Apologies, the ocean territory idea came from Yuanshuai, not Richard.

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@RvW: I expect to have 6 (2 variations of each option I listed) different types of ocean territories on the first test map. As for the amount of work involved, I'm willing to put almost any amount of work in, but as I'm still only able to work on the map during spare time within my spare time, extra work means a noticeably delayed public release. The goal is to create a map that people enjoy playing, so even a month or two of added work is, for me, worthwhile to accomplish that.

@charfa: I do plan on splitting the oceans into several territories each. As for seas, any body of water that presents an additional strategic factor to the defense or conquering of surrounding territories will itself be made into a territory.

I like the idea of water territories only having connections to ports, and if anyone wants to contribute by posting either a list of ports or links to lists of ports, the info would be much appreciated.

|> Talk about dedication...! :o

Does this help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_seaports

I found that through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port#Lists which also has some other lists; I think you know best which list is most suitable to you. (Given the size of your territories, whole countries, I assume exact locations of ports don't matter to you?)

Just noticed I messed up my last post, the first line should be replaced by:

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|> even a month or two of added work is, for me, worthwhile

Talk about dedication...! :o

Emoose, two thing about the territory names:
1. You now call the Netherlands just "Netherlands", I'd adjust it to "The Netherlands"
2. Both Western Sahara and Madagascar are unnamed.

@RvW: Thank you for the link, although it looks like it'll take me quite a while to read through that and decide which list(s) to use.

@Moros: The problems have been fixed. I noticed that Western Sahara doesn't have it's name in capital letters (to indicate that it is a political country) so I looked it up on [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Sahara). I find this rather interesting since there's no clear support for either side, whereas most other border disputes seem to have strong support for a single side. I'm thinking of adding a specific bonus for controlling Western Sahara, Morocco and Mauritania to signify the clearing of the dispute (regardless of which group "won").

That map is really pretty. Are you tracing it all by hand?

Also, have you tried using my centerpoints creator? http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=2452 I'm also working on a connection maker, so you could probably save yourself some work using these two :)

Also, personally I wouldn't add any ports. A good map should have a few real chokepoints, and the Earth is just about perfect in this matter (while, for example, the [Middleearth](http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=1734) map creator had to create some "artificial" ones, by including some rivers or mountain ranges as unpassable terrain); ports greatly increase moveability of armies, and IMO should only be used for maps like [Japan](http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=2435), where without them just about every territorry would be a chokepoint.

emoose...

I noticed there was no Monaco, Andorra, Vatican City or San Marino. I understand these are very small so can see the difficulty of including them. Do you plan to do so later?

Must say, was quite surprised to see you used Burma as the name.

@Matma: Yes, I'm tracing the borders entirely by hand and smoothing with node-by-node editing. I'll give the centerpoint generator a shot, but due to the shaping of several territories and the inclusion of numerous multi-piece territories it's likely that I'll do the centerpoints manually. Same goes for your connection generator, if you finish that before I get to the connections stage.

I think you misunderstand the ports subject a little. I don't intend to make a network of port-to-port connections (am I the only one thinking P2P and laughing?), the idea is to have territories representing different chunks of water, but rather than having the water connect to all neighbouring territories, only allow it to connect to territories where there is a port in real life. This means that, for example, there will be one water territory representing North-East Pacific, that will connect to any ports along the west coast of Canada and the U.S. What this essentially translates to is moving the current coastal choke points of the Earth maps off of the coasts themselves, and into the water. I like the idea of water territories because ships have been used in wars for centuries, and in many cases are the only reason war is even possible. It can be argued that aerial warfare should also be included, but that would make almost every territory accessible very quickly from anywhere on the map, which ruins the fun of the game for the same reasons you argued against ports.

If you're still not convinced, please hold your arguments until the first test run of the map, which will focus on on the territory aesthetics as well as the design and inclusion of the water territories.

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@Richard: Indeed - Monaco and San Marino are both so small that their borders aren't shown on the map I'm using, so I never would have noticed them. I did realize Vatican City is a country, but as it's only the size of a city block I left it out intentionally *for the time being* (keep reading for my reason). Andorra does have visible borders on the full-size version of the map I'm using, but with the scaled-down version I'm tracing over it's barely a dot, so I overlooked it. I will say that currently I don't expect very small countries like those to be included (if you noticed my inclusion of Singapore, that also has an off-shore island I can include which will make it much more distinguishable once added). However, their inclusion will be revised after one of the first few rounds of testing, where I will decide how much of RvW's enlargement suggestion I can include. Too many enlarged territories will make the map crowded and hard to play, not enough enlargement and some territories will be too small and the map once again becomes hard to play. I'll *consider* crude enlargement for such territories (throwing in a large dot to represent each one) but part of the goal is to keep it geographically accurate, so I'm not keen on that. I'll recommend holding further thoughts on the subject until I get to the enlargement testing and can focus it on more exclusively.

As for Burma, that is the name present on both the 2008 map that I'm tracing, and the 2011 map that I may switch to. Is there a significance to using Myanmar or some sort of compromise instead?

Obviously you may have to fix some centerpoints, but according to my tests (I tried it out on some old maps of mine) it gives pretty good results. (I was surprised myself.)

You are right, I misunderstood your ports idea. It is quite interesting, but, unless you create almost as many water territories as land ones, it would still allow to travel from Japan to East Africa in just a few turns (essentially turning oceans into one, huge, interconnected chokepoint). But you're right, it should be tested.

I'll get cracking at the connection maker tomorrow.

eMoose,
One, great job so far and an interesting map to be sure.

Two, for oceans, you may consider the 200 mile limit when breaking up the territories for them.

Three, I would like to be involved in you test games, if you are looking.

great stuff!

russia mongolia and kaschakistan are unnamed mind my spelling of the former soviet nation in asia

What about regions like Somaliland and (possibly) Puntland that are countries that have all the aspects of a soverign state (currency, government, economies) and are basically indpendent (in this case they are independent of somalia) since you included the Palestenian territories and Western Sahara which have less claims to soverignty (espically western sahara since its government has very little claim to power since it is in exile and its megear economy is dependent completely on its neigbours)

Official Somaliland website: http://somalilandgov.com/

Official Puntland Constitution which outlines its government, administration and borders: http://www.puntlandgovt.com/puntland-constitution/

yeah and sealand!

@**lakerman**: Please remember that my map is based off a widely accepted Political Map of the World, which itself is not authoritative. I will do my best to include every bordered area included on said map, whether the player base agrees or not. If areas such as those you mentioned are added to future versions of the World Political Map I'm using as a template then they will likely be included whenever I have time to update that aspect of the map, but no sooner than that.

Ok then, but you are still missing the Republic of South Sudan; which is completely independent, a UN member state, and is a independent state (most maps are inaccurate due to the fact it acheived independence last July)

official resolution admiting south sudan: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/ga11114.doc.htm

updated map of africa:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=africa+map+with+south+sudan&um=1&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=598&tbm=isch&tbnid=6BmyEdLZqogjWM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:South_Sudan_in_Africa_(claimed)_(-mini_map_-rivers).svg&docid=9u9_Lx0E2yxO6M&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/South_Sudan_in_Africa_(claimed)_(-mini_map_-rivers).svg/635px-South_Sudan_in_Africa_(claimed)_(-mini_map_-rivers).svg.png&w=635&h=600&ei=fuP9TryxPInY0QH5yP2WAg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=233&sig=115910113976171022513&page=1&tbnh=122&tbnw=129&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=97&ty=79

official website: http://www.goss.org/

it is a member of other widely accepted organizations such as: The African Union, Common Market For Eastern and Southern Africa, the Commonwealth of Nations, East African Community, IMF, World Bank, has the right to join the Arab League

and it was worth a shot with Somaliland and Puntland since they will eventually be accepted as indpendent states but South Sudan deffinately needs to be included

Also you forgot Bahrain :I

By the way, it looks like half of Greece is missing...

Bump