"Simple/Cheap/Easy 18th C. Euro-Map?" Topic

Hello hobbyists,

I'm looking for a simple/cheap/easy way to make a political map of Europe, with 18th Century boundaries. Something to play a Eurocentric game of Risk on, around 18" X 24" to 24" X 36" in size.

Your expert suggestions, as always, are welcome and greatly appreciated.

I was thinking of having something like this printed:

link

Or possibly an 18th Century version of this?

link

Or maybe something from a teaching resource I could hand color?

link

I think the biggest hurdle to overcome would be printing out something large enough. Suggestions?

Many local print shops have plotters or other "large" printers that can handle the size you are looking for.

However, you can also print the map on a series of 11x17" (or other smaller size sheets) and then tape them together. If you mount these smaller sheets on heavy cardboard and carefully tape the boards together from the back, you can even fold up the game map just like a regular board game and it looks pretty good.

Let's see if i can post this link:
warlight.net/SinglePlayer

Go to custom game and look thru the map section. They have a 1812 map with 1600+ territories.

Cool time waster, if you like Risk.

Or maybe this one 1720:

I've lost my link to the Hessian State Archives, but if you can find it, they have many 18th and early 19th century maps that are perfect for what you need.

Dear Grommet 37

Ahh too bad you ween't doing it in 1618, I still have copies of the Play By Mail Game Baroque I ran in the 80's laying around. Black and white but about the size you want and professionally printed. It also has all the provinces and nations set up with numbers for the recording of computer movement so that if you wanted to move from Bohemia to Moravia you said M3 / 33-48.

Also have an Imagi-Nation version.

Otto

Otto,

The more I read and study, the further I keep digging back. Now that I've made it to the 18th Century, I find myself needing to understand how that is an improvement on the military art of the 17th Century.

As I'm read Nosworthy's Anatomy of Victory, I find myself oredering the all of Pike and Shot era Ospreys from the public library. Can't understand what something is a modification of until you see the thing that came before.

Much as one must hear country, blues and swing to fully get rock'n'roll.

So I'll email you my contact info.

Send the maps. ;)

PS – I find I'm interested in the Long, Long Campaign: Starting with a political map, working my way through the century, seeing what conflicts would be generated on a Euro-Risk historical atlas map, and then fighting them with figures, keeping a history of the campaign, the war, the new balance of power between the fictional states, new borders, etc.

Every time I start reading about how great Frederick the Great was, for improving on the work done earlier in the century, I want to read about Marlborough, Eugene, de Saxe, et al.

I'm thinking of playing out a whole "century" of Succession Wars and Stately Quadrilles with my Imagi-versions of the Great Powers of the time.

Flintlock fusil and socket bayonet era is most interesting, but now matchlock and pike is interesting as well (understanding Cromwellian innovation to understand Petrovian innovation to understand Frederician innovation to understand Napoleonic innovation…).

Also, the 17th Century is just that much weirder.

Cheers.

Der Alte Fritz advised:

I've lost my link to the Hessian State Archives, but if you can find it, they have many 18th and early 19th century maps that are perfect for what you need.

Terrement added:

Fritz,

link

is this it?

also here is another that references back to HSA

link

JJ

I found the HSA, but I seem lost beyond the English front end. Not sure where the maps are, but rest assured I will spend hours looking for them. Karte sind "map" auf Deutsch, bitte?

And that was the extent of my High School German.

mad monkey 1 pointed out:

Let's see if i can post this link:
warlight.net/SinglePlayer

Go to custom game and look thru the map section. They have a 1812 map with 1600+ territories.

Cool time waster, if you like Risk.

I checked it out. Pretty cool. I'll mess around with it more when I get the time. Thanks!

The 1720 map is just perfect. Cheers.

drummer replied:

Many local print shops have plotters or other "large" printers that can handle the size you are looking for.

However, you can also print the map on a series of 11x17" (or other smaller size sheets) and then tape them together. If you mount these smaller sheets on heavy cardboard and carefully tape the boards together from the back, you can even fold up the game map just like a regular board game and it looks pretty good.

I'm really heading toward having three custom maps* printed at poster size by a local print shop. Possibly even dry-mounting the resulting print on some kind of board/cardstock, and having it cut, either before or after, then applying some strong tape like 2" gaffers tape to the back (bottom) and 2" clear packing tape to the front (top). Leaving a gap of about one cardstock thickness between the panels before applying the tape. Tape the back first. If I get it printed at 18" X 24", it would fold to a foot by a cubit.

My own printer is about to be replaced. Maybe it's time to get a better one, learn how to do more with it, and drive it hard while it's new. ;)

I think I'm into the pen, paper, tape and scissors mood, so that might be fun. I used to make great fake maps. Sounds like the perfect project for the rainy season.

Thanks for the suggestions. Cheers.

*3 maps: 1) Europe 1700 wiki, 1) Europe projection with rivers wiki, 3) something else old enough to be public domain or otherwise free (either linguistic, ethnographic or black-and-white physical). Those should be good for pseudo-semi-historical, total Imagi-nations, and Imagi-nations "Later That Century".

Use the Age of Reason campaign map and have it scanned and printed in any size you want at your local Kinkos or Office Depot/Staples.

Flick40 advised:

Use the Age of Reason campaign map and have it scanned and printed in any size you want at your local Kinkos or Office Depot/Staples

All the more reason I should buy those rules, I guess.

Dear Grommet 37

You've got the wrong guy.

I do not think there was any significant "improvement" in the military arts between the 17th and 18th centuries. Certainly a rising trend, but no "revolutions" as some have suggested.

What is different is a change in the attitude of the conduct of war, but that was simply the military side of the change of society with the growth of the Enlightenment. If anything can be said about the wars of the 18th century, it is that the conflicts were engaged in for limited means. This did not mean small, or circumscribed. But it was a war for THIS bit of province, or THAT colony, or THIS trade relationship. It was not for the content of men's minds and whether you believed in transubstantiation or consubstantiation or the nature of souls.

There was also the factor of self-fashioning and self definition and what defined a "gentlemen." That was not a meaningless honorific given to anyone at large as today, but a self view with a code of conduct and a life style to be aspired to, attaind and preserved in one's reputation.

Of course that all fell apart with Romanticism and the return of emotion and the elevation of gutter-trash to thrones, where it didn't matter what one did so long as one felt deeply and sincerely.

I'll send you the maps.

By the way I have campaigns all the time and don't use maps. I consider them completely unnecessary and burdensome.

Otto

I also recommend the Age of Reason maps including the new ones of the Caribbean for Spain's New World possessions.

But there's also this boardgame, Soldier Kings, that has a worldwide SYW map…
link

Well, friends, I went the easy route.

I had a printer make me a 24" X 36" poster of the Wikipedia map. It took like 2 days to get it, and cost 20 bucks, with shipping. It's totally acceptable for the intended purpose (or will be, after another day or so of flattening). Next time I think I might get the 1750-ish map printed in sepia, and try to color it in with markers or watercolors, and change all of the names, but for now this totally works.

All in all, well worth it. Cheers.