So growing up I really loved the mountains. Living in Colorado they are constantly in sight and I've spent a lot of time crawling around them.

The one take away impression above everything else is that mountains are big.

Huge, enormous, etc...

And I don't mean as a range (though that is true too) I meant individually.

They're massive. If I recall my geography correctly the "typical" mountain can be anywhere from 5-30 miles in length and 1-6 miles wide and many are larger.

A single mountain covers a hell of an area.

And yet on our hex maps mountains are depicted as a series of tiny peaks within a single hex.

This is unsatisfying to me. It LOOKS wrong even when I accept the abstraction.

On a map with 6-mile hexes mountains should typically be multihex affair. And even at larger scales mountains should look more... Mountainous.

Only on the largest scale maps does the typical series of peaks look right.

Has anyone played with different ways to depict mountains on hex maps? Particularly I'm interested in the smaller scale 6-10 mile hex size.

Quote from: Piestrio;631295So growing up I really loved the mountains. Living in Colorado they are constantly in sight and I've spent a lot of time crawling around them.

The one take away impression above everything else is that mountains are big.

Huge, enormous, etc...

And I don't mean as a range (though that is true too) I meant individually.

They're massive. If I recall my geography correctly the "typical" mountain can be anywhere from 5-30 miles in length and 1-6 miles wide and many are larger.

A single mountain covers a hell of an area.

And yet on our hex maps mountains are depicted as a series of tiny peaks within a single hex.

This is unsatisfying to me. It LOOKS wrong even when I accept the abstraction.

On a map with 6-mile hexes mountains should typically be multihex affair. And even at larger scales mountains should look more... Mountainous.

Only on the largest scale maps does the typical series of peaks look right.

Has anyone played with different ways to depict mountains on hex maps? Particularly I'm interested in the smaller scale 6-10 mile hex size.

I have a small range in the Daggerford region hexmap I use (the Illefarn mountains) - they're a very small range, so I've used a nice set of symbols with varied "peak" shapes in an attempt to actually describe shapes, as opposed to just "these are mountain hexes".  But I'll admit I'm not that familiar with the real scale of the bigger mountain ranges (I live in New England, haha), so this is a topic I'm interested in hearing more input on.

At smaller scales I use contour lines instead.

I'm mainly interested in the effect of mountains on map-scale movement, and the mechanics of mountain passes. E.g. what is it about the Khyber Pass, or the Cilician Gates, Thermopylae, etc. that effectively forces travel through a narrow area? How hard is it bypass a pass? What are the different effects for small parties vs. large groups going through mountains?

To look at many wargames, mountain ranges are often only effective barriers if they're defended. (I.e. classic rule is to increase defense values of units sitting on mountains; units move slower through mountains but usually aren't stopped completely.) This doesn't quite match historical accounts in many cases.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;631315I'm mainly interested in the effect of mountains on map-scale movement, and the mechanics of mountain passes. E.g. what is it about the Khyber Pass, or the Cilician Gates, Thermopylae, etc. that effectively forces travel through a narrow area? How hard is it bypass a pass? What are the different effects for small parties vs. large groups going through mountains?

To look at many wargames, mountain ranges are often only effective barriers if they're defended. (I.e. classic rule is to increase defense values of units sitting on mountains; units move slower through mountains but usually aren't stopped completely.) This doesn't quite match historical accounts in many cases.

Travel outside of passes is often impossible and always difficult. Mountains are effective barriers all by themselves.

A more accurate depiction of mountains would also let us see and use vallies and passes better as well.

I like the treatment used in (for a couple examples) OA1 Sword of the Daimyo and S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, where you have mountain passes explicitly drawn out, the assumption being that THOSE are where you get to use your "mountain movement rate".  Crossing without a pass would, in my game, be a very different prospect (time to get out the WSG, boys!).

Quote from: Piestrio;631295Has anyone played with different ways to depict mountains on hex maps? Particularly I'm interested in the smaller scale 6-10 mile hex size.

Here is how I do it in one of my campaigns (spoilered in case Premier is reading this):

Spoiler

Kinda time-consuming to do it digitally, but absolutely worth it. This is 2 Helvetian Stunde (~10 km) per hex.

Quote from: Melan;631333Here is how I do it in one of my campaigns (spoilered in case Premier is reading this):

Spoiler

Kinda time-consuming to do it digitally, but absolutely worth it. This is 2 Helvetian Stunde (~10 km) per hex.

Thats really cool!

What's the scale?

Thanks.

Quote from: Piestrio;631336Thats really cool!

What's the scale?

Thanks.

"This is 2 Helvetian Stunde (~10 km) per hex." (e.g. a bit more than 6 miles per hex).

I think drawing them as small peaks is just a convenient shorthand more than anything, but I do notice it does also impact how I imagine the landscape. I have been spending a lot of time on google earth and looking at some of the more toppgraphical maps in my historical atlas lately. It really gives you an appreciation for how land is shaped and impacts travel and trade. Most of my life I've lived north of boston where its mostly rocky drumlins, but I spent five years as a kid not far from mountains in southern california. You could always see them int he distance from our house, and I share your sense of their size. In fact one of the places I have been checking out on google earth is the town I used to live in in California, to see how much the landscape actually matches my impression of it as a kid.

... and don't get me started on oceans and seas! There's no continuous lapping of waves, cresting whitecaps, or believable undertows or gyres!



(Because someone had to take the piss out of this at some point.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;631344... and don't get me started on oceans and seas! There's no continuous lapping of waves, cresting whitecaps, or believable undertows or gyres!

When travelling, I tend to avoid the part with the giant octopus. You know, just in case.

Quote from: Benoist;631339"This is 2 Helvetian Stunde (~10 km) per hex." (e.g. a bit more than 6 miles per hex).

Oh sure! Reading!

Pfffft.

I just draw out a map normally in the style of Lone Wolf or Greyhawk the wizard and overlay hexes on it.

Quote from: Piestrio;631295If I recall my geography correctly the "typical" mountain can be anywhere from 5-30 miles in length and 1-6 miles wide and many are larger.

A single mountain covers a hell of an area.

That's not really accurate. I've dicked around on Google Earth quite a lot, and most mountains are much smaller. Size varies enormously of course. A large volcano springing up from a plain, like Fuji or Kilimanjaro, may have a base of 20-30 kilometres, but these are very much the exception. Most mountain ranges are in chains of ridges and while a section of the chain might indeed be your 1-6 miles by 5-30 miles, within that there will several or indeed many peaks.

I've stood on the coast at Kaikoura in New Zealand. Rising almost from the shore are the Seaward Kaikouras, large and rugged mountains reaching almost 3000m. Behind them is a large valley and on the other side are the equally majestic Inland Kaikouras. From the shore to the far side of the Inland Kaikouras is only 30km or so, encompassing coastal plain, two mountain ranges and and the valley between them. In that 30km "hex" there are dozens or hundreds of peaks and untold nooks and crannies.