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Acres, Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy, Hex, Hex Map, Labyrinth Lord, Maps, OSR, RPG
By now you probably realized that I generally don’t work with a set scale when I draw my maps. Most of them aren’t precisely “to” a scale at all, and are more representational of how things fit together than how many feet are between door X and altar Y. In fact, when asked for the scale of a map I generally speak in terms of “handwaves” – as in it is about 3 handwaves from here to here on the map, or it’s two handwaves per inch, or some such. A handwave is a rough unit of measurement used to determine encounters and descriptions – for overland travel a handwave is often a day’s travel.
ANYWAYS, that kind of thing is pretty much the antithesis of a good hex map. And since I have all this cool mapping stuff from Squarehex.co.uk, I was fiddling with the mega hex paper.
I was aiming for a six mile hex here, using some aerial photos I had on hand of small towns. Except I got the math way wrong. Those long rectangles are supposed to be 200 acre farm lots, except that I miscalculated and they are actually 450 acres each (32 chains by 140 chains roughly – I was aiming for 20 chains by 100 chains but didn’t have a ruler or calculator with me when I was drawing this).
That’s what I get for fiddling with precision cartography.
The incomplete village at the upper right of the map has the geographical size to be roughly 1,000 residents – or in higher density building it could hold well over 2,000 depending on the style of construction.
Dyson's Dodecahedron 
Is there a reason why there are subhexes of 0.4 miles in the 6 mile hex?
A good effort. I use the six mile hex in all my fantasy maps for all the logical reasons. Look on the Internet for the article on the six !ile hex and how its used. Makes all sorts of sense.
Precision is overrated. The look is the thing and your non-scaled work is pretty great.
Since the farm plots drawn ended up more than twice the size you intended, why not simply throw in a second village? Villages and towns weren’t very far away from each other after all, usually just a few miles considering the total land of one manor abutted the land of every other manor surrounding it. Also, if the current village is large enough to be the home of 1000-2000 residents, it would be large enough to be considered a town. In that case, a nearby supporting village would definitely fit within that hex range.
To me, the mistake in illustration was your subconscious mind telling you that a supporting village should also be included in the picture.
Agreed. Simply adding another village might be the answer. Demographics of medieval times indicates that villages tended to be 3-4 miles apart (1-1.5 hours walking distance) with major market towns where weekly market days were conducted to be 15-20 miles or a good day or two’s ride in a wagon to vend your goods at a market square. The city guard would make the collection of the market fee of a percentage of the goods or in coin (rare due to their scarcity although not in fantasy worlds) in order to meet the laws of the town or the local Iord. I love medievalism and the design of worlds.
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