Maps of Oakria

These maps of the mythical kingdom of Oakria were made using Railroad Tycoon 2 and Ambrosia Snapz Pro (and a Macintosh of course.) I did this to show that the scenario editor in the game can be used as a map-making tool for other ends than the game itself.

To begin, I scanned the map from a drawing (1978). To clean up the scanned image, I used typical boundary trim and smudge tools in the programs Graphic Converter and Color-It. It was important to work in grayscale because Railroad Tycoon uses your image as an elevation map. Since the drawing was mostly pen strokes, I applied smudging to nearly all of its area to blend it into gradual tones.

For the rest of the work, Railroad Tycoon 2 provided tools for painting water, grass, dirt, trees, and more. The elevation editing is very nice: you can choose a radius of effect for tools such as smooth or raise/lower. A lot of this was required on account of those pen strokes. Finally I added some labels and buildings.