I'm aware this is the first post in months but I guess this is the best place to put this, hopefully we can get some more activity in this subreddit now there are a few more active mappers.

Okay so here goes, a lot of people have complaints about the large political maps, saying that they're mostly non representative because they show large, over inflated land claims, whereby the entity in question actually has zero influence, however these maps have no way of properly distinguishing the difference between land a nation does have influence over and land that it doesn't.

So I propose that we discuss a few ideas on how to make a political map that can accurately show where a nation has clear power over a region, without pointlessly displaying unreasonable land claims.

Here is my idea at the moment (probably needs improving), make a map according to the following rules.

• Where there is a city, town, or otherwise dense cluster of buildings, draw a block colour shape over the top. Let's say it's green kingdom, the city is green.

• All population centres in green kingdom are coloured like this, and a green glow is applied to them, the strength of the glow would have to be experimented with to show a desired effect, but the glow would be the same strength on all cities. (whether something qualifies as a population centre is to the discretion of the cartographer)

• Where green kingdom borders blue empire, a green glow extends inwards to greenkingdoms land, and a blue glow extends inwards to blue empires land, all along the border. (this is because borders are actually quite relevant, as it means two or more entities have recognised and agreed upon each others claim)

• If a river or similiarly thin strait acts as a natural border, the same effect is given.

• water is placed on a layer above all of the glows, so that "influence" isn't displayed as extending into the sea, also would make the map tidier.

• Where a land claim ends and borders wilderness, nothing is done, this is not displayed on the map at all. (this means that any land claims that extend far beyond any population centre, out into vast unclaimed territory, are meaningless on this map)

• That's it

Thoughts / suggestions / anyone willing to have a go at this?

EDIT: Also further detail could be shown if there are distinct territories WITHIN territories, by using a slight variation in colour, Eg. blood city and Crimson Town are allied and share an overarching governement, but have their own distinct territory, so borders between blood city and crimson town are drawn on inside of , and the two places are done in slightly different colours within the Red alliances land