How to Make an Imperialism Map

What an Imperialism Map Is

An imperialism map turns a sports season into a game of conquest. Each team owns the land closest to its home venue (a Voronoi diagram), and when a team wins, it takes everything the loser held. The last team standing owns the map. The full rules, with a worked example, are on the rules page.

How to Make One, Step by Step

These steps follow the setup screens of the free Editable Imperialism Map, in order.

1. Choose how to start

   Open the Editable Imperialism Map and pick one of two doors: “Start from a league” loads a real season’s teams and territories for you, and “Build your own” gives you a blank map.

2. Pick the season or the map area

   On the league path, choose which season to load; every team starts with the territory around its stadium that year. On the custom path, choose where your teams play by picking one or more countries.

3. Add your teams

   Custom maps need at least 2 teams: name a team, then click the map where it lives. On the league path you can still add, remove or recolor teams.

4. Choose who decides each matchup

   Pick “You pick the winners” to click each result yourself (good for playing along with a sports video game), “Spin to decide” to let a spinner wheel choose, or “Instant” to reveal every result at once. You can change this between rounds.

5. Pick your rules and start the game

   Choose how matchups are generated (Border attack, Random matchups, Spin the arrow or You set them), what the winner takes (Take one or Winner take all), and how many lives each team gets. The defaults are the standard game. Then press “Start the game” and run rounds until one team owns the map.

Once the game is running, the Share button copies a link to your map so a friend can open exactly what you built.

Three Maps to Start From

• The editable NFL map: every NFL team on its real territory, with you deciding each result.
• The blank editable map: pick countries, invent teams and drop them wherever you like.
• A real NFL season replay: drag the time slider to watch real games redraw the borders, then rebuild that season yourself.

Making One Without Our Tool

By hand, mark each team’s home venue on a map. Draw the boundary halfway between every pair of neighboring venues, so each team owns the land nearest its own. Then play the results in order: every time a team wins, redraw the map so the winner owns everything the loser held.

Tips

• Start from a historical season to get realistic starting borders.
• Use spin-the-arrow matchups for dramatic border fights.
• Save your map from the settings menu so you can pick it up later.
• Share the link so friends can see the finished map.