Imagi-Nation WIP: The Map

I have been grinding my way through learning various aspects of Campaign Cartographer 3. It apparently is fairly easy to work with, once you learn how to tap into its potential.  In the past, I have spent time with it, but never enough to become proficient or properly learn it.

Now, however, I have a real need for it as I am working on my pending imagi-nation campaign. I never realized just how bloody hard it is to find a decent map...of anything! I am trying to find a free (because I am poor) relief map of Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of France and the Netherlands. Sure, I can look at free maps from the period at an amazing 1:50000 scale or even smaller, but getting one at 1:3000000 is a huge search for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Luckily, only last night I came across a free online map, which I then used as a background in CC3 while I traced it. This morning, following some spiffy tutorials that I found online, I divided modern Belgium into some alternate reality political entities that fit with my imagi-nation timeline and history. Now, I just need a good map that shows me elevations, contours, or a relief map of the same region...and another map that shows me the rivers and canals.

 This is the map I found.

And this is what I have turned it into. The colored areas are just that. They show which small countries exist in my universe. However, when the map is done, the only coloring here that will be left is just the border outlines as I want to show off the terrain.

I still have a bit of work to do on the political boundaries as in my version of history, France has given up a bit of territory that it won during the 17th century, giving me some border territories to the SW that must be fleshed out. The red area is my own nation, and the large black area are various "German States" that I expect to detail later on.

I have a significant amount of work to do on that map as it is. I must do several hours, if not days, of work just to get the contours drawn and the rivers placed. Once I have done that, I can then add the wooded areas, population centers, and farms.

Aside from the real world maps for mountains and rivers, I need to find good symbols representing Vauban fortifications for those areas that were built up by him by 1702.

Once the map is done, I will write up the campaign rules, themselves.