I have outlined key areas, from the Iberian Peninsula up to England, and through Italy. The terrain is slowly, meticulously, coming into place more closely.
...The problem is.
It is methodical work--work which I have to very carefully strain my eyes to make sure I'm not making errors. And even when I am working on connecting two areas that are entirely within the boundaries of a single map (so, no distortion going on), I'm finding...sometimes, there's clashes. Clashes which have no discernible explanation; I check the tiles, check the math, double-check each, triple-check it, and somehow end up most often short a tile or two (where there's a need for two different tiles to occupy the same square) or on the rare occasion, its inverse (too many tiles).
You'd think they'd happen in equal measure, but no. Far more of the "not enough space" crop up than vice-versa, in spite of my efforts--and the effort is starting to wear on me. I am looking at the map, and I know I am making significant progress there. But at the same time, while I objectively can see the significant differences, each time I'm working on it, it feels like I'm only making small steps forward.
Small, meticulous, labored steps forward, to get what amounts to a massive prototype-of-prototypes map. Keep in mind that even after all this work, I may need to scrap it all and start from scratch again, circumstances depending. Probably not (England is disproportionately low on the map, at only a little over 50% of the way up, and most things in later maps have England near the top), but you never know.
I just feel a little drained out.
In spite of me really wanting to get this done.
If I can get the map done--and I know that it won't magically get done, I need to work on it bit by bit until it is when it is a ton of work--then I can get the scenario functioning. The basic steps are to finish generating the Rise of Rome map, tweak Rise of Rome with Mesopotamia, then tweak it with Fall of Rome, then tweak that with The Middle Ages which expands further and so on and so forth.
I can see that goal being obtainable, if I keep working...and working...and working.
But it's sure not easy.