I've been messing around with MS Visio at work (I seem to have been lumbered with doing graphics for various projects), and was wondering if anyone else has used this for mapping Mystara. It seems a lot more intuitive than Photoshop or Illustrator, and I have been working on some templates as and when I can, it's just the cost for home use is very prohibitive for me atm.
I think it mostly depends on what kind of maps you're working on. For hex maps (Gazetteer-style), I'm currently using Arr-Kelaan Software Hexmapper (makes setting up the hexes very easy), plus The Gimp for non hex-based touchup (coasts, small islands, roads, and text).
It makes for a good combination for someone like me, who has no artistic talent at all
Moreover, both have no cost -- Hexmapper is freeware, though with an odd license, Gimp is GPL.
The only issue is that Hexmapper is not free-as-in-free-speech, which means I can't use it on Linux, and I haven't found a replacement (or a student willing to write one, or time to write one myself) yet
For non-hex maps, I suppose Autorealm should work, or one could use Gimp as well, but I haven't given it much tought, since non-hex maps are well beyond my graphical skills anyway.
I'm currently using Arr-Kelaan Software Hexmapper (makes setting up the hexes very easy)
A new version of Hex Mapper has been released. It's available through the Yahoo! Hex Mapper group. Be sure to get the VB (i think) runtime too or you'll be missing critical files and HM won't play nice.
--Ray.