Ultima VI Map of Britannia

Included with Ultima VI was this cloth map showing Britannia, which is considerably different from its predecessors. While the map again has numerous decorations on it, it also for the first time included a longitude and latitude grid. Also, the different scale of the game is noticeable, the cities look bigger with more details seen on the map. Also, the moon phases are not included, probably because of the Orb of the Moons and the lack of normal moongate use. The map is essential in the game for orientation.

The cloth map was only included with the original PC-releases and the C-64 port of the game, as well as the Japanese X86000 and PC-98 ports. Later re-releases and the ports for the Atari ST and the Amiga only had a stiff cardboard map. The print quality on this map is poor, and the colors are washed out, with greens turned to a dirty yellow and the print almost being unreadable on swamps and forest. The same cardboard map was also the only map included in the normal editions of Ultima Trilogy II as well as in the Ultima I-VI Series.

Interestingly, the cloth map included with the FM-Towns port is quite different from the original map. Not only does it sport a thick yellow border, but also exhibits all the same color shifts as the cardboard map, thus proving they both come from the same master. Only the colors look more vibrant due to the different printing material.

For the releases in Taiwan and Korea, glossy paper maps wer used. While the Korean map it an exact copy of the original map, the Taiwanese map shows flatter colors with less saturation.

Additionally, the Source Map, from which the final product was made, did turn up. It is in the state where all the line work was done and the artists were starting to add color, before apparently creating a copy and working on that. The detail on that map is very high, but due to its size the picture is reduced in resolution here. The original (without perspective correction) can be found in the links. There are also some reflections on it due to the fact that it is drawn on plastic.