This article was written in response to a player's request that I describe the process of game map creation. In this particular article, I will describe the steps involved in bringing about a usable playtest map. I will avoid the issues that arise when this playtest map must be redone in a form suitable for final publication.

Basic Research

The first step in making your playtest map is the research process which will hand you a reasonable base map to work from. For our CWB games, we invariably use a standard USGS topographic maps (7.5 MinuteQuadrangles) as a base. The base map's function is to provide accurate information upon which the historical detail is added. Most maps made before the advent of aerial photography are notoriously inaccurate.

With the correct base maps on hand, make a trek to your local blueprint shop to enlarge them. The 7.5's must be blown up to 208% of original size. Those of you with computers and scanners can do this yourself. The enlargement process by the blueprint shop is expensive and should only be done if you cannot do it yourself and know exactly what areas you want enlarged. The item produced by the blueprint shop is called a "PMT" (Photo-Mechanical Transfer) and will show the area specified, at the correct scale, in black and white.

The second step in the research process is to identify historical features. You will need two things to accomplish this step. First, place a large sheet of tracing paper over the blown-up map. Do not introduce hexsheets at this step. Hexes will only confuse the issue. The tracing paper will form your "compilation sheet."

Comp Sheet

This comp sheet will be the repository for all the information you will place on the final map. Next, you musttrack down all the map sources you can relating to the historical event itself. For the CWB, a good first step is to consult the Atlas which accompanies the Official Records. Be very careful to cross-check all information between several sources. An unconfirmed feature on a single map will generally be wrong.

With your comp sheet strapped to your base map and your historical sources in hand, stan drawing the historical features which still exist on the base map. Remember to be as accurate as possible at this point-sloppiness now will carry all the way through and you won't be able to recapture detail lost at this stage later. Generally, roads are a good place to start.

The historical roadbed has likely been used when the modern roads were laid. Sometimes not, but it's easy to tell by comparing between the base map and your historical sources. These historical roadbeds will give your comp sheet a frame to help you pin down other features.

Now is a good time to retrace the contour lines. It is best just to accept these as they are as long you are observant for man-made "damage" to the historical terrain (such as airports, dammed uplakes, strip mines, and urban development). Trace the contours as they lay-leave "game interpretations" of "level" and the like for later.

As you progress on your comp sheet, record features from large to small.

It is important to remember that the comp sheet is there for you and you alone. Don't be elaborate-no one will ever give you an award for an impressive comp-be neat! Being "ansy" at this stage will only cause you problems when you find that you've made a mistake. It may also make your information hard to understand and read when it comes time to do the real playtest map.

The Playtest Map

By now, if you haven't thrown in the towel, you will be ready to make a game map out of your comp sheet. The best way to do this is to use a "light table." A light table is merely a sheet of frosted glass suspended above a series of lights which will allow you to trace from your comp onto the final game map.

A much less satisfactory method is to place the comp sheet over a hex sheet and do a hex by hex transfer to the playtest map. Not only is this method a pain to do, it is highly subject to error and the final product will never look quite as nice as one done on a light table. For my effonw and to avoid headaches, I suggest you beg, borrow, or make a light table and do it that way.

In terms of materials, I can make a couple of suggestions. For the hexsheet itself, get one of ours, Avalon Hill's, or West End's (if they still sell them), stay away from the ones printed on what looks like newspaper. Not only the high acid content of those papers cause your map to yellow and break up in only a year or so, but the porosiy and coarseness of the paper will make detail hard to draw and markers impossible to use well.

For drawing on your hex sheet, I would suggest pencil combined with marker for the beginner. Use colored and regular lead pencils to lightly draw your information in. Use markers as a last step to create symbols for trees and to make roads stand out. Stay away from large expanses of solid color. Those will cause your map to look terrible whether you try to color them in with solid color (be sure to take out stock in a marker company first, if you do) or (worse yet) attempt to "cross-hatch" the area.

Neither will look satisfactory until a higher degree of skill is obtained. Also, it will be best to stay away from bright, garish colors. You will be much happier with the result if you err on the subtle side, believe me. For background elevation colors, if your game needs them, use colored pencil and lightly shade in each hex with its elevation color. Again, it is quite wise to lay out all the colors you intend to use for elevations side by side and make your final selections before attempting to color anything. Doing this will save you a great deal of grief.

Moment of Truth

Now comes the moment of truth. As you trace over your comp sheet, you must analyze the comp's information in a game sense. The things to look for are: roads must be in hexes, not on hexsides; the elevation level of each hex must be determined from the collection of contour lines on the comp; and streams and rivers must be bent, distorted, or otherwise messed with so as to conform to the hexsides along their course.

Roads are pretty easy to fix. Generally, roads will be just fine 80 to 90% of the time. Once in a while, they will clip a hex corner or slide on a hexside. In those case bend the road slightly to avoid the problem. The correction will usually be fairly small. On rare occasions a road will insist on travelling right down a series of hexsides. When that happens, shift the dang thing over half a hex, and don't lose any sleep over it.

Judging the elevation of each hex is an an. I usually look to see where the imaginary center dot of the hex falls and adjust slightly if the majority of the hex is one elevation or another. It is an eyeball estimate and there is no other way to do it. It causes most people who are new at it a bit of soul-searching because you'll literally feel like you're lying. The thing is you're not, and whether a hex goes on way or another rarely (if ever) matters in the final product.

Once you've made your decisions about the elevations of your hexes, you'll find that acceptance of what you've done and the guesses you had to make is very easy and you'll soon forget that hex 21.34 might be level 2 instead of 3.

Streams are another matter. These must be forced into the hex pattern (unless you have a new twist on river features) and this forcing must make sense. A road on one side of the river should not repeatedly cross and re-cross it in the final map because of the hexside river requirement. It might be wise to do your water features first, so that you can make roads and elevations conform as needed. Elevations should make sense with water features--nothing looks quite as strange as a stream that runs up a hill or along a ridge in preference to a valley of low ground one hex away.

Another important consideration involved with streams is that they must "work together." Two rivers which should join below a road junction should not join above it because they were forced to by the hexes. If need be, a river can be snaked out of place even more to maintain its position with respect to other distorted rivers nearby. Generally, these matters can be resolved by a one hex adjustment here and there-rarely a big move. The point is that if you are not careful with the distortion of river features, you might find yourself generating terrain variations unintentionally which could have a significant ahistorical effect on your game.

Great care should be taken at this final stage so as to generate a playtest map which is both functional and aesthetically pleasing to look at. The information portrayed must be done in a way that is easy to read and understand. It must not conflict with itself in a way which forces you to read "through" information to get at the stuff you need at any given time. Do your best to both be neat and "good looking." The latter will help your interest in your project as time moves on.

After many hours of final effort, you will have an excellent looking hand-done playtest map for your game. Good luck, if you run into any specific problems give me a ring and I'll do what I can to help.

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