I have in mind a new board project, but it's a large and tricky job. Basically, I want to make an "All Roads Lead to Rome" board based off of the 4th century Tabula Peutingeriana:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/TabulaPeutingeriana.jpg

As you can see from the image, this is a challenging project given that the base map has an aspect ratio of 22:1 -- some creative solution will be needed to make it compatible with WarGear. The other complicating aspect is that I would like to make it as historically accurate as possible -- using the proper names of the towns and roads labeled on the map. Unfortunately, the resolution of the wikimedia image is too low to make most of them out, and they might need some translation in any case. Thus, research will be needed.

Lastly, of course, the graphics and game design components will be quite a large project as well.

As you can see, this is no small task. So I thought that this might be a good opportunity to experiment with collective board design if there are some other designers interested and willing to contribute to the project.

Let me know if you are interested in the project. Depending on interest, we can decide how to proceed from there.

I'm moderately interested.  The very first thought that came to my mind regarding how to deal with the Width/Height issue would be to warp/wrap the map, into a snake or a circle.

Maybe a series of maps for some different sections?

there's no limit on the dimensions of a board, right? I mean, it could be just as is in which case, you'd want to be sure there's a minimal amount need to go to the menu.  E.g. back to attack from fortify.  It's still a hell of a lot of scrolling to see what's going on.

The other thing to do is figure out which piece of geography this is representing - and then use a more standard style map with all the same roads - villages and terrain features.

Yeah but how cool is this map?  I picture an ancient map maker who had little concept of long and lat putting together a map of the known world using mostly verbal and written accounts of travels.  Of course he would be visualizing in linear fashion.  It's just fascinating.

True. True.  

The geography is all there..  I see Modern day Great Britain. Spain and France on the Left, Rome pretty much in the middle, and Greece, Aincient Galacia on the right (though some of Greece appears to be above Rome as well, then wrapping around at Antiochia into Africa.  So the Mediterranean looks like a long wide river of sorts.   Of course Modern day Italy and Greece gets the lion's share of real estate.

So many ways to approach a map like this.. My head's spinning.

Yes, it's a doozy. But one of the things that really draws me to it is the absolutely different approach to geography, and that's the thing I really want to try to capture for a WarGear board. One of the things that occurs to me is that the map-maker clearly thought in terms of road connections. Which roads connect which towns and cities is more important than what we think of as the "correct" spatial/geographic representation. So I envision the game play capturing that emphasis on roads and connection as well.

think of a hub, romans were known (along with the egyptians) for their chariots...fits in line with the time, still has your spatial and connection emphasis...

oh and i'd be interested in helping in what little ways i can.  

Kjeld wrote:

..the map-maker clearly thought in terms of road connections..

Clearly, many of these 'routes' are the result of descriptions of travels by individuals, so many available routes were not recorded. This often resulted in the distant placement of locations that may have in fact been very close.  Depending on how much detail you go into, it also results in quite a few Antastic-like choke points because some routes went through an exclusive set of way-points. 

couple sites that might prove useful: 

http://cartographic-images.net/Cartographic_Images/120_Peutinger_Table.html

http://www.euratlas.net/cartogra/peutinger/

Nice, thanks WT!

That was a fascinating read.

Any chance there could be a bonus structure based on your distance from Rome? 

2 removed - three removed - etc...

Or perhaps marking this most important (and I would assume most well connected) routes?

Big ol trunk line is +x secondary brances from it are +x-1  etc..