Yeah I guessed that was what you were asking but you know sometimes you just have to go for it 
so @Vovox to prevent an all out brawl what kind of maps do you make? I am very jealous, I have wasted a lot of time on rpg maps.
My first thought about the wrongness of charted and known land was that its a bad idea, not because of how it works for the player, but because I assumed it would be a performance killer.
But actually it just might be the other way around, because lets assume you visited/charted an area.
Now if the game would just save the informations in a statical way, it means there would not be a need to continuously simulate events at areas not currently actively visible.
This in turn means that landscape changing events could take place with much less strain on the system, as no visual informations would need to be updated until someone visits an area.
It also means magicians setting up observing wards at areas of interest like a passive volcano which could become active or near a settlement of potential enemies would truly be beneficial and would feel much more natural.
Yes that could be done either way, but I feel it would complement this idea⌠or thats just me dunno.
But back to the point in case - if you have a âforgettingâ system in place it can be used for a very natural gameplay feeling.
To elaborate: in the early GTA titles cars would suddenly vanish in the distance, even more so in your back so you turn around to look at something, turn around again and everything is changed, other cars and other people and so on.
With a forgetting system you could very precisely tune which things need to be actually simulated and which can be put into background mode.
Lets assume you visited a Goblin encampment. Well you leave the area, line of sight is lost⌠a minute later you go back and âmehâ all buildings are at different locations.
But if the setup is stored the required simulation could be gradually tuned down.
Right after losing LOS - everything is simulated as if its visible.
About 300 seconds after losing LOS - the moving creatures removed from simulation.
About 15 minutes after losing LOS - 10% of plants, fields and buildings are being removed randomly - if you revisit now it means about 10% of this will have possibly changed as it respawned by chance.
About 30 minutes after losing LOS - 25% of plants, fields and buildings are removed.
About 1 hour after losing LOS - the remaining 75% are being stored statically and not being simulated anymore.
So this whole idea could be the question of how something that is being done to secure good game performance anyway can be turned into an appealing visible feature for the player.
I am, though âback in the dayâ cartography was basically a drawing profession by interpretation of explorersâ field notes and using geometry to plot where things are on a map. That profession is basically gone and has been replaced with GIS (geographic information science) which includes some cartography aspects but mostly centers around spatial analysis rather than just making âpretty mapsâ though that is still part of my job.
Since several of you were interested I will shamelessly promote my profession by saying it is a great career and a booming industry.
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I will say this, to get back on topicâŚ
That I will probably look into implementing something along these lines (the OPâs idea of a cartographer). Some coding/scripting is necessary for GIS work so I might just have to dabble in modding when SH becomes available.
I would also like to look into the creation of âreal-worldâ landscapes, using DEM (digital elevation models) and landcover to populate the worldâs elevation and environment.
Charted maps would be set correct? They would not update on their own and are only updated when the cartographer passes back? Sweet, that means you can have an invasion come up through a hole in your wall you didnât know was there. Seems a pretty thought out idea, now would the small details like trees only be drawn if the cartographer is a high enough level or is it a given? sorry for the comment after three months.
How did you even find this old thread?
Yes, the charted land stays the same unless a cartographer comes by and updates it. It works like the regular fog of war in rts-games where you see a greyed out version of what was there the last time one of your units was there. If you saw a watch tower when your unit was there you will keep seeing a watch tower, even if the enemy builds a complete base there. The difference is that in my version it fades away after a while, unless a cartographer have been there and charted the area.
Iâm not sure if a low level cartographer should draw less details. Trees are quite big, so they should probably be mapped, or it could get too messy when they pop up. The flowers on the ground probably wont get mapped though. I think itâs better if the level of the cartographer determines how fast he draws and/or how big of an area around him he maps. (Sorry if this contradicts something I said earlier. Havenât read it through now. 
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I was just looking through the suggestions categories when I saw this and thought it may be interesting⌠then I saw how old it was and wondered if you were still around. And yes that answered my questions.