The joy of skew

Having made to decision to excise the south-east, I've gone back to Corel Draw and fiddled about with the map some more. I've found that by skewing the outline of the coast and slightly changing the rotation of the hex grid, I can align a row of hexes neatly along the eastern coast of Britain, from Ipswich to Dundee. Then at right angles, the bottom of the map will run from Southampton neatly across to Southend. With a little tinkering of the half hexes on the southern edge, I have a reasonably neat looking map - better than I had before. I'll have to fit in off-board areas for Norwich and Aberdeen, but they should be possible.

On a separate note, fitting the hexes around the Severn estuary has proven a challenge. I used to have the line running from London through Bristol and into Cardiff, but historically the Severn tunnel wasn't build until quite late in the game. So instead I'm forcing track to be laid via Gloucester, and this is where the hex grid has made things tricky. I think I've handled it, by adding some mountain hexsides, including one that isn't really a mountain but blocks the geographically non-existent direct route from Worcester to Cardiff, forcing track to run via Hereford or Newport. I may have to adjust this against the tile mix, but I think it will work out.