Hey everyone,

I’ve been drawing German-styled cities for years now, and many of them look decent, but none of them have that characteristic inner city well mapped. I know roughly how those develop historically, but there isn’t any guide on how to map those developments.

I’ve been told that I should start from the main square and then develop “blocks” – spaces in between streets. Then, the streets should follow the borders of the blocks. This advice seems good, but it’d be nice if there were a more detailed guide on how to do that – for example, I have no idea how to develop blocks.

If someone experienced enough could explain this whole process, we could use this entry on the wiki in the help/resources section.

Thanks in advance.

forum entry here

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a new version of the coat of arms for Reeland. This is what the old one looks like:

Now that I have more experience and knowledge about heraldry, I came up with two more realistic ones. The only difference is the crown.

… See full entry

FORUM THREAD HERE

Hello everyone,

Recently I have been working a bit on the main railway station in Neu-Erneerik. It is meant to be the railway hub of the west coast of Midistland, and the west end of the Neu-Erneerik–Bend railway section, with regular train and high speed (Alta Velocidad) connections to Bend main railway station.

What I intend to do is add more crossover tracks, a railyard/service area in between the station and Bendstraße, and finish the basic railway network in the city.

Is it a good station for the second-largest city in the country?

Is it good for high-speed railways?

I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Happy mapping!

Hello mappers,

I’m here to ask something: how do we tag capitals for best rendering?

Typically the state capital is tagged with capital=yes, but histor-style and TopoMap styles take into account the admin_levels of capitals. OSM wiki proposes that for state capitals, capital=yes should be used, but for province capitals, we should use capital=3 or capital=4, etc.

But on the OSM wiki it is also mentioned that we can combine capital=yes and admin_level=3/admin_level=4/etc. tags.

Also, sometimes I’ve seen tags like capital=2.

So which one of them is the most correct (for OGF)?

Hey everyone,

As you know, most countries in OGF have maritime boundaries, but they are not consistent with tagging. There are typically 4 variants:

1. boundary=administrative and admin_level=2 (like regular boundaries)
2. boundary=administrative and maritime=yes
3. boundary=administrative, maritime=yes and admin_level=2
4. boundary=maritime and border_type=territorial (I personally used this one)

However, according to OSM standards, I propose that we all start to use this one:

boundary=administrative, admin_level=2, maritime=yes and border_type=territorial.

This will be very useful for consistency, and it also prevents the maritime boundaries from rendering at low zoom levels (which makes the map clearer and better-looking).

Happy mapping!

Hey mappers,

It’s not new that people tend to add lots of highways and unrealistically dense cities to blue countries, but it’s become very frustrating for me, and I think I’m not the only one.

Namely, more than a year ago, I started the initative to help Midistland become a more realistic country. Since East Uletha is supposed to resemble Europe and somewhat Asia, Midistland has become a country with mixed German and Spanish influences. Of course, it can’t be perfect, but with combined efforts, we can help it look at least decently realistic. Its capital city, Bend, is supposed to have a million - maximum 2 million inhabitants, and to somewhat resemble Amsterdam (because of its topography). It started out well, we had one outer ring road and one inner partial ring road, but now it looks like [this] (https://opengeofiction.net/#map=10/38.8206/98.5483).

Bend is now full of “freeways”, “parkways” and other unnecessary highways that don’t fit the infrastructure of a European-styled city.

Of course, it’s not an isolated case. There are many more - Breassau, Termápolis, Tengah.

They are not entirely unrealistic on their own - but they do not suit the topography, infrastructure or culture of a country like Midistland.

Unfortunately, many members give up on new countries because of this.

So, my message to all members who map in blue countries: first look where you are mapping, then decide what you are mapping. Some countries - like USA - have gave less mass transit and they need more highways. That’s not unrealistic. But that’s not for Midistland. That belongs in, for example, Federal States of Archanta.

Please, especially new members, have in mind where and why you’re mapping something. I am not the most experienced mapper - I still have a lot to learn - but this is something very important that I learned on OGF.

Do not take this as a form of shaming or call-out - this is just a sincere piece of advice.

Thanks for your attention, and happy mapping.