[Tiltowait]

"what would be the difference in taking the map's tga file and converting it to jpg and post the jpg. people can download the jpg and then convert it to tga on their own computer so they can use it."

In my experience, when you convert to jpg (or gif, or any format) if you degrade the picture in any way then when you expand it back to tga size the single-pixel captials can change color and sometimes expand to 2 pixels. 2 pixels means you have 2 provinces basicly on top of each other, a bad thing.

"How does 'Dominions II' know where each province is? Does it look for the single white pixel and simply go from top left to bottom right scanline style. Numbering each pixel as a province, as it goes along?"

Yes, but bottom left to top right scanline. Borders are just eye candy (maybe they are used for guessing provinces, but guessing does not work well). When I make a map, all that counts are where the single pixel 255 255 255 capitals are, I then rename some other .map file, delete all the #neighboors, point it to the right .tga and use the Load Map command on it and manually set the borders.

When making a map, place the captials Last, right after you filter the image to remove all other pure white (I use Filter > adjust color > levels and set output level maxing at 254, which works fine.)

BTW, since borders do not matter, you should be able to open up Dominions I maps, remove the single white pixel hidden in the top left corrner, copy another .map file and edit it to point to the dom1 tga, set the borders and be done.