Quote Originally Posted by Ascension View Post
When doing hand-drawn style I always have the same tendency to cover up every bit of land with some sort of terrain marker like trees and hills. Over time I learned that empty space is good space since I can stick words in there and not have them cover up all of my carefully crafted hills and trees. Just throw up a screenshot so you can get some feedback and see if others agree with your vision.
Indeed, that's basically my concern - covering things up too much. Considering that I intend to have mountains, hills, canyon areas, grasslands, highlands, swampland, etc... a number of different environments, it's really important that I don't cover things up too much.

Mountains, I find, tend to become the "barriers" between biomes. For that purpose, they're very useful, especially in a real-time 3D environment where you need to cover different environment types, but want to avoid harsh and unnatural transitions as much as possible. And of course, mountains are a biome of their own. The trick, then, is to make sure they're laid out sufficient to serve that purpose, but still appear natural and not contrived. Again, the "not contrived" part is what I'm having trouble with, along with having enough coverage... but not too much.'

Anyhoo... I'll give the mapping another go - since I definitely need to get that done - and then post what I come up with for some feedback.

Thanks again!