Last time I started setting up a world for a central ToW campaign, I took the map of a Risk like board game (War age of Imperialism) where I changed the names and flipped it over.
However half my group actually complained at playing on what ultimately was earth.
I am building a new game where the players will be the Scout lance of a private Baron army where they will find clues for Lostech Prospecting. I stumbled on a Discovery channel show called 'What on Earth' about odd Satellite photos of weird things on Earth. Like most modern cheap TV docos there is a lot of hearsay and the answers are either inconclusive or dragged out because they are pretty simple.
For an example google image the Baikal lake circles, odd warm circles breaking thick Siberian ice. Looks great and mysterious from orbit, but could be natural phenomena or clues to a hidden lostech facility.
Many of the stories in this doco series I am stealing the details of to put in a series of clues the players can then use for start points of pursuing lostech sites.
The problem with using satellite images is I feel a bit low on wanting to use a hand drawn continental map for the domain of the Baron they serve and his neighbours. But at the same time using an earth continents satellite map may cause the same complaint to my players as I stated at the top.
So how would you feel as a player if you are being given a map including an earth continent, or a drawn continental map and satellite images of places on it?