An idea for battlemaps

[Skunk]

If you are after maps you could do worse than the computer game ARMA 3.
It's got a built in editor for creating missions so you can pan the camera around the huge maps, many are a few hundred square kms, zoom in to the desired level and then take a screenshot to use.
Here's one I did in a few minutes


Or zoomed in a bit more after adding two wrecked vehicles and a ruined house.


You can even grab some angled shots to give your players a bit more of a feel for the area.


The base game has a Greek island for it's map but there are many free European maps available through the Steam workshop.
The images above were from the Global Mobilisation DLC a purchased extra.
If you think this is a good idea it's currently on sale on Steam.

[Ursus Maior]

Definitely looks better than satellite photos. I cannot make out details on those and they're too cluttered. Reality is just too detailed.

[unipus]

Hey, that is a good idea! I may have to reinstall Arma. It's been so long I forgot all about it (although it's unfortunate the ruined house just looks like somebody had a bad day at the marshmallow factory)

I use a lot of satellite photos, but I paint over them to simplify details and just give them a more artsy this-is-for-the-game feel. It does take some time though.

These days there are a lot more battlemap suppliers out there as well so it's gotten much, much easier to get away with less prep -- although many of them suffer from the box set's issue of being limited to very short range engagements.