I have some ideas to make a variant, but I don't know how to program it, and apply ot to the site. Can you help me a bit?

The best borders on this site are done pixel by pixel... :-/
The colonial largemap took about 2 month... (ouch)

There's a developer's kit both in the Help section and in the forum here adalephat. You'll have to dig a bit, but it's there.

Thanks Oli. So, I guess the best method is to enlarge as much as possible and then draw the line where you have the most control? Then I guess I can select each territory and use the stroke method to fill in a more even and less jagged line around them. But yeah, it's very time-consuming and I've only got a few hours per week right now.

On the lab I made a small tool for resizing. It's not very good, but a good start.
If you have the smallmap ready you might send me a PM, so I can give you a developer-account on the lab.

Thanks, but I'm still designing the variant. My first goal is just to complete the map and make sure there are no major flaws (getting to the level of where Abstraction III was when it was implemented here, or so, where there would only be a couple of minor changes after some play-testing). Then I can get into all the tasks I'll need to do to get it up and running here. Once the map is almost complete, I'll look to get setup in the developer area, but I expect that will be a couple of months still. Thanks again.

There are many more efficient ways to do this. Altough drawing by hand gives you most control (and there are always some parts I need to draw by hand), you can use the computer to, you know, do it's job and save you manual labour.

I use the GIMP for this example (http://www.gimp.org/) and it's pretty awesome. I'm sure photoshop has the same functionality, though.
Instead of thinking borders, you should think areas. Color in a territory, but don't draw a border yet. Then select the area with the fuzzy select tool, Select -> Border... choose 1 pixel wide (or more if you want) and tadaa! You have a selection of just the border. Use the Bucket fill tool to fill the whole selection with black and you have drawn a nice border to your area.

It takes some practice with selecting and deselecting areas, but it's possible to draw the whole map without borders and then add them using this trick. Also watch out you don't get double borders. Also some basic tutorials about using layers etc. will help a lot too.

I've tried using GIMP before, but MS Paint is easier, but not as good as it is super limited.

@adalephat: go to http://wiki.vdiplomacy.com it's a good start. You can always ask specific questions on the forum.

It's hard to write down how to use image editing software. I've figured a lot of stuff out by trying and especially by failing. I hear there are some good video tutorials out there too.

Thanks sqrg, I was doing something very similar, which you just made easier. I was drawing a thin border for the land territories and then using the magic wand to select the inner area and autofill the 1 pixel area around it for a sharp border. Since the land territories look ok with a more jagged border, I was good. But for the sea spaces, I wanted smoother lines and this wasn't working. I'll try shading the sea spaces in with a broad stroke so I can then select and autofill the border there (and then change the sea space's color back). This should work so long as I can apply the outline of the shaded color with a broad stroke, so as to give it a smooth edge.

Haha nice! Well most of my maps i make a clear distinction between land borders and sea borders. I think i stole this from the classic map or some variant, I will check. In any case i work like this: land/coast borders can be 'jagged' as you said, i prefer to call it 'curvy'. Sea borders must be straight lines or parts of circles and rectangles.
In GIMP i take the pencil tool. Draw one pixel at the start then hold shift and I just need to put one pixel at the end and BAM straight line. For other shapes use the appropriate selection tool and use the Select -> Border... trick again.
Have fun!