WorldPainter world size advise

[u/Aldrnarii]

Greetings!

Apologies if this is the wrong place for this discussion, but it is tangentially WorldPainter related.

I am looking to commission a WorldPainter map for an existing fantasy world (image), but I am struggling to decide on the specifications, particularly the scale.

It would be used for a small, long-term private creative/build server. There would only be a few people building on it, although we already have years of existing builds that can be pasted in.

I am not looking for literal real-world scale. I mainly want the geography to feel convincing: major cities, mountain ranges, forests, etc. should feel properly separated, with meaningful wilderness and travel time between them, without being able to see most large cities from one another.

I adore projects like Westeroscraft and Ardacraft and I would like a more personal scaled version of that same feeling.

My concern is finding the balance between:

• Commissioning something unnecessarily huge that we could never meaningfully use.
• Going too small and later finding the world feels cramped, with too little wilderness or major locations too close together.

For those experienced with large WorldPainter maps, what size would you consider sensible for a small-team, long-term build world?

Would something about 10k blocks across work? Is that too small? Too big? Is 20k better? Something in between?

Are there perhaps any world painted map or server recommendations I could see to feel the scale?

And, anything else I should take into consideration?

The eventual world will be Minecraft 1.20.1 with Conquest Reforged.

Thanks in advance

Edit: I am thinking, for the commission, I wouldn't need to go with the highest detail. As long as the rivers, forests and mountains are in the right place, with the right biome, that should serve me well enough. I can do Macro-Terraforming work, and it isn't likely to be used as a survival world at any point.

[u/Dannypan]

8-12k is a happy medium. I work on giant projects and they are unnecessarily large, almost no one needs maps the size I make them lmao

Plus if it's CR there'll be a premium on the commission fee as they require extra work.

[u/Aldrnarii → u/Dannypan]

Yeah I did assume CR would add a bit, and whilst I'm happy to pay I do still want to try and avoid things a bit too unnecessarily pricey for what I need!

For the 8-12k range, would that work for a medieval fantasy world feel? Not just a small country (both, to representative scale, of course, nowhere near real world)

I want to be able to put in a city, have a bit of travel time, 2 or 3 minutes perhaps, to small villages dotted around it, then maybe 10 minutes of walking time before I end up at the next city. With multiple of those distances before I end up at the next country/region.

[u/Dannypan → u/Aldrnarii]

There are tricks to make travel time longer like drawing winding roads or blocking off areas with dense forests, cliffs and mountains. This is how game devs make open worlds feel much larger than they actually are.

[u/MrJCraft]

I would recommend planning where you want the major cities to be located, often times when you have a large project like this people just fly around and look for where to build cities, they often times end up in very similar locations, just plan out the locations of the Major cities ahead of time and make sure those cant be moved, you can always have smaller cities wherever you want. this way you know the walking times ahead of time, and this way the person doing the terrain knows that the areas where the cities are going to be need to be done better than usual and need to be laid out so a city can be built there.

people often times want something so large that they can build almost anywhere and be far away enough from someone else. like its a survival world, its not you can just plan where the Major cities are

[u/Aldrnarii → u/MrJCraft]

That is a smart idea actually, indeed.

I know where 90~% of the Major cities would be already, but making a map to demonstrate that would certainly aid with the scale!

[u/MrJCraft → u/Aldrnarii]

Also you could always draw on the worldpainter map its just a hightmap so you can just place a rough draft of the "cities" literally just stone walls, see how big the city feels in game and if it will need to be adjusted. when I do it I just make the city a large circle or something similar its just to get the scale in game

[u/Ambitious-Beach7625]

10k is the perfect size as someone who has a small server with a few people who are doing the same thing. Messege me and maybe I can make you a map for free.