Homebrew world, how big?

[random user]

Hiya, I've just created a rough cut of a map.

(http://www.cardplace.com/images/chosen/map_small.jpg if you care -- ~200k)

The campaign I envision will be wholy encompased by this map. It has a main big island/continent taking up 70-80% of the map with a much smaller isle north of it.

My question is how big should my world be? I'm trying to figure out how long it should take to get from the southern-most tip to the northern-most tip of the main continent (on the east end). Initially I'm thinking 4 to 6 months by caravan (including some stops along the way). That would mean a trade caravan could do a circle every year, which would be convenient.

This is my first worldmaking attempt though, and I'm wondering if anyone has pointers on some pros vs cons or just tips in general (or things to think about) when considering the size of the game world.

I'm also unclear on how much faster horseback riders traveling quickly go than a caravan. Perhaps 3x as fast?

Thanks for any input!

 

[silentspace]

nice map!

 

[Nightfall]

Pretty sweet work there.

 

[Haradim]

I never really thought about using Civ to make a map.

I may have to investigate more closely...and maybe conquer a nation or two

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Love the map. How'd you make that?

As for size...well, depends really. Do you want it to take a long time to get from one end to the other, and do you want more spread out regions of 'nothing'? Or do you want population a lot closer together?

 

[random user]

The map was made using the civ3 editor and some screen capture and cutting and pasting. Though I used photoshop, I think there are a lot of imaging programs out there now (for use with digital cameras) what will merge pictures automagically.

As to the world, I am envisioning about 5 "kingdoms" so it would have to be big enough that each king feels comfortable with their territory. Each territory should have at least 3 major cities.

As to people, I'm pretty flexible with that, though definately I want there to be a lot of "wilderness" still available. I'm envisioning something sort of along the lines of 1850s in the US, some areas similar in population and density to Kansas/Mississippi ish, and some similar to California/Oregon -- but again I'm still fleshing out this world to a large extent so I'm flexible/undecided.

I want the game world to be big enough so that players can't just decide to go somewhere aribitrary and be there quickly. On the other hand, if they decide they *have* to go somewhere for some reason, I want them to be able to make it there without having to take too long (after all other things are going on in the land!). The problem is the "too long" part I'm still fuzzy on.

 

[silentspace]

Base overland movement speed is 1 mile/10 feet speed.

So a lightly loaded light horse, who's speed is 60 will go 6 miles in an hour.

 

[Ampolitor]

its a mad, mad, mad world

well mine started small in 1986, now its 3x the size of Forgotten realms, My reccomendation, start SMALL, once you have a concept do a rough sketch (ex. orcs here, elves here etc..) then come up with names etc...
start in one area the area the PC's will frequent most then branch out from there

 

[Desdichado]

I'd say make it small -- but I'm a fan of the Ray Winninger school of homebrewing...

 

[the Jester]

I too recommend starting small.

Depending on the level of civilization you want, a king could be comfortable with a pretty small area. 'Back in the day' there were a lot of small territories- but if you want a year caravan trip, you prolly need to figure out where the major settlements are and how long it takes to go from one to the next (especially how much time they spend at each).