Alright, I have thought it through and finally decided how to handle the Game's Cartography.
I will be using 100x100 mile regions, and filling them with content. Randomly generated worlds do not appeal to this game, as the worlds are so massive that it doesn't benefit as much from a new map every game, and if the map is multiplayer on servers, then there would only ever need to be a single map. So tons of programming to create great random worlds...to end up only using 1, maybe a handful at best. It would be far better to create the world myself, insuring the higher quality.
Within each 100x100 mile region, there are 10x10 mile square sections. Each section, is a "Map Location" in game terms. These Map Location sections hold the data for random encounters, procedurally generated dungeons, and "City Maps" for specific locations.
Without further ado, I have created, and excluding the rivers- finished the capital city Region in "The Hills".
In game terms, here is what I am talking about:
Each square is 10x10, and the formula for traveling is something along the lines of, Walking: Miles Traveled per Day = [Strength Factor] * 10 * [Weather Factor] * [Terrain Factor].
A weak character, with normal terrain and good weather, would travel 10 miles per day. That same character walking with good strength, 20. Amazing strength, 30.
For the town in the west of the city and the village to the northwest, I made it about 1 days travel. To the southeast, a smaller village half a day away. Guard towers which station soldiers are half a day away from every town.
A player could perform Trade in these areas for small profits, or they could travel greater distances for greater rewards. I plan to make each region house certain resources better than others. This way, someone from The Iron Kingdom could get rare ore, which is quite cheap locally, and travel a great distance and make an enormous profit because of how uncommon those ores are in a region across the continent.
Game Time travels by quite rapidly, so a days travel isn't a big deal, but traveling across regions starts to become more of a challenge. Across the continent, is a long journey. It is less about being a time sink (travel is fast) and more about the dangers in traveling (random events and encounters). Traveling with small amounts of resources amounts to no increase in challenge. However, a specialized Merchant player would travel slower, and may or may not make it to their destination with their goods. The fun aspect of design is that theoretically, the further one travels, the greater the reward for selling rarer and rarer resources- but the greater the dangers due to traveling longer distances. This way, a player can journey or struggle through encounters and perhaps land at a town a bit away from their destination, but find that the price is excellent and decide to sell their goods there to avoid potential loss.
I made the World Map with the intentions that there are choke points in traveling to other regions. This opens up a world of opportunity for things like Travel Items, which are designed to help avoid some of the nastier encounters in these choke points. This aspect of gameplay will probably be similar to Oregon Trail or a text based MUD, with lots of text events and multiple decisions during each event.
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