I'm not sure how pessimistic or how strange I sound in this entry; my intention is to be purely realistic.
Basically, Glaster is irrelevant. Yes you heard me right. Glaster is irrelevant. It never was a superpower. It never had a place on the world stage. It's like one of those countries that, outside its region, you know only by name, or by a few facts from a Wikipedia entry. Glaster never had an outstanding economy or some special cultural hotspot. The only famous people are dead and confined to the knowledge of historians, or have moved abroad to some more prosperous location.
While this might sound very depressing, here is some of my reasoning (skip to the tl;dr if this section is too long):
- Glaster is very small. It has slightly larger than real-world Brunei and a population of around 1 million (subject to change). It's not in a very advantageous position, considering that its much larger neighbours were at odds with Glaster until the end of the 20th century.
- Glaster's small size and advantageous position (at a maritime bottleneck) has meant that it has exploited and suppressed, first by Wyster, then by Ingerland, then Commonia, then by the communist nations surrounding it.
- Glaster has no deposits of major resources. Iron and coal deposits exist but they are not substantial enough to profit from. Tourism is also out of the question. There's nothing really to see or do in Glaster, and the weather is not great either according to the climatic map.
- Glaster only reached its level of development by funding from Ingerland to prop it up against communist influence. Now its unsustainable and Glaster is currently in economic decline. It has not been able to modernise its economy sufficiently after Ingerish South Glaster had its unification with less-developed North Glaster.
Tl;dr: Glaster is bad because its economy cannot keep up with its level of development, it has been exploited and controlled since the 19th century and because it has nothing to make money from.
That, however doesn't hinder me from good mapping, or interesting wiki articles. Check around Glaster, particularly look at Harcourt and Plowford for my latest work. Moral of the story: your country doesn't need to be prosperous or successful for you to display good signs of mapsmanship (if there ever was such a thing)!
However, one of my largest concerns is my mapping style. Initially it was supposed to be based around England, for the basis that Glaster was former colony. My mapping style has devolved into pretty much a high-quality English clone, something that is satisfactory in itself but isn't entirely realistic given on the geographical location. Does anyone have any ideas on how to change this into a more believable design that I can still map in detail?