I love maps. It could be because I love history and it could be because I have no sense of direction.
Strange Maps proves to be the perfect place for someone like me to lose himself for sixty minutes when I should be doing something else.
Despite the name, not all the maps are really strange, though some certainly are. You have maps from fiction, maps from history, maps from researchers and maps from bakers.
Since all strategy gamers are, by nature, cartographers, I thought I’d pass along this site. I saw it mentioned at Andrew Sullivan’s blog, but which a friend assures me he told me about it months ago and I just forgot.
Great pointer. I used to love maps when I was younger. Those maps in the Lord of the Rings books were my favorites. I think that’s what originally created my D&D obsession is that every book was full of maps.
Good link.
I like the point about the lack of a sense of direction; I’m the same and can see how the love of maps might be related :-) But there’s also what maps meant to those who made them, especially in times when exploration was difficult but the knowledge from them was very valuable. (Also, although not into fantasy for a very long time, I do remember the attraction of the Tolkien maps etc)
Bringing the love of maps back to strategy gaming, it is definitely one of the aspects I loved most about Civilisation. You start with your settler and all you know is the eight squares around you, everything else is black. As the game progresses, the expanding of that map in itself has always been a driving force for my actions in addition to whatever rational returns could be made.
Roberto/.