Uh, Hawaii is part of North America (and I am a geography major). If it wasn't part of North America, what continent is it on? Asia? South America? Australia? Guam on the other hand is a US territory not part of North America.

BTW, there are all kinds of mapping data sets out there for free that you could use as your base. They are already vectorized and could be converted to illustrator files. For example, this one is US census districts:

http://data.geocomm.com/readme/usgs/atlas/html/censusmt.html

You can open the table (link that says download table) in excel and see the list of polygons. That one has 3194 of them for the country.

You can also download a free GIS viewer that will let you look at the data itself:

http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/explorer/index.html

I'm not sure if it allows for exporting to ai files, but if not I could do that for you (just make sure you know you want to use that data set so it is a limited number of requests).

Anyway, using vector data out there saves a lot of time over trying to vectorize a map with a background on it.

OK, below is a map of the USA split into Regions.
A region just part of a state named after a culture, landscape, or a direction.




Also, Hawaii being a part of North America is really just opinion based.
It is more commonly associated with the other territories of Oceania.
It also makes this map easier to make.

coool map nick also when u do canada some provinces or territories might have to be more than 1 bonusbecause canada has big provinces and states.

territories (edit of states in last post)

@Iron Heart

What do you mean with "some" may have to have more than one territory? That's pretty Amerocentric of you thinking the US is bigger then Canada. Of course they all should be divided into territories!

moros wat are u saying canada is the 2nd biggest country in the world i never said the us is bigger and i am not amerocentric i only said the provinces of canada the 18 might have to split into more than 1 bonus because of there size

moros great u still call me ironheart i wish i could change my name back not just because of the typo in my name but am not feeling it

O sorry, I thought you said that one province might need to have more than one territory. That sounds like you think that Canada is so small it might not even need to be divided further than it is with the provinces and territories.

And I had the same issue with Moros, that also started as a joke, but the minute after I changed it I wanted it to be Harmenator again :) But now I can change it back, I don't want to any more :)

A suggestion for Canada, as I am for Canada, would be to separate Canadian provinces into sub-bonuses, as Newfoundland & Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick are collectively referred to as Atlantic Canada. Also the larger populated provinces have they're own distinct regions and sub-regions, for example Ontario has central Ontario as a region with Muskoka as a sub-region or Southern Ontario with London, with Quebec I strongly suggest you put in the Gaspésie as it's own region as it is unique. Another thing is don't do a lot for the Northern Territories as they are sparsely populated as Iqaluit (Capitol of Nunavut) has only 11,000 people, but Nunavut does have large Islands that can be made into territories.

population has little to do with maps for a war game even nothing in most maps zilmorph

@Zilmorph

You're echoing my thoughts when I made Canada big exactly :)

@Iron Conquerer

I understand your point of view, but from a demographic standpoint, it is much more sensible to allow population and economic factors render territories more or less valuable than others, and thus make a more accurate game.

zilmorph warlight has nothing to do with population and economy did risk care about economy and if u let population in warlight it will not be fair because tgh places with the highest population density will be the best.We must keep economy and population out of warlight there should only be political geography and natural geography

Here's Canada:


@Iron, Zilmorph:
Most maps completely ignore real-world population density and industrial/economic importance of regions. There are exceptions though; Issander's [`Real-life Europe`](http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=9440) is a clear example.

If you prefer to value bonuses with big populations or strong economical importance higher, there is no need to convince the map maker; just wait for the map to be finished, then experiment with different bonus values. Once you've found something you like, make it a custom scenario and share the link.

One thing to keep in mind (and here I'm agreeing with Moros (and, judging by default settings, most other map makers for that matter)), this game is primarily about warfare. For instance, if you make a map of Europe where all territories are the same size (in real-world km^2) and bonuses are valued by population, nobody will ever go anywhere near Russia; it's just not worth the effort. Instead, the triangle England-France-Germany (with the ludicrously densely populated Netherlands right in the middle) will always be the theatre of war; for automatic distribution, getting two of your four starting location close to the Ural, in Northern Scandinavia or other sparsely populated areas means you've already lost. In short: that map will be no fun to play.

Nick where do you get your images from?

@Moros
I used a base image, a large map of area divided into states.
Then overlay an image of the regions of that state, draw the borders, and add color.
The Canada Map used 13+ images and USA used 49+ images.

Basically, I made them.

You may want to divide Nunavut further.