Hi,
I'm new to ACKS having only just bought the PDF through DrivethruRPG (The Books on the way). I've been considering getting Hexographer to create Campaign & Regional Maps. I'm looking to use the World of Greyhawk Setting centering on The Kingdom of Keoland & the surrounding area.
I'm curious to what peoples experiences have been using Hexographer & also has anyone used if to map Keoland or there abouts. Any help or advice is welcome.
Regards
Noel
No familiarity with Greyhawk, but I do know I have been much happier using hexographer for region-mapping than paper (see eg https://wanderinggamist.blogspot.com/2015/10/15-mile-hexes.html ). Worth noting that Hexographer 2 is coming fairly soon (see http://inkwellideas.com/2016/07/hexographer-2s-map-levels/ ).
It's worth checking if someone has already "hexed" the world up for you. I used it to create my own relatively small maps, and generally found that it's a bit clunky, but still infinitely better than doing it by hand. Given the free trial version, I'd say there's not really a reason not to at least try it out.
EDIT: Googled "Greyhawk hex map". Looks like there are a few out there already (assuming the map I see popping up repeatedly is what you're after).
I have some examples of creating a campaign and using Hexographer to create the different level maps.
https://stifflittlebrushes.blogspot.com/2016/02/building-skyrim-style-ack-campaign_12.html
I am excited about the new version coming out, it is going to have some long awaited improvements.
Thanks for the advise guys. I was kinda hoping that someone had already done pretty much the same project as me & could walk me through it using Hexographer. I'm 99.9% sure I'm going to get Hexographer the only real decision now is do I get it in the bundle with Dungeonographer & Cityographer or just by itself.
One trick is that Hexographer has a feature where you can overlay a transparent image, so you can basically just drop a map of Greyhawk and "color it in" using terrain.
I found the tracing layer useful recently when hexifying Calradia (from the Mount and Blade games) (all 75,000 odd hexes!). Regarding the other programs, I have the free versions, but don’t bother using them. Dungeons, I will draw on the battle mat, and tend to randomly generate, so I just use a random generator, print it and populate. No reason to use dungeonographer. Regarding cities, I find it’s rare that you really need to know the layout of a city. Everywhere is within a couple of hours walk at most, so you really don’t need to plan a route or the like. The only time I think I would map a city is if I was running a campaign wholly within it.
So for me, I just use hexographer for the campaign map (eg a single map that will get a lot of use and be shared electronically with the group