Crossroads II: I'm on a Mammoth.

[Steckie]

As a big fan of pretty, pretty maps i have no idea how i missed commenting on this one.
I'm one of those people that goes over the map in a fantasy book with a fine-toothed comb to see if the thing is realistic. Luckily with a map of a real life place i don't have to deal with weirdly placed rivers and mountains. But there are a few weird border placements on this map. I've numbered them on the map, and i'll go over them one by one.



1) This small corridor of land is all that connects Mexican Aztatlan with the Rio Grande area. But there's a very big problem with this: the Spanish and other Europeans have control over the seas. They can sever that corridor at any time. I don't see how Aztatlan could ever realistically hold on to the Rio Grande area and even threaten the lands north of their colony there while their only land connection is a small coastal corridor. On a coast where they don't have naval dominance.
My suggestion: Move the corridor inland towards the Mexican Plateau, give the Spanish one or a few coastal cities to threaten that corridor and give the rest to independant Mesoamerican groups.

2) The Maya civilization didn't expand at all since the year 900? It would be very weird for their borders not to have changed in 850 years.
Also, i'd give them a land border with Aztatlan, makes for a bit more conflict.

3) Again, these are the historical borders of the New Granada Viceroyalty. I would expand those borders a bit northward and those of the Maya a bit south until they share a land border. I'd place that border at Lake Nicaragua, the northern shore in Mayan hands and the Southern shore in Spanish hands. Lakes can be very interesting places in a setting, and a contested lake even more so.

4) If the Fusangese control the Baja California Peninsula they should control the area until the mouth of the Colorado river as well. For the Hisatsinom to have a narrow sliver of land on the other side of a large river while Fusang controls the north, west and south of that area is not very military feasible. They'd get kicked out pretty quickly. Give them the area until the Mouth of the Colorado River and maybe a bit north along the river up to roughly the US-Mexico border.

5) Didn't France co-own Nouveau Orléans and not Spain? If France has control over the city together with Cahokia and Cahokia owns the surrounding lands with the plains tribes backing them, i don't think Spain could realistically hold on to the area around the mouth of the Mississsippi.

6) Does Cahokia own the Appalachians? Or does England own them? I always thought that Cahokia controlled the mountain passes but nothing more than that and that the Appalachians themselves were not owned by either group.
Maybe we could have an independant group of natives controlling the mountains while Cahokia controls the passes? The Europeans support the natives who often raid Cahokian outposts and they often smuggle things over the mountains for them, but they're still independant. Cahokia is trying to send diplomats that way, but they're not having much success.

7) These are the historical borders of the Haudenosaunee. Again i think that their territory would have changed a bit over the years.
Perhaps we should have them lose a few of their more inland Southern areas, but they have gained land to the north on the shores of the Great Lakes? That would really cement them as the power over that area and give the spies, diplomats and assassins something to fight for. Whoever controls the Lakes, controls the trade.
Also, i wouldn't give Cahokia a border to the Lakes. Limit their influence to the plains and the Mississippi river. Gives them a real drive to try and get control over the Haudenosaunee.


Oh, and maybe for some very pretty, pretty maps to actually put in the book we could ask for help on the Cartographers Guild. It's a forum for professional and amateur map makers. Most are for fictional worlds or cities, so this is perfect for this project.
The people on that forum often do comissions, both free and paid. But if it gets used in a book or gets published they kinda expect you to pay for it. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask over there, maybe they're dirt cheap