

weel looks like luxemborg is not a good place to start.

I know, but I'm going to add small bonuses later, so I think after a while Luxembourg will be a quite good place to start.

Wow, now I'm really starting to see how much detail you're putting in!

Is the rotated anchor in Brussels something you forgot to fix after rotating the map back to it's "normal" position, or does it simply not fit within the territory otherwise?

No, I forgot to turn it upright again, my mistake :)

Is the Easter-egg the inclusion of the three Dutch Caribbean islands?

I'm guessing you but the national bonuses in the order Be(lgium)Ne(therlands)Lux(embourg)? I see how that would make sense, but (I'm just thinking out loud here, not saying I'm right!), for people not familiar with the region it might make more sense if you put them vertically, with the Netherlands on top, Belgium in the middle and Luxembourg at the bottom, just like they are on the map?

Oh, and those are by far the most awesome bonus "squares" I've ever seen! :)

Nope, look further... :) You may need to zoom in a bit, but not ridiculously far.

And yep, I did them in that order to resemble the acronym. Maybe I'll change it if other players agree.

Thanks for the compliment, you should probably name them "bonus links", because I'm not the only one who doesn't shape them like squares. And the small bonuses will just have round links, making them stars too would take too much space.

|> you should probably name them "bonus links"

LOL, that was intended as a subtle compliment for your attention to detail. :)

Easter-egg hunt:

- There's a (somewhat isolated) territory called "Bathmen", but that's actually a place in real life as well. (Not that I knew that and while checking it I discovered a new feature of Google maps; searching for the name of a town will highlight its outline, which might actually be a nice trick for map-makers!).
- You included the tunnel below the Westerschelde, solving the slightly annoying near-isolation of Zeeuws-Vlaanderen on Netherlands Big (then again, with the inclusion of Belgium that was pretty much fixed already).
- When I move the map around, there's a blueish corner in the lower-righthand corner of the WL window. Dragging the map around shows you've already placed all the airport and seaport markers for territories which you haven't drawn yet.

I kinda doubt any of these actually are the Easter-egg, but hey, I might as well try! :p

ps. How did you manage to make the province of Liège blue without adding a bonus for it yet...?

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Off topic:
When I wanted to test whether that highlighting city-outline works just for the Netherlands or also for other countries, I entered the first non-Dutch city which came to mind, Ljubljana (I just happen to love Slovenia ;) ). Weird thing is, the auto-complete suggestion comes up as "Ljubljana, リュブリャナ, Slovenia". According to Google Translate that's Japanese for Ljubljana. Also tried in on another browser, same thing happens. I have no idea what connection there should be between either me and Japanese or Slovenia and Japanese...!?
It also auto-completes to include the Japanese name for other Slovenian cities, but it doesn't work for major cities in surrounding countries. When I tried entering "Venice" and only had typed the first two letters, "Velenje, ベレニエ, Slovenia" appeared as a suggestion. Never heard of it, but thanks to Wikipedia I now know it's a town with all of 30.000 inhabitants. *Why does it even **have** a Japanese name...!?*

Well, Bathmen used to be a commune, but after a while it would merge into Deventer. The Bathmns didn't want that, because their town was one of the cleanest of the country, and Deventer surely wasn't. Then they wanted to be part of Gelderland, because there is the only other commune they border. But it wasn't approved, and they merged into Deventer. A friend of mine lives in Bathmen and I decided to make him his commune. It is noth THE easter-egg, but it is something funny about the map. The reason it is isolated is that I haven't drawn territories around it yet.

You can add bonuses without links.