Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-24302820-20170111200900/@comment-24302820-20170114120816

Now that all of our major cities have been added to the map (which is already an 800 MB XCF file) I can use Delaunay triangulations to give us a starting point for trade routes. These are actually a secondary effect of what I'm really after: a Voronoi diagram. The Voronoi diagram shows us exactly what regions feed into each trade city. For each cell on the Voronoi-ed map, any given point within that cell is closer to the included trade city than it is to any other trading center. In other words, that map variant shows us exactly where people will go to buy or sell things for any point on the map.

Part of the reason why I chose Hogan over Colt as the second trading center for the Association is how it would affect the Voronoi diagram. This way, most of the commerce in the Association goes to Grey, rather than nearly half of it nourishing Colt's coffers. Instead, the map shows that Colt would still rely on Grey for mercantile ventures, instead of commanding a big chunk of the Association as well as the valuable trade going along the river southeast of the Western Territories.

Among the other interesting things that the map now shows is how the Killian Empire would command so much of the passage from Osterre and the Middle Lands. Other than going through the Gothic territories (or navigating all the way around the southern tip of Osterre) one will sail through waters controlled by the empress. Another little thing that I found interesting is that there is a noteworthy part of southwestern Stormundia for whom it's quicker, cheaper, and easier to go to the Darkmouth Emirate than to nearby Citadel. Also, for a significant portion of the Elven Homeland, the trading post on the Shield Wall adjacent to Formour is far closer than properly Elven cities.

For the most part though, the nearest-city divisions break down nicely into national areas. That is, it's fairly clear as to which islands are Heldannic and which are Killian, people in the Northern Protectorate don't go to the Orcken Highlands to trade, nearly all of the Association's trade goes to Grey, the areas covered by Zarrian cities also nicely matches with the published map of Ebonstone, pirates operating out of Badaria have ready access to four different mercantile regions, and there's a fairly clear division between trade in the Kingdom of Formour and the Heldannic Confederation. This means I did a pretty decent job of putting cities in the right places.